Marphy's Law

8/8/2019 Marphy's Law

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/marphys-law 1/6

MURAD

1

MURAD

MURPHYS LAW OF COMBAT

1. Friendly fire - isn't .

2. Recoilless rifles - aren't . 3. Suppressive fires - won't . 4. You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots take note . 5. A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down .

6. If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid . 7. Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on you . 8. If at first you don't succeed, call in an air strike . 9. If you are forward of your position, your artillery will fall short . 10. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself . 11. Never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself . 12. Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder . 1 3. If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush . 1 4. The enemy diversion you're ignoring is their main attack . 1 5. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:

a.

When they're ready. b. When you're not .

1 6. No OPLAN ever survives initial contact . 1 7. There is no such thing as a perfect plan . 1 8. Five second fuses always burn three seconds . 1 9. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole . 20. A retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping . 21. The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard . 22. The easy way is always mined . 2 3. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at . 2 4. Don't look conspicuous; it draws fire . For this reason, it is not at all uncommon for aircraft carriersto be known as bomb magnets . 2 5. Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you . 2 6. If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone . 2 7. When you have secured the area, make sure the enemy knows it too . 2 8. Incoming fire has the right of way . 2 9. No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection . 30. No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat . 31. If the enemy is within range, so are you . 32. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire . 33 . Things which must be shipped together as a set, aren't . 34 . Things that must work together, can't be carried to the field that way . 35 . Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support . 36 . Radar tends to fail at night and in bad weather, and especially during both) . 37 . Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing . 38 . Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you won't be able to get out . 39 . Tracers work both ways . 40. If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share of



MURAD

2

MURAD

objectives to take . 41. When both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right . 42. Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs . 43 . Military Intelligence is a contradiction . 44 . Fortify your front; you'll get your rear shot up .

45 . Weather ain't neutral . 46 . If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you . 47 . Air defense motto: shoot 'em down; sort 'em out on the ground . 48 . 'Flies high, it dies; low and slow, it'll go' . 49 . The Cavalry doesn't always come to the rescue . 50. Napalm is an area support weapon . 51. Mines are equal opportunity weapons . 52. B-5 2 s are the ultimate close support weapon . 53 . Sniper's motto: reach out and touch someone . 54 . Killing for peace is like screwing for virginity . 55 . The one item you need is always in short supply . 56 . Interchangeable parts aren't . 57 . It's not the one with your name on it; it's the one addressed "to whom it may concern" you've got tothink about . 58 . When in doubt, empty your magazine . 59 . The side with the simplest uniforms wins . 60. Combat will occur on the ground between two adjoining maps . 61. If the Platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy . 62. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you cansleep . 63 . The most dangerous thing in the world is a Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass . 64 . Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan . 65 . Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the Colonel's HQ . 66 . The enemy never watches until you make a mistake . 67 . One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many . 68 . A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain .

69 . The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it . 70. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss . Whenever you are low on ammo, you can'thit the broad side of a barn . 71. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired . 72. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator .

73 . Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it . 74 . No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill . 75 . If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove anything . 76 . For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism . (in boot camp)77 . Air strikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short . 78 . When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones arealways illegible . 79 . Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA .



MURAD

3

MURAD

80. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but they knowfor certain what they don't want . 81. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism . To steal information from the enemy iscalled gathering intelligence . 82. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M6 0.

83 . The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone else . 84 . When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack . When you are lowon supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night . 85 . The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Medal of Honor . 86 . A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to try it,and lucky enough to survive . 87 . Murphy was a grunt . 88 . Beer Math --> 2 beers times 37 men equals 49 cases . 89 . Body count Math --> 3 guerrillas plus 1 probable plus 2 pigs equals 37 enemies killed in action . 90. The bursting radius of a hand grenade is always one foot greater than your jumping range . 91. All-weather close air support doesn't work in bad weather . 92. The combat worth of a unit is inversely proportional to the smartness of its outfit and appearance . 93 . The crucial round is a dud . 94 . Every command which can be misunderstood, will be . 95 . There is no such place as a convenient foxhole . 96 . Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything . 97 . If your positions are firmly set and you are prepared to take the enemy assault on, he will bypassyou . 98 . If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won't walk into it . 99 . If your flank march is going well, the enemy expects you to outflank him . 100. Density of fire increases proportionally to the curiousness of the target . 101. Odd objects attract fire - never lurk behind one . 102. The more stupid the leader is, the more important missions he is ordered to carry out . 10 3. The self-importance of a superior is inversely proportional to his position in the hierarchy (as ishis deviousness and mischievousness) . 10 4. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work . 10 5. Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the General is watching . 10 6. The enemy never monitors your radio frequency until you broadcast on an unsecured channel . 10 7. Whenever you drop your equipment in a fire-fight, your ammo and grenades always fall thefarthest away, and your canteen always lands at your feet . 10 8. As soon as you are served hot chow in the field, it rains . 10 9. Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do . 110. The seriousness of a wound (in a fire-fight) is inversely proportional to the distance to any formof cover . 111. Walking point = sniper bait . 112. Your bivouac for the night is the spot where you got tired of marching that day . 11 3. If only one solution can be found for a field problem, then it is usually a stupid solution . 11 4. Radios function perfectly until you need fire support .

11 5. What gets you promoted from one rank gets you killed in the next rank .



MURAD

4

MURAD

11 6. Odd objects attract fire . You are odd .

11 7. Your mortar barrage will put exactly one round on the intended target . That round will be a dud .

11 8. Mine fields are not neutral .

11 9. The weight of your equipment is proportional to the time you have been carrying it .

120. Things that must be together to work can never be shipped together .

121. If you need an officer in a hurry take a nap . 122. The effective killing radius is greater than the average soldier can throw it .

12 3. Professionals are predictable, its the amateurs that are dangerous .

12 4. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill .

12 5. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it .

12 6. The quartermaster has only two sizes, too large and too small . (or "on order")

12 7. The only time suppressive fire works is when it is used on abandoned positions .

12 8. When a front line soldier overhears two General Staff officers conferring,

he has fallen back too far .

12 9. Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last, and don't ever volunteer to do anything .

1 30. If at first you don't succeed, then bomb disposal probably isn't for you .

1 31. Any ship can be a minesweeper . . . . once .

1 32. Whenever you lose contact with the enemy, look behind you .

1 33 . If you find yourself in front of your platoon they know something you don't .

1 34 . The seriousness of a wound (in a firefight) is inversely proportional to the distance to any form of cover .

1 35 . The more stupid the leader is, the more important missions he is ordered to carry out .

1 36 . When the pin is pulled, Mr . Grenade is not your friend .

1 37 When the enemy is closing, the artillery will always be to long

1 38 Smart bombs have bad days too .

1 39 Uncrating and assembly instructions are always inside the crate .

1 40 If you have a personality conflict with your superior: he has the personality, you have theconflict .

1 41 If you enter the CO's Presence with an idea, you will leave his Presence with the CO's idea .



MURAD

5

MURAD

BACKGROUNDMurphy's Law ("If anything can go wrong, it will") was born at Edwards Air Force Base in 1 949 at

North Base .

It was named after Capt . Edward A . Murphy, an engineer working on Air Force Project MX98 1 , (a

project) designed to see how much sudden deceleration a person can stand in a crash.

One day, after finding that a transducer was wired wrong, he cursed the technician responsible andsaid, "If there is any way to do it wrong, he'll find it ."

The contractor's project manager kept a list of "laws" and added this one, which he called Murphy'sLaw .

Actually, what he did was take an old law that had been around for years in a more basic form andgive it a name .

Shortly afterwards, the Air Force doctor (Dr . John Paul Stapp) who rode a sled on the deceleration

track to a stop, pulling 4 0 Gs, gave a press conference . He said that their good safety record on the project was due to a firm belief in Murphy's Law and in the necessity to try and circumvent it . Aerospace manufacturers picked it up and used it widely in their ads during the next few months, andsoon it was being quoted in many news and magazine articles . Murphy's Law was born .

The Northrop project manager, George E . Nichols, had a few laws of his own . Nichols' Fourth Lawsays, "Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome . "

The doctor, well-known Col . John P . Stapp, had a paradox: Stapp's Ironical Paradox, which says, "Theuniversal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle . "

Nichols is still around . At NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, he's the quality control manager for the Viking project to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars .

Murphy's Law or Sod's Law? While I admit that the name of Murphy's laws is a pleasant one as is the story of how it came to light,

but the original name for 'if anything can go wrong it will' was sod's law because it would happen toany poor sod who needed such a catastrophic event the least . It also removes the ability to say "Icoined this phrase!" because sod's law has been around long before any living man and has existed inmany forms for hundreds of years . In the English County of Yorkshire I know it to have been aroundfor generations because it has been passed through several Yorkshire families I know . But this originalname is dying out because sod over here is a cursory so is not used much . Murphy's on the other handis nothing insulting or lacking in hope I hope this clears any problems up and while this maybe hard tocome to terms with, think about it, would such an obvious piece of logic have only come about in thesecond half of the 20 th century????

Chris Monkman: In the late 1 960 's I read an article that was photocopied from a magazine where Isaw the term "Murphy's Law" coined . Should I say, I believe the term was coined in this article . It hada photo of a bearded man in the upper right corner . The article began simply by describing all thethings that had gone wrong in Murphy's life . Near the end of the first section of the article it describedthe formalization of Murphy's Law, as Murphy was waiting for the pending birth of his first child .



MURAD

6

MURAD

Later in the article other formulations/corollaries of Murphy's law were described . The mostmemorable one was the mathematical formulation . It was pictured in the text as 1 + 1 -> 2 , where the -> was a hand with the index finger pointing to the right . The text defined -> as "hardly every equals" .

What prompted me to write this was the foot note on this page, where the author of this commentindicated that the law was not formalized at Edwards Air Force Base, but rather another source .

To the best of my memory, it was in or about the fall of 1 968, I saw the photo copied article that presented Murphy's Law . I do not remember the magazine or it's date .

What lead me to this site was the quest for the article described above . To my suprise anddisappointment, no one has included the article . I would be interesting to publish this description and see if anyone else remembers the article or anyother facts that would help find it .

Joe Smith

One more thing about the origin of Murphy Law

One important fact about Murphy's Law was that it was not actually coined by Murphy, but by another man of the same name .

Another thing about the origin of Murphy Law

can anyone originate a law? I thought that they could only be discovered Erin How Mr . Murphy died:One dark evening (in the U .S.), Mr . Murphy's car ran out of gas . As he hitchhiked to a gas station,while facing traffic and wearing white, he was struck from behind by a British tourist who was drivingon the wrong side of the road . Terry Maynard Lansing, Michigan

Another story about the origin of Murphy's Law Commander J . Murphy USN was a procurement officer for the US Navy in the 1 930 's. He was incharge of the procurement of aircraft .

When monitoring the design and development of new aircraft, he tried to instill simplicity of maintenance into the likes of Douglas and Grumman .

Apparently one of his most belabored expressions was: "If an aircraft fitter on one of our carriers canre-install a serviced component wrongly, then one day he will . "

Gradually, this got changed into the more familiar version we know today, according to the version onthe origin of Murphy's Law I heard .

Incidentally, a lot of Brits think that Murphy's Law is an Irish joke .

Murphy is an Irish name of course, and the Irish have been the butt of jokes from Brits for a long time . Anyway, a lot of Brits seem to think that what Murphy's Law refers to is that the Irish are to blame for things going wrong because they are careless or stupid or both, at least according to British mythologyon the Irish .

Documents

Marphy's Law