Free Republic

Dean Lockwood, a weapons systems analyst for Forecast International, says that a modified version of the U.S. Army's Stryker vehicle could end up serving as the primary platform for the service's manned ground vehicle portion of FCS. He says that Stryker's proven effectiveness in battle, combined with the Army's recent decision to push back portions of the FCS manned ground vehicle development, could cause Congress to divert money from FCS to Stryker. "The main point I have about it is that while the ground FCS vehicle is being pushed back, [the Army] has yet to be set on any concrete...

The format for the support units of the new American Army divisions is being made public. The Fires Unit of Action (or Fires UA, not sure what it will be called in the final version) will take the place of the Division Artillery and perhaps the separate Field Artillery Brigades at corps level. Each Fires Unit of Action will consist of a Headquarters, 3 MLRS Battalions (all ATACMS, long range missile, capable), two 155mm self-propelled howitzer battalions, and a support battalion. At one level, they will reinforce the fires of the Brigade Combat Team’s artillery battalion, which is a somewhat...

June 29, 2004: The new infantry brigade organization is similar in size and scope to the Heavy BCT organizational change. The 101st Airborne Division is beginning to undergo this change and will ultimately field 4 of the new BCTs. The 10th and 25th Infantry Divisions will follow later in the process. As with the heavy units expect changes as a result of training at the Joint Regional Training Center in Fort Polk, LA and from a pending deployment back to Iraq. The new infantry brigade is organized as follows; Special Troops Battalion -- Headquarters Company -- Signal Company -- Military...

June 23, 2004: The Army is transitioning to the new “Units of Action” (UA). This article compares the combat power of the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) used during the 2003 Iraq campaign, to the Heavy UA. The UA is still evolving and can be expected to change further as the 3rd Infantry Division rotates its units through the National Training Center and its forthcoming deployment back to Iraq. At first glance, the UA’s appear slightly more robust. The table below shows the number of major combat vehicles in each unit: [somebody post these tables for me] The BCT of two...

June 17, 2004: The U.S. Army is in the midst of transforming existing combat brigades to a new brigade sized unit with the uninspired name of “Unit of Action” (UA). The new UA organization is designed to bring all the elements the brigade needs to fight under one headquarters, make the brigade more modular, easier to deploy, and increase the number of combat brigades available within the army from 33 to 43 or 48, and therefore increase the combat power of the Army. In order to evaluate this, we shall compare the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) used during the 2003...

In Dr. Evil Cornered, Robin Burke and Tom Roberts were talking about communications and U.S. forces, and how that affected our NATO allies in Afghanistan. That's something I've covered before in U.S. Military -- Back to the Future! Here's Robin... "US troops are begining to deploy some rather advanced technologies on the battlefield, plus fighting doctrines to leverage these technologies. The other NATO countries can't begin to match these capabilities and integrating those troops with our forces that do use them is a recipe for real problems.... How on earth would you integrate large numbers of NATO forces into those...

Repeated attacks on truck convoys in Iraq have prompted the Army to revisit its requirements for future logistics vehicles. Notably, the conflict challenged the traditional notions of trucks as support vehicles that stay out of the line of fire. Many U.S. casualties in Iraq were drivers or occupants whose vehicles were struck by rocket-propelled grenades, road mines or other forms of explosive devices. The fundamental question that Army vehicle developers are trying to answer is whether the next generation of battlefield trucks will be “just trucks” hauling supplies in the rear, or whether they should be enhanced with protective armor,...

SAMARRA, Iraq, Dec. 24 — The United States Army is betting much of its future on the success of an unlikely new warrior: an ungainly 19-ton wheeled combat vehicle wrapped in a steel-grilled hoop skirt.

The symbol of the Army's labored rebirth as a 21st century force will shortly face what could be a perilous battlefield baptism in Iraq. The Stryker Brigade Combat team - the Army's most significant step in its metamorphosis from a ponderous Cold War behemoth to a lighter, quick force - is mustering now in Kuwait. Built around a new, 19-ton vehicle that stands somewhere between a Humvee and a Bradley fighting vehicle, the 3,600-soldier brigade soon will roll north into Iraq. There, they will join the Army's struggle to win a continuing conflict the brass did not foresee, using a...