Mechanization hurts COIN forces

[slapout9]

In the back of the article he talks about the imaginative commanders of the 3RD ACR at Talafar and how they fought as Dragoons "corralled their horses" motor pooled their tanks and fought as dismounted infantry. He also mentions in the back a question about why were some mechanized units able to fight so well why others could not. It short it is the Cavalry Dragoon doctirne (mounted Infantry) is what he is talking about. I will comment more on this later at my day job.

[Rob Thornton]

This thread made me think about an Armor officer buddy of mine who remarked as he was reading "The Sling and the Stone", that he thought COIN was much harder then HIC - if you guys remember prior to that some of the high level thinking was that if you could do HIC well, the rest would follow.

Imagine though, if you were under the other premise, and your organization and doctrine, your training and acquisition priorities were similarly associated. How different would we have looked? Take it one step further and consider if threat was a Joint outlook?

We often take for granted why we are what we are because our concern for the present and immediate future alters the context of the decisions made in the past - this is the curse of the fortune teller I guess.

It was pointed out to me that the Army is often asked why it requires so much of a LOG tail when other services and allies do not. We (the Army) campaign - we come and we stay, and although we desire certain expeditionary capabilities, our ability to sustain a difficult and enduring land campaign is something that nobody else does like us. The Joint Force (and this is not to deny they have their own sustainment/LOG capabilities, or provide the means to bring it in and take it out) and allied forces heavily rely on US Army Logistics when campaigning on land - much of their (our Joint and allied) capability truly is expeditionary, and as such is built to get there quickly, but not necessarily to support an enduring campaign. I am still not entirely comfortable with including "campaign quality" and "expeditionary capabilities" in the same sentence -but it reflects the realities of today's requirements to remain "ready and relevant"

I'm not sure where the mean of pendulum should be. I know that if you have always had something, you tend to take it for granted, and its hard to conceive of the work that was required to build it to that point, or how seemingly minor changes can have secondary and tertiary consequences, or the work that would be required to fix it. Fortunately we are evolutionary, so I think we will find the right balance over time. We must be able to do it all, because within a major COIN campaign today there is likely to be times when the enemy will use very lethal, portable and available firepower to challenge us on his terms, and there is the also the very real possibility that we will be asked to destroy another's conventional means of making War.

Best Regards, Rob

[Jimbo]

I see from the post, that there are some "vintage" or "retro" perspectives out here. The biggest change I have seen during my time in Iraq, is that the light guys have come to see that the mech guys aren't really all that different. Whoever posted about the what is the difference between dismounting soldiers from an M1114 HumVee or a Bradley hit the nail on the head. Personally it is easier to dismount from a Bradley/Stryker because of the ramp, and you do not have to bleed off squad members to man the vehicles. A mech IN company has 9 rifle squads in it. So a mech company commander/platoon leader you are fighting squads and vehicles I never had a problem with sending squads out on patrols independent from the Bradley. During my time in Iraq, I have seen many armored vehicles patrolling/overwatching without Infantry squads on the ground. The advantage that he mech forces have is that the Bradley makes a very effective platform at supporting the Infantry.

As far as mindset, there are some differences. Before the war in Iraq, the biggest difference that I noticed was the concept of areas of operation. I remember light company commanders an PL's only needing a small section of the map based on their mobility while mech guys were operating across greater differences. The joke was that a light guy could get into trouble pretty fast, but that mech guys got into trouble at 40 miles an hour. Stryker units a something of hybrid between the two. They have a lot of benefits of both communities.

Comparing mech and light unit effectiveness in COIN. If you want to draw those conclusions, then one would have to look for an example where a mech unit and a light unit had operated in the same area of operation. As many have stated, Iraq is a mosaic. Each area has it own challeneges. You have to look at the security situation as far as the people who live there, the physical terrain (especially how much you own), and how many troops you have available. When those factors are similar, then you can draw a fairly accurate comparison.