Posted on 08/19/2004 8:47:02 PM PDT by Southack
You're welcome. And again, I am NOT an expert on ground combat or amored warfare and I can very definitely be wrong with most of my assumptions, and if I am, someone please correct me.
Just makes sense to me that in order to win, you have to be a little more ruthless than the other guy.
The Swedish seemed how to fit Bofors (there standard forty) in modern AA and ground support and are cutting edge on design! It has been done!
No, it makes perfect sense. What's actually happening is that we are facing inferior forces that don't have the same order of battle we do, so Oprah Winfrey cries for the underdog and tells us we can't use our advantage and destroy them when that is in fact what we should do. We should use the MBTs to flatten everything in front of us, then let the infantry walk in behind them.
As I understand combined arms warfare (strictly from study, mind you) the purpose of mixing tanks and infantry is that while a tank may be good at clearing the enemy off a patch of ground, the tank in incapable of actually HOLDING it. That's why the infantry follows the tanks -- to hold the ground, and to clear out any enemy infantry with man-portable anti-tank weapons.
A tank that sits still is no longer a tank, it's a pillbox. And if it stands still on the modern battlefield, it's ultimately a pile of junk. Just as the Iraqi's.
As far as wiping out enemy infantry, while tanks can do this, artillery is much more effective, since artillery can shower a wide expanse of ground with shrapnel and high explosives, while a tank would have to search for individual targets. If a tank finds itself in the midst of enemy infantry (w/o AT weapons), chances are, they're all running for their lives and won't be bunched up.
ping
Oh, now you've done it!
By the way, do you have that link to the grunt telling the overhead A-10 pilot that he thinks he's in love?!
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
What the Iraqis and assorted towel-headed banditos over there are doing now is classic underdog: we cannot win in a stand up fight, so we will make this a war of attrition. Eventually, one side or the other must reach their pain threshold to cause the fighting to cease. This was the Japanese strategy at Iwo Jima, Okinawa and in the Phillipines. We can't win, so we'll make the other side suffer.
On our side, we have technology, expertise, capital, civic militarism and individual initiative to fight with. They have God. It is their belief that God is stronger than steel. In any other case, they would be right, but I haven't heard of the Almighty taking direct action in a battle since Jerhico.
The Japanese had God (sort of) and they lost, too.
In the end, it is not gadgets and gee-gaws that win battles. What wins is the desire to get the damn thing over with as quickly as possible, and the way to do that is to make the other side suffer so terribly that they will never take up arms again. This was the resoning behind the gatling gun, the machine gun and ultimately the atomic bomb. All of which, are WESTERN inventions, btw.
Still, to a greater extent, when we talk about order of battle and whatnot, we're talking about military science as opposed to the individual warrior ethic, which is what the other side has in abundance. We have organization, training and discipline, and these are far greater weapons than bravado and machismo. The other side in this war does not practice military science as we know it because it is alien to their culture. This explains why Israel can beat off the entire combined might of the rest of the Middle East on a regular basis. These guys LOOK like soldiers, but they do not fight like them.
That's why you have to kill them off, brutally and without remorse. These arab soldiers are not that far removed from the Huns -- when they have the advantage they are brutal and cold-blooded. When they are on the receiving end, they run off and beg for mercy before slithering from their holes to fight again. Until enough of them are dead and their DNA is removed from the planet, they will continue to snipe, hide, run and thgen fight again when it suits their puropse or whenever they think they have a chance.
fyi
See Post #92
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
Thanks Cannoneer. :-)
I want that A-10 type of fire-support to be always available to our troops, on the ground, armored, in the form of an updated M1 main battle tank with the A-10's GAU-8 gattling cannon mounted on it.
I don't want them to have to wait an hour under fire to get A-10 levels of fire-support.
5 Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires
This is a good thread to plug next Treadhead Tuesday.
Nothing there about the enemy being inside a building or a bunker. Sounds to me like they were in the open. How this proves the point that a gatling gun would be a suitable weapon to use against a building full of guerillas is beyond me.
A bunch of ragheads in a canyon, even behind rocks, is not the same as a bunch of ragheads in a cramped, urban enviornment.
Yes, the GAU-8 is a wonderful weapon, but it is not the answer to the intitial question: does the M1 need to be changed? nor does it answer the secondary question: does the M1 need to be changed to suit the mission it is currently performing in Iraq (a mission it was not DESIGNED to perform).
I stand steadfast in the belief that a gatling gun or a new tank is not the answer. We have in our arsenal weapons far more destructive and even more precise than a GAU-8 or a M1. What is lacking is the will to use them because it would be unpopular in the press, and would require a mindset that has not been seen in America in a very long time. We've become squeemish and too "sensitive" (to borrow J. Kerry's phrase)to win this war.
In the end, I'll take one FAE dropped in central Najaf over a whole battalion of gatling-armed M1's anyday.
The concept of mounting smaller caliber main armament with very high rates of fire on tank chassis has been tried before. A ground based SP GAU-8 30mm flakpanzer would not be near as impressive as a Warthog. As a direct fire system, it couldn't hit any targets the 120mm Abrams couldn't hit.
To see this kind of ignorance on display is very sad.
Have you ever seen the inside of an abrams? I help make these things, your ideas are frought with costly problems.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.