Friday, May 09, 2014

An Armored Brigade Combat Team tailored for the Pacific....


An expeditionary Marine Corps means a lighter Marine Corps.

But what do you do when you need armored protection to operate deep....to seize an objective because air defenses will not allow a heliborne assault?
You send a mechanized force to blast through defenses and maintain the momentum of your landing on the beach.

But wait!  The USMC is rapidly divesting itself of armor!  Tanks is being whittled away and our AAVs are as old as dinosaurs.  The answer?  You use call on your buddies in the Big Army to land an Armored Brigade Combat Team to carry the torch that you just handed them after DOING YOUR JOB and taking the beach.

Jointness doesn't mean operating together, it means staying in your lane and not duplicating capabilities found in the other services.  The ABCT is what the US Army can contribute to the fight IF Big Army gets moving.

Read how American Mercenary would build such a team here.

26 comments :

  1. Who will need Marines when Army can land and take beach without problem?

    But wait! Someone need to buy that F-35B! Marines will live because Lockeed Martin will say so.

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  2. thats as false an argument as the Marine Generals that started the 2nd land army talk.

    love ya Shas (and i know you're being sarcastic) but that line of thinking is bullshit. in todays world the US Army would never talk about doing forcible entry from the sea. they don't want the mission....what do they need to be able to do? plug and play with the USMC. they need to get back to the idea of operating from the sea. administrative landings or as part of the assault follow on echelon is where they will come into their own.

    this isn't about replacing our capabilities but simply expanding on the mission. consider this. USMC doctrine says that it takes a MEB to conduct an amphibious assault (smallest organization capable of doing so)....you arrive at that by bringing two MEU's together....but even with that you have a remarkably light force. wouldn't it be a good idea if the Army could push an Armored Brigade Combat Team thru the gap?

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    1. Yeah it was a sarcasm and I know that this line is bullshit. But so many people try to reform Corps in to something between airmobile formation and light infantry that I'm afraid if Marines will be able to do the... well Marine job.

      As I read many books about Crops history there was always times when Marines fight for survive not against enemy but politics who try to put a cross on that formation. I'm just afraid that this is another battle for survive. The most terrible Commandant in history of USMC, budget butchered by some "Lemon" plane, modernization R&D hang by the neck, loss of discipline and image of Corps, all those politics mambo jambo dance... this is the hard times for Marines.

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    2. spot on. there is a terrible rumor going around though. supposedly Amos wants another term as Commandant. if that happens the USMC will explode with anger. lets hope its just useless scuttlebutt but we'll see.

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  3. The "Bradley Fighting Vehicle [...] has a proven track record against T-72s with the 25mm Bushmaster, and carries TOW missiles to take out anything newer." Do they really believe this? As I remember they just encountered the Iraq copies of the T-72, the Asad Babil.

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    1. uh yeah they really do. i don't know if the bushmaster was firing mini depleted uranium round but something gave those cannons the extra umph to punch through Iraqi armor. additionally the Iraqi's were BIG buyers of Russian armor. they had real deal 100% T-72s. they had a bunch of weird armor mixed in but they had the good stuff.

      recommended reading? 73 Easting. Bradleys played a HUGE role in that fight and they ended up going toe to toe against tanks and winning.

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    2. Something about what the Asad Babil and real Russian T-72 got in common:
      http://youtu.be/j7NVRTlAkx0
      Any magic 25 mm bullets can't be better than A-10 PGU-14/B rounds.

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    4. A funny book about A-10 against T-62.
      "A-10 pilots coloring book" or "What you always wanted to know about the T-62 but were afraid to aks"
      https://medium.com/war-is-boring/a26385113bf0

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  4. The 25mm pushing DU or AP rounds will punch through the turret ring of a T-72, and light off ammo stored in the ready racks. It isn't a spectacular way to kill a tank, but it worked multiple times in Desert Storm. You know the enemy tank is dead when flames come out....

    The real reason I don't actually worry about enemy tanks is that the TOW missile system can out range pretty much anything in the currrent Russian or Chinese inventories as far as main gun tank rounds goes, the 125mm Russian system is just not very accurate (although they have been improving quite a bit with aiming system upgrades). But even if that doesn't work, the dismounts can use Javelins. Tanks are easy to kill with missiles.

    All those lightweight medium "expeditionary" tanks the Chinese have been playing with can kill a Bradley, but they can also be killed by the Bradley. So it becomes a fight of who has the better situational awareness to take advantage of standoff and intelligence to find, fix, and finish the enemy before the other. This is why BFT and redundant radio comms already in the vehicles is such a good thing as a combat multiplier.

    The Army also has an off the shelf cannon upgrade already on the market to turn the 25mm into a 30mm right now, although I expect someone will get smart and bypass 30mm and go straight to ATK's "Super 40" system. If you are going to upgrade, really upgrade. Since all the chassis systems are in place, it becomes a bolt off, bolt on, reprogram the computer solution. Although if the Army went with the 30mm solution it would look a lot like the British Warrior fighting vehicle, and it has a pretty good track record too.

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    1. Well, AM and Solomon have their reasons for having a Bradley Based Pacific Strike Formations but this is ridiculous. Fighting possibly against tanks without tanks. I mean, i like the AM blog about artillery and the guesstimate he has done regarding logistics but you have to have a tank. Those tight/small islands will not give you one iota of manouevre space that those Arab deserts have given you allowing your bushmasters to to hit tanks in vulnerable places. Enemy tanks themselves will be surrounded with little swarms of chinese running about with RPG's and whatever light anti armor launchers they can field. You need a platform which has PROVEN, repeat PROVEN capability to withstand the 2A46M gun the best of russkie inspired anti tank missiles. Bradleys cant hold a candle to protection on that level. Next thing you know, they'l want Soft Skin Bradleys to fight 65 miles from shore away from Shore based "Missiles".

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    2. And no disrespect to anyone here.

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    3. our infantry will take great pleasure in killing enemy anti-tank missile teams that are dismounted. they'll do the same to those enemy infantry hunting our guys. additionally if you're doing it right your artillery and mortars are keeping their heads down and making them scared to lift them up. last but not least his plan incorporates a pretty robust ISR setup. so as much as i hate to admit it, we should have situational awareness over the enemy. what does that mean. we set the conditions for the fight. we pick the place and the time. oh and i forgot, if you're talking about limited maneuver space then you also have the ability to rely on naval guns to put the hurt on and Navy / Marine air to deliver ordnance. if the fight is big enough or if the USAF wants to play then i'm sure a couple of B-52 will be deployed and you're looking at a 50,000 foot orbit over the battlefield for x number of hours dropping bombs one at a time till the job is done.

      we can do it. but we need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of it all.

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    4. Good Point, you do have a lot of weapons which you can use, but if the chinese can put a tank on an Island, i am taking mine as well. And there is no doubt that AT THIS VERY MOMENT......Western Inantry is the best in the world. You dont indugle in 13 years of warfare without comming out with a kick-ass outfit. Infantry on Infantry......USA has an overwhelming advantage over whatever the chinese can put up, so lets extend that overwhelming advantage to your Mech. section as well.

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    5. question then. what is your definition of a tank? does it have a certain amount of armor? if so then light tanks with large caliber weapons are what the Chinese are building and will deploy to these islands. it then becomes a question of whether a Bradley with its medium caliber cannon can also be called a tank since its as well armored, has an effective weapon against everything up to and including some MBTs and failing that can rely on its TOW weapon system.

      the only thing that keeps us from calling a Bradley a tank is because we have an exquisitely equipped Army and the vehicle carries dismounts. remove the infantry from the vehicle, add extra ammo and could you not call it a tank?

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    6. Nope, not untill you can withstand a frontal shot against a 105/120/125mm cannon are you a tank. Not untill you have the ability to take repeated hits from a fortified enemy while maintaining the ability to hit back are you a tank. There is a reason that its called an MBT and not an IFV, ICV, APC, ABCDEFG etc. I appreciate the Bradley or Stryker for being formidable opponets with their mobility and specialized weapons like 105 turret, TOW's etc. but they dont have protection. Gentlemen.....the tip of the spear has to have the most weight directed at the least area. Even if you take one Runneymeade's compliment of 3 Abrams, do take them. The chinese can also launch TOW equivalents from their Tanks and APC's. Why overwhelm your infantrywith sooo many roles when those roles can be distributed equally to the armored corps as well. Think of those tanks or should i say MBT as an insurance policy, we all need one. Premium is a bitch to pay, but we need them. Just like that extra engine on a dogfighter, just like those bolted on track links, sandbags, that extra mag of ammo being deliberatly stuffed etc. And, anyway, whenever a combat commander from any side (Chinese/American) takes stock of his command over a island, he alone will make an assesment of whether tanks are needed, what platform to deploy (Tanks/IFV's/Amphib tanks), what camo/defensive aids are needed for those tanks etc. Never take that freedom from that Officer on the ground, and then blame him as an officer who cant score.....lol.

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    7. if thats the case then what was the Sheridan Airborne Tank? what do you call the light tanks that the Chinese are developing.

      besides. i don't know of a Russian or Chinese tank in the world that can withstand a frontal shot from a US or allied 105mm cannon firing modern rounds. we won't even talk about 120mm cannon.

      oh and the Stryker MGS carries a 105mm cannon;

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    8. You know better than me what excatly was.....yes WAS the Sheridan. The chinese light tanks do not have faulty non cased over sized ammo firing heavy recoil guns. While you know better than me what the Sheridan was, I know better what that crappy "Lion of Babylon" T-72 was. It was not as previously mentioned the best T-72 version out there, incfact it was their worst version. Even the Russians used to call it the Monkey version. How i know of it is becasue the back in the day the Soviets were trying to equip us with that monkey tank as well. Do not base your Bushmaster Confidence on a shit version of an antique tank improperly assembled by Iraqi Engineering....a by word for quality. And anyway...do not base your confidense on defeating a tank manned by an overly political army which could barely make a dent on a neer and peer middle east/persian gulf adversary.

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    9. Yes i know the stryker carries the 105, i appreciated that in my previous rant.

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    10. I dont know about chinese tanks but i do know about a little test you americans only conducted with east german t-72's when germany reunited.....the 2A46, did penetrate your Mighty Abrams. I have forgotten where i saw that research including the ballistics and holed in armor but i shall now make it a crusade to re-find it. That and another combat action where an early model T-90 did withstand 6 RPG hits in Chechnya. Will post those links as soon as i find them. Dont think the russians are idiots with metalurgy and ceramics. The germans did that mistake in WW2.

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    11. All I am saying is that while American Mercenaries force combo is pretty damn good, you should also not forget your tanks. Take that extra expensive effort to have that much of an error margin. Its only your marine/army lives that will be saved. Dont under estimate heavy armor. Even the Germans and French with their Light weight AMX-30 and Lepard 1's who emphasized firepower and mobility then went on to develop 2 of the most heavily armored tanks out there.

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    12. Damn, all this is making me hungry, be back after a quick snack, a packet of crisps and a cold coffee....anybody else want something ?

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    13. glad you mentioned the French. you do realize that the LeClerc is considered by some to be a medium tank. 55 tons is light weight in the armor world we live in. also i'd love to read about the Leopard 2A6 penetrating an Abrams. why? because they're offering a long barrel version of their tank gun because the standard model didn't have the penetration capabilities of the US gun using depleted uranium.

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    14. The French tank has lighter weight cause of the one missing crew member and all that 3 dimensional space saved. Space which would have otherwise been protected with a huge belt of turrent armor therby exponentially increasing weight. The Leopard 2 also started out as a 51-55 ton tank. It was only after Afghanistan inspired stand off armor and Top Attack protection kit upgrade that the Leopard is not 60 tons plus. The LeClerc if the french were involved Armor vise in Afghanistan would have done the same 60 ton mods. Dude....will it kill you to use some of that F-35 cancellation money/savings (Heheh) to go for the extra effort of a Runnymeade compliment of tanks to aid in an absolute kickass beach takeover ?.....its that kind of prep that defferntiate a successful army from just an army. While I admit, tank armor isnt full proof against tank guns, they do offer a huge margin of protection or a huge probabiity of survival. I'd rather an MBT with a 1000mm of RHA equivalent armor than a IFV with 100. Especially if i am attempting a forced beach assault with me on the beach fully exposed, no cover and bits and pieces of enemy defensive aids and barriers blocking/limiting/slowing my mobility. Also, if the chinese use their 85mm gun PT-76 copy tanks in mass or the new 105mm medium tank that you posted back in mass, then its even more reason for you to use a MBT with overwhelming superiority to both those platforms. Keep all options open for all possibilities. There is no way with a budjet of 500 billion or more that you should even think about sacrificing a decent MBT force. Thats for nations like Malaysia or Phillipines to compromise about.

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    15. oops....i mentioned the Leopard as not 60 ton plus. Typo. Error regreted.

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  5. Sarabvir Singh,

    The reason I don't want to fight tank on tank is that fighting system for system it he worst possible way to fight. The number one killer of tanks from past conflicts is not tanks, it is aircraft. It makes a lot of sense to use an AH-64 loaded with Hellfires to take out enemy tanks while a column of Bradleys moves towards the objective.

    It makes sense to use Close Air Support to kill tanks. It makes sense for the Marines to use M777's and laser guided munitions to kill tanks.

    Fighting tank on tank is something we can do, and can win, but it is stupid to fight system for system. When even the dismounted (or riding to a dismount point in wheeled thin skinned trucks) infantry with a Javelin can kill an enemy tank, why do we need tanks?

    The real point of tanks in a combined arms team isn't to defeat the enemies tanks, it is to support the Infantry, lead an armored punch through the lines, or provide an independent maneuver arm that can attack the enemy flanks.

    As you noted, islands can often present "constricting terrain" where the speed of maneuver and punch of tanks is useless against an entrenched defender. Then drop bombs, fire artillery, use missile teams, etc.

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