An Airborne Expeditionary Unit?

[Ken White]

This is why we have the finest infantry in the world, but you are correct. They could absolutely be better.

Amen!

Fair enough but I still maintain that the Rangers perform a specific mission set that requires a higher level of skill and training than is possible in a regular Army formation.

I'm out, clearance long gone but my understanding is the former primary mission has gone back to where it was long ago and the new mission as I understand it I don't think is beyond a decently trained light infantry unit. Still, probably more than enough said on the subject and we can disagree a bit.

I am only 36 so I will have to take your word for that

It is not nice to brag...

My issue is not so much with the GOs who are haters. I don't deal often with them, that is why we have 18As. My issue is with the field grade officers who are haters. My experience during my last trip was that working for or around big Army is a huge pain in the ass. It got really old, dealing with all the friction.

Hear that, best solution I found was to ignore most of it and them and take subversive steps to lessen contact; exercise that old Group innovation quotient...

We will have to disagree on this one as well. I don't think that DA is the only SOC mission, or even the most important one. It just happens to be the most sexy. Big Army doesn't do UW at all and only does FID when forced to do so...

I'm not totally sure I agree with ID and UW being a SOCOM mission -- and I base that primarily on pure numbers required versus likely numbers available in some scenarios (Iraq being one) AND in some cases and some senses wasting a Cadillac to do a Ford job...

You might give those two factors some thought. I do agree that the Army doesn't want to do ID or UW (either... ); to my mind the question isn't who wants to do what but how the nation is likely to be best served.

...There are a lot of things that we do these days that need to stay on the SOCOM side of the house.

SFC W

I know and I know what some of those are. There a couple that I don't think Group should be doing; Strat Recon for example is highly specialized and requires a special breed of cat. So does UW and the two are not similar missions. A really good guy can do both; problem is that even in the Groups, everyone isn't a really good guy...

I'm just questioning whether what we're doing is the best solution. Having done most of those missions for real, I'm not convinced we're being all that smart about the allocations. Still, that's just my opinion and I certainly don't expect many to agree with me, much less everyone.

[Distiller]

Somewhere further up there was the notion that aerial supply can be with commercial freighters, and the Berlin air lift also came up.

Uh, hello! If you can fly in with a commerical transporter, you don't need a lot of combat troops for the operation. Certainly not a "Airborne Expeditionary Unit".

And Berlin airlift was a non-contestetd ops. These days you could that with the CRAF.

No, the question is how to supply an air mobile unit after air drop.
Assuming that you can't drop them over the target, but only right outside the red zone, they have to have some motorisation/mechanization. At that moment the tonmile requirements explode.

And if you can drop them right OVER the target, then it's probably some sort of more-or-less unopposed grab-the-airstrip action. Secure the objective, wait for the C-17s to arrive. Not a big logistic challenge.

We did the numbers back then for Eurocorps and then the EU Battlegroups, and quite simply, even for a few hundred kilometers away from homebase (like accross the Med, or into Caucasus), there were not enough transporters in all of EU-land to sustain even a brigade sized mechanized combined arms formation purely from the air. No secret.

A dash-grab-and-hold (for some time) is possible. Exactly what the Soviets had planned for, btw. Against HQ, SAM sites, missiles launch areas, &c. Possible but suicide. None of these troops were expected to be welcomed back on Red Square.

[Norfolk]

Spinning off some of the ideas on the Gavin's Paratroopers thread back to this one, Rifleman (drawing on Mike Sparks) and Wilf raise some pretty important points for the potential employment of Airborne Forces.

Rifleman's reminder of Spark's proposal to mechanize (when and where appropriate) one of an Airborne Infantry Battalion's rifle companies and Wilf's thoughts on the CVR(T) in support of Abn Inf Bns form an outline of one possible way to maximize agility>surprise>shock effect during Airborne Operations. And right from the beginning, when it counts most and success or failure is immediately in the balance. While the M-113 doesn't really appeal to me, and I have doubts about the CVR(T) series (Spartan is the APC version, isn't it?), the CVR(T) may provide a most useful starting point for considering the role and types of armoured vehicles that might be useful in Airborne ops. The Scorpion CVR(T) light tanks rendered surprisingly useful service in the Falkands during a sustained land campaign, and the CVR(T) possess the added advantage of being able to be underslung some heavy-lift helicopters for short-length hauls. Scorprion of course possessed a 76mm that fired HESH - good for close support - as well as others, and Scimitar of course had a 30mm.

Drawing on these musings, might an Airborne Expeditionary Unit profit considerably (rather than only marginally) by the possession of an organic light tank platoon as well as sufficient light APCs to mechanize a Rifle Coy, if and when deemed necessary, particularly during Airfield seizures in HIC or sustained campaigning in LIC/MIC?

[reed11b]

If you look at the win-loss ratio of airborne ops, and consider the amount of pyric victories, large scale airborne operations rarely make much sense. I am a paratrooper, and I still feel that actual airborne ops should really be limited to reconn, raids and airfield siezures. I feel it is more important to be capable when you arrive, then to arrive quickly. Want expiditionary warfare? Buy sealift, not planes. Intelligent unit sizing and rotational readyness would do more for our ability to quickly project force globaly then light airborne armor would.
Reed

[William F. Owen]

If you look at the win-loss ratio of airborne ops, and consider the amount of pyric victories, large scale airborne operations rarely make much sense. I am a paratrooper, and I still feel that actual airborne ops should really be limited to reconn, raids and airfield siezures.
Reed

Concur. - unless you believe that there have been more successful airborne operations that amphibious ones!! - some poor folk do!

Drawing on these musings, might an Airborne Expeditionary Unit profit considerably (rather than only marginally) by the possession of an organic light tank platoon as well as sufficient light APCs to mechanize a Rifle Coy, if and when deemed necessary, particularly during Airfield seizures in HIC or sustained campaigning in LIC/MIC?

CVR-T had/has massive limitations. Main armament was never stabilised and the levels of protection were near non-existent. It is a 1969 design, and has an aluminium hull. There is a version with a 90mm gun, but carries less than 20 rounds and (IIRC) can only fire while halted! - an assault gun?

Stormer however is the 1997 version and a very capable beast. - and it could be more capable. - however the world is currently set against <20 tonne tracked APCs or AFVs for a whole raft of silly reasons.

Partial mechanisation is a valid and respectable solution especially for COIN/LIC. However armies generally want to keep this quiet in case the accountants try and make it "the solution" versus "a solution."

[TT]

Reed posted: If you look at the win-loss ratio of airborne ops, and consider the amount of pyric victories, large scale airborne operations rarely make much sense. I am a paratrooper, and I still feel that actual airborne ops should really be limited to reconn, raids and airfield siezures. I feel it is more important to be capable when you arrive, then to arrive quickly. Want expiditionary warfare? Buy sealift, not planes. Intelligent unit sizing and rotational readyness would do more for our ability to quickly project force globaly then light airborne armor would.

I have been following this thread with some interest.

Your post, Reed, captures the issue that the Army seeming has been grappling with since 1991/2 very well (and it touches on an important issue related to my research on mil change in the US Army). It does relate at least obliquely to the thread, but if this is well off topic, my apologies.

The issue is/was that the US Army found itself in the 1990s, to use my irreverent colloquialism, ‘too light to fight, too fat to fly’, and this has been a driving concern – if not always obvious - since the first Gulf War behind the movement towards the Objective/Future force concept and, to a lesser extent, Modularization.

As everyone remembers, the US' initial 'rapid response' to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait was to deploy the 82nd Airborne to Saudi and there was concern at the time that should the 3 Iraqi divisions on the Kuwait/Saudi border drive south that the 82nd Airborne would be little more than a ‘speed bump’. (As an ignorant outsider this seemed a bit of an overstatement to me - think airpower support but then I am easily ). By contrast, to deploy armour divisions took many months, until Oct 91 for a ‘defensive’ force and Feb/March for an offensive force. Gen Sullivan (and others ) recognized that the US was moving into an era of expeditionary ops and was concerned about the future role of the Army due to this problem. So he instigated a process of thinking through how deal with it (and other issues) through the New Louisiana Maneuvers Experiments and then the Army After Next concept studies (and the Force XXI plays at the margins vice C2 for smaller sized units that the AAN was playing with conceptually).

The same problem emerges in Kosovo. Reportedly, the US considered inserting the 82nd Airborne into Kosovo very early but decided against doing so out of concern that the Serb military would go after them with deadly consequences for the 82nd (too light…) In contrast – again – was Task Force Hawk which demonstrated again the logistics/deployability problem (too fat...). TF Hawk was embarrassing for the Army and of course spurred Gen. Shinseki to take the bull by the horns and start the process of developing the Objective/Future force with its very tight deadlines for deployment into theatre and for combat readiness once on the ground (essentially arrive combat ready and capable). In other words, to be irreverent again, the FCS is supposed to be ‘fat enough to fight, light enough to fly’.

So Reed's observations - as well as others - seems to me be quite relevant given the current development problems with the FCS system (or ‘system of systems’, if you will ) and underscores the problem the US Army still faces in becoming an 'expeditionary force' capable of a rapid response with combat capable forces (and I acknowledge that 'combat capable' may or even likely depend on the 'enemy' to be faced). Clearly finding a solution to the problem - if one thinks it is a problem - is very difficult.

Anyway, thank you all for your comments on the thread, for they all have helped me make more sense of the issue/problem, thereby lifting a little bit of my fog of ignorance.

[Tom Odom]

As everyone remembers, the US' initial 'rapid response' to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait was to deploy the 82nd Airborne to Saudi and there was concern at the time that should the 3 Iraqi divisions on the Kuwait/Saudi border drive south that the 82nd Airborne would be little more than a ‘speed bump’. (As an ignorant outsider this seemed a bit of an overstatement to me - think airpower support but then I am easily ).

true but not all of it. Remember the 101st went quickly after the 82d. The real sweaty palms issue for the first 90 days or so was a shortage of AT munitions for the platforms (fixed and rotary) in theater. Plus by the time the second month rolled around the 3 Iraqi divisions were well reinforced:

In transitioning to the defense, Iraqi dispositions reflected Saddam's emerging strategy of deterrence. His forces soon established an echeloned defense of Kuwait and a strategic defense of Iraq, both designed to make an attacker pay dearly. By late September, the Iraqi defenses in the KTO had 22 divisions—13 light and 9 heavy. Fourteen were in the forward defenses. Ten infantry divisions defended the Saudi border and the coastline, backed by four heavy divisions immediately available as corps reserve. In addition, the Iraqis retained six Guard and two regular army divisions in the theater reserve, of which five were heavy divisions. Evidence of mobilization and training throughout Iraq suggested that more military forces would be dispatched to the KTO as soon as they were nominally ready.

From Certain Victory written by yours truly

Where the 82d speed bump thing really made me sweat was when I learned that the AF planners had a gleem in their eye to "take down" Iraq without putting airpower against those divisions.

The too light to fight too fat to fly also came into play for Restore Hope. We went light when those of us who had been in Somalia said send an ACR.

Best

Tom

[TT]

Tom posted: Remember the 101st went quickly after the 82d.

You are of course correct (when are you not?). My memory is not what it used to be and I forgot about this 'reinforcement'. Thank you for your point about the AT munitions shortage.

Tom Posted From Certain Victory written by yours truly

I hope you get royalties, for I bought a copy to read in late May (unfortunately, I have not had time to read it yet, due to moving continents and other work commitments).

Tom Posted: Where the 82d speed bump thing really made me sweat was when I learned that the AF planners had a gleem in their eye to "take down" Iraq without putting airpower against those divisions.

I have not run across this (yet), so thank you for this insight.

Tom posted: The too light to fight too fat to fly also came into play for Restore Hope. We went light when those of us who had been in Somalia said send an ACR.

Very interesting, for I was not aware that this 'problem' was an issue in Restore Hope (but then I was not looking for it). So, again, my sincere thanks (in spite of it meaning more research! ). May I ask if you know whether this issue appeared in any of the post-op 'lessons learned' for the operation?

Thanks!

[Ken White]

Lots of fog. Agree with the bulk of your first four paragraphs, though...

...The same problem emerges in Kosovo. Reportedly, the US considered inserting the 82nd Airborne into Kosovo very early but decided against doing so out of concern that the Serb military would go after them with deadly consequences for the 82nd (too light…).

True -- but that decision was made by the Mech (Heavy) centric USAREUR. The 82d and its troops were not nearly as concerned. Was the USAREUR concern actually for Force Protection reasons or due to Heavy - Light parochiality? We'll never know but that factor cannot be summarily dismissed. In any event, I submit that was far, far more a political then a military decision. It is noteworthy that then BG R. Sanchez was the first USArEur Commander in Kosovo, that he took over a week to ford a river (to the amusement of the British and French and the chagrin of the Engineers who he forced to wait until it was 'safe') and when he finally arrived late in Kosovo discovered the 82d had LTs and SSGs out in the Villages playing Mayor and Police Chief -- and doing it well. All was quiet. His response to that? Pull them all back in and ALL patrols will henceforth have a field Grade Officer. May not have been the most stupid edict ever but it had to be in the top five. Sanchez' force (self?) protection glands apparently worked overtime.

... In contrast – again – was Task Force Hawk which demonstrated again the logistics/deployability problem (too fat...). TF Hawk was embarrassing for the Army...

Not really, the Army just took one in the shorts for the good of the cause. In this case, it was a DoD / CJCS objection to Wes Clark dictating more than they wanted Wes to dictate; TF Hawk was deliberately stalled to avoid a commitment that many did not agree with.

...and of course spurred Gen. Shinseki to take the bull by the horns and start the process of developing the Objective/Future force with its very tight deadlines for deployment into theatre and for combat readiness once on the ground (essentially arrive combat ready and capable). In other words, to be irreverent again, the FCS is supposed to be ‘fat enough to fight, light enough to fly’.

That was and is the dream, it won't happen but that's another story and thread...

So Reed's observations - as well as others - seems to me be quite relevant given the current development problems with the FCS system (or ‘system of systems’, if you will ) and underscores the problem the US Army still faces in becoming an 'expeditionary force' capable of a rapid response with combat capable forces (and I acknowledge that 'combat capable' may or even likely depend on the 'enemy' to be faced). Clearly finding a solution to the problem - if one thinks it is a problem - is very difficult.

In order; Reed may be partly correct but at this time the only way one can transport and deliver several thousand troops several thousand miles to an inland location in order to do anything, including airfield seizure (IF one is lucky enough to have such handy, might not always be one where you need to go...), is with Parachute troops. They have their uses and halfway decently trained they aren't nearly the pushover many think. Having been a Tanker, A CavGuy and an airplane Infantry type, if I were Tanking today, I worry a whole lot more about a bunch of nut case paratroopers than I would about other Tanks. You can see other Tanks at about the same time they see you -- and if you have a reach advantage on them...

OTOH, LGOP have ruined the day of a lot of Armor over the years -- for real and not least at the NTC where an 82d rotation is the bane of the OCs existence because the Troops are all over the place in small packets and they -- and the OpFor -- cannot keep up with them...

The development of FCS is and will remain problematic -- and, if completed, is not likely IMO to offer the panacea that some might wish. As you point out, the determinant is, as always, METT-TC. Something we forget all too often -- and that applies to when and where one uses parachute elements...

[TT]

Ken posted: but that decision was made by the Mech (Heavy) centric USAREUR. The 82d and its troops were not nearly as concerned. Was the USAREUR concern actually for Force Protection reasons or due to Heavy - Light parochiality? We'll never know but that factor cannot be summarily dismissed. In any event, I submit that was far, far more a political then a military decision.

The possibility of 'Heavy - Light parochiality' is an interesting observation, and one that I will have to keep a keen eye out for (it speaks to intra-service 'tribal culture'). I have no doubt that you are right that it was more a political than military decision. So far, in what is still early days in my research (I am still writing up my work on the USMC - sigh), I have only run across across a brief mention of the idea of inserting the 82nd. So there is lots in what you note for me to look for. Thank you.

the Army just took one in the shorts for the good of the cause

True. I realize that there was stalling going on, but I was thinking of the 'perception' of the problems that attended the deployment and the perception of many that this was the sole reason for the development of FCS (which based on my research I do not agree with - the attendant public 'embarassment' re TF Hawk was the final straw) .

That was and is the dream, it won't happen...The development of FCS is and will remain problematic -- and, if completed, is not likely IMO to offer the panacea that some might wish.

Agree. While I have read (can't remember where, it is somewhere in a file in a sealed box at the moment) that deployment of the armour bolstered 82nd into northern Iraq indicated that the deployment timelines and the on-the-ground quick combat readiness attached to the Future Force concept were achievable, these days the FCS as 'a dream' seems apt. There have already been a lot of compromises in the design of the platforms (so two aircraft instead of one to move) and, while it is beyond my competence to judge, there seems to be a lot of concern about combat effectiveness of the FCS as a medium weight force (even though the Brits and French are going down this road too). But as you say, that is another thread.

transport and deliver several thousand troops several thousand miles to an inland location in order to do anything

This is a dilemma, for sure. I take your point, though, that airborne forces may not be the push over some think (not least as it conforms with my initial ill-informed default assumption ).

Thanks.

[reed11b]

Reed may be partly correct but at this time the only way one can transport and deliver several thousand troops several thousand miles to an inland location in order to do anything, including airfield seizure (IF one is lucky enough to have such handy, might not always be one where you need to go...), is with Parachute troops. ...

Or air assualt or driving. Namely driving. I have a hard time inventing a scenario where not only is the region out of driving range from a friendly county and without a shoreline and lacking in capablilty eneough that an airborne division is needed. If we had big long range VTOL transports, then the idea might have more merit, maybe. Again I like our airborne units and I think that they are under-rated in capability, but they can fly in and land to the vast majority of any missions the future may hold for them. Haite could have been done from the sea, Grenada and Panama as well. Rowanda could have been air-landed, Iran is not paratrooper friendly terain nor is china. Anything I miss?
Reed