American Mercenary took the bull by the horns and explained in greater detail why making the Army in particular but ground forces in general smaller is a big mistake.
Read it here.
For my Marine brothers don't get it confused. They're going after the Army now but they'll be after Marines if they're successful.
One last thing. I've read everything I could about Air/Sea Battle. My take on the concept is that its nothing more than a money grab. What else explains the desire to buy F-35's instead of X-47's for the AF, Navy and Marines to strike deep into enemy territory? Why are more LCS' being bought instead of a real deal Frigate to deal with Chinese ships, subs or airplanes? Why is their no new class of anti-ship missile, surface launched anti-aircraft/cruise missile-missile being procured? The list goes on and its about one thing. The Air Force conspired with a reluctant Navy to craft a plan to get a bigger share of the budget.
The budget wars are here. Air/Sea Battle is just the tool being used to win that war....and justify gutting the Army.
Read it here.
For my Marine brothers don't get it confused. They're going after the Army now but they'll be after Marines if they're successful.
One last thing. I've read everything I could about Air/Sea Battle. My take on the concept is that its nothing more than a money grab. What else explains the desire to buy F-35's instead of X-47's for the AF, Navy and Marines to strike deep into enemy territory? Why are more LCS' being bought instead of a real deal Frigate to deal with Chinese ships, subs or airplanes? Why is their no new class of anti-ship missile, surface launched anti-aircraft/cruise missile-missile being procured? The list goes on and its about one thing. The Air Force conspired with a reluctant Navy to craft a plan to get a bigger share of the budget.
The budget wars are here. Air/Sea Battle is just the tool being used to win that war....and justify gutting the Army.
Wiki:"AirSea Battle officially became part of U.S. grand strategy, when, in February 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review stated: "The Air Force and Navy together are developing a new joint air-sea battle concept for defeating adversaries across the range of military operations, including adversaries equipped with sophisticated anti-access and area denial capabilities. The concept will address how air and naval forces will integrate capabilities across all operational domains—air, sea, land, space, and cyberspace—to counter growing challenges to U.S. freedom of action. As it matures, the concept will also help guide the development of future capabilities needed for effective power projection operations."
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke! One, it's just a bunch of techno jargon when we should be open about it and say China is our top military opponent. US DoD doesn't even a have the guts to tell it as it is. Second, if it's about China and the Pacific, everything in our current and future inventory needs a heck of a lot more range and performance, you probably need something closer to the FB22 than the F22/F35. You don't need some reduced capability drone that USN has been talking about, you need something bigger and with more LO than the X47B. Don't even need to get started with LCS, that's a waste of money when it comes to fighting Chinese Navy...
There's no way they're going to take on China. Forget it. They couldn't even whip the Taliban, or Iraqi partisans, or Vietnamese in pajamas and sandals. Fight against a modern military on China terrain? No way, José. One point three billion people, man.
DeleteTaking away the China mainland, for the Army there's not much land for tanks and artillery in the Pacific Ocean, so they want to recast themselves as Marines. Amphibians.
Air-Sea Battle? Nobody even knows what it is. So it's nothing more than a money grab -- who said that?
"There's no way they're going to take on China. Forget it. They couldn't even whip the Taliban, or Iraqi partisans, or Vietnamese in pajamas and sandals."
DeleteYour knowledge of military history is pathetic.
The US Amy could have KILLED every goddamn Taliban, VC, or Iraqi insurgent, and they killed plenty. Hanoi could have been a glass filled crater.
Blame stupid ROEs, micromanaging politicians, and idiot leftists who don't know what war is trying to wage one.
They don't say a nations name because there are multiple potential foes. If you say a nations name you run the risk of escalating the arms race. Its hard not to say countries names I'm guilty too, but its for the best.
DeleteI support the Air-Sea battle concept as a way to gain the access to conduct ground operations in the offensive sense. And I don't think this side should be nickeled and dimed to death on saving money. Defensively however we need a minimum 1,200,000 ground forces (joint active and reserve) and 1.5 is better.
ReplyDeleteThe problem going on here is that the current administration is all about a defense cut and has appointed up and down whoever supports his desire to gash the military as a whole. So the administration's mindset is that they need supporters to fill the void they create and the best way to accomplish this was to show the little side to money grab at the big side hopefully never noticing that what is actually needed is a bigger pot in the first place.
Quick history, Reagan recommissioned a lot of old ships forming a 500 boat navy and at the fall of the soviet union half of that navy was decommissioned. That was by far the deepest cut of the nineties. Then when the support for the military years came under the Bush years the money the navy was hoping to regain got ate by the war. The Navy has been screwed so long that they are almost delirious for funding.
Now for the Air Force, they were supposed to get this wicked awesome F-22 in their inventory, before OEF/OIF dove 1.5 trillion dollars into the federal budget not to mention the additional ground forces training and maintenance ate another 2 trillion during that time frame. so now they are riding on some old fighters thinking to themselves if they don't get planes that they won't be an air force.
So,...the stage is set. Here we have two disenchanted branches to pit at the budget. We'll just promote and appoint the austere General officers to power and rip up the budget with them.Throw them a 70 billion a year at their things to snatch 150 billion a year at others. Giving before you take is a old concept.
Keeping in mind that they aren't doing this to be a disservice but feel that what they are doing is a priority issue. And this ploy by the administration against the military alone wouldn't have hurt the military very much but this little thing really isn't the only factor in play. What kind of stratagem doesn't strike multiple centers of gravity at decisive moments. Following the end of the war in Iraq there was a mass recapitalization of ground vehicles which may have satisfied the military in the meantime but shot the defense budget so high that the sequestration bill was enacted.
Now that time has progressed and new leaders are in positions of power and old goals have given way to the distractions, we now introduce this other garbage and call it great hoping you don't remember the reality.
When you subtract the war contingency budget, the state side expenses not covered under it, then general inflation. Then take a look at the potential threats from multiple information sources for so you don't get lied to by doctored statistics(www.globalfirepower.com is a good example of a statistic site that doctors numbers to make the us look more powerful) the military hasn't been this austere since 1979.
Every one has their own requirements to fill and it isn't about which one is more important than the other. What the military needs to do is march in step and hand this fucker the bill.
This is reality
ReplyDeleteChina has three times your manpower and one fifth of your wealth.
Any war fought with manpower puts them at an advantage.
Any war fought with money put them at a disadvantage.
That before you consider moving Soldiers and Material from the CONUS to the Far East.
Yes, the army has its fast transport ships, but they are still "just" specialised merchant ships. They need ports and protection.
You worry about what a J20 wing will do to a CBG, imagine what it would do to troop transports.
Thats the key behind Chinas A2D strategy, its not to keep out warships, although it will haper them, but to keep out none warships.
Doesnt matter how many infantry divisions you have, what matters is how many you can deploy, despite a strengh of over 300,000 the UK managed to deploy 10,000 soldiers to the Falklands, who were deployed without sufficient armour, artillery or logistics, most of whom were deployed on civillian shipping.
The Argentine airforce was rubbish, and the QE2 made it to theater.
Do you think the chinese would miss such a juicy target?
An Army/Marine unit that doesnt have a landing ship capable of deploying and supplying it over a beach doesnt exist for any practical purpose, except maybe the defence of Australia.
So it's back to keeping the 8 ships and then building more LSD-41 LONG-well-deck Amphibs $650-million (cheap) COPIES of them to be able to deliver the punch; almost 2 for the price of 1 short well-deck LPD-17 flavor.
DeleteAnd it's forward to leveraging LCU-F for all she's got. With 200 tons of Cargo at near 20kts - it's Multi-Mission opportunities galore.
With the ARG kept out of harm's way, nobody will ask for AAV-X to hit any beaches. We'll be recycling AAV-7 with another rehab/uparmoring and will deliver everything via LCU-F and mission-depending by LCAC-2/SSC.
Now that should be the focus of USMC-centric thinking.
Or the defense of CONUS. if you've got a peer foe the possibility of 5-15% of their attacking force reaching the US seems plausible to me even assuming air and naval superiority.
DeleteThe possibility of State sponsored terrorism would be cause enough for a powerful ground force. We have 830,000 police in america and we aren't even being terror attacked on a daily basis. And the cops are not an acceptable substitute because they don't mass nationally and are not prepared for continuous coordinated armed opposition.
Something that may have escaped people's attention is the classic troop rotation. In macro maneuver you're never supposed to deploy more than a third of your forces, because once you've done that you've fully extended your hand and making yourselves highly predictable and committed thereby endangering the entire force.
You don't need simultaneous intercontinental transport for 100% of your forces to justify their existence.
How's about we just avoid the whole thing.
A marine's way of fighting may be amphibious landing because that's who they are, but I think the classic heavy handed strategic bombing approach would be much more to the point against a large opponent.