Posted on 06/07/2017 5:06:36 PM PDT by pboyington
Thanks!
We have often been told that the military trains and procures to fight yesteryears war. Do armored brigades fall into that category? I ask as one who never served.
The longest war in the country’s history has been fought against people who live in caves. It’ still going on. We haven’t lost. Yet.
I think it would be eye-opening for us to fight a country with real capability. I’m not sure North Korea fits that category.
Not buying it.
I see much better than described.
You asked: “We have often been told that the military trains and procures to fight yesteryears war. Do armored brigades fall into that category?”
As stated in the article, we have been fighting a counter-insurgency war, similar in some ways to Vietnam. Yet, the Army had to be ready to fight a war of armored and mechanized divisions against the Soviets during the entirety of the Cold War. The US Army in Europe maintained that capability. One of the worst affects of the last 12 years in Iraq and Afghanistan was taking combat units designed for one mission and giving them a totally different one, to wit: Turning field artillery battalions into light infantry or convoy escort units. The battalions left their artillery pieces back in the states and had no pieces, for many of the arty units to draw in country. I got that from several field artillery field grade officers I’ve talked to over the last few years.
Yes, the Army needs to be rebuilt to fight a conventional war, one that we could face again in Europe, but along the East European countries now allied with us and NATO opposite of Russia.
Fortunately the South Koreans have maintained their draft so all able bodied men serve in uniform. They also have maintained spending on state of the art weaponry and training, although their sodomy acceptance training and consideration of others training is nowhere near the US standard. There ground forces are larger than ours are and they’ll be able to get by with lots of help in the air and sea from us.
You’re welcome.
I see much better than described.
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I don’t. I see a potential repetition of our washout in Tunisia after operation Torch landings which were a general disaster. Our troops were poorly led, poorly supplies, poorly trained and got kicked around due to Eisenhower’s weakness. We are in te same boat today and it started with Clinton.
As do I.
All is not yet lost...but those left-leaning PC "perfumed princes" do exist and they will be the death of many good men until they are replaced, driven out or killed on the battle field.
I am a student of our armed forces...and in all the history that I have studied, rarely have we been burdened by such a bunch of pansy assed pussies that call themselves warriors.
There were quite a few in the War Between the States, on both sides, but they didn't last long and history bears that out.
Most of our current problems can be lain directly at obama's feet.
He was (and is, for that matter) a low-life, ignorant, stinking son of a bitch with no idea as to how to be the CinC.
Trump is not of a military mind, but he is smart enough to get those that are into the right positions.
I think we'll be okay.
I am legally not permitted to speak of my knowledge but it is a damn sight better than the media.
I haven’t heard word 1 from Sec. Mattis indicating that he intends to fight the PC madness. I’m perfectly willing to believe that he might have other priorities he regards as more important at present. But the longer he goes without making a move to counter Obama’s BS the less inclined I am to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Retired in 05. Worked for the Army since. Three years as a civilian in AF and Iraq. We have problems. Senior NCOs and mid-grade Officers who have not fired a cannon since AIT/Basic Course. Artillery BNs walking patrols in AF or Iraq and they have no experience how to support maneuver. Very little Combined Arms Maneuver experience. Starting up at NTC recently. Brigade staffs failing at NTC. IPB and synch matrixs in MCO are a lost art. BN Commanders who never maneuvered a Company in training or combat. There were several large scale operations in AF and Iraq, but not many. Squads and Platoons know how to do cordon and search. Not much gunnery experience. Majors and LTCs who have never conducted a CALFEX. All the social engineering contributes. We do not have the Graf,Hohenfels, NTC experience.
Ping 4 tomorrow.
Thanks. Sounds exactly like everything I’ve heard from people. Heck, I saw E-4 19 Deltas running CALFEX ranges at Graf if the OIC and NCOIC had to leave the tower. THAT was how good we used to be.
The military has been preparing to fight yesterday’s boy scouts.
All very complicated and yet not. I was a Medical Corps doctor in the early 90s on Active Duty. “No more Task Force Smith’s” was a rallying cry. Those troops, sent into late Fall Korea with summer equipment and little training were doomed but they were all that was available.
The lesson we were supposed to learn was to anticipate threats and counter them. I suppose. The question, I suppose is, “Have we done so?”
I have seen a number of things in my years. In the early 90s I did Retirement Physicals on a good number of Colonels that DID lead the Army that stood across the Fulda Gap. I distinctly remember one fellow who wasn’t a big guy, but he was a Warrior. He had spent 30 years of his life learning how to fight tanks and lead men who did. He was in tears because “the Army didn’t need him anymore.” Leading large numbers of men to teach them how to perform a “deadly ballet” with VERY dangerous heavy equipment is not a skill one acquires and perfects quickly.
When I went to the Advanced Course I learned just how unbelievably complex providing logistics for maneuver is. If you have never had to learn it you simply cannot understand. Every piece of everything and it’s people have to be supported across multiple needs. Possibly the most complex human endeavor there is.
So, a short answer is, “No, we haven’t learned from Task Force Smith.” We have let perishable skills atrophy and precious knowledge wither. On the other hand, the entire point was to anticipate threats. If we have let these skills atrophy, which national power has not? Are they a potential threat? I have not been involved with the military for a long time so I have no idea what the answers to those questions are. I would say, that the people who DO know just where in this world there might be a large number of men and machines that could be an armored threat we had better be able to deal with them no matter how friendly they might be today.
I was still on active duty in the early 90s and remember the “No more Task Force Smith’s” effort. And the perishability of skills was most evident to me, after becoming an Army historian and reading the oral history interviews with the 1st Armored Division soldiers who deployed to Bosnia with Task Force Eagle. The logistical knowledge and skills of rail heading and movement of battalion and brigades disappeared from US Army Europe in the few years between the withdrawal of Army units as the ‘Cold War’ benefit from Europe in 1992-93 and the deployment of Task Force Eagle in 1995.
I read multiple interviews about no one knowing how to rail load tanks, artillery, APCs, and other vehicles. And more importantly, the skills at planning and coordinating a rail move were gone. Yes, the old USAREUR had not had to cross international borders previously, but just the knowledge of how to plan and execute rail moves had been lost in less than FIVE years. And once in Bosnia, artillery and tank units were given missions of guarding local areas that were planned based upon the strength of an infantry unit. One had 4-man tank and 6-man artillery crews being given the missions of a 11-man infantry squad.
So, I gather what you are saying is that while the skills have been lost the organizational structure of the units does not accurately reflect their new missions?
As far as the skills being lost, I reckon we still have the “books”. The real question is, “Is anyone ELSE trying to resurrect these skills today?”
Heavy equipment is dangerous to operate or be around. Heavy equipment that is SUPPOSED to be dangerous, exponentially more so. I remember one of the first casualties in The Sandbox I was an infantryman who didn’t know you don’t walk BETWEEN two tanks, especially at night. Even Units that are lead by and (mostly) manned by experienced troops have “new guys” coming in all the time. I worked for a while with a PA who was with an armored Unit in Germany in the ‘70s during what should have been the height of our skill who told me during a Winter Field Exercise they had these heaters the troops could use when dismounted. One tank crew decided to take the heater inside and button up to get out of the wind. He pronounced them all the next morning.
So, this is dangerous stuff for amateurs. Even when there is NO enemy.
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