The Creation of Mechanized SOC Units

[Ken White]

An additional con. Would get misused like the rest of us. Not sure why, not at my levels to determine why we consistently get misused, just know we do. Don't forget the "We can't employ them we may need them for this later", mentaality. It's a fine line between proper utilization, under utilization, and flat out misutilization.

True dat. 'Nother one of my pet rocks. Let's talk about Strategic Recon and who really ought to be doing it. Then there's the DA mission and who should not be doing that. And the FID mission and who ought to be leading it.

On the GPF side, the units who are really aimed at a type of mission -- and then are given one completely out of character. I'm not talking about re-roleing Tankers or Arty to patrol infantry, that's bad but understandable and supportable -- and as David points out above, other Armies have also done that. We've done it before. There are plenty of cases of severe misuse in all parts of the Armed Forces.

Anyway -- you're right, misuse is a potential. An easy trick to preclude misuse is to design the TOE, training plans, stationing and personnel requirements to preclude it. That is quite possible but you'd have to break a rice bowl or two to do it.

That would work for SOCOM and the Army...

[ODB]

True dat. 'Nother one of my pet rocks. Let's talk about Strategic Recon and who really ought to be doing it. Then there's the DA mission and who should not be doing that. And the FID mission and who ought to be leading it.

On the GPF side, the units who are really aimed at a type of mission -- and then are given one completely out of character. I'm not talking about re-roleing Tankers or Arty to patrol infantry, that's bad but understandable and supportable -- and as David points out above, other Armies have also done that. We've done it before. There are plenty of cases of severe misuse in all parts of the Armed Forces.

Anyway -- you're right, misuse is a potential. An easy trick to preclude misuse is to design the TOE, training plans, stationing and personnel requirements to preclude it. That is quite possible but you'd have to break a rice bowl or two to do it.

That would work for SOCOM and the Army...

Who will shine those jump boots right back up.......

We are our own worse enemy......

[Uboat509]

I'm still not sold on the need for a "Ranger-Mech" unit. As it is we have only a total of three battalions of Rangers. That's it. And they still have a huge budget. Imagine the budget for "Ranger-Mech" unit, not to mention the facilities and equipment they would need. Furthermore, unless you are planning to deploy them with nothing larger than say, a Stryker, they really aren't going to much more rapidly deployable than any other armor unit. The ability to strike anywhere in the world on short notice is one of the hallmarks of the Ranger battalions. A key to that is the ability to deploy everything they need in C130s. You can't put anything larger than a Stryker in a C130. From what I understand, you can barely put a Stryker in a C130. I think you might be able to 1 or 2 Brads in a C17 but don't quote me on that I know you can put them in a C5 and I have heard that you can put M1s in a C5 although I don't know that for sure. But even still with C17s and especially C5s you are severely limited in where you can land and even then I don't think that you can just roll off and into the fight. And then, on top of that, you have to deploy a sizeable logistics tail to support this unit. Add to that that the Rangers typically use air assets, whether it be airborne or air assault, something that armor cannot do.
I can certainly see the utility of creating an elite formation within existing Mech or Armor divisions to do some of the missions Cavguy listed but I do not see a need for a "SOF" armored formation.

SFC W

[Sabre]

The ability to strike anywhere in the world on short notice is one of the hallmarks of the Ranger battalions. A key to that is the ability to deploy everything they need in C130s. You can't put anything larger than a Stryker in a C130. From what I understand, you can barely put a Stryker in a C130. I think you might be able to 1 or 2 Brads in a C17 but don't quote me on that I know you can put them in a C5 and I have heard that you can put M1s in a C5 although I don't know that for sure. But even still with C17s and especially C5s you are severely limited in where you can land and even then I don't think that you can just roll off and into the fight.
SFC W

Whoa, we (the Army) have paid an shockingly HIGH price for fixating on C-130 "deployability". We've spent what, millions? billions? on trying to shoe-horn the Stryker, and then the FCS, into an airframe that first flew in 1952 (when the JEEP was the most numerous vehicle in the inventory), only to finally figure out that we really can't...

The last thing that we need to hear about is the C-130.
For strategic deployability, I think that the C-17's are much more appropriate for delivering heavy armor. Those were used to deliver the tiny armored task force to northern Iraq, to support the 173rd (One platoon of tanks, and three of infantry - one in Brads, two in M113s, plus engineers, support, etc)

The US continues to pay a high price chasing deployability, that it doesn't always even need. Well, the Army pays the price. IIRC, the USAF insisted that it needed more C-17s, until someone suggested that they could cut back on F-22 procurement to pay for 'em... (Perhaps my memory is rusty, these days, admittedly.)

[Uboat509]

The last thing that we need to hear about is the C-130. For strategic deployability, I think that the C-17's are much more appropriate for delivering heavy armor.

Except that a C17 cannot land many of the places that a C130 can. The C130 may be old but until we find a platform that can land in all the places that it can land to replace it, it is the best we have for SOF missions.

SFC W

[Ken White]

a C-130 can't do. The C-17 may not be the perfect replacement but it can haul vehicles better and it can land enough places. Not to mention the C-130 is also too big for some things since AFSOC is buying PZL M-28s, Pilatus PC-12s and C-27Js...

Just to clarify a point, I don't think Cav Guy or I were talking about a "Ranger-Mech" unit or "SOF Mech" unit. I know I was not. I am not a Ranger fan.

We were talking about an Armored Cavalry unit that was PROPERLY trained instead of marginally trained. The only Ranger involvement was to allocate more money for training, better support, the ability to fire anyone who looked crosseyed for not breathing properly and better access to intel among other things. IOW, give the rest of the Army the bennies the Ranger Regiment has. Yes, I'm aware of the costs involved -- and aware they're microscopic in terms of the net DoD budget. It's affordable -- it's just not wanted and rice bowls play a bigger part in that than does affordability. Sadly.

There's an old civilian saying that's appropriate: "You get what you pay for."

All that said, it's not going to happen because the upper echelons of the Army and SOCOM cannot and / or will not tolerate sweeping changes to the status quo and their uneasy relationship.

[Uboat509]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I know that it is technically affordable but SOCOM has no use for a Mech unit and Big Army tends to be allergic to the whole concept of elite formations. If someone is elite that means that everyone else is less than that and they don't like that. I don't see them pouring the lion's share of budget into such a unit.

Getting back to the subject of the C17. I'm not so sure that it can land enough places to make it a viable replacement for the C130. I think both are great at their respective roles but I don't see the need for the C130 going away for a while.

SFC W