The Creation of Mechanized SOC Units

[Schuld]

The Israelis don't understand the idea of light infantry as they don't have any. They have an infantry brigade they can drop by parachute, and an infantry brigade that can do amphibious operations, but they are all just infantry. They use armoured vehicles as and when they need them. When they need to get out and infiltrate on foot, they do just that.

RE IDF infantry, certainly they've shown their flexibility (paratroopers performing amphibious landings in the first war in Lebanon, etc.), but I thought that there was criticism that the mechanized infantry role has been effectively lost in the IDF -- that during the last war in Lebanon on several occasions tanks were sent forward without infantry support?

Also, I'm under the impression that the Airborne aspect of the IDF's Airborne brigades is a genuflection to the doctrine of elan as developed by Orde Wingate and Mickey Marcus among others, and does not reflect any actual current operational offensive capability outside of attached special forces units. It would take a little time for the IDF to regenerate the TTPs and logistical infrastructure to support mass tactical operations. Current actual practice is airmobile when it's air-anything, or so I've heard, and for many paratroopers the only jumps they make are in basic airborne school?

Couple this with the odd nature of the IDF -- the "regular forces" are a quasi-draft army, and so they are capable of quickly learning much, but also quickly forgetting much. Reputedly, much of the strength of the IDF is in the reserve battalions which have soldiers that have been fighting together in the same unit for decades. Those infantry formations are so capable because they comprise men in their 30s and 40s who've been in the game so long. One of the great criticisms of the last war was that the reserves weren't mobilized soon enough and that their equipment stores were empty when they did deploy because the gov't had failed to keep the stockpiles up and what had been there had often been previously "liberated" by black marketeers.

No, I was actually talking about a whole Ranger like Mechanized Unit... ....To make up the loss in numbers, we'd want an extremely well trained and finely selected force. What do you folks think?

If your desire is for generically "elite armor" don't the armored battalions of the USMC Regimental Combat Teams fill that role? Are we talking about the elimination of the Army, the expansion of the Marine Corps, and SOCOM taking the final step to being recognized as a new Uniformed Service? Jeez, chaos in the streets, cats and dogs living together, the end times are here...

I think what the thread was suggesting, was that in the same way that SOCOM has Dedicated Helicopter and Boat units to facilitate air and sea/river support, that the same think is being suggested for protected mobility.

The Rangers were not formed simply to be a better light infantry unit. They perform a series of missions that the regular infantry is not trained or equiped to perform. I cannot think of what specialized mission a SOF armor unit would perform that a regular armor unit could not.

If we're talking about some sort of light armor unit for SOCOM, some work in the US has been done on the classical European "Mechanized Airborne" concept -- see BG Grange on Airmechanization:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/milreview...g01/grange.pdf

See also Air-Mech-Strike, 2ed, from Turner Publishing:

http://www.turnerpublishing.com/detail.aspx?ID=724

What you'd be looking at would be some sort of airborne light armor unit of a sort that exists in European armies but does not currently exist in the US Armed Forces. This would be a small unit that would be able to provide airborne and airmobile mechanized forces in support of Delta in the manner that the Rangers provide infantry support, with the emphasis on a mech footprint MUCH smaller than the Strykers:

Wiesel 1
http://www.military-today.com/apc/wiesel_1.htm

Wiesel 2
http://www.rheinmetall-detec.de/inde...ang=3&fid=3825

BV series
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/...updated-02656/

My criticism would be that there hasn't been a second Black Hawk Down, so you must demonstrate that Delta is currently operationally limited by this lack and that current TTPs using airborne firepower (Apaches, A-10s, Specter gunships) are inadequate.