I have the impression that in modern combat infantry survivability is at a crossroads.
I admit that the difference is not fully perceptible in occupation duty and against poorly armed opponents (yet).

My thesis is this:

Heavy infantry (the one that moves to contact in AFVs or supports AFVs as primary mode)
- depends on suppressive fires for survivability
- depends on smoke (artificial concealment) for survivability
- depends on hard body armour (rifle bullet resistant) for protection (at least frontal)
My reasoning is that heavy infantry has its most critical moments in the offensive combined arms fight. It needs to accomplish its mission quickly to not waste too much momentum of the AFVs (protected mobility - that should be exploited).
That's why I assume that HI cannot emphasize covert (camouflaged/concealed/deception) approaches to tactical problems, but rather the brute and quick ones. HI can achieve surprise primarily through high tempo.

I assume a completely different profile for light infantry
(the infantry that fights only dismounted and usually without AFV support).
Light infantry is slow by design. Armour protection is only available as body armour, which is detrimental to mobility. It's therefore limited anyway.
The primary source for survivability should therefore be camouflage/concealment. The lethality of light infantry is in (besides the hopefully always available indirect fire support) its ability to ambush or at least to use surprise. The surprise would be generated not by tempo/speed, but by covert movement into position and a small dose of deception.


Well, comments on this would already be interesting.

I'm a notorious skeptic. I cannot limit myself to theory without fearing a failure of our forces (our=NATO) for this reason.
Shouldn't the personal body armour be very different for heavy and light missions?

We've seen lots of bullet-resistant hard/heavy body armour lately because our troops are almost permanently exposed to enemy observation.
Light infantry that relies on covert movement and ambushes should have very little use for such heavy body armour. It's too heavy (mobility and sustainability problem).
LI depends on its leg mobility and doesn't have much protection against indirect fires.
Shouldn't light infantry have full fragmentation protection?
At least when lying down on the belly (rear 180° of legs + butt protected)?

Frag wounds in the legs are often a "mobility kill", sometimes even deadly (blood loss). All immobilized soldiers need assistance of comrades and reduce the unit's capability and mobility. Frag wounds to arms can be a "mission kill".

There are a lot of minor issues about minor fragmentation wounds anyway. Every WIA in a hospital means that his unit is understrength. Teamwork and possibly even cohesion of the unit suffer with every even temporary casualty.
I haven't found any non-EOD anti-fragmentation trousers or jackets (not vests) yet - but I have pretty good sources. Abdomen and shoulder protection seem to be the maximum extras besides inflexible armour elements and pouch inserts.




P.S.: I'm sorry that I (re)defined light and heavy. I don't know official English terms that describe the difference perfectly and I know that some might object against my definition. Think: "Panzergrenadiere" and "Jäger".