Originally Posted by
Ken White
A second problem was the Carrier organization naturally placed a premium on protecting its vehicles (and crews) while the transported unit was more concerned with their folks and the their mission. This led to discord at Squad / Section, Platoon, Company and higher levels on occasion -- said discord extending to deliberately damaged carriers by uncontrolled transported Troops and precipitous and unauthorized abandonment of transported troops by carriers units. A side issue was that individual carrier crews often had no real grounding in the mission and thus, in event of loss of their transported Infantry were often at a loss on what should be done.
A minor issue is that in event of a thrown track or other mechanical problem where help to the crew from the transported element would have been beneficial, the transported lacked the knowledges and skills needed and so, often, several Carriers were out of action so that the crews could combine to work on one while the hapless Infantry just stood and watched.
None of that is to say that such a system does not work at all, it merely indicates that as is true of any compromise, there are minor issues that affect outcomes. A smaller, more cohesive Army might not have any of those issues. Then again, it might...
* One can say that whim (or misplaced priorities) has no place in combat operations, that all troops should be better disciplined and that the joint mission should drive the behavior of all concerned. One can say all that. Whether one can get a bunch of random, thrown together humans under the stress of combat and with no particular loyalty to each other as occurs in large Armies to behave so properly is another issue...
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