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Hi Lee and all...
>Recently a few of us on the chat circle talked about the U.S. phasing out
>tracks in favor of treads (Tanks for nothing). I forwarded your comments to
>a top notch active duty soldier, a platoon leader now serving with 82 ABN
>(also an army sniper). He had some interesting responses to your comments
>that I thought you would like to read.
Funny enough, I sent off the same discussion to a 23 year SF (former
82nd) serving NCO friend of mine for comment ;-) He recently had a
discussion about this very topic, which might have even been the one that
carried over to here. Here is the highlight of the discussion....
"The intent of the new unit is to be able to put a full brigade into
combat
anywhere in the world within 96 hours of initial call-up, a division
within 5 days
and 5 divisions within 30 days."
Apparently tracked vehicles are not being rulled out specifically, but
they might be rulled out defacto because they can't fit the weight and
size specs necessary to acheive this end goal.
>From Lee's post...
>"Jim has it right on. You can say all you want about (warfare) theory, but
>the fact is that when I am getting shelled by enemy tanks, damn it, I want
>our tanks there to fight back!
The discussion my friend had was heavily centered on logisitics; how long
it takes to transport armor from A to B, then keep it in operation. One
quote from the discussion answers the above quote Lee gathered pretty
well...
"The rational being that heavy armor is nice but what good is it if you
can't get it where
you want it in time?"
The point is that in the new world of warfare we are talking about
needing forces in place and combat ready in days, not weeks or months.
Lighter vehicles are a logical and practical reaction to the rather
recent concept of rapid action. I'm not saying that this is the right
way to win us every battle from now until doomsday, but there is merrit
to the new plan.
As for close support capabilities, who said that the wheeled stuff would
be unarmored and totally devoid of providing the kind of support tanks
currently do? Another quote...
"Now before someone scratches their head and goes wtf? One of the new
wheeled
tanks selected, is gong to have main gun armament."
So it looks like the new Army of the future will be well protected and
pack a serious punch, but will also be easier and faster to deploy in
greater numbers with less logistical headaches after they land. It will
also likely cost a fraction of what a current MBT does in both
fabrication and support. On paper this certainly looks like a good move
to make. Personally, as someone who has never served but makes a living
off of creating highly realistic military simulations, I would much
rather have 5 very deadly light vehicles (capable of knocking out heavy
armor and enemy troops) rather than one MBT. OK, truth is I would rather
5 very deadly light vehicles AND a MBT :-) But if I had to choose... all
else being roughly equal, asset redundancy and flexibility are hard to
argue against.
Obviously I can see why the guys that are serving are not necessarily
happy about a move away from heavy armor. Military organizations the
world over, probably since they were first formed in history, are
traditional beasts. Some 60 years ago many military men thought that the
loss of horse mounted cavalry was premature when in fact it was overdue.
WWII proved such men DEAD wrong. The truth is only time and conflict
will tell if the new plans for the Army are the right ones to make.
Nobody here, regardless of occupation or experience, is in a position to
predict the future with any degree of certainty.
Steve
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 02 2000 - 22:30:22 PST