Brazilian EE-4 Ogum fits inside Chinook. The US Army doesn't have airmobilr or airborne armored vehicles any more.
Posted on 04/20/2006 4:32:49 PM PDT by neverdem
--snip--
Budgets reflected this love affair with aerial killing. Since Gen. Huba's first exposition in the early 1990s, 70 percent of defense investments, more than $1.3 trillion, have gone into shock and awe, delivered by Air Force and Navy aircraft and missiles.
The Army got 16 percent. Thus, we come today to an amazingly perverse strategic circumstance. We have more first-line fighter aircraft costing $50 million to $400 million per copy than we have Army and Marine infantry squads, costing less than $100,000 each.
Since Gen. Huba's experiments began, we have achieved a "kill ratio" in aerial combat of 257 to one over enemy air...
--snip--
So here we are trying to find a way to rid Iran of its nuclear weapons and the only warfighting tool in the tool box is shock and awe. Simply put, there is no ground option. We have too few soldiers to fight the wars we have, much less take on another enemy. Even if we had the ground forces, without an aerial maneuver option we could never hope to reach Iran's nuclear facilities by a ground invasion. So we'll blow them all up with bombs. Right.
I'm quite sure that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prays daily for a dose of shock and awe. It would be a badge of honor to have survived a fruitless aerial killing campaign only to resume serious work on building a bomb with the full support of the morally aggrieved Iranian people.
In time, of course, we could add an aerial maneuver tool to the toolbox, a capability that would give the president at least one option for the future other than aerial assault. But the plan now is to reduce, not increase, the size of the Army and Marine Corps.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This looks interesting. Tell me more.
http://www.army.mil/features/WhitePaper/ObjectiveForceWhitePaper.pdf
http://www.army.mil/features/strykerDemo/default.htm
http://www.army.mil/features/strykerDemo/StrykeForWeb.pdf
From what I read, it seems that the brigade is still in its infancy, which confirms what Scales writes. Scales' point seems to be that the Pentagon needs to devote more resources to developing this kind of thing, and I think he's right. I'm a bit puzzled why he didn't mention the brigade by name, however. It would add to his credibility.
Thanks for the ping!
Brazilian EE-4 Ogum fits inside Chinook. The US Army doesn't have airmobilr or airborne armored vehicles any more.
Before my time...but my gut tells me those old Dems aren't the same as the loathers of today.
Combined Arms is where it's at...and has been since Gustavus Adolphus. Air power is simply the most strained participant, and the most mobile. It is unusual for air power to fall after ground power, but at the beginning of WWII it did happen that way in Poland.
That's not an institutional decision...it's a structural one - the army isn't allowed to have suitable aircraft for that mission, and aside from huge ballistic missiles, it's just not practical to launch them from the ground. Despite that, wasn't it the army that came up with the original deep penetrating rounds - old artillery barrels packed with explosives?
Sifting. Knowing what we've got, and making sure no one else gets it. Aerial recon is great for seeing men moving boxes, or driving trucks, but is pretty poor for determining what is in the boxes in the trucks.
Tanks might have a bit of a problem, but mechanized infantry with equivalent control of the ground would be a bit of a problem as it moved into your airbases. The thing with air power is that you know if you have it, and if you have it, it tends to rapidly approach near-absolute. Ground power doesn't work that way.
Air power stops masses, but like other forms of artillery, is very inefficient at dealing with small dispersed groups - especially ones where you have to distinguish targets. Ground power forces enemy units to coalesce so artillery (ground and air) can blow the snot out of them - potentially with only the threat of engagement. That they didn't actually engage doesn't mean that the ground forces weren't key to the situation.
I never overestimated the Japanese ability to resist, I've only noted that such resistance as was possible would continue until there was nothing (or no one) left to resist with and it would have been bloody. I've made the point several times that all of those troops were isolated and unsupplied, and that Japan was surrounded and blockaded. It's factories had no fuel or matierials, no merchant marine to transport them, and no route by which they could be transported safely in any event.
As far as a shortage of Japanese troops, the civilian population had been prepared to resist an American invasion for quite some time; 22 million of them, in fact. This would have been added to the (estimated) 500,000 Japanese soldiers in the Home Islands c. 1945.
Forget aircraft (which would have only been used in Kamikaze raids anyway), they are not important to the general argument. The point of Japanese resistance in 1945 was no longer conquest, but survival and national/cultural pride pride, even at the expense of millions of lives. Victory, to them, would not be measured in territory taken or numbers of the enemy killed. It could only be measured in terms of how long the Allies could be kept from sacred Japanese soil. They hoped to make it so bloody as to keep it from happening altogether, but if it did, they would make invader pay dearly for it. The whole purpose of the exercise was political, not military: they still hoped, even in ruin, to drive or frighten the Allies to the negotiating table.
The Japanese consistently misunderstood and underestimated the Western Allies, and it is the main reason for their defeat. They fought a war they knew they could not win based upon the belief that once sufficiently battered and their inferiority proven, westerners should surrender or negotiate (which is what happens in Oriental cultures with systems of ritual warfare (like the samurai), not in Western culture).
The Japanese hope, throughout the war, was a negotiated settlement with the West, that left Japan in possession of what it had conquered, so that it could return to it's main focus: China. This is what the war was all about -- letting Japan have unfettered, unhindered political and economic control of China, the attacks upon Pearl Harbor and the European Empires were designed to provide the Japanese with the time, materials and bases, with which to continue the war in China and keep the West out of it.
Anyway, to get back to the main point, as a historian (which I am) I'm absolutely in awe of the job done by MacArthur (principly) and Nimitz, considering the scale and scope of the problem they had before them. If they had used the methods promulgated by the American generals in Europe (basically attrition warfare) there's no telling how many more millions of lives would have been lost against the Japanese and the war could very well have been lost. They were aided immeasurably by an inept enemy, blinded by his own prejudices, and unwilling to co-ordinate the actions and needs of his own military and economic services as required. Still, the Japanese put up an awfully good war.
MacA and Nimitz did an absolutely awesome job, considering the disadvantages they began with.
Pz is correct: Air power (particularly strategic bombing) is overrated. It does not win wars all by itself (although it's proponents continue to insist that it can).
Under Truman The Marine Corps was almost eliminated simply from lack of personnel, to fight in Korea World War II vets had to be recalled until such time as The MCRD produced enough new troops to flesh out the Corps.
"There would have been no deal because Japan would have sought to maintain its rights in Korea, Manchuria, and the Northern China. Roosevelt/Truman was not going to abandon the "Open Door Policy" after bringing the war to Japan's doorstep. If we had cut a deal it would have amounted to throwing the Nationalist Chinese Government -- a member of the Big 4 -- under the bus by making a separate peace. So the US was not going to do a deal, in my estimation. "No Separate Peace" was another guiding principle of the war. Probably made it a lot bloodier and longer than might have been necessary, but there you have it."
Guess what? There WAS a deal made that did not follow the dictates of Unconditional Surrender. MacArthur insisted upon it (The Deal), no less.
Unlike Germany, Japan got to keep it's head of state and it's governmental apparatus. There was no "de-nazification" of the Japanese government in the same vein as that which happened in Germany. The Japanese war crimes tribunals were curiously limited in terms of numbers of defendants and the crimes they committed, unlike the trials at Nuremburg, and we can be reasonably sure that since the majority of Japanese war atrocities took place in parts of the world that no white man really cared about (except to the extent his pockets were full), we can see why there was no fervor for retirbution against the Japanese as there was against the Germans (although many Japanese war criminals were ultimately hanged and imprisoned, the trials did not capture the world's attention).
Japan most certainly did not surrender "unconditionally".
I would have to research that for you (easy enough to do) in order to be specific, but, you tell me: is Japanese "uncomditional surrender" the same as German "unconditional surrender"? The answer is certainly not.
I've already mentioned the parts of surrender regarding head of state anmd government apparatus. I've already told you how the Allies laid off on prosecuting various Japanese war criminals (particularly those involved in germ and biological warfare experiments).
Japan was not required to pay reparations for it's wartime activities to the same extent that Germany was, depsite the fact that the Japanese overran more territory and were several orders of magnitude more vicious than the Germans.
Japan did not have it's industrial plant (what remained of it) carted off to the territory of the victorious allies (the Russian carted off entire German factories, for example).
That's off the top of my head. I will go and read the surrender document to be more specific, but it looks to me as if the Japanese negotiated themselves a sweet deal as compared to the Germans.
Quick and dirty, but still doing the research on it:
- Japan kept her armed forces, under American/Allied command (unlike Germany which was demobilized), albeit under strict limits in terms of numbers and weapons, and where those forces could be used. Germany was not allowed to re-arm until 1949 (the creation of NATO). Japanese troops were used (under British command) to put down rebellions in Malaya and Borneo in 1945. Japanese troops continued to police Japan proper under American occupation.
This was one of MacArthur's suggestions; to keep the honor of the Japanese armed forces intact by not forcing them to completely give up their weapons and losing face in front of the population as a whole.
- As of 2001 (last I knew of it - I have to continue to research this) Japan has not signed any treaty agreement with the former Soviet Union (or it's successors) officially ending hostilities related to World War II. Officially, the Soviets never declared war on Japan or vice versa, so there is no officially declared state of war. The Soviets balked at the treaty terms put forward in September of 1945 and did not (officially) sign off on them (although they did witness the surrender on the Missouri), and it was a bone of contention in East-West relations for many years to come.
Sounds like a seperate peace to me.
But, I'll keep looking...
I did look it up. Since I could find none, I assumed you'd know.
PROCLAMATION DEFINING TERMS FOR JAPANESE SURRENDER
Issued, at Potsdam, July 26, 1945
..(5) Following are our terms. We will not deviate from them. There are no alternatives. We shall brook no delay...
(13) We call upon the Government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.
OFFER OF SURRENDER FROM JAPANESE GOVERNMENT
Department of State Bulletin, Vol. XIII, No. 320, Aug. 12, 1945)
...The Japanese Government are ready to accept the terms enumerated in the joint declaration which was issued at Potsdam on July 26th, 1945, by the heads of the Governments of the United States, Great Britain, and China, and later subscribed to by the Soviet Government, with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a Sovereign Ruler.
REPLY SECRETARY OF STATE AUGUST 11, 1945
With regard to the Japanese Government's message accepting the terms of the Potsdam proclamation but containing the statement, 'with the understanding that the said declaration does not comprise any demand which prejudices the prerogatives of His Majesty as a sovereign ruler,' our position is as follows:
From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied powers who will take such steps as he deems proper to effectuate the surrender terms.
JAPANESE ACCEPTANCE OF POTSDAM DECLARTION
Statement by the President
The Department of State Bulletin, Vol. No. 321, Aug. 19, 1945
I have received this afternoon a message from the Japanese Government in reply to the message forwarded to that Government by the Secretary of State on August 11. I deem this reply a full acceptance of the Potsdam Declaration which specifies the unconditional surrender of Japan. In the reply there is no qualification...
INSTRUMENT OF SURRENDER
We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters, hereby accept the provisions set forth in the declaration issued by the heads of the Governments of the United States, China, and Great Britain on 26 July 1945 at Potsdam, and subsequently adhered to by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which four powers are hereafter referred to as the Allied Powers.
We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under the Japanese control wherever situated.
So what? the Japanese agreed to the Potsdam Declaration. Was Potsdam even enforced with regards to the Japanese?
With regards to Potsdam and Unconditional Surrender:
- By the end of 1945, there was no German Fuhrer. There WAS a Japanese Emperor.
- In May of 1945, there was no longer a Reichstag. There WAS a Japanese Diet in September of 1945...and beyond.
- By the end of 1945, there were no Germans in the uniform of the country's armed forces. The country, officially, had no armed forces. There were Japanese in uniform and serving in their capacity as soldiers of a unified state under allied command.
- Japan was not partitioned and divvied up between the victorious allies as Germany was, despite the fact that both the Russians (Korea and the Kuriles), and the Americans (the Bonins, Iwo Jima, the Mandated Islands) were in control of sovereign Japanese territory by Sepetember of 1945.
- In 1945, no German citizen was permitted to be a member of or participate in any political activities that represented or espoused the ideology and policies of the Nazi party. There was no corresponding restrictions on political parties or membership in such, in Japan.
Hardly sounds like an unconditional surrender in accordance with Potsdam to me. There's a whole lot more to Potsdam (and the other conferences like Yalta, Tehran, Cassablanca, the Atlantic Charter, etc) with regards to post-war strategy. These are not simply military conferences, they were arenas in which political visions were hashed out, as well.
Potsdam cannot be taken in isolation. It must be tempered by it's predecessor conferences and proclimations in order to fully appreciate what it means (or was purported to mean). Potsdam is the end result of a series of political, diplomatic and military gambits intended to set the tone (and landscape) of the post-war world. In fact, many of the provisions of Potsdam and it's predecessors went wholly unenforced, quickly buried or forgotten altogether, if political expediency (or military reality) made this necessary.
Potsdam was a public relations declaration only, in that sense, the presentation of a unified allied front where such was increasingly fiction by the end of the war. Germany surrendered unconditionally; and it was dismembered, plundered and punished. Japan "surrenedered unconditionally": and it retained it's government, head of state, political parties and armed forces. So, again, tell me; who got the sweetheart deal, Germany or Japan?
Was Potsdam (or the acceptance, thereof) actually worth half a bucket of warm spit? Only if you believe in the charade of Allied Unity. Unconditional Surrender was a diplomatic device used to keep a shaky alliance (the memebers of which were obviously, and correctly, suspicious of one another) together. Nothing more - nothing less. It was only practiced with regards to Germany, not Italy and certainly not Japan, and certainly not with the other German and Japanese allies (excpet for those that fell under Russian occupation and influence -- i.e. the countries behind the Iron Curtain).
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