To my knowledge, no helicopter has yet been hit by an IED. ;) That's a start.
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Balance was my word and perhaps a bad one. What I meant was that he seemed to want to do it right but did not totally reject the force protection aspect -- merely stating that the MRAP was and is a poor force protection equipage and there were better ways to do it...Again I was perhaps unclear -- subordinate leaders are not my concern; as you say they'll do pretty much what they're told. The senior people are the concern; they have been issued expensive pieces of equipment that provide some protective features and are handy for moving people about. Thus they will use them and direct their use by subordinates. The problem is at the field grade and higher level, not with junior leaders.Quote:
I'd simply say that if your subordinate leaders are not getting out of their MRAPs, you have a leadership, not a material issue. You can band aid the symptom by removing MRAPs, but the leadership issue will remain. Or, you can solve the root problem, and have MRAPs too.
If the units did not have the MRAPs, they'd have to work a bit harder and smarter. Easier to use the MRAPs...No question. However, by definition half the leaders in the Army are good and the other half less so. Percentiles rule this Army. The current personnel system says that all LTCs are equal -- they are not. Not by a long shot.Quote:
This is all too common; remove the ability to make a bad decision rather than teaching Soldiers to make a right decision. Good leaders do the latter.
Having said that, philosophically, I agree with you but I'm not really advocating removing the ability to make a bad decision, I'm advocating removing a piece of equipment that encourages bad decisions. In doing so I pointed out that the MRAP was a politically derived solution to a perceived problem; that the Army sensibly resisted buying the monsters until media and political pressure became too great to resist and that now we're stuck with them -- I understand that but believe any suggestion about keeping them is an invitation to future problems.
You are correct that we often use equipment selection to compensate for training shortfalls. We are only marginally trained due to a number of factors, not least that the Congress pushes a lot of ill conceived ideas on all the services and the budget process is so flawed that training is denigrated in order to fund equipment purchase because training dollars benefit only a few Congroid districts; equipment procurements invariably flow funds to numerous districts.
However, in the case of the well intentioned but flawed MRAP we do not have a case where anyone tried to substitute equipment for a training shortfall, we have a situation where a set of equipment was provided by ill informed people with good intentions at huge cost and with much publicity to enhance force protection. No training issue involved. They were provided, they do provide some protection ergo they will be used -- by direction (real or implied) and that's the problem -- the 'employ' outweighs the reasons to use or not use...I doubt anyone's overlooked that, most of the commenters have been there and have seen a fight or two somewhere. Aside from the fact that huge AOs in geographic terms are not at all new. Bns in Viet Nam often had of 1K Km² or more and Bdes often had entire Provinces. That the "modern BCT" is ill designed for its job is a factor (though my spies tell me the mounted Cav Trps are little used. Odd, that...) but you seem to be advocating commuting to work. Why not lift out to an AO, spend a few days or two or three weeks foot mobile and then lift to another after a short break?Quote:
This discussion seems to be overlooking the fact that the modern BCT is required to project forces over wide areas of real estate. That requires a lot of driving to get where you need to go. It seems that a vehicle with MRAP-like capability would facilitate this.
I know why but we have deliberately chosen not to do that even though it would be far more effective. The MRAP is part of the reason we have made that choice; a a capability exists and it will be -- must be -- used even though it's one that the Army, left alone would likely not have chosen.
You're of course correct that we need to improve training but we also need to be careful what equipment we provide because if a a capability exists, it is going to be used -- even if it should not be. Sergeants, Lieutenants and Captains are NOT the problem with that syndrome...Good idea and I totally agree. The Stryker is a marginal vehicle, the Pandur is better but any good wheeled APC is great and we could use more -- we should not use more MRAPs because MRAPs are not combat vehicles, their x-country cape is pathetic and their height makes them iconic targets on any halfway modern battlefield. Heh, they're iconic targets on the far from modern Afghan battlefield...Quote:
After all, wasn't this the original idea of mechanized infantry? Protect the Soldiers until they reached the obj, where they can then dismount and fight?
Still, even with wheeled combat vehicles as Tom Odom noted above, for this kind of war, Blackhawks are better. I'd add that combining the birds with lengthy patrolling (as opposed to a day or two) on foot is also better. Way better...
Intel Trooper:
You are correct. The problem is that we don't have enough helicopters to support everyone moving by air, and certainly not enough to sustain everyone by air.
Ken:
I'll grant you we have leadership issues at every level, including the shadowy "they" people at the field grade level (e.g. "boy, they really screwed this up...). I still don't think that warrants not putting a tool in the proverbial rucksack. I say give the CDR MRAPs, and if he is good, he'll figure out when to use them and when not to, how to use them etc....
I'll admit I've been playing something of a devil's advocate on this issue. So, I should lay my opinion out there.
While I supported the MRAP purchase for Iraq (large caches of leftover munitions made this conflict unique in terms of IEDs), I don't think we should keep them.
What we should do is incorporate some design elements, such as the V-hull, etc... into a new vehicle that fixes many of the shortcomings in the current MRAP fleet (lack of commonality, limited offroad mobility, not a fighting vehicle, etc...). That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...
You could if you wanted to. You just choose not to.
.....or get more helicoptersQuote:
That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...
Road travel in Afghanistan is generally not a good idea for any number of reasons. The problem with MRAPs is that they confine you to the roads which causes practical as well as tactical problems.
Practically, my old CSAR unit on its last tour recovered several soldiers who were trapped and drowned inside MRAP's or armored Humvees when the sh&tty Afghan road gave way under the vehicle's weight. Also, MRAPs are slow on these crappy roads.
Tactically, the road network only reaches a small part of Afghanistan which makes the enemy's intelligence and targeting much, much easier. The enemy will know generally where you're going and how long it will take you to get there.
We reportedly spend around $10 billion dollars on MRAPs of various kinds. $10 billion could have bought us 1,600 Blackhawks. Sure, it would have taken longer to get them built, crews trained, and into the field, but had we done that, we'd be in a much better tactical position than we currently are. How much are we spending on JIEDDO? Billions more.
The enemy's anti-air capabilities are marginal compared to what they can do to our soldiers traveling on roads. So I don't understand why we would want to try to brute-force our way through the enemy's advantage instead of fully exploiting their obvious weakness.
Finally, I'm now in the UAV ISR business. We, as a community, spend a lot of time looking for IED's or providing overwatch for convoys traveling on IED-ridden roads. This is a task we can do, but it's not something we're really optimized for. Furthermore, it's fundamentally reactive. With helicopters, we could spend our efforts in much more productive and less reactive areas instead of endless hours looking at spots in roads or trying to determine what some guy digging near a road is really doing.
Don't have enough -- or overdo the flying hour / flight safety and force protection aspects of aerial support to the detriment of that support? All excessive caution is not restricted to ground combat operations...{Note 1}True that. My problem is that there was and still is literally national pressure on senior commanders to use the things regardless of mission or merit; they were bought at great expense and they do save lives. However, we are where we are, that's for sure. I'd just hate to see us repeat this massive expenditure for equipment of limited use.{Note 2}Quote:
I'll grant you we have leadership issues at every level..and if he is good, he'll figure out when to use them and when not to, how to use them etc....
Iraq was a very different and unusual war so I certainlyagree with that -- to an extent. I do think we bought far more than was desirable in an effort to quell a ground swell of media induced angst. Unfortunately, the normal US reaction is over reaction... :wry:Quote:
While I supported the MRAP purchase for Iraq (large caches of leftover munitions made this conflict unique in terms of IEDs), I don't think we should keep them.
I also think we inadvisably moved or sent many of them to Afghanistan, a still different war. All wars differ and buying specific equipment for specific wars should be an effort in minimalism. Forcing the use of inappropriate equipment simply because it's available is all too common.Totally agree.Quote:
What we should do is incorporate some design elements, such as the V-hull, etc... into a new vehicle that fixes many of the shortcomings in the current MRAP fleet (lack of commonality, limited offroad mobility, not a fighting vehicle, etc...).
Yes. Sadly. One that hopefully will take place in the corridors of power before arriving at the conclusion that they're not wise, prone to manipulation in process, excessively costly in a great many aspects and rarely deliver desirable result. A simple cost-benefit study... :cool:Quote:
That is, IF we decide to continue our strategy of fighting long, drawn out counter-insurgency campaigns. The MRAP issue might be solved with a more modest national strategy, but that is another discussion...
{All Notes} Just as an aside, the cost of MRAPs was said to be about $17.6B in 2008, (LINK). I suspect we're now looking at about a gross total of over $25B including replacements and the added purchases and the 8K plus M-ATVs at ~$500K each, a 12+ ton vehicle carrying five people albeit with slightly better cross country ability, but still...:rolleyes:
That money spent more wisely would have purchased over 500 various helicopters at an average cost of $35M (plus ancillaries). The training requirement and O&M are considerations but all in all, Wilf is correct; we simply made -- were forced into -- a bad choice. More birds would have been a better investment. That was pushed by some at the time but the Army caved (I think that might have been part of Eden's "spineless" issue).
In any event, it seems you and I do agree that there are better approaches, that our training and personnel policies could be improved and that the consideration of METT-TC rather than political expediency should drive TTP.
ADDENDUM: Entropy's correct on the tactical aspects, Toyotas will go where no MRAP will go and do it a whole lot faster Those guys are more agile than we and instead of opting to 'out-agile' them, we bought into an even greater lack of mobility and agility than that with which we were already saddled.
Entropy bought all Blackhawks, I bought a mix of Blackhawks, Apaches and Hooks, thus the difference in numbers...
The SWAT teams that inherit the MRAPs will have a nice law enforcement capability.
While these vehicles are saving lives every day, they do indeed drive "means-based" operations and have limited application on a battlefield. Based on how we are approaching this problem we need them, or is it because we have them that we are approaching the problem in this manner... at some point the nuance becomes sadly moot.
MRAPs are not the problem, they are definitely one more objective indicator of the flaws in our strategic/operational understanding of the problem, and certainly our approaches to the same. Snake oil salesmen don't just pimp out multi-million dollar vehicles, they pimp out strategy, policy, operational design and tactics as well.
Don't forget the logistical side of helicopter operations. You could easily end up replacing half the infantry in-theatre with army aviation people if helicopters would replace MRAPs unless the overall strength is being raised, which creates again logistical overhead....
An alternative would be to accept that wars kill your citizens, and pro/contra war reasoning should take this into consideration - and thus end up saying no to wars of choice. You won't be able to opt out of the KIA/WIA mess simply by throwing several billions at the bureaucracy and more billions at the contractors whose PAC has supported you or your representative.
Huh?? I don't see that. Where do you get that data from?
Very, very rough figures. - anyone with good technical numbers please chip in.
Say I have a Brigade of 3 INF BNs of 4 COYs = 12 Companies, or 36 Platoons. None of the INF has any vehicles and all are FOB based.
20-24 Platoons will be at Rest, Prep, or guard. Actual tasking will be for about 12 Platoons, so you'd be fine 8 CH-47 and 8 UH-60. You'd probably have 5-6 of each type available in any 24 hours, for about 200 men, including aircrew.
Really? So no reserves?
You should better put an infantry Coy's worth of helicopters on QRF as well.
You need another two as MedEvac reserve, preferably with proper equipment for the role.
The helicopters would run the resupply of all outposts and patrols.
The fuel consumption of rotorcraft is horrible. A normal UH-60 flying hour costs about 1,700 - 2,700 $/hr (= four indigenous mercenary-months), but fuel is many times as expensive as normal, thus it's probably more than 4k in AFG.
All that fuel needs to be transported into the country on roads full of corrupt officials, locals and Taliban checkpoints. The additional Taliban income generates additional Taliban mercenaries.
The environmental conditions (hot, high, dirt) require a robust mechanics crew for all helicopters. A CH-47 needs about 45 maintenance man-hours per flying hour under normal conditions.
Since I'm already discussing environmental conditions; your brigade will likely not be able to fully exploit their rotorcraft's nominal performance in hot&high conditions, for the payload is reduced under such conditions.
Now add in additional overhead for the aviation component above brigade level. The additional aviation personnel also requires additional overhead at at least one base.
Finally there's the issue of flight safety. Many birds fall down over there. The additional accident KIA need to be subtracted from the saved IED KIAs.
Gents-
What we are really talking about with helicopters here is making enough to get an huge force air mobile.
As a UH-60 pilot, I have a good deal of experience with air mobility, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. More than anyone, I'll tell you about the goodness of air assault.
Sadly, my perspective also compels me to say this: There are simply not enough helicopters in the Army inventory to make air our primary intra-theater force projection platform. Furthermore, the training and maintenance required for a huge fleet would simply be unsustainable.
Ken:
We pilots are a cautious bunch. When things go wrong in a helicopter, the flight generally ends immediately and fatally. If you are ever in one of my helicopters, you can be sure it will be in top shape, and the crew well-trained and rested. You may call this over cautious, but I'll wager 99% of the grunts that ride on my ships are with me on this one.
Although it is still not the LAV I would prefer to fight from, by a long shot, and it is not a fighting vehicle, the M-ATV is not your Daddy's MRAP, and I will admit that that vehicle, albeit tall, bodes far better in cross-country capability that any other MRAP I have been in, and in certain respects, it has better mobility than an LAV, but across certain conditions. The M-ATV is a brute!Quote:
Good idea and I totally agree. The Stryker is a marginal vehicle, the Pandur is better but any good wheeled APC is great and we could use more -- we should not use more MRAPs because MRAPs are not combat vehicles, their x-country cape is pathetic and their height makes them iconic targets on any halfway modern battlefield. Heh, they're iconic targets on the far from modern Afghan battlefield...
and I remember many a ride and CA where this was not so, that done with pilots and crews running over 100+ hours a month, no seats in the a/c and other things that today would cause many to have the vapors. Not saying that caution is all bad, however, folks there today tell me it very much varies from Avn unit to Avn unit though the overall philosophy seems to trend toward ever greater caution; sort of Airframe protection instead of pure force protection. :wry:
The informants are airborne and SF types and they may have a slightly different perspective than others that ride with you but I suspect the difference is slight. Not there, don't know -- I merely pass all that along for what it might be worth and as a thought provoker for your consideration.Huh? Take my 500 plus birds, a relatively realistic number given the funds stated, you'd be looking at 20-30% or so deployed, worldwide, at any one time; say 75 UH60s, 20 AH64s and a like number of CH47s. Take the Afghan slice, add an OR of ~70% -- that's a max of about 80 op birds or less spread over a nation about the size of Texas -- hardly Airmobile Division fill even at the KAF International Airport level of concentration. ;)Quote:
What we are really talking about with helicopters here is making enough to get an huge force air mobile.
Those 500 birds equate to about 3K air crew (O, WO and E) and a like number of maintainers. That's doable, sustainable and IMO, desirable -- but we have elected to not go that route, so it's all academic in any event.I agree at this time; the question was whether that would have been a better approach than the massive purchase of MRAPs. The allied (and perhaps far more important) question is whether commuting to war is a good approach. Those questions are just that; questions. The answer to both is that we may have elected to buy fewer aircraft due to, I believe, OMA costs more than any other one reason plus the forced MRAP buy but the reasons are immaterial, you are correct we don't have enough to do air movement with the current fleet and TTP. We have rightly or wrongly elected to commute to war and to do that in MRAPs simply because they are there. Interestingly, No one I've talked to with much recent combat experience has much use for them...Quote:
Sadly, my perspective also compels me to say this: There are simply not enough helicopters in the Army inventory to make air our primary intra-theater force projection platform.
Take away the MRAP, use existing air wisely, extend patrol times significantly and decrease the number of FOBs and you'd have a different war. Not going to happen due to risk avoidance. I'm opposed to risk avoidance as a philosophy but do understand its presence in Afghanistan to compensate for a total lack of strategy in why we're still there and what we're now doing. C'est la guerre -- or perhaps as my son who's there for his third trip says of today, "I don't know what this is but it isn't war." C'est Le temps frappé then, I guess. :D
However, Soldiering is an outdoor sport so that's okay.
Plus villages are where the people live. The key is to travel light and never stay in the same place more than 12 hours. Not as much fun as working out in an ad hoc gym on a FOB that takes an occasional mortar round but eases resupply in many senses and is considerably more effective.
Agreed, so that's 2-3 x Chinook, but you don't just sit the reserve on the ground doing nothing. You use it
= 2 x UH-60, with cross-deck-able MED Fit.Quote:
You need another two as MedEvac reserve, preferably with proper equipment for the role.
Leaving you with 3-4 of each type, so 6 to 8, for maybe 8 re-supplies to Coy locations (re-supply every three days) and 6-8 patrol tasks.Quote:
The helicopters would run the resupply of all outposts and patrols.
Now in reality you'd probably have to have X-number of aircraft dedicated to just to Base re-supply and troop rotations, and maybe a dedicated Case-evac flight as well, but it's all far from impossible. Maybe 10 CH-47, and 10 UH-60.
It's not just money, its time and manpower needed to do things like re-supply. How many trucks, men and hours does it take to move 10,000kg of stores (1 x CH-47 Payload) 50km down the road to a base?
And what happens when the weather goes down to no ceiling/visibility for three weeks?
(Hate the throw the weather monkey into this wrench, but we need at least some minimal visibility to fly...)
Weather affects MRAPs too - roads get washed out or become a mucky mess.
I don't think anyone here is saying that we give up land transport completely in favor of rotary wing. The main point, for me at least, is, given limited resources, how should troops be moved around in Afghanistan? Given the choice between MRAPs and rotary wing, my personal opinion is that rotary wing is clearly superior. It's faster, it doesn't project to the enemy what you're doing, it exploits a weakness in enemy capabilities, it doesn't suck up a ton of ISR assets for force protection, helos can put troops where MRAPs can't, etc. Again, why is it better to brute-force the IED threat through increased armor protection rather than avoid the threat entirely?
Not to say that focusing on rotary-wing support doesn't have downsides - certainly it does - but overall, in most situations, I think helo's are better. If you disagree and think MRAPs are the way to go, then I'd definitely be interesting in hearing why.
Finally, I've been hearing and reading since 2005 that Afghanistan is perennially short of helicopters to support our operations. It's not like the need for more rotary wing support in Afghanistan is anything new. The geography and infrastructure of the country are biased toward air and foot transport. Maybe MRAPs made sense in Iraq (I honestly don't know), but for Afghanistan they cause more problems than they solve, especially since, as Ken noted above, there are alternatives in terms of tactics and equipment.
3 weeks? Show a time and place where this has happened? OK, Arctic circle and Northern Norway. Possible.
...but between the Tropics...SOG operations ran throughout the monsoon. I know of one patrol in Ulster that was "weathered in" for 4 days. Weather got very bad in the Falklands, but it never stopped helicopter operations completely.
None of the Lima Sites in Laos was ever socked in for 3 weeks, - that I am aware of- and numerous locations where Helo-supply only. I'm far more worried about MANPADs than weather.
You do realize that the Taliban could simply cut your base off the supply by blocking/ambushing the road and thus force you to fight along roads, even move on roads with vehicles again?
You cannot effectively supply a helicopter base with helicopters. The overhead would explode.