All matters MRAP JLTV (merged thread)

[Ken White]

#1. Pretty sure the answer is no in many cases. Most likely, it gets "held" at Brigade level or higher.

Commanders are people and the Personnel system can put an aggressive risk taker at Bde and give him Bn Cdrs who are moderately or highly risk averse -- that and all the permutations in between. He can direct them to be aggressive but short of an OER Driven Relief for Cause or preferring charges (both frowned upon in this modern Yankee Army...) he cannot make them do it his way. There are many ways to ignore or divert the wishes of one's Boss.

I've seen more than one aggressive Bde Cdr sabotaged by one or more Bn Cdrs. Co Cdrs don't have as much latitude as a LTC must be given but they, too, play that game. Co Cdrs know all theiur Troops and are generally protective of them, they can oput a brake on a Bn Cdrs ideas. Consider also that Bn Cdrs know at least some of their Troops, a good one will know many of his 800 or so bods -- and may be possibly protective of them. Bde Cdrs rarely know many or even any of their 3K or so souls and they know they've got a shot at a star so they tend to be more aggressive.

Doctrinally, Cdrs at all levels have a responsibility for mission accomplishment and for force protection -- how those two factors are balanced is very much an individual decision and all the METT-TC factors can play into that as well.

It's all about mission, people and a pot-luck personnel system. Every unit, ever rotation, every war is different. There are never any singular answers...

As for Yemen, we might have been that abysmally stupid but I'd sure hope not. Iraq, even if poorly done, made a little sense; Yemen would not make an iota. Hunting would be bombers is a LE job, not a military effort...

[Uboat509]

MRAPs are the end result of a nasty, self-inflicted, vicious circle. In the early days in Iraq, our HMMWVs were underarmored to deal with the IED threat that was faced on the roads. The solution that was applied was to add more armor, and then add some more and then some more and so on. By the time I got there in '07 whatever generation of armor upgrade we were on was obscenely heavy and hard on the vehicle. It was fairly effective against most of the threats we faced on the roads, which was just as well because all the added weight meant that the vehicles were all but incapable of significant off-road travel. Still, there were threats that we could not meet with the armor we had so we added more. Eventually we hit the law of diminishing returns and kept going. When I left Iraq there were plans for a new generation of armor upgrade that was so heavy that turning at faster than thirty miles an hour caused the tires to blow out and I cannot remember what the top speed of the vehicle was but it was ridiculously slow. Interestingly, the idea of bypassing the roads, particularly those roads most prone to being IED'd does not seem to have occurred to a lot of commanders. When we would suggest it to nearby Big Army units they tended to look at us as if we had suggested levitating over the affected areas. IEDs are only effective if you can predict where your enemy will travel through and emplace them there. We made that easier by slavishly sticking to the roads and then we made it so our vehicles couldn't handle off road travel even if we wanted to.

So now we were road bound with vehicles that can survive most of the threats we faced on the roads, however, none of that mattered because no matter how much armor we added to the sides top, we could not do anything about the underbody IED which was, by far, the deadliest kind. So along came the MRAP. It is GREAT against underbody IEDs because that is what it is designed for. Other than that, it is, at best, a mediocre vehicle and at worst, a liability. Let's examine the pros and cons of this vehicle,

Pro

-Protection from underbody IEDs. Note that I say underbody IEDs. As far as I know it is not much more protected from other types of IEDs than vehicles like the Stryker.

Cons

-Size. These things are huge. They are as tall as a five ton and wider than a HMMWV. That makes them HUGE targets and also makes it difficult to maneuver in Urban environments especially in the sort of places we are fighting which tend to have fairly narrow roads.

-Weight. The Cougar is around 16 tons and the RG-33 is between 22 and 37 depending on the version. An M2 Bradley is only 27 tons. That kind of weight, along with its size can only complicate transporting it into theater.

-Mobility. These were made to counter the threats we face on the roads which is just as well because it isn't very good off of them. It is too heavy and too top heavy to be good at off road travel.

I imagine that they are also significantly more expensive than either the HMMWV or the Stryker but I don't have a good source on that so I will not include it on the list.

All in all, the MRAP does one thing well and it does that one thing very well but is it worth the cost? This thing is all but useless in a conventional fight against a peer or near peer competitor except as a troop transport behind the FLOT. It is taller than the Abrams and, depending on the version, heavier than the Bradley and has much worse cross country mobility as compared to either. In Iraq or Afghanistan where the primary threat is IEDs, you can get away with that but against a better trained enemy with access to significant numbers of anti-armor weapons, this thing is just a huge target. What future does the MRAP have? Hopefully, it will be reduction to small numbers for use in specific niche missions. Unfortunately it will probably hang around and when the next war comes along we will have to use them because there will be far too many of them not to use them. Eventually someone will end up standing in front of Congress to explain why we sent our soldiers into combat in these giant targets with poor off-road mobility but excellent protection from underbody IEDs when there is far less of an underbody threat than there is an ATGM threat.

[Infanteer]

Commanders are people and the Personnel system can put an aggressive risk taker at Bde and give him Bn Cdrs who are moderately or highly risk averse -- that and all the permutations in between. He can direct them to be aggressive but short of an OER Driven Relief for Cause or preferring charges (both frowned upon in this modern Yankee Army...) he cannot make them do it his way. There are many ways to ignore or divert the wishes of one's Boss.

That didn't stop General Mattis!

[TAH]

Commanders are people and the Personnel system can put an aggressive risk taker at Bde and give him Bn Cdrs who are moderately or highly risk averse -- that and all the permutations in between. He can direct them to be aggressive but short of an OER Driven Relief for Cause or preferring charges (both frowned upon in this modern Yankee Army...) he cannot make them do it his way. There are many ways to ignore or divert the wishes of one's Boss.

I've seen more than one aggressive Bde Cdr sabotaged by one or more Bn Cdrs. Co Cdrs don't have as much latitude as a LTC must be given but they, too, play that game. Co Cdrs know all theiur Troops and are generally protective of them, they can oput a brake on a Bn Cdrs ideas. Consider also that Bn Cdrs know at least some of their Troops, a good one will know many of his 800 or so bods -- and may be possibly protective of them. Bde Cdrs rarely know many or even any of their 3K or so souls and they know they've got a shot at a star so they tend to be more aggressive.

Doctrinally, Cdrs at all levels have a responsibility for mission accomplishment and for force protection -- how those two factors are balanced is very much an individual decision and all the METT-TC factors can play into that as well.

It's all about mission, people and a pot-luck personnel system. Every unit, ever rotation, every war is different. There are never any singular answers...

As for Yemen, we might have been that abysmally stupid but I'd sure hope not. Iraq, even if poorly done, made a little sense; Yemen would not make an iota. Hunting would be bombers is a LE job, not a military effort...

At all levels lots boils down to what the specific officer can realistically assume is their overall potential. At the lower levels (Company grade) most have to "draw inside the lines" in order to not stick out too far in a negative way. At Field Grade, each officer should be doing an intraspective look and ask themselves, how far can I still go?

The attitude I had as a company commander in 1988-1989 was significantly different then the one I had as a Bn (2001-2004) and Group (2004-2005) CDR.

All Commanders are SUPPOSED to COMMAND. Not been my experince.

The ability to assess and approve risk is driven alot by the Army's over-emphasis on safety. Was surprised/shocked as a Bn CDR (O5) I could not approve any operations with a "residual risk" of Moderate. Those had to go to to the first O6, the Bde CDR. Tried to get him to delagate to his Bn CRs. No Go.

[TAH]

As for Yemen, we might have been that abysmally stupid but I'd sure hope not. Iraq, even if poorly done, made a little sense; Yemen would not make an iota. Hunting would be bombers is a LE job, not a military effort...

Yemen would be.would have been a much tougher fight. About the same size in general terms of geography and population. Lots more mountains, a Huge coastline and an interior border with Saudia thats poorly defined and and patrolled.

Aso had/has its own home-grown set of internal security problems on top of AQ.