Originally Posted by
stevepower
The issue at hand is how we look at Force Protection. Both in our vehicles and our dismounted combat equipment, there is a tendency to want to achieve Force Protection passively, through protective equipment. The mindset is that protecting a Soldier from threats involves wrapping him with protective layers. By doing this, his equipment protects him even from threats that he is surprised by or cannot react quickly enough to avoid. Unfortunately, this aspect of Force Protection is the one that adds the most weight and bulkiness to our Soldiers and our vehicles. This increased weight has several downsides associated with it that the Army has not prioritized in the equation adequately. Long-term injuries are one of those downsides, but I feel that the very Force Protection the equipment exists to provide degrades it.
To solve the issue of weight, the Army as an organization should start concentrating more on the other aspects of Force Protection: Mobility, Lethality, Situational Awareness, and Maneuver. Each of these contributes as much to Force Protection as Kevlar and Ceramics do. If we prioritize these four things as much as we do ballistic protection, and therefore outfit our Soldiers with lighter gear, we will see a positive impact on casualties and mission accomplishment.
Mobility, Lethality, Maneuver, and Situational Awareness are just as important to Force Protection and Mission Accomplishment as protective gear is. Mobility enables forces to vary their routes, surprise the enemy, and once in contact move around the enemy’s engagement area. Maneuver adds accurate fires to that mobility to allow the Soldier to close with the enemy and accomplish his mission. Lethality allows the Soldier to kill the enemy before the enemy can place effects on friendly forces. Situational Awareness is crucial to all three. Too much of the heavy and bulky gear commonly associated with Force Protection are the biggest detriment to these four factors of force protection. Too little protective gear also affects a Soldiers ability to perform these tasks. The goal is the correct balance between burdensome and inadequate.
The impacts of too much weight on mobility and maneuver are obvious, but keep in mind the impacts of temperature, equipment load, and Solder fitness on lethality and situational awareness as well. Shooting accurately and thinking clearly in contact is hard enough without having to do it with the burden of dozens of extra pounds on your head and body. It is very difficult to see the enemy, or his IED, before he sees you, when you are barely able to walk and keep the sweat out of your eyes under the load you are carrying.
As the Army makes decisions about how to equip our Soldiers, we must keep in mind that Force Protection is not a decision about protective gear alone. We need to look at Force Protection holistically and understand that the more weight Soldiers carry the worse they become at the other elements of Force Protection and their job.
-- MAJ Steve Power, Student, Command and General Staff College
The views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
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