Nearing the point where we decide to agree to disagree
WM wrote:
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I concur that a small war is probably better than a big war. However, I doubt that fighting a small war with "big war" weapons is either effective or efficient."
The real question is how big of a big war force is needed to deter potential adversaries from engaging in big wars.
10 Hours Ago 11:02 PM
I doubt it as well which is why I have not been arguing that point. If you recall, my first comment in this thread began along those very lines. I do not see this issue as an either-or choice:
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We need both the Fulda Gap -or at least a mini-me version -capacity and COIN, the latter for reasons that need no explanation here
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Most of our dispute would appear to be a normative one of how to interpret history. Even granting you the bloodiest civil wars of the Long Peace era, the Taiping Rebellion and the American Civil War ( with the former accounting for at least a majority of the period's casualties), it pales in comparison with the 20th century's great power, interstate wars.
I'm inclined to agree with you
on the older division model and am afraid that the "Mech Infantry" concept with wheeled PCs and 'Assault Guns' (or whatever they end up being called) is a force looking for a mission. While they have some validity in the peacekeeping (as opposed to peace making or enforcing) role, in most scenarios I suspect their overall vulnerability at this time will be a significant limiting factor.
That and the fact remains that vehicle borne 'infantry' is not infantry; they are mostly called 'dismounts' and there's a lot of truth in that -- anyway you look at it, they'll generally be fewer in number than a pure infantry formation of the same size AND, more importantly they'll always be tied to those vehicles; wheeled or tracked. That is a tactical limitation and the large number of vehicles with less than track vehicle cross country mobility and protection plus their maintenance requirements are an operational limitation
I do note that BAE is proposing a Bradley upgrade that removes the turret basket, remotely controls the 30/40mm Mk44 (instead of 25mm M242) and thus allows the carriage of nine versus seven dismounts. Interesting that the article said the revised Cav version's increased space allowed the addition of a sensor mast and operator (a good thing) and an interpreter (not sure that is a good thing...).
As an aside, the Airmobile Division is essentially and effectively just a light infantry division with extra birds. You can have extra birds or rapidly deployable parachute capability, the two are sort of inimical to each other. They could of course be combined but why do that if you can afford both?