Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
While spiritually and emotionally I am in total agreement, there is a very good counter argument that suggests that manoeuvring/fighting/sustaining vehicles and doing the same on foot are two very different forms.
Out of interest - source?

I don't think you could really prove that one way is better than the other. The test would be how well each way could be done given the same training time and money - and yes, sadly time and money count in the real world.
Probably true.

Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Thus I'm agnostic on where the carriers are but I'm inclined to lean toward owning one's own solely on the basis that everyone doesn't take care of their equipment at the same level AND there is a distinct advantage to knowing the peculiarities of the machinery you use -- and ALL machinery has individual quirks. Bad as a buncha females...
YES! Our Army practices whole fleet management due to reduced availability of certain vehicles combined with increased number of users combined with stupid procurement policies (I'll take one of these, one of those....). Anyways, getting crap from the previous "renter" seems to be an accepted truth. My LAV Sgt had fun trying to sort out maintenance documentation for our LAVs in theater that hadn't been updated since 2007....

Then there are Helicopters -- in most cases always owned by someone else. I have seen a few combat assaults that were coordination glitch free and I've seen slightly fewer that were nightmares. Mostly they went fairly well with everyone trying to make it work. The level of difficulty was most often dependent on the personalities involved. The key difference in the Choppers is that there's no tactical employment in the action as there is with carriers so they are purely transportation whereas the carriers will have to be integrated in the tactical plan. I know most people realize that and I mention it only to highlight the necessity of that integration which makes a vehicular mounted force a different thing, tactically and psychologically for those involved, to a helicopter transported or walking force.
Agreed.

That said, there is IMO a distinct difference in mindset between mounted and dismounted Infantry units. Neither is wrong but they are different and that difference affects methods of employment and capabilities (mentally as well as the obvious support and sustainment issues). Experience is great but the law of averages says that an Infantryman will acquire the bulk of his experience in one form or the other and my observation has been that most develop a preference for one form and do not want to deal with the other. This can affect their performance.

All that leads me to suggest that the idea of multi skilled Infantry is nice but I've seen enough problems in implementation that I believe that specialties and specialization exist and should be accepted. The issue is not training, that's not difficult to manage. It is experience related bias and preferences on the part of the Troops -- and many of their leaders...
My experience, and I may be a prisoner of my own experience, is that with a good, professional Army this "Light/Mech" dichotomy is negligable. I've often asked for someone to explain the "Light Infantry Missions", "Light Infantry Skillsets" and "Light Infantry Doctrine" to me, because after 9 years in the Army, I still can't really identify them. While deployed (as a mech platoon commander), my platoon conducted over 130 patrols, with the lions share being without any vehicle support. My battalion conducted, at various levels, numerous airmobile operations both training and live. We operated in built up agricultural areas, complex urbanized terrain, and extremely "hilly" areas (although I wouldn't say it was quite mountain ops - but a few of our NCOs were qualified in this aspect), which included laying up for extended periods in traditional patrol bases. We also conducted armoured breaches when we had to. We're running out of "Light Infantry Missions" here. If parachute operations is the only aspect left, I believe all serious studies point out that most advantages of airborne operations have been supplanted by the helicopter in the last 40 years. The object is - as someone pointed out here - to make yourself asymmetric to the enemy, not enshrine certain equipment or tactics - and only good leadership at all levels is going to do that. Remember, all these COIN guys in the US Army are largely Armoured/Cavalry officers and the British Army's one success in Basrah was by a tank commander with a creative flair.