Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
Today's non-line-of-sight combat troops are essentially the modern version of the traders, drivers, craftsmen, engineers and clerks known from history.
It doesn't suffice to give them basic training and a uniform to make a real difference.
You need to arm and train them properly to turn support troops into real soldiers. A six month basic training coupled with a full infantry armament (including mortars and AT weapons capable to take on average MBTs) plus alternative training periods (like staffs and artillery units training to be defensive infantry a month per year) might do the trick.

This would be beneficial in many regards, including in times of crisis when the infantry and tank inventory might be depleted, nevertheless there would still be thousands of fighters left in a brigade.
In line with your thoughts it seems to me that it would also be wise for the indirect fire support to train for direct fire support and AT fire. In WWII such skills were at a high premium. It seems also to have been that way in Korea and Vietnam, as some of the veterans on this board might confirm. The Yon Kippur war showed that SPH can still be forced to duke it out with tanks. When the first Lebanon war the greatly increased training time reserved for direct fire support paid seemingly off, aided by the unique circumstances (Siege of Beirut).

As always it depends highly on the allotted training time.


Firn