Infantry survivability - at the crossroads?
I have the impression that in modern combat infantry survivability is at a crossroads.
I admit that the difference is not fully perceptible in occupation duty and against poorly armed opponents (yet).
My thesis is this:
Heavy infantry (the one that moves to contact in AFVs or supports AFVs as primary mode)
- depends on suppressive fires for survivability
- depends on smoke (artificial concealment) for survivability
- depends on hard body armour (rifle bullet resistant) for protection (at least frontal)
My reasoning is that heavy infantry has its most critical moments in the offensive combined arms fight. It needs to accomplish its mission quickly to not waste too much momentum of the AFVs (protected mobility - that should be exploited).
That's why I assume that HI cannot emphasize covert (camouflaged/concealed/deception) approaches to tactical problems, but rather the brute and quick ones. HI can achieve surprise primarily through high tempo.
I assume a completely different profile for light infantry
(the infantry that fights only dismounted and usually without AFV support).
Light infantry is slow by design. Armour protection is only available as body armour, which is detrimental to mobility. It's therefore limited anyway.
The primary source for survivability should therefore be camouflage/concealment. The lethality of light infantry is in (besides the hopefully always available indirect fire support) its ability to ambush or at least to use surprise. The surprise would be generated not by tempo/speed, but by covert movement into position and a small dose of deception.
Well, comments on this would already be interesting.
I'm a notorious skeptic. I cannot limit myself to theory without fearing a failure of our forces (our=NATO) for this reason.
Shouldn't the personal body armour be very different for heavy and light missions?
We've seen lots of bullet-resistant hard/heavy body armour lately because our troops are almost permanently exposed to enemy observation.
Light infantry that relies on covert movement and ambushes should have very little use for such heavy body armour. It's too heavy (mobility and sustainability problem).
LI depends on its leg mobility and doesn't have much protection against indirect fires.
Shouldn't light infantry have full fragmentation protection?
At least when lying down on the belly (rear 180° of legs + butt protected)?
Frag wounds in the legs are often a "mobility kill", sometimes even deadly (blood loss). All immobilized soldiers need assistance of comrades and reduce the unit's capability and mobility. Frag wounds to arms can be a "mission kill".
There are a lot of minor issues about minor fragmentation wounds anyway. Every WIA in a hospital means that his unit is understrength. Teamwork and possibly even cohesion of the unit suffer with every even temporary casualty.
I haven't found any non-EOD anti-fragmentation trousers or jackets (not vests) yet - but I have pretty good sources. Abdomen and shoulder protection seem to be the maximum extras besides inflexible armour elements and pouch inserts.
P.S.: I'm sorry that I (re)defined light and heavy. I don't know official English terms that describe the difference perfectly and I know that some might object against my definition. Think: "Panzergrenadiere" and "Jäger".
Math is always universal, that's why they call it math.
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
The math is not universal.
There are obvious exceptions to every rule, even in math -- but the broad parameters are pretty constant. In most post WWI war, <25% Killed,wounded, captured or missing per major engagement; about 10% the rest of the time. COIN offers less but is not MIC or HIC.
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The USMC 13 squad is unique and even its leaders cannot insist that nothing changed after they took some casualties.
Yes, it is unique -- that's why I cited it, it's exemplary and it works. Didn't say that things didn't change, in fact what I did say was ""...Teamwork and unit cohesion ALWAYS suffer in combat, peacetime 'ideas,' norms and habits will not work; they'll just get people killed unnecessarily."" You must have missed that.
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Squads of 7-10 are usual, 9-10 seems to be typical for LI.
Usual does not equal right or even adequate. You must've also missed this; ""...why the US Army will go from its current nine man peacetime squad to an eleven man squad in HIC.""
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Sorry, but that's the unique experience of a country that never joined really big wars early on and that never fought against intact 1st rate armies. And even under those conditions, U.S. forces were at times very much decimated, including complete destruction of battalions (1943-1950).
Of course. You can look at it that way. You can also realize that EVERY Army has had Battalions get decimated -- that's why they call it war.
In any event, I'm unsure to what you refer with "...the experience of a country that never joined." don't think anything I said alluded to that -- what i did allude to was generic MIC - HIC casualty rates across many nations.
I'll also point out that the condescension in your unnecessary "...never fought..." comment has little or nothing to do with the discussion at hand and just invites counter comments like: As for joining big wars late, better late than never, I guess -- how'd that turn out for you? So we can both probably lay off them, they add nothing to any discussion.
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I don't bother to think much about future conflicts against 3rd rate opponents because those tend not to be real threats until we turn them into foes.
Or until they're ignored long enough to do so. You did note I stipulated HIC, not LIC or COIN in my original post?
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Competent enemy forces can inflict serious casualties, easily up to half the infantry of a brigade turning casualties in a matter of weeks.
You're kidding, right? During WW II, all the major combatants in all theaters had brigade sized units that had over 50% casualties in days, not weeks. During the maneuver war in Korea, both South and North Korea, the US and China had Brigade sized units rendered ineffective due to losses in a few days on several occasions. The US and North Viet Namese even hit that in Viet Nam on a couple of occasions.
However, as I said, that's the exception, not the rule -- the rule is about what you stated, 50% in weeks in reasonably intense combat (do 10% every two to five days for a couple of weeks and see what you get, math wise). That's what I based my statements upon.
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The Western world just avoided to fight such opponents since two generations (there's no guarantee that our governments will be able to keep it like that).
True -- which has little or no bearing on anything you or I said.
That's an addition to the problem
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
A well-executed, modern indirect fire strike is over before the targets can know what direction is safer than others.
Can be true -- or not; CEP is still an issue as is the type of ground and how many people are in the open.
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So if you're caught in the kill zone, you're done.
If is a big word -- and even if one was so caught, fire does unpredictable things...
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If you were caught near the kill zone, you'll be perforated while running and be perforated about 1/5th as much while lying.
There's about one second forewarning and five to ten seconds impact, not enough to sprint much more than 50m - not enough to escape the fragmentation zone.
Not a given; a probability, yes but there are no definitives.
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Movement makes sense when the indirect fires last longer and are not well-aimed at first - or if you get several seconds early warning based on radar data and radio alert.
Also true.
Again, the best solution is to avoid being caught in a fire trap in the first place.
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Besides that; a combination of machine gun and mortar fire creates a dilemma that forbids running most of the time.
Now that's correct -- but that's the addition to the problem under discussion... :D