Cordesman so right, yet so wrong
Quote:
• Vastly cheaper to use infantry and irregular forces than
conventional forces, progressively easier to given such forces more
advanced weapons.
I got this from Anthony H. Cordesman "lessons from the Lebanon," that Steve linked somewhere.
There are two important point to my mind.
a.) The premise is, on one level, essentially correct, and extremely useful. - yet utterly misleading.
b.) I strongly suspect Cordesman has no idea why this is the case. He just felt it was. - otherwise he would have expressed it very differently.
There are real possibilities for "Infantry Centric" forces over "Classic Combined Arms."
The war in the Lebanon gave a nano-second snap shot of why.
IMO, this has nothing to do with "Irregular" or even "infantry" Forces, being "cheap." It's about leveraging resources for maximum benefit, and squeezing out capability from necessity.
Again, I feel this is what the USMC, "Distributed Ops" managed to get wrong, and the essential utility of examining such ideas has got lost on the "go light, SOCOM, wood-ninjas" groupie fan club, that is so in love with form over function.
I agree with Steve and Slapout
Quote:
Originally Posted by
William F. Owen
It is Cheaper and more efficient to incrementally upgrade (light/conventional) infantry forces with vehicles (including armour), ATGMs, MANPADS, and fire support than it is to hold conventional combined arms forces
That's a totally true statement and it can also be said that it will work.
The problem as always is in the details -- combat use of vehicles of any type pose maintenance and tactical use issues that normally dismounted troops have difficulty with. Conversely, mounted folks in the dismounted role have tactical problems and logistic issues. If you really want to have fun, put a Mech unit in Choppers for an air assault; seen that -- it's hilarious... ;)
So, I guess the ol' bottom line is, yeah you can do that -- but should you?
Which goes back to Steve's and every Military School's 'depends on the situation...'