Jungle in Traveller

[Timerover51]

A while back, I discovered that the U.S. Marine Corps history of The Campaign on New Britain was online in PDF format. The volume has an appendix covering the vegetation of New Britain, written by a Captain who after the war became a Forestry Technician with the state of California. The vegetation of New Britain can be loosely called a jungle. The file was too large to post, however, the volume has now been put online in html format, which makes it much smaller, and possible to post. I would view this information as a considerable aid to anyone wanting to have a more unusual climate for an adventure. As it is an official U.S. government publication, it is in the public domain. The beginning is as follows.

While the designation "rain forest" applied to the vegetation of New Britain is correct in a broad, general sense, this term conveys no idea of the variations in this rain forest which occur in response to such local influences as soil, drainage, and differences in elevation.

Vegetation may affect military operations by limiting or preventing movement; by limiting or preventing observation; and by providing cover and concealment from both ground and air. Further, vegetation serves as an excellent index to the character of the terrain, since there are definite, consistent relationships between plants and the habitats in which they grow. In the Southwest and Western Pacific the relatively uniform natural conditions, which have been little disturbed by man, are reflected by a small number of broad, uniform vegetation types. In that part of New Britain where the 1st Marine Division operated, and with which this discussion deals specifically, the vegetation may be classified in only six types--in contrast to more than twenty types in current use in the western United States. These are recognized and described as follows: mangrove swamp, swamp forest, tropical rain forest, secondary growth, grassland, and plantations.

It makes for an interesting read. For those interested in finding out more about the campaign, it can be found on Hyperwar at the following location. http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/USMC-M-NBrit/index.html

 

[Condottiere]

How Army Jungle Soldiers Are Training For A Possible War With China | Boot Camp | Insider Business


As tensions with China build and the US military sends more troops to the Asia-Pacific region, soldiers with the skills to fight and survive in the jungle are increasingly vital. The US Army trains soldiers for jungle warfare at the 25th Infantry Division's Lightning Academy on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

Insider's chief video correspondent Graham Flanagan spent 12 days inside the Army's Jungle Operations Training Course, where a cross section of soldiers of various ranks and experience levels learn to fight, move, and survive in the jungle. Eighty students begin the course on day one, but only 51 will make it to graduation. The rest are dropped from the course by failing one of five critical tests.

On day nine, students begin a three-day culminating exercise that incorporates the skills and lessons taught in the course, such as rope systems, rappelling, survival skills, small-unit tactics, and land navigation. Students who graduate from the course receive the Army’s coveted jungle tab.

00:00 Intro
1:30 Welcome to the jungle
2:28 Day 1/in-processing
4:10 Critical test No. 1: knots
5:56 Jungle school briefing
7:15 Day 2/knots retest
8:17 Critical test No. 2: jungle 5K
10:09 Critical test No. 3: combat water survival assessment
14:13 Intro to land navigation
15:49 Day 3/land-navigation practice
17:06 Small-unit-tactics training
17:55 Meeting the students
21:41 Tension builds in Asia-Pacific region
22:35 History of jungle school
23:55 Day 4/traps, tracking, and camouflage
25:22 Jungle penetrator
26:43 Day 5/rappelling
27:36 No. 23’s impact on morale
29:41 Day 6/critical test No. 4: land navigation
37:48 Building ruck rafts/old friends reunite
39:18 Day 7/Survival Village
42:55 Impact on family life
44:02 Day 8/building signal fire
45:23 Chinese spy balloon news
46:24 Critical test No. 5: rope systems
48:40 Culex briefing
49:28 Day 9/first day of culex
55:00 Day 10/second day of culex
1:00:53 Day 11/third day of culex
1:03:35 The Green Mile
1:06:51 The Dogex
1:07:30 Day 12/graduation

Narrator: Welcome to the jungle, or as they call it in jungle school, the J.

So 50% of everything in the jungle is trying to kill and eat you. Same thing goes with our plants.

 

[kilemall]

Didn’t the army operate a jungle school in Panama?

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Diveguy]

Didn’t the army operate a jungle school in Panama?

Used to, yes. With the closure of bases and shift in things there, it moved. Same thing for the old school in the Philippines. Marines also do one in Okinawa currently I believe.