Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
We ought to get Kreker on here - he works with FCS.

My major problem on it is barely mentioned in the article - lack of powerful direct fire systems (based off the idea that future war was to be OTH), lack of armor to defeat 4GW threats, and a belief that "sensors" will detect everything. The UAV example was great, but the UAV can't see inside buildings or fly in bad weather.
It's funny, but just about every Army in the Western world that has engaged in COIN in the last 40 or so years has gone in thinking that they don't need tanks - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq to name the bigger ones - and they all end up having to drag out the big boys to take care of business, cause the light stuff just doesn't work all the time. The Army had to restore the Tank Battalion to each of the Infantry Divisions in Vietnam (they deployed without them thinking they werren't needed), and the Australians sent a Tank Squadron (company) to reinforce their Task Force there as well. The US Army had to provide the Marines (didn't have their own on scene) with heavy armour in Fallujah, et al., and both the Canadians and the Danes have each sent a Tank Squadron (company) to support their Infantry Battalions in Afghanistan.

It seems that the myth of Armour not being suited for COIN has yet to die a hard, yet deserved, death.

And as for the FCS, well, the proposed replacement for the MBT part of it, even it was affordable, might give up too much protection for "deployability", at least as I understand it.