Posted on 11/29/2003 7:43:42 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
Part one of a three-part series on the United States evolving armed forces.
NORRISTOWN - Transformation is the guiding principle for today's U.S. military, and top Defense officials have mandated sweeping changes aimed to quicken the pace of warfare and streamline the Pentagon's cumbersome bureaucracy.
On Nov. 24, President Bush signed the $401 billion Defense Authorization Bill of 2004, the largest defense budget in history.
And though the military's fighting capability is second to none, officials warn that the time it takes to develop some weapons renders them obsolete by the time they are finally produced -often 15 to 20 years later.
Borrowing the best attributes of U.S. Special Operations Forces, the Defense Department envisions a faster, more agile, more lethal fighting force guided in battle by increasingly sophisticated digital technology.
What's Imperative for an Information Age fighting force, according to Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, Ret., director of the Pentagon's Office of Force Transformation, is being connected to the military's Tactical Internet and wowing the enemy.
"We want our enemies, current and future, to look at us and say, 'Wow, how do they do that?'" He told an audience at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington recently.
With a continuously improving fighting capability, defeated enemy forces will be left to scratch their heads wondering what hit them. They will see an attack unfold before their eyes, Cebrowski said, but they won't understand how it happened and will be powerless to stop it.
"That's the power of transformation," he said.
Network-centric warfare
Digital warfare came of age in Operation Iraqi Freedom in March. Functioning as the military's communications network, the Tactical Internet relayed command-and-control decisions from commanders to soldiers and Marines crammed inside armored vehicles rolling through the Iraqi desert.
The Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below (FBCB2) is the U.S. Army's main digital command-and-control system for highly mobile, real-time battle information.
Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1A1 Abrams tanks equipped with FBCB2 gave the infantry a picture of the battlefield that included color-coded displays of friendly forces (blue icons) and enemy troop (red icons) locations. During the war, the system effectively replaced paper maps and radio voice communication.
The military's high-tech advantage needs to constantly change and improve, Cebrowski said, to keep enemies second guessing U.S. strategy. The Iraqi military, he said, likely studied the 1991 Gulf War strategy to gauge what coalition forces would do during the recent war.
"That's exactly what we want to happen," he said. "I like to see a lot of generals who want to fight the last war, (but) I just want them all to be on the other side." Not knowing precisely where geographically future threats will come from, defense officials say it's imperative to train troops jointly for rapid deployment to almost anywhere on earth.
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.
Trimming weight
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.
The main Crusader tracked vehicle, equipped with a 150 mm howitzer [I think they mean 155mm - Cannoneer], 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.
The lightweight Stryker infantry vehicle is one of transformation's new kids on the block exemplifying a light, more mobile capability. The Stryker family of vehicles, 10 in all, includes a version equipped with 105 mm gun, and models that carry infantry, ammunition and wounded troops.
The "trim" 19-ton vehicle comes loaded with digital technology and has a top speed of 62 miles per hour - 21 miles per hour faster than the much heavier 35-ton Abrams tank. Because of its lighter weight, the Stryker would be easier to transport to faraway fronts, another top transformation goal.
In February, the army began testing the mobile gun Stryker at Aberdeen Proving Ground, near Baltimore, Md. The vehicle is expected to debut in Iraq early next year.[emphasis Cannoneer's]
While Cebrowski doesn't want to eliminate tanks altogether, he clearly believes Stryker is the centerpiece of the military's future, giving the forces necessary nimbleness and speed in urban areas such as Baghdad.
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.
However, the Stryker has its share of critics. A report prepared for New Jersey Republican Rep. James Saxton, a member of the House Armed Service Committee, concluded the vehicle is ill suited for warfare.
The July report, written by consultant Victory O'Reilly, said that the vehicle was poorly armored and vulnerable to rocket-propelled grenade attacks.
Responding to the report's finding, the army said that Strykers headed for combat have recently been reinforced with additional armor.
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)."
The U.S.S. Cole was attacked in Yemen by terrorists in a bomb-laden boat in 2000. The explosion created a huge hole in the ship.
Instead of more steel, the director said, timely reconnaissance is crucial for safeguarding fighting units. Unmanned aerial vehicles were used effectively in Afghanistan and Iraq to spot enemy troops from the air.
Once the enemy was located on the ground, air power was called in to bomb their positions. This close relationship between the infantry and air support was one of the pluses to come out of Iraq's post-war analysis. The air-infantry teamwork also raises questions about the necessity of Crusader or other artillery programs.
"It is as if we will have discovered a new sweet spot in the relationship between land warfare and air warfare and a tighter integration of those," he said.
A newly formed Stryker Brigade Combat Team - a 2nd Infantry Division unit from Fort Lewis in Washington state - is currently in Kuwait. When the unit moves into Iraq next year [Next year?], defense officials will be watching closely to see how Stryker performs.
The 5,000-strong Stryker brigade is part of a planned troop rotation next year.
Overall, the Pentagon plan to replace 130,000 American troops in Iraq with a fresh contingent that will shrink the force by 20 percent, according to The Associated Press.
The National Guard and Reserve troops make up about 20 percent of the current force of 130,000. According to AP, after the rotation ends in April, nearly 40 percent of the 105,000 troops in the new force will be National Guard and Reserve forces.
Tomorrow: The New Military, Part 2: "The Long Hitch"
Keith Phucas can be reached at kphucas@timesherald.com or at 610-272-2500, ext. 211.
Crusader had a range of 40 klicks (50 assisted) IIRC. My major bitch about the system was that it was unnecessarily complicated (having maintenance TMs "online") and the poor engine choice that resulted from the contractor being given a free hand to choose the engine. They chose the cheapest one to get the job done (and it still required a substantial amount of modification). The LV100 was the far better choice, but TARDEC was kept out of the decision process for the engine.
While Cebrowski doesn't want to eliminate tanks altogether, he clearly believes Stryker is the centerpiece of the military's future, giving the forces necessary nimbleness and speed in urban areas such as Baghdad.
Once again we hear that tanks are obsolete?
Cebrowski is dangerous. He is a technophile with absolutely zero ground combat experience or knowledge who has Rumsfield's ear. His programs are designed to ensure we are even more successful the next time we fight the Republican Guard, but are next to useless against Iraqi guerillas, Taliban hold-outs, Somali militia, or any enemy that uses non-conventional organizations and tactics. Which, of course, is how most will fight us knowing that they have no chance against our force as it exists even now.
Hmmm...The 8 wheel Stryker will have a hard time turning around in a city, while a tracked vehicle can pivot on it's own axis. The remote fifty-cal is reliant on a clear view from the commander, which he generally won't have in a city.
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.
How is the Styker high-tech? Because of the stupid non-stabilized remote 50 cal? And the Styker's big advantage is that it can run away from the enemy faster?? I even question that...give me a Bradley or M1 anyday over cross country.
"Anyone that doesn't like speed, or says that speed isn't required, has never been shot at," he said.
Anyone who doesn't like ARMOR or says that ARMOR isn't required, has never been shot at, you f-in idiot.
The point that seems to escape many who have responded on this thread is that heavy armor is becoming obsolete. Not for ideological or doctrine reasons, but for technological reasons. Cheap, portable anti-armor weapons have started to become good enough that no practical amount of heavy armor provides protection against them. For the military to bury their head in the sand and not deal with this reality would be foolish.
Now, I don't know about the guy in the article, but the strategy for future war has been to go to lighter faster vehicles that provide just enough armor to stop shrapnel and bullets, but which don't bother to provide protection against real anti-armor weapons, primarily because they can't build a system that will withstand them. It is quickly coming to the point where the best defense really is a good offense. Be faster, more lethal, smarter, and see the enemy before he sees you. Heavy armor is very quickly being eliminated as a useful tool.
We see these kinds of anti-armor systems in the field today, and crappier countries are starting to have them as well. We have anti-armor systems in field testing with more range than an Abrams and which could eat the Abrams frontal armor for breakfast. There are physical material limits to what you can do with armor, and anti-armor weapons are starting to breach this limit such that there is no direct solution to it.
Common Sense, NO-KIDDING, BUMP! Wonder why Rummy ISN'T doing this? There are apparently a number of tankers that could be bought for relative peanuts on the open market ( there is a big glut right now) and retrofitted to fleet oilers.
Can you imagine a single scenario in the world today where you would rather have a Stryker than a Bradley? Or a Styker gun system (LOL) over an M1?
How in the world can the US Army field an 'armored' vehicle that gets chewed up by 14.5 mm machine guns (and maybe even 12.7mm) that are common all over the world? Forget not yet fielded, in development weapons. What the heck good is a Stryker against a Somali with a 14.5 mm in the back of his Toyota pickup? The frickin Toyota outguns and outmaneuvers the Styker everytime!
The Stryker is unstable on cross country moves, it will flip like an MF if it hits rolling lumpy ground.
LOL...sad, but funny.
According to the Air Force we don't need tube artillery anymore. We can just bombard and occupy, using Special Forces as body guards for ETAC's and friendly war lord troops as occupiers.
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