Posted on 01/25/2005 12:30:14 PM PST by neverdem
How about a shift from the wild blue yonder & anchors aweigh branches into the caissons go rolling & halls of montezuma forces?
Let's face facts. We have the largest, most powerful air & naval forces in the world--we can certainly defeat the combined naval forces of the rest of the world and probably do the same to the combined air forces. And so what? although beloved of pork-barreling congressmen adn defense contractors, planes & ships are enablers in warfare, not deciders. Ground forces win wars. Our Army is 5th or 6th & is carrying the brunt of current combat as well as is the force most likely to be committed for the foreseeable future in the war on terror. Time to get away from the service parochialism and the congressional desire to support the equipment-centric Air Force & Navy that generate the most jobs in defense industries, and build up the part of our military that will actually do the fighting.
Agree with what you said. However, I don't think that was Scales's point. He's maintaining that:
1-The infantry is the most vital part of our military in the war on terror.
2-That our infantry, at only 6% of our force, is under-manned.
3-Most of our casualties are in the infantry.
4-That high casualties, constant combat, and consecutive deployments will break our existing infantry units; such as was exemplified in the post-Vietnam "hollow Army".
5-And therefore, we need more infantry units to ensure we can continue what promises to be a very long land-centric campaign in the war on terror.
Not meaning to split hairs here, but division strength approx 15,000, so we we need roughly 60,000; still a big number, and the answer is I don't know.
I think we need them.
I'm from a generation that viewed military service as an almost given, so I'm not sure what would motivate today's youth to join up.
More and or better incentives?
The authorized manning levels don't allow much more than we have active at this point; the first thing would be to allow a force structure authorizing the higher numbers.
They have been trying that. Since the Air Force and the Navy are scheduled to downsize a bit over the next year or two, there has been program in place called "Blue to Green" encouraging transfers from the Navy and the Air Force to the Army. It netted a grand total of 139 volunteers.
Yes.
... but it takes years to train them
And yes. So let's start right now. We're late already.
So can you figure out why the adminstration is fighting an increase?
Which is about 139 more than some of us expected! Other things that they are starting that may produce dividends is employment of navy & air force medical, transport, supply, & engineering units in support of extended land ops. If this can be routinized, the Army can free up support force structure into combat units.
In fairness, 89 of them were Air Force types. Leaving 50 people who were really too dumb to be sailors in the first place.
Secretary Rumsfeld came into office touting a "transformation" which would leverage high technology in order to decrease force structure with the Army being the biggest bill-payer at a 20% cut. The DOD budget & resourcing input through this year has reflected that view with no ground force increases & planned future increases for air & sea based high tech weapons. Finally, transformation theory has been spanked so thoroughly by the reality on the ground that this year DOD has increased (albeit temporarily) ground strength and has shifted money into both procurement and R&D that will be helpful in the war we are actually fighting.
Damfino, but a good question none the less.
If I could answer that question, I might be a candidate for the next SecDef.
The real question is whether we anticipate the current need for large numbers of infantrymen to continue for the next several years. Personally, I don't. I'd bet we'll have significantly fewer U.S. troops in Iraq by this time next year, and the number will continue to drop. The current manpower crunch will be easing significantly right about the time the first of those two divisions are coming on line.
138. I did know an AFA grad who was a company commander in the 6/502nd back in 1992. Interesting guy. Not your normal zoomie.
So, let's start now.
Rumsfeld is very wedded to his vision for the military, and has faced considerable resistance from the brass over his vision. Given the history of the military in these situations, especially in the context of someone like Billy Mitchell, who went through hell to be proven correct, I've been willing to give Rumsfeld's vision time to see if he is correct. And I also realize that the media is gonna doom-and-gloom the current situation.
However, having said that, I think that current events show we could not handle two major conflicts if the need arose - we are currently engaged in one major and one minor conflict - which means an alliance of enemies would confront us with a military situation that we are not equipped to handle. So we definitely need more troops, more ships and more airlift.
What?
I thought we need 20% females! Was that the "quota", later renamed to "goal"?
Doesn’t a sexually diverse force MULTIPLY our combat power and make us more effective? To the senior leadership in the military I can only say "thank you", "Thank you for spending all that money and million of man hours on this crap while valuable training didn't occur". That is a reality of even right before the war began. Even then EO training was a bubble on a column on a form which had to go green or else bad things happen. Maintenence or EO? No joke.
Where are all the feminists now? Aren’t they using Lynch as an example yet? Oh wait. Forgot-that was a little different than originally presented.
I figure the best way we can deal with the issues in Iraq is to have MORE “sensitivity for others” and “EO” training. That will make us much more effective.
(sarcasm off)
Watch, this war will be over and our tough rugged careerist leaders in UNIFORM will again push this crap. It won’t even take long and EO training will take precedence over convoy, patrol or other training. Basic Training will get watered down again and after some incident with media attention they will initiate some remedy (training) aimed at fixing the problem whatever it may be. We have a remedy so the problem is fixed, right?
Could it be that this aspect (Females in the force) has failed and today as 10 or 20 years ago is a social experiment, which has cost us millions, and brought us little?
Red6
There is only one way the Army is going to assemble a force of "grunts" large enough to _win_ the War with Islam, and that is to _draft_ them.
There are plenty of volunteers for the "techno-centric" military, but as the war drags on - and expands - how many will knowingly volunteer for the dirty ground fighting? And, as mark writes, "Doesn't matter how many planes, ships, missiles and quartemasters we have if we don't win on the ground where the battle's being fought". Just where will they come from? Do we really expect that many to sign up voluntarily?
Since the time of the War For Southern Independence, the United States has needed to draft in order to build a fighting force sizable enough to defeat our enemies. It will not be different this time.
In the interests of full disclosure, I myself was drafted - TWO times - during the Vietnam era. So it's not a case of "do as I say, not as I do"; I done that already, thank you very much (US Army, 1970-72).
But - writing more than thirty years later as an older guy - I have seen many, many, many "tough talkers" on FreeRepublic regarding Islam, and our conflict with it, and what the United States must do to overcome it; I wonder how many of you young ones will remain as gung-ho when _your_ induction notice arrives?
Cheers!
- John
Agree. But we don't need more divisions. We need more infantrymen on the ground. Filling out units to full strength or adding an extra platoon per company or an additional company per battalion can be done very quickly. Adding battalion size elements would take more time, but still much less than "years".
we [don't] anticipate the current need for large numbers of infantrymen to continue for the next several years
I also think it is likely we will be drawing down in Iraq and need less there, but it is not a certainty. The same with Afghanistan. And given the world as it is, the likelihood of us being in significant land combat somewhere I think is much higher than the likelihood of us being in any reasonably stressful air or sea warfare scenario. We should restructure our military weighted toward the forces we will most likely need--and that is land forces. Even if some of those forces are comprised of the life-forms known as "jarheads"!
My take on this subject was that the author was noting that it was the foot soldiers that were "fighting and dieing" not necessarily the air force and navy. The grunts are the ones who have to get up close and personal.
I thought that the gist of the article was that we have allowed our force structure to change so that we have less actual ground fighting units than we really need. ie. false savings by cutting ground troops and going for the sexy planes and missiles that aren't really effective given the current combat style. That's not to say that these other weapons aren't nice to have.
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