Quote Originally Posted by Steve Blair View Post

Seriously, there were some very interesting things that came out of Gavin's article and the later Howze Report. But the Vietnam experience also showed the value of having armor to back up those dragoons in choppers. Likewise, the "tyranny of terrain" turned out being exchanging one limitation (roads) for another (LZs)...and still telegraphed movements to the enemy.

Operationally, the most effective units in Vietnam were cavalry squadrons (divisional or the components of the 11th ACR)...combined arms units every one.
Thank you!! I have to say, I was never impressed with the Gavin article. While some of the observation was incisive, he cherry picked the operational record to prove his point, and this has since been hijacked by the very agenda monkeys, I suspect Gavin despised. We also now know, some of what he stated as authoritative, is entirely false.

There is always the same old dichotomy of "better using what you have" and "using something better" - failure to understand this has lead to concepts like Manoeuvre Warfare, SBCT and ultimately FCS.