TRADOC Losing Its Edge?

[Pete]

TRADOC doesn't deserve to be given all the blame for what happens during the development of new Army systems; the TRADOC role is to serve as the "combat developer" responsible for defining system requirements and conducting user/operational testing. "Materiel development," or the actual engineering and prototyping work, is the province of Army Materiel Command, AMC, or "A Million Civilians" as it is sometimes known.

If I recall correctly the transportability by C-130 criterion for the Stryker vehicle and other systems was a requirement more or less dictated by the pressure of Donald Rumsfeld's "Transformation" initiative dating from prior to the 9/11 attacks. (It was the same pressure to be seen to be "transforming" that brought about the silly change to the black beret.) Have people already forgotten the gee-whiz futuristic buzzwords and acronyms of circa 2001--network-centric warfare, precision fires, medium-weight brigades, Objective Force, Land Warrior, Future Combat systems, et al?

[TT]

If I recall correctly the transportability by C-130 criterion for the Stryker vehicle and other systems was a requirement more or less dictated by the pressure of Donald Rumsfeld's "Transformation" initiative dating from prior to the 9/11 attacks. (It was the same pressure to be seen to be "transforming" that brought about the silly change to the black beret.) Have people already forgotten the gee-whiz futuristic buzzwords and acronyms of circa 2001--network-centric warfare, precision fires, medium-weight brigades, Objective Force, Land Warrior, Future Combat systems, et al?

For the record, and to answer some of the above questions, the concepts for the Stryker Force (aka Shinseki’s Interim Force) emerged in late 1999, in part due to the Task Force Hawk debacle during the Kosovo conflict earlier that year. But the general idea has a much longer lineage than this, to at least the mid-1980s (or thereabouts) as Redleg has noted.

What really kick started the move towards the middle was one of the lessons the US Army derived from the 1991 Gulf War, which was that the Army was, in my only somewhat facetiously way characterize, too light to fight, too fat to fly. Simply put, the only quick reaction force the Army could deploy quickly was the 82nd Airborne (there were, of course, other choices), a light infantry unit placed in front of three heavy Iraqi units. On the other hand, it took some 6 plus months to deploy the heavy units which were deemed necessary for Op Desert Storm Add to this was that by the end of 1991, early 1992, it was evident the US was going be pulling ever more of its forward deployed units back to the US (most notably from Europe). The upshot was that the increasing prospect was that the Army would deploy in future from the US, and was, to repeat, too fat to fly, too light to fight, particularly when time was, as it frequently is, a important factor.

General Sullivan, then the CoS Army, recognized this issue and started a process, which runs from the New Louisiana Maneuvers through the Army After Next to the FCS/Stryker Force (with the NLM and AAN both largely concept studies, based on wargaming). Very early decisions to start moving towards what becomes known as the FCS emerge in late 1998. The Task Force Hawk deployment just underlined the ‘too fat to fly’ problem, while I understand that the idea was floated of inserting the 82nd Airborne (or one of its light brethren units) into Kosovo but it was set aside very quickly due to concern that it would very exposed (underlining the too light to fight problem). Kosovo was an embarassment for the Army, and Shinseki moved to accelerate the development of the FCS to address the problems. (in part of service interest - if you cannot get to the fight, funding becomes a potentially problematic issue).

The Stryker force was, as termed under Shinseki’s plan, to be only an interim force to fill the gap until the FCS force came on line in the 2012-15 period. The essential idea was the FCS would be light enough to fly (hence the fit into and be carried by the C-130) and with the application of information and other new tech (some of those buzzwords mentioned by Pete) would be hefty enough to fight.

In sum, the aim of the Stryker Force (and FCS) was to the provide the Army with a sufficient degree of expeditionary capability, that is, with a rapidly deployable capability able to fight against even heavy opponents, to suit what was seen likely to be (and largely has become) an expeditionary era in which the Army would deploy from the homeland, not forward bases.

That is the general idea behind Stryker/FCS, without any reference to the problems encountered, etc and so on. Wilf is right that in one sense the Stryker force does not make sense, if it is seen as an end force aim of the Army. But the Stryker force was designed to provide the Army with an interim expeditionary capability, albeit one without the full combat capability the Army hoped to achieve with the FCS.

Worth noting is the C-130 was chosen as the standard, as being able to move the force via the C-130 would provide tactical lift to move the lighter force around the operational battlefield. This idea originally emerged from the Army After Next programme, which worked with the concept of a 15 ton vehicle and some form of heavy helo lift capability able to pick and move the vehicle - the helo lift was seen as not possible to achieve, with the proposed vehicle was deemed a bit too light.

And enough of clarifying from me.......

Cheers

[Pete]

TT, I don't disagree with what you've said--the impetus for the medium-weight brigade was mainly strategic transportability. "Power Projection" was one of the Army buzzwords of the mid-1990s, an effort to shorten the several-month hiatus it took from the onset of Desert Shield to the beginning of Desert Storm caused by the time needed to transport heavy tank and mech infantry assets from Germany and the U.S. into the theater of operations. The forward positioning of equipment in Kuwait, Qatar and afloat could only partly address the problem. The several months required to transport equipment was one of the factors that delayed the onset of the current war in Iraq from the time of the decision to go to war in the autumn of 2002 until the invasion in March 2003.

[Pete]

Recently in his "Best Defense" blog Tom Ricks has returned to the subject of COIN. This time the thrust of his posts hasn't been aimed at TRADOC, but with whether the institutional Army fully supports COIN as an operational technique in its schools and field training centers. In a post on April 22 entitled "Is the Army too focused on COIN," he quotes a battalion executive officer as saying " ... call us knuckle-draggers or whatever, we weren't trained to do COIN." The post drew a comment from "Hunter," a National Guard battalion commander, who said his brigade received almost no COIN training before it went to Iraq. That day's blog entry can be read by clicking here.

Hunter's comment was featured in Ricks' installment titled "The lack of COIN in the institutional Army" the following day:

Our BDE was designated as a SECFOR BDE so we didn't rate a trip to a CTC. Indeed when I asked the two star why we weren't going to a CTC I was told, "You're just a LTC, you need to see the big picture." To which I say, #### you very much sir.

Also we got virtually no COIN training at the MOBSITE ... only the training I forced on the unit. Indeed I am entirely self-educated on COIN since 2001 when I realized that I was gonna need it eventually. Actually, I had the help of Tom and a lot of really smart guys on an another internet forum I frequent.

My task force was extremely successful in no small part because they treated the local populace with respect and a COIN mentality -- and I'll take what small credit for that which I deserve. Care to see one (of 4) of my key tasks in my commander's intent, oh, here it is:

"Improve the Iraqi people's outlook of US and Coalition forces in order to gain their support and keep them from supporting anti coalition forces: "First do no harm."

Col. Gian Gentile was one of the persons who responded to the posting, asking, "What are you trying to prove with this constant blog-posting drum-beating that the Army doesn't get COIN?" Starbuck of the "Wings Over Iraq" blog also responded by saying that at his Aviation Career Course in 2007 students were taught mechanized warfare against enemies equipped with Warsaw Pact vehicles. He said he thought the training base was simply recycling its old PowerPoint slides. The entire blog entry can be read by clicking here.

Finally, this past Thursday, April 29, Ricks quotes Adam Silverman, a Ph.D. who served as a social-cultural advisor to the First Armored Division in Iraq in 2007-08 as saying that the best COIN officers he met were self-educated on the subject. He speculated that the institutional Army might regard COIN as a passing thing, "the flavor of the month" to use his words. That blog entry is available here.

[GI Zhou]

Alternatively, many in the the British Army after the First World War, were more than happy to go back to 'real soldiering' - colonial policing the North West Frontier and other parts of the Empire. Far more exotic, and cheaper to live in, than in Aldershot or some other cold dank place in Britain.

[William F. Owen]

Alternatively, many in the the British Army after the First World War, were more than happy to go back to 'real soldiering' - colonial policing the North West Frontier and other parts of the Empire. Far more exotic, and cheaper to live in, than in Aldershot or some other cold dank place in Britain.

If you can ever find who actually ever said "get back to real soldiering" I'd love to know. I simply do not believe it was ever said, and if so it is taken out of context.
WW1 was an anomaly. We have never seen anything like it before or since, and warfare has never developed as fast as it did in those 4 years. It is unique. The British Army of 1918 was unsustainable for any other conflict in the form it existed.

[GI Zhou]

WW2 only followed 19 years later. The Germans went from the Me-109D to rpo the Me-262, the US from a handful of B-17Ds in 1939 to B-29s and nukes in 1945.

What I want to know is where 'it is better to wound than to kill' was originally written down in doctrine.