They have no other choice,since mechanized infantry can't be deployed as rapid reaction forces in those mountains,and that's where the emphasis on heavy weapons lies. Any attempt to drive through the mountian passes with mechanized units would have the same results for the Americans it did for the Russians,ambushes and high casualities.
BTW,don't knock the old 60mm mortar.It's about the only useable "heavy tool" they have,and it is damn effective. No,it ain't a 4.2,but do YOU want to carry a 4.2 around in the mountains on your back?
an overall snake-eater and maneuver element ethos that looks down on fire support elements.
I don't know who you've been talking too,but none of the SF guys I've ever met refuses fire support. Biggest problem we've ever had with it was getting it.
Our ATGMs are at the battalion level, for pete's sake.
I am so far out of touch on this that I'm not competent to comment on it. Other than to say fire power should always be the domain of the guys who are likely to use it,and none of these guys hang their hats at a battalion level. You know what is the most likely cause for this? Budget concerns and people whining and bitching about people wanting to expend costly munitions on "mere" training missions.
Meanwhile, 1000 men are expected to encircle 70 square miles of 8000 foot mountains. With just SAWs.
They have no choice. This is all they have,other than the 240/MAG-58's. The US military needs to be working hard of developing some type of aircraft to fill the tac-air role on deployments to areas like this. Maybe a Chinook "gunship" as a stop-gap,if nothing else. I don't know how much weight they can carry,but stipped down with a minumum crew,they could raise hell with mini-guns and 40mm cannons.
Fire bases are also a workable concept in mountain terrain. It is hard for enemies with only leg infantry to get at one, if properly situated. Setting up overwatch heavy weapons positions should be SOP. On some of those bare mountainsides, a pair of 50 cals could dominate several square miles of terrain. Particularly if one sets up interlocking fire from adjoining ridges, to take away a lot of the dead ground cover. 120s have the range to hit things, and steep trajectory to fire in the mountains. The Taliban have made solid use of 82mm mortars. The Lessons Learned reports say more than half our casualties to date have been from mortar fire.
And I will certainly knock the 60mm mortar. Better than nothing isn't saying anything. It is absurd that the United States of America is outgunned in that category by a 1941 era Soviet 82mm mortar. The Afghans carry those without any choppers at all. With choppers going for us, we should be able to get 120s into firebases, with working counterbattery radars, and terminal IR-homing or GPS capable ammo (both of which exist).
As for my comment about the mentality that is causing the weapons to be left behind, it is not directed at the real SF guys out in 2-4 man teams. Of course they call fire support, so does everyone, but they don't bring heavy weapons along with them. The problem is all the line units are playing SF wannabee and leaving their heavy weapons, thinking "if the SF can do without them, so can we". Which is bad reasoning, as they have a different tactical role, and a waste of the firepower assets we do have.
If you don't think the fire support elements are looked down upon in today's army, you need to read some of the realistic training reports, which do not pull punches on the subject. NTC reports of live fire exercises "1. Task forces (TFs) tend to focus on maneuver only and do not understand how to integrate other combat multipliers." "FSO/FOs are routinely ignored or merely forgotten during the planning process. For their own part, FOs do not always fully understand the ground tactical plan... The maneuver rehearsals are so maneuver-centric that the fire support for the maneuver element is rarely mentioned." I am not making it up. In the field, people fly by the seat of their pants, and lean on the air force because it is there and other weapons aren't.
On the centralization of firepower assets, I don't think it is primarily budget concerns. It is the maneuver warfare focus. The school ideal is e.g. the whole AT company at the location it is most needed, not spread over all the line companies. If anything else is involved, it is limited training with higher echelons. A platoon that mostly trains without the rest of the company does not get used to using company level attachments as a matter of course. Same with a company, for battalion level assets.
But the net result is that instead of every squad having ATGMs organic and training to use them against enemy fortified positions and crew served weapons as a matter of course, the ATGM men are off in their own company, training to take out tank battalions, while the squad expects to deal with such targets with M203 grenades or at most ad hoc use of AT-4s. And in practice, that means the squad is training to be impotent beyond a few hundred meters, when it ought to be able to reply to HMGs and the like at a km or more.
See, the revolution in military affairs is not being viewed throughout the military as a matter of increased importance of firepower and ranged engagements, at all levels. It is instead being viewed as an increased importance of called air strikes (only - because the air force is determined in its firepower focus) and for the rest an increased importance in becoming lighter and lighter, while also being able to call in the airstrikes (thus communications, intel gathering, etc - the latter all useful to be sure).
"Light" has crowded out "firepower", largely in the name of "manuever". The irony is that light infantry can't maneuver a damn under mere HMG fire, unless it can suppress that fire with organic heavy weapons.
And no, they do not need another gunship fer pete's sake. We sent gunships, they took rotor hits and D'ed. Chinhooks were never meant for combat to begin with and actually went down. But if you are going to try to dominate the next mountain ridge from this mountain ridge, you are going to need more than a SAW and a radio to do it. And if you are going to try to get up this mountain ridge when the enemy has MGs in bunkers ahead of you along it, you are again going to need more than a SAW and a radio.
It is not rocket science. We've thought all this through long since. People just thought they were "adapting" by leaving out all of the ranged firepower, and they weren't. Too "adaptive" by half.
Squads should have long ranged scoped 7.62 rifles as well as SAWs. The Marines see the need but are going with a scoped 5.56, which will only give around 500-600 meter range, not 1000m. Squads or at the lowest platoons, should have ATGM sections with Javelins, to take out hard point targets at 1 km plus. Not just AT-4s and the like. Platoons should have Mk-19s to throw grenades 1 km, instead of just M203s in fireteams to throw them 200m. Platoons should plan out HMG positions on high ground for overwatch, to deny wide open areas to enemy moving in the open. Battalions going into this sort of fight should set up a 120mm mortar firebase to answer company and platoon fire requests in combat time, and they should have smart rounds and working counterbattery radars.
There is not reason to fight these guys with lighter and weaker weapons than they have themselves. We've been able to get away with it by leaning on airpower and expecting the moon from it. But it has already caused needless casualties, and so far we've been lucky it hasn't caused worse. Our guys deserve to go into combat better armed than their opponents. We have the tech for it, what is lacking is a doctrine that properly emphasizes the importance of modern ranged firepower.