Air Force Motorized Jaeger Regiment?

[COMMAR]

I had no idea there were already snipers on the destroyers. If so, you're correct the USMC snipers could have completed this mission, considering the final action that was needed to end the situation. Monday morning quarterbacking on my part. The SEALs were brought in for HR, which is one of their jobs. Nobody knew at the time, I'm sure, that it would boil down to 30 yard single shots to end the standoff. I concur with your statement. Apples and oranges.

Not on the Destroyers but on the Boxer, an Amphib that showed up about 12hrs after the Halyburton.

They are part of the MEU's STA Plt. But 9 Snipers, 8 Scout-Snipers and their SS Qual'd Plt Sgt, a Gunny, have been assigned to support the Anti-Piracy Ops throughout the AO & were on scene at the time.

Taking the shots, sure they could've easily taken the shots.

But to manage & manipulate the Hostiles like that to make the shots so easy, no.

There are only 2 other units in the US who could've handled the entire Op w/that much skill and they are both dedicated to HR.

[Distiller]

Of course the mission would be high risk. Just find something that's worth it. And the regular size of an insertion would probably be limited to a battalion, with multiple insertions in multiple locations a possibility.

I would see it primarily as "deep dash" capability, perfect for non-linear operations. Cavalry style. It would bring its own unique capabilities, as do the paras, the air assault units, &c.

Using them for dash-grab-hold operations might also be possible but the basic idea behind picking them up again is to be out before the enemy can concentrate anything meaningful against you.
Just him knowing that the capability exists might influence his planning and actions.

Re the comment on Gavin. Times may have changed. UAVs make persistent regional ISR possible, stand-off ISR gives the bigger picture over longer periods. Landings are not made into the darkest fog of war any more, decreasing the risk. This idea is not for division sized formations, though. This is "small wars" council.

(PS: I apologize for writing BMP instead of BMD.)

[Ken White]

There are only 2 other units in the US who could've handled the entire Op w/that much skill and they are both dedicated to HR.

"That much skill," perhaps. Adequate skill, OTOH, is very different thing.

This tendency to make war too complex unless one is especially trained as opposed to well trained is not wise.

There's a point where the situational and discrete location need for specific combat capability outstrips the ability of even the US to provide special purpose units or people in adequate quantities to fulfill the potential requirements.

Creating SMUs as a patch to cover poor individual and unit training is potentially dangerous.

[COMMAR]

"That much skill," perhaps. Adequate skill, OTOH, is very different thing.

This tendency to make war too complex unless one is especially trained as opposed to well trained is not wise.

There's a point where the situational and discrete location need for specific combat capability outstrips the ability of even the US to provide special purpose units or people in adequate quantities to fulfill the potential requirements.

Creating SMUs as a patch to cover poor individual and unit training is potentially dangerous.

Right I totally I agree, which is why the Corps never bought into so narrowly focused Units. I was acknowledging the Professionalism in how it was handled.

But, switching back, that is what made the Force Recon DAPs so effective. In taking the IHR Mission, they maintained the Shooting & Assault Techniques & Standards of the SMU's. But they did this w/out being so narrowly focused that they could not still support the mission of the MAGTF Cmdr, like a Dedicated HR Unit.

They took the necessary elements to remain Proficient in IHR and used those standards to elevate their other missions. This was something noted in the JSOU's report.

It noted that the Reconnaissance Element of the DET had a Direct Action & Reconnaissance capability on par with any Tier I SMU. But it could seemlessly blend w/any Conventional Unit that it supported.

Also K.I.M. you probably know this but others may not, they maintained these high standards while rotating most Marines in & out of Force Recon to the Recon & Infantry BNs every 4-5yrs.

[Distiller]

The Russians take good care of their air/mech formations and add capabilities, and as they have a clear mind in these things I again say the U.S. should look into such a capability.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1EJjxD0XTc
5:30 till 5:50.

[kaur]

Just 1 comment about BMP-2. Author of this article considers that BMP concept is failure. On the upper photo there is Mad Max armored BMP in Afganistan.



Article is from this journal http://www.zeughaus.ru/product/dajdzhest-bronja-2009/

[William F. Owen]

Just 1 comment about BMP-2. Author of this article considers that BMP concept is failure.

Why? Any chance of some bullet point explanations. Personally, I agree with him, and I blame the Germans for getting sucked in with the Marder and the US jumping on the band Wagon with the IFV and the UK - as always - followed suit!!

Light tank carrying troops. Not a good light tank. Not a good troop carrier. This is a really good example of where what sounds good at the Concept stage begins to fall apart in reality.

[kaur]

Author says that skin is just too thin and effective upgradeing it is not possible due to BMP's technical limitations. In Afganistan the skin was penetrated even with Lee-Enfield rifles. After turret modification Lee-Enfield couldn't penetrate it, but BMP lost ability to swim. Units prefer for transportation MT'LB's. Lester Grau covers the problems of BMP in his article - http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/doc...k%20action.pdf

PS IED and RPG threat was not covered in detail. It was just mentioned that troops prefer to ride on top of the vechicle (beside the photo from Grozny). Here is video of Chechen ambush against Russian column - http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3ac_1181603079

[kaur]

I spoil this thread last time and add picture of Russian BMPT. Article says that this model is already in serial production. At present time the problem is organisational - should 1 platoon of BMPT's added to tank comapny or 1 company of BMPT's to tank battalion. Those solutions (numbers of additional armoured equipment) will destroy the equipment tables of those organisations. Nobody wants to change those. The other idea is to change in the future brigades (the army reform!) AT batteries to BMPT companies.

[Cavguy]

Why? Any chance of some bullet point explanations. Personally, I agree with him, and I blame the Germans for getting sucked in with the Marder and the US jumping on the band Wagon with the IFV and the UK - as always - followed suit!!

Light tank carrying troops. Not a good light tank. Not a good troop carrier. This is a really good example of where what sounds good at the Concept stage begins to fall apart in reality.

FYI. I had excellent results employing the M2 Bradley in Urban COIN ops. Very flexible, right mix of firepower/armor. Was my preferred vehicle when paired with tanks and/or HMMWV's to round out the options.

[William F. Owen]

FYI. I had excellent results employing the M2 Bradley in Urban COIN ops. Very flexible, right mix of firepower/armor. Was my preferred vehicle when paired with tanks and/or HMMWV's to round out the options.

Sure. UK all swear by the Warrior ICV, but you had good results compared to what? Given what we actually now know about conflict in 21st century, would we still design ICV's today?

The same issue goes for right mix of Firepower/Armour.
M2 Bradleys and Warriors would have melted like butter if they had been subject to the hits that IDF Merkava, Puma and Achzarit were subject too - which is why the IDF now considers Namer to be the minimum level of protection.

[Clinkerbuilt]

I want to make two points: the first on the HR sub-thread, the second on the core article that started it all.

First, simply sniping pirates from a destroyer deck, while difficult, is a perfectly plausible deployment strategy for Marine snipers/scout-snipers. That, however, is not HR. It's not a question of "adequate" training, but one of "training to a level of ability necessary to accomplish the mission".

Just like sending Regular Infantry to try and conduct HR is not a good idea if you want live hostages later, sending "regular" snipers in to attempt an HR mission is a very bad idea: their job is to drill targets. Period. That's eminently acceptable for the conventional, as well as most COIN, environments but is a recipe for a PR disaster of "Heroic Merchant Captain Killed In Botched Rescue Attempt - Pundits Compare To Iran Rescue Mission" proportions.

The Marine Corps does not train for the HR mission, as it regards it as an unneeded and unwanted diversion of scarce resources and money - it's more important to train for the more-likely missions, and leave highly specialized missions to highly-specialized troops.

Can "regular" snipers (from any/all services) execute an HR mission? Probably...Maybe...Not words I would want to hear in an NSC/NCA-level meeting, with the Press Corps camping in the Press Room, and with 15 minutes to go to camera...

*~*~*~*
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On to the MotJagRegt concept:

In OIF, the 82nd ABN could have been inserted deep, to cut the roads to Syria. They might have even been able to withstand attacks from all directions long enough to be relived via the ground attack, with minimal air support in the meanwhile: the IRGC and "Saddam Fedayeen" were certainly not the Waffen SS, whatever the History Channel would like us to think.

The extraordinarily-good reasons for not doing that were touched on previously, namely that large-scale, airborne/airmobile deep insertion died at Arnhem -- and for those not paying attention the first time around, the French were kind enough to provide a refresher at Dien Bien Phu.

There was a lot of innovation in the 30's, but that was because there was so much new technology out there, no one knew what it was capable of. "War-game" theory was not well-developed at the time, more closely resembling "Strategos" than actual "combat simulation", so no one could substantively estimate what would happen when you threw "X"-unit into "Y"-mission against "Z"-force[s].

A whole slew of good people on all sides got very, very dead to figure out what those limits were.

Basically, the concept just doesn't work: either the force is heavy enough to survive on its own - meaning that it will be extremely hard to transport it to the target by air - or it will be too light to accomplish anything of substance on the ground, should it run into real opposition.

After WW2, the Army took a good, long look at the Airborne, and concluded - as someone else pointed out, via elocution by The Gavin - that deep strike by Airborne was well and truly dead -- the Army then re-focused Airborne on short-range missions, either reinforcing ground troops, acting as "first-in" attackers to meet in-coming ground troops in short order, or as "air-landed infantry", which seems to have worked fairly well, so far http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita.../airborne2.htm

On the Fallschirmjaegers: Certainly, they were some tough cookies, but all airborne forces of WW2 were a cut above conventional "mudders", at least in the early days. In the end, however, they were simply "elite infantry": you can't keep getting the drop on the other guy forever, a vital component to airborne ops, and the Germans had to learn that the hard way.

On the VDV: Take another look at those units, and the concepts behind them -- they're suicide troops. Their mission is to function as human cruise missiles, rather disturbingly like modern suicide-bombers: go deep into the enemy's underbelly, and do as much damage as possible. If they survive long enough for a ground offensive to get to them, they get 20 acres and a mule -- more than likely, they will die gloriously for the Rodina, sacrificing themselves to bog the enemy down.

Goes right back to wargaming: the VDV only survives if the air umbrella and air-bridge is maintained against an aggressive and highly PO'd enemy. Just look at how fragile the regular Russian ground-pounders in Afghanistan became after their CAS retreated before the Stinger - the muj didn't even have a single Cessna 172, but once they got ANY effective weapon to counter Russian Air - and the Russians couldn't counter that threat - the Russian war effort evaporated....the VDV are considerably lighter than the Regular Army, and don't have the communications architecture that the US SOCOM has behind it.

[kaur]

1 photo set from last Pskov division exercise.

http://pilot.strizhi.info/photos/v/Pskov_2010/

PS can you find foreign equipment

[William F. Owen]

PS can you find foreign equipment

The Iveco 4 x 4? - and there was another vehicle I didn't recognise, plus a small UAV. How am I doing???

[kaur]

Wilf, you are right! There was Italian Iveco.

UAV is Russian made, but I do understand that Russians have failed seriously in UAV business and intend to start production in joint stock company with Israelis.

Text under the picture says, that Pskov unit has only one buggy.

Text under the picture with ATV's says that those are trophys. If they are trophys, this means that those are Georgian ATV's that Pskov unit brought back from 2008. year war. Maybe text means that those ATV's are hijacked by scouts from OPFOR according to exercise scenario

[kaur]

I said:

Text under the picture with ATV's says that those are trophys. If they are trophys, this means that those are Georgian ATV's that Pskov unit brought back from 2008. year war. Maybe text means that those ATV's are hijacked by scouts from OPFOR according to exercise scenario

According to exercise scenario VDV recce unit ambushed OPFOR unit and continued their mission with hijacked equipment.

[kaur]

Video from Pskov exercise.

http://strizhi.org/pilot-videos/smot...BMD2_part1.wmv

[kaur]

Part II

http://strizhi.org/pilot-videos/smot...BMD2_part2.wmv