1 Attachment(s)
JMA, as you can see, some controversy exists ...
in the tooth and tail area. A brave or foolish man (perhaps being Irish accounted for it) did a study of Tooth-to-Tail Ratio (T3R): John J. McGrath, The Other End of the Spear: The Tooth-to-Tail Ratio (T3R) in Modern Military Operations,The Long War Series, Occasional Paper 23, Combat Studies Institute Press Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (2007). The Occasional Papers are here; but the .pdf link to McGrath's paper ain't a-working. :(
Strarting with the AEF in WWI, he came up with a 105 page monograph. Now, tooth to tail stuff is not Industrial Management 101 and cannot be reduced to a motion and time study. For example, he placed all of the AEF's Corps of Engineers in the combat component because (p.56, note 2):
Quote:
2. The AEF maintained a force of nondivisional Corps of Engineers units consisting of 241,613 troops, representing 12 percent of the total AEF force. Categorizing this force is problematic. I have chosen to place the whole engineer element in the combat category, but undoubtedly, at least some of this force belongs in the logistical category as the engineers also maintained the railroads. However, determining what portion of the 241,613 belonged in which category would require a level of research beyond the scope of this work. The placement of the 241,613 in the combat category is, therefore noted. Accordingly, up to 13 percent of the total of combat troops could possibly be placed in the logistical category instead. See “The Organization of the American Expeditionary Forces,” 8; COL Carl Schmidt, “The Operational Slice in Two World Wars,” Military Review 31 (October 1951), 56.
However, McGrath provides his methodology throughout, and comes up with a number of charts and graphs. A comparison in the combat category over the years is found on page 103 (Table B-2. Theater Comparisons by Category):
AEF 1918 - 53%
ETO 1945 - 39%
Korea/Japan 1953 - 33%
Vietnam 1968 - 35%
Germany 1974 - 27%
KTO 1991 - 30%
Iraq 2005 (military in country only) - 40%
Iraq 2005 (incl. Kuwait & contractors) - 25%
Note these are "T3R" for theatre deployed forces, not for the Army as a whole. The 30%-70% combat to non-combat (82redleg & Ken White) pretty much hit on the head the last 2 decades of deployments.
Here is his graph showing combat % of the Army as a whole:
Attachment 1064
So, here we see much lower "T3R" - as low as ~ 1:15. Perhaps that's where the 1:7 ratio derives ?
Regards
Mike
Working link to McGrath paper is here at CGSC.
Obviously I was not clear. My apologies.
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Originally Posted by
JMA
The stats you post indicate that in South Africa the white population shares the same obesity levels as the US. So what significance does that have? We are talking fat soldiers in Afghanistan here and the availability of junk food to rear echelon troops.
I gave my guess on the troop overweight problem; I'm sure there are figures on the internet somewhere but I also see no point in searching for them as they'd change by the day.
I provided the national stats partly for comparison of the troop guess to nominal US national stats and partly to emphasize my point that 20 years ago the US had an obesity problem; the rest of the world is now catching up.
I added South Africa stats only because they were not on the list in the other link. There was no linkage, implied or otherwise to the SADF on obesity.
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The 'new' South African defence force is made up of quotas of soldiers from the old forces and the various "liberation" forces. The sad fact is that the army is in a sorry state. When you put an army together on the following basis what do you expect: (not mentioned is the requirement to comprise 30% females).
No intent to accuse the South African Army of a weight problem or to pick on South Africa in any way, just pointing out that, just as the US Army has several problems, it sort of goes with the territory that ALL armies have problems of one type or another that get fixed then replaced by other problems in a never ending cycle -- and virtually all of which can be traced back to Generals or Politicians.
But I repeat myself...
IED incidents and route clearance
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from JMA
This is a very difficult task demanding great skill and bravery. How have the IED incident statistics dropped as a result?
From Army Times, Military to combat IEDs on multiple fronts (from summer 2009, when the 1431 Sappers were one of several companies contributing to route clearance):
Quote:
U.S. works to stem rise in Afghanistan casualties
By Michelle Tan - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Sep 29, 2009 15:35:12 EDT
The U.S. military is taking a multi-pronged approach to battling the rising threat of improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan, particularly in the southern part of the country.
“We’ve basically seen the number of IEDs double over a one-year period,” said Rear Adm. Michael Tillotson, the deputy J-3 for CentCom. “But ... we’ve [also] put a lot more forces out there also.”
There were 810 IED incidents there in August compared with 420 during the same month in 2008.
......
Of the IED incidents, 51 percent of the bombs were found and cleared, about 30 percent were effective — which means the bomb resulted in casualties or loss of equipment — and about 20 percent were ineffective, Tillotson said.
......
Route clearance packages, made up largely of engineers, explosive ordnance disposal experts and those who provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are among the types of troops the U.S. will continue to grow in Afghanistan, Tillotson said.
He added that the military has already added a battalion’s worth of EOD forces in the south and increased the number of route clearance packages.
“It’s an increase in engineers and EOD forces in order to take care of the devices,” he said. “It’s an increase in [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] to get a better idea of what the enemy is doing to ensure we’re interdicting and make sure we’re getting to the left of boom.”
So, about 50% success given 2009 IED levels and anti-IED force levels.
That being said, the SovComs also mounted a strong route clearance effort. From DoD Buzz, Afghan IEDs Hammered Soviets (Dec 2009):
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By Greg Grant Tuesday,
December 15th, 2009 12:17 pm
When Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced creation of yet another counter-IED Pentagon task force, he was clearly frustrated with the inability of the military, the intelligence agencies and industry to come up with answers to the simple yet devastatingly effective roadside bomb as the IED war shifts from Iraq to Afghanistan.
The number of IED “incidents” in Afghanistan, defined as IEDs either found before detonating or actual IED attacks, have jumped from around 100 a month during 2006 to over 800 a month this past summer; in August IED incidents topped 1,000. In 2006, 41 U.S. and NATO troops were killed by IEDs. So far this year, 260 coalition troops have been killed by IEDs, according to the web site icasualties.com that tracks troop casualties. IED casualties in Afghanistan don’t approach those of Iraq during the height of the fighting there when some days saw 100 IED incidents, but the trend lines are headed in the wrong direction. As more troops arrive, casualties are sure to increase.
....
Route clearance was a high priority and the Soviets sent specialized combat engineer units to Afghanistan equipped with mine sniffing dogs (that often proved effective), electronic mine detectors (which reports said didn’t work very well) and tanks fitted with mine plows, rollers and flails. Opening roads to convoys became major combat operations that involved up to a battalion’s worth of combat power, including helicopter borne units and extensive close air support. The engineers were kept busy throughout the war and became more skilled as their experience increased: in 1980, engineers cleared 1,032 mines and IEDs; in 1986, they cleared 35,650 mines and IEDs. Yet, the Mujaheddin were highly adaptive and continually created new IED tactics that remained a step ahead of the Soviet learning curve. (much more in article) ....
Thus, for every action, an opposite reaction - and so it goes. Sappers are but a partial answer.
Regards
Mike