[Chainmail]

I've had a whole night to think more about the subject and I'm even more fired up. The tone of Mr. Roger's last response exactly sums up what's wrong with today's armed forces: astounding avoidance of reality and career-centrism. Combat power exists in two forms, ground-gaining power and support for the ground-gaining forces. No matter which service controls what, the responsibility of everybody involved is to ensure that every ounce of capability is provided when and where it is needed. Lives are at stake.

The story Mr. Rogers related about the colonel demanding air support for a unit in Afghanistan and denied it because "it was a Major General's direct order that all air support goes to somebody else" is a travesty. Did that unit that needed air support lose anyone? If so, those deaths, those wounds are yours and that pigheaded Major General's to hold as your own. Didn't you have the career courage to stand up to that Major General to do the right thing? Moral courage demands taking the right action even when a bad fitness report or relief for cause may result. Afghanistan is a special case because almost all of the credible fire support is air support - there is very little in the way of artillery and mortar within range - so responsive air support is vital.

We have lessons to learn as professionals and we should be looking for methods to reduce the lag time between sensor to shooter while ensuring precision and safety. It isn't "somebody else's problem" when fire support fails, it's all of our problem.

If there's any one thing my ranting should bring to the surface it is the responsibilities of all of us involved in the combat and combat support chain to do what is right at any cost to ourselves. The "well, it looked OK when it left" excuse doesn't wash if our own young people are killed and wounded by our actions or inactions.

[schurmann]

“...Combat power exists in two forms, ground-gaining power and support for the ground-gaining forces. ...”

Chainmail must regard the First World War as a screaming success, then.

The “everything must serve the infantry” attitude went out of date some 2350 years ago. Or earlier, perhaps: about the time when humans began building boats strong and tight enough to survive a little longer than was needed to execute river crossing.

How reassuring, to be told we needn’t bother spending money on ships, aircraft, radio, radar, spacecraft, cyberwar, drones, whatnot. Heck, why not just go back to smoothbore flintlocks? No, we have no choice. We must go back to throwing rocks; even the armament of 200 years ago required some rudiments of the military industrial complex.