Let me join in the Welcome, Coy. Don't hesitate to
jump in. Your perspective will be helpful.
Cav Guy can handle the Ossifers and if any NCOs try to jump your case, I can handle them -- I know I've got time in grade on all of 'em (Which means nothing except I'm old... :D ).
Seriously, welcome and I'm sure no one will hassle you.
Scouts out... :cool:
Taught the boy all he knew. Not a great
student. He later mistranslated the 10th Commandment, putting an unnecessary 'not' in there.
Crossing prep for the Red Sea was way too slow, it could've been a tactical disaster had he not been lucky... :D
And I wasn't on leave, just had a bad hangover. Caused me to have to walk across atop the water a little later, evading all the way. Thank Mars for amateurs... :cool:
"Infantry Mobility Vehicles" is a contradiction; Infantry mobility is feets...
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Originally Posted by
reed11b
Ken, how often did you have vehicle support from w/i your own battalion? I realize that you actually served during a time when Divisions could deploy as a whole unit, but I am willing to bet there were times that the organic Bat. deuce and halfs gave you a lift. Who drove those trucks?
The assigned drivers for the 2 1/2s in the Airborne units. Now ask me who drove the Tracks from the APC Battalion in the 7th Inf Div (ROCID) in the late 50s. Or ask me who drove the tracks in the Mech Bde I was in in during my 75-76 tour in Korea. Answer's the same, the drivers -- what's your point? Mine is that vehicles need drivers (a person), usually some security (another person or two) or to leave the area. The real point was in a discussion of Mech or mounted units (i.e. assigned vehicles) units, not transported infantry.
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In all of my training excerizes AND real world missions (excluding training where we jumped in) we have had some sort of wheeled transport available. The soldiers that operated these vehicles came from battalion. Some were profiles or suppy section workers or S-shop grunts, but they still came from Bat. In Iraq, the norm was to have a platoon not tasked w/ the mission drive the trucks and provide pick up and support. This task would rotate through the squads and platoons. Why would a unit with Infantry Mobilty Vehicles be any differnt? How are you losing personel, as long as the vehicle is not too complicated to be driven by anyone?
Because in addition to the driver (who as you point out, was not in your examples a member of the Platoon but of a support or another element...) with most modern vehicles you have to leave someone to man the gun. In the Bradley because of the capacity, you also have to leave a third guy behind to pass up additional 25mm to the gunner. So you're confronted with the fact that your seven dismounts (IF you have all of them) are reduced to five or six. You're also stuck with the fact that mounted troops are absolutely not going to get too far away from their vehicles under most circumstances. Recall again, the discussion is on units with assigned vehicles.
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Protected mobility is simply a force multiplier if it is relevant to the METT-TC.
There's that word again. if, indeed...
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Some additional advantages to infantry support vehicles is C2STA abilities (espcially on board IFF tracker and IR) and communications support.
No question about that. I however, have no clue how we ever won a fight without all that sruff... :D
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There are times when dismounting losses the mission even if it drives off the ambushers.
Sorry, don't understand that???
At the risk of saying it all again,
Here are my conclusions on Infantry Mechanisation.
A.) The platoon ORBAT is/should be optimised to fight/operate dismounted. Mechanisation means picking up and transporting folks who are "Light Infantry."
B.) Driving and fighting almost any modern armoured military vehicle is a specialist skill requiring a good dedicated course of instruction. The vehicle crew (always 2 or 2+) does not have to be infantrymen.
C.) The vehicle crew should not be considered part of the section/squad or platoon. Personally, I can see great merit in having a Mech Platoon (14-16 vehicles , so 28-32 men) at the Company level. BN would have "Mech" companies.
D.) There is a world of difference between operating with an MRAP vehicle and a MICV. They are two entirely different doctrines.
MRAPS/JLTV and APCs are protected mobility for "Light Infantry". IMO, It is the minimum standard for all infantry!
MICVs are another thing entirely. Yes, I confess there is now a lot of cross-over between an MICV and some APCs, but my basic contention is that it is almost entirely to do with what you expect of the vehicle.
At the risk of saying it all again, Part II
I have some experience in the fighting on foot / picking up transporting "light infantry with non-dedicated vehicles. The US Army did that from the late 50s until the mid 60s. Problems: Track drivers were poorly trained, tactically speaking (Yes, they need to be trained -- and plain old riflemen training is a good base from which to start), the track commanders were similarly poorly trained and the crew just wanted to transport and not get involved in the fight. Doesn't work that way. So, yes, the training of the crew is very important -- and they should at least have a basic understanding of Infantry tactics. They will still suffer the fact that they have no loyalty to the unit being transported -- and that does make a difference; a big difference.
A Mech platoon at company level or a mech company at Bn level is, IMO, an invitation to trouble because, as many point out, Mech and Inf are two entirely different doctrines. Added complication at Bn and below is best avoided...
MRAPS are dangerous; vehicle hugging becomes a driving force (pun intended); the troops don't want to leave the armored (and today, air conditioned) cocoon. The vehicles are unwieldy, cannot ever offer 100% protection and thus provide a false sense of security (as does ALL armor). They need to be left in Iraq and not replicated. I'm not going to waste a lot of time discussing those expensive monstrosities with such limited use. I have no problem with buying special equipment for special purposes or units but the driving force should be military requirements and not a PR problem exacerbated by commentary from ill informed people (or equally ill informed partisan hacks in Congress).
Add to that that Armor can lull you into a false sense of security -- NOTHING is bullet proof, the heavier the vehicle, the less agility it possesses (and, generally, the less the using unit has tactically speaking); the fact that the vehicles must be protected; may or may not (and should or should not) be able to lend to the fight or mission with mounted weapons or even limited maneuver and I suggest that to say, categorically, that vehicles are good and the drivers / crews need not be infantry or a part of the unit is likely to be incorrect.
JLTV and APCs and protected mobility are not a panacea and their use should be totally METT-TC based; there's a time and a place for them, no question -- there's also the fact that they are inimical to some missions and do not suit all terrain and environments. I think the old dictum, 'be careful what you want, you may get it' applies.
Use of any vehicles by Infantry reduce the number of dismounts. In the old Airborne Battle Group and Battalion Recon Platoons with the M 151, a third of the strength was driving. My Sons Rifle Platoon in OIF II had a slew of unarmored HMMWVs with no turrets and ad hoc weapons mounts; they carried more people so he only lost a fifth of his strength to the vehicles. Later, in OEF IV (or V, can't recall) he had an Antitank Platoon, armored HMMWVs with turrets -- back to a third or fourth of the strength left with the vehicles. I do not see how anyone can argue that vehicles in a given situation do not impact the number of troops on the ground. That's true in any circumstance but certainly true if the vehicles are organic.
Mounted troops do not like to leave their vehicles and if forced to, they won't get too far away from them. That's logical and necessary but can be tactically limiting.
There is no question that Mech Infantry and 'Armored' Cavalry are necessary and that the application of force by such units differs from that of infantry. The issue is that in trying to blur the three, you end up with a hybrid that won't do any of the three very different jobs well. I'd submit our Cavalry already suffers from too much Armor / Mech blending and thus is really just a high speed mech outfit that doesn't do Recon at all well, though it's great at economy of force missions. Further, the 'mounting' of all infantry entails a loss of patrolling skill, perhaps the most important and critical infantry effort -- that, BTW, is documented IIRC from a Kilcullen Briefing; it got so bad in Iraq, they had to call in AWG to retrain infantry units in dismounted patrolling. That is pathetic, could have been quite dangerous and we're just lucky Iraq was a relatively benign environment that could tolerate such foolishness.
Cavalry is necessary and valuable, even if we don't do it right due to our impatience.
Mech Infantry is necessary and valuable. Walking infantry is equally necessary and valuable. 'Mounted' infantry is an idea looking for a home, is a hybrid -- and it will not do either job satisfactorily.
Long way of saying I disagree with both of you on this -- and that ought to be okay ;). I'd just posit that the METT-TC factors drive the train; there is no one size fits all and any use of vehicles entails a loss of foot troopies. Whether that loss is smart or not is totally situation dependent.