Quote Originally Posted by VMI_Marine View Post
Light infantry survivability (in the defense) stems from entrenching tools, not body armor IMO. The "rear 180° of legs + butt" are quite well protected when they are in the ground. On the offense, you have already mentioned that mobility + concealment = survivability for the light infantry.

Here was my thought process on body armor for the infantry, from another thread:
Read your earlier post. If one has to have Armor, then I agree with your approach. Since I'm not the Emperor, I guess we'll have Armor but I'm not a fan. I fully understand what it is and what it does and I do agree with it in an Iraq-like situation; I agree less with it for dismounted troops in Afghanistan. As I said above, if we end up in a jungle somewhere, there will be no armor worn (not after the first few weeks of heat casualties anyway). Individual armor impedes troop mobility, in some situations, the benefit is worth it, in others it will not be. METT-TC again...

I also agree with you on the entrenching tool but I submit two thoughts for consideration:

- The US does not defend well; we are very poor at it. We don't dig well, partly because we can't do it in training at home station due to environmental constraints (unlikely to change for the better) and partly because you have to almost beat Americans to get them to dig. Recall that every memorable British battle is a defensive one; virtually every one of ours is an attack. The upshot of all that is one thing and you can add that the days when the defense offered advantages are, I think going or gone. If you're static you can be made dead too easily. Sometimes a limited defense cannot be helped but it should be avoided by us if possible.

- Initiative and agility are tenets of our doctrine; yet we go out of our way to stifle the former and impede the latter with too much stuff and nonsense.

We really need to change that latter problem to preclude the former one.