The New Military: Proposing change

The Times Herald Norristown, PA ^ | 11/28/2003 | KEITH PHUCAS

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Stryker Brigade Combat Team Tactical Studies Group (Chairborne)

[Cannoneer No. 4]

ping

[Cannoneer No. 4]

legacy of industrial age warfare born to satisfy the Army's indirect fire requirements in a strategic context that no longer exists ping

[Darksheare]

"(Crusader) is a legacy of industrial age warfare born to satisfy the Army's indirect fire requirements in a strategic context that no longer exists,"

What?!
This guy sounds like a complete moron to me!
Artillery's missin honestly will never be extinct, ever.
Indirect fire requirements that no longer exist?!
He's out of his frigging mind!
He OBVIOUSLY never needed fire support NOW and couldn't get any!
Yet.
Egads, where are some of these guys coming from?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Grunt Ping

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Free Republic Treadhead Ping

archy; Gringo1; Matthew James; Fred Mertz; Squantos; colorado tanker; The Shrew; SLB; Darksheare; BCR #226; Imacatfish; Tailback; DCBryan1; Eaker

[A Simple Soldier]

The USS Cole was hardly made of steel in the way this article claims. We do not armor up our surface ships akin to the way our battleships were armored in years past for a variety of good reasons, except when the hull comes into contact with a focused chemical or kinetic energy event. Then all those good reasons don't seem so good anymore.

The Abrams tank weighs about 70 tons. The Bradley weighs in at 35 tons.

The SBCT is probably going through some desert acclimation both for men and material as part of their RSOI and will move north to replace the "Soup De Jour" cavalry regiment next year, which is now only 32 days away.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Egads, where are some of these guys coming from?

From the same place as the people who think the Stryker Mobile Gun System is a replacement for the Main Battle Tank.

It's dark up there, and it doesn't smell very good.

[Darksheare]

"Instead of more steel, the director said, timely reconnaissance is crucial for safeguarding fighting units."

I like this line.
The Cole would STILL have had a hole blown into it regardless of how much recon they did, or how many UAV's they had flying around.
The only way they would have prevented it, would be to violate ROE and blow the rubber dinghy up before it came alongside.
And they had no reason to think there was a threat.
Sounds like someone is passing the buck and making excuses to fund a pet project rather than lay blame where it goes and change operating procedure.
Like bringing back fast fleet oilers rather than have us go into port to fuel vessels like the Cole.

[Darksheare]

This article is just FULL of stupid nonsense!!
"Though the tanks proved effective in protecting their crews from artillery or missile fire, for the transformation director, the new high-tech vehicles give troops better awareness of where the enemy is located so that troops can avoid danger - or speed out of harm's way.
"Anyone that doesn't like speed, or says that speed isn't required, has never been shot at," he said. "

Let me get this straight, they'll see incoming artilery and be able to speed away from it, right?
*NOT!*
Being able to know that there's a guy taking a dump behind a tree 300 meters in front of you doesn't provide better protection from artillery and tank rounds.
And having better awareness is not necessarily bettter than a vehicle with survivability.

[Darksheare]

I think I know some people who might like the mind altering substances that the article guys are smoking.
In their words, "I want what he's smoking!"

This is gonna result in alotta dead soldiers if we run out of luck.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

If it takes 6 weeks between the time an SBCT arrives in theater and the time it is ready to go to war, what was the use of ever worrying about C-130 transportability? In 6 weeks you can move the heaviest brigade in the Army anywhere in the world.

[A Simple Soldier]

You have asked an MSM-worthy question. Or maybe Article-15 worthy, not sure.

The realities of strategic and intratheater lift and the assorted other factors that are in play (a lot more than number of aircraft available) make the requirement perplexing and basically nothing more than a limiting factor instead of a true operational enhancement. We have never had a crisis situation that required a mounted brigade be on the ground in less than 10 days.

[Darksheare]

Definately inquiry worthy, but all the "Grand inquisitors' in the uniform nowadays are Shinseki peers.
And even if an inquiry of fact finding were made, nothing would come of it.
This 'Future Force' idea is too imbedded, like a Texas cattle tick or an Oklahoma scorpion.

[sauropod]

"Network-centric warfare"

Nobody knows what this is. This is so much OSD cerebral onanism.

[sauropod]

"The Transformation director and other Pentagon reformers are especially critical of the time it takes to produce weapons systems. Defense programs development cycles must be brought in line with those of commercial industry, Cebrowski said, which are typically measured in months and years - not decades."

Spoken like a perfumed prince that has no idea how complex military systems are, nor how the particular acquisition program gets delayed by too much meddling from Congress, OSD, or potshots from the other services.

"The U.S. Army's Crusader artillery program was an early casualty of the transformation initiative. The $11 billion program was cancelled last year. According to Cebrowski, any weapons program is expendable if it doesn't meet the new transformation criteria.

"(Crusader) is a legacy of industrial age warfare born to satisfy the Army's indirect fire requirements in a strategic context that no longer exists," he said. In other words, Crusader is a relic of the Cold War: too heavy, too expensive and too long in development." So the solution is to stick the Army with a 50+ year old chassis (Paladin)? This bozo doesn't know WTF he is talking about.

"The main Crusader tracked vehicle, equipped with a 150 mm howitzer [I think they mean 155mm - Cannoneer][correct - Sauropod], requires a companion vehicle to supply it with ammunition. The two vehicles weigh in at a whopping 81 tons - a lot of hardware to haul to a battle front."

This is so much used food. What would Cebrwski suggest - piles of ammunition along the side of the road for the howitzers to use?

[sauropod]

"But even armor has limits. In some situations armor is necessary; in other cases it isn't, Cebrowski said.

"(Steel) didn't help 17 dead sailors on board (U.S.S.) Cole, for example," he said. "This is a steel ship. And so you don't see the Navy talking about adding more steel to its destroyers (ships)."

I don't think i can stop laughing!!!

[sauropod]

Well, Shinseki's pronouncement that everything has to be transported off the a** end of a C-130 caused a complete redesign of Crusader (originally, it was 67 tons if memory serves). Delayed the program 2-3 years.

Crusader originally suffered from a flawed requirement (keep up w/ the maneuver force). That meant M1A1s. So what did they do? Use an M1A1-like chassis.

Plus the fact that OSD had the long knives out for Crusader from day one.

[Darksheare]

They forget that even the M109A6 paladin requires a companion vehicle.
ALL artillery systems require companion vehicles of one form or another.
*snort*
You're right about them having it out for the Crusdader from the start.

[Darksheare]

Yes, Crusader was initially 67 tons.
Picatinney Arsenal had it's accuracy problems worked out, yet the problems were still cited by Congress as one reason to kill it.
The Crusader was designed to survive getting hit a few times, unlike the Paladin.
It was also supposed to be much longer ranged than the Paladin, both in firepower and in the fuel department.
Congress cited that it's shell fraggos would be a threat to Stryker and LAVIII tires.
They forgot that M198, M119, and M109 shell fraggos would ALSO be a threat to those same tires.

I'm still not entirely convinced that Shinseki wasn't inebriated for most of his service.
His requirements were insane at best, outright moronic at worst.
There's little merit in them, what merit they have is better for Ranger forces, Delta Forces, 'first to hit the sand' forces rather than an actual "Fight to win a war" force.