Photos via China Defense Blog.
I predicted this. If you remember I said that when China finally turns its attention to armored vehicles that we'd be seeing things that our Soldiers and Marines would give body parts for...ok, thats a little dramatic but you get the point.
The Chinese have a new expeditionary light tank to match up with their Airborne and Amphibious forces.
I'm gonna run some basic numbers but excluding air power I would bet that they've achieved "firepower superiority" when you compare a given US Army or Marine Corps unit to its Chinese counterpart.
We better get our heads out of the counter insurgency op forever type thinking. The future bad guys are gearing up.
The turret seems modern looking , compared to russian 2S25 Sprut... but no worries , the US have Buford light tank ready for production /sarc
ReplyDeletehttp://www.military-today.com/tanks/sprut_sd.htm
the 2S25 Sprut-SD is referred by Russians as the self-propelled anti-tank gun or tank destroyer, it is a light tank by it's function. The Sprut-SD was designed for the airborne forces and naval infantry. It can be seen as a replacement for the out-dated PT-76 light tank. The 2S25 Sprut-SD has firepower comparable with modern MBTs and outperforms light tanks and tank destroyers in these terms. Oficially it was accepted to service in 2005. Some sources claim that 50 to 75 Spruts are due to be delivered to Russian airborne units.
Protection of the Sprut-SD has a very limited. It's front arc provides protection against 12.7-mm rounds. All-round protection is against small-arms fire and artillery shell splinters only. Despite that protection can be increased with add-on armor and various countermeasures system. Vehicle is fitted with an NBC protection and automatic fire extinguishing systems.
The Sprut-SD is armed with a fully-stabilized 125-mm smoothbore gun, fitted with an autoloader. This gun is also used to launch anti-tank guided missies in the same manner as ordinary projectiles. This feature is common to all modern Russian MBTs. Laser-guided anti-tank missiles has a range of effective fire of up to 5 km. Missiles can also be used against low-flying helicopters. A total of 40 rounds including missiles are carried for the main gun. An autoloader holds 22 of them. The 2s25 Sprut SD has a rate of fire of 7 rounds per minute. Vehicle is fitted with a modern fire control system.
Thanks for bringing up the Sprut. And it has some impressive firepower.
DeleteIn the meantime, the next person that tells me that "nobody is investing in airborne armor and light tanks because they're obsolete" is going to get kicked in the knee caps...or do corrective training until hospitalization. ;)
Well, they were investing in those... both the Stryker and Bradley were supposed to be airborne and amphibious, yes? :D
Deletequestion is what are they going to use it for? i stills ee this as a move to either fight on islands around japan or south china sea. if they want to take taiwan they will need to dramatically increase amphibs and some heavy stuff, i think they are gearing up for more smaller mobile campaigns of small islands like the disputed ones of japan or south china sea.
ReplyDeleteThat light tank is built specifically to battle the Indian army across the Himalayas.
Deletethen its going to get ate up. the Indians have formed a mechanized mountain brigade (maybe larger) and will have main battle tanks facing these vehicles. they won't stand a chance in that scenario and yeah i read the write up by China Defense but quite honestly it doesn't make sense to develop a MOUNTAIN tank. they've been wrong before and i'll trust my own judgement on this one. my idea makes sense. this time China Defense might be passing on disinformation.
DeleteCorrection to that number......3 Armored Brigades with 55 tanks per Battalion and 3 Battalions per brigade. The tank selected is the T-90. These brigades are part of the 17 Mountain Strike Corps still being assembled. There is another strike coprs in planning stages which will have similar numbers.
DeleteThis tanks biggest enemy will be that chopper which Solomon posted a month or so back called the Light Combat Helicoptor and the "Rudra" varient of the ALH Dhruv. Bith coptors have 20MM cannons which dont seem like much till you realize that they will be firing on light tanks from the top and also have AT-Missiles and have been designed from the very beginning to carry their full combat compliment of weapons and ammo to their full flight cieling. So that when they are scaling all those mountains, there is no excuse of getting rid of weapons to increase flight cieling. Those Turbomecca/HAL "Shakti" engines are a class act. And LCH and Rudra are going to have 2 of these Shakti engines.
Another little known fact....its quiet difficult to dig in the earth defensive structures like foxholes and dug in pill boxes in hard mountain surgaces and rock. Which requires you to build "sangars" above the ground level. The mobile you get...the moe temporary/ramshackle these sangars get as you just assemble them out of rock and sandbags above ground level. Only a few bunkers in important posotions are going to be hard concrete. Imagine what damage just a 20MM will be able to do to these above ground Sangars.
The Chinese for all their "military/industrial" achievement still do not possess a chopper that can carry its full weapons compliment to those altitudes. It is a fact that wont change soon as even the Russians cant sell them that type of chopper because even they dont have such a capability.
I'm going with Sol on this one too, seems more geared towards Airborne and Amphibious forces, with some COIN for good measure. I think they will use their heavy MBTs for any India conflict.
DeleteIronically, light tanks haven't done too badly in COIN as well as amphib-support. You know, if we put the 105mm from the MGS on the AMPV model BAE just sold to the Army as an M113 replacement that wouldn't be too shabby as a light tank. Only 18 in the ready mag, but since the gun isn't in a turret you could also mount a Hydra-70 missile pod (7 missiles) on the vehicle top with a laser (and the new precision kits on the missile) to expand the firepower. Not as good as some previous light tank designs---because it's not very light--but a good speedy solution...and then since we seem unable to build a new amphib invest in some new LCMs
ReplyDeleteHad an idea for an LCM update: to make a new, cheap one how about leave off the bridge and engine--instead the propulsion will be powered by the diesel-electric engine of the vehicle it carries. The newer APC/IFV designs are all diesel-electric so why not save weight and cost and leave the engine for the LCM behind. Ditto the usual driving station, use a small console in the vehicle (maybe on a portable pc that is stowed in the LCM) and have the vehicle crew do it...you don't need any Navy crew then---it's not much different that expecting an AAV or the cancelled EFV driver to take their vehicle to the beach. They could be double ended so the APC could roll out front or even backwards using the LCM shell for cover. After the battle some supply troops could put a small temp motor (just enough horsepower to move) and return them to either the mother ship or even line them up back to front as a causeway for JSHV's to unload reinforcements after the beach is secured.....or does all that sound crazy? I'm not an engineer, just thought I'd throw it out there.
Why didn't we ever see the M8 Buford through and equip the 82nd airborne with it. Maybe it wasn't the right one, but there should still be a light tank.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M8_Armored_Gun_System
We definitely need some light tanks for rapid reaction and mobile forces. Everyone else seems to be able to build one.
off topic.. another setback ..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2014/1024/Three-pioneering-women-in-Marine-infantry-course-are-asked-to-leave.-Why
WASHINGTON — Just weeks after three women passed a rigorous day-long test qualifying them to potentially lead US Marine infantrymen for the first time in history, news came that all three women have been asked to leave the course.
They were physically disqualified from the training last week for falling behind in hikes while carrying loads of upwards of 100 pounds, says Maj. George Flynn, director of the Infantry Officers Course (IOC) at Quantico, Va.
Earlier this month, the women had successfully completed the Combat Endurance Test, the first hurdle Marines must pass to become infantry officers – the quintessential front-line combat job. That accomplishment qualified them for the remainder of infantry officer training, the IOC.
LOL BUT BUT BUT!!!
ReplyDelete"Airborne tanks are obsolete!" "Airborne armor is obsolete/irrelevant!" "No country is investing in airborne armored forces!" "Everybody is going to wheels!"
Lets hear it detractors. Im talking to the usual suspects on this subject manner...
Got a little distracted lately so missed out on this one. I don't think we should make this a case of this tank being built specifically for this purpose or,that purpose. The Chinese are beefing up their forces full spectrum wide.
ReplyDeleteThe novelty I see in this, or rather the step up this represents, is towards increase in Chinese power projection capabilities wether on their periphery in Chinese and south Chinese sea or even further, we don't know.
More globally it shows a trend towards return of mechanized armour which is a sign the times of SOCOM style interventions is definitely on its way out and that we're back in a way to good old armour vs armour, novelty being integration of vertical dimension and depth of battlefield.
Half right.
DeleteSOF are still your go-to force for hard hitting, non-supported, expeditionaries which is to say OCO which are not predicted (90%). But they are useless if they are not mobile and protected.
So you need the equivalent of the SAS/LRDG landrover/Ford units in the Desert War except with something that has more kick.
Having said this, I would rather have 5-6km capable Switchblade than a LOS CLGP.
Because the Switchblade is LOAL and it plunges.
If you are going to make -any- tank worthwhile, it is seriously time to bring the XM1111 to service.
Because that takes the range out to more than a minute of drive time and officially makes weapons like LAHAT and Sniper _worthless_ as Sidewinders in an AMRAAM fight.
I would suggest that a 105mm stug would be light and short enough to manage a guided-indirect mission with a 20-30` barrel elevation and it's security screen could be Wiesels with 20-30mm cannon and a quad of Javelin.
If the name of the game is to get into the theater quickly, with forces that are not instantly bypassed as soon as they hit dirt, then you need mounted, underarmor, forces with enough gas to last a minimum 7-10 days. That means 500 gallons of fuel. It means an autoloaded, unmanned, turret. It means weapons that allow you to hostage threat logistics as much as main force without being LOS with them.
And it means a COMPETENT force of light armor operators so that, coming off a C-17 SOLL IV, they can start breaking things in time to halt the enemy advance for want of gas and secure rear areas.
where does everyone get the idea that SOCOM travels light, freezes at night and requires little support! are you shitting me! i really need to do a bit of research and check what things are like now but years ago those guys would basically tie up entire sectors with their requirements. everything gets diverted to stop their operations and the idea that they require little support literally has me punching walls.
Deletenot only do they need tons of support (from all forces wherever they're operating) but they act as if nothing else matters. a unit in trouble? fuck you, we have an op going on...they're just going to have to make do. have a medivac? sorry, drive him out 'cause all air assets are assigned to insert the name of the SOCOM baddy here. you have a romantic view of the old school snake eaters....they're a totally different beast now.
Sol,
ReplyDelete>>
You have a romantic view of the old school snake eaters....they're a totally different beast now.
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Perhaps. But the reality remains: "Light is Right but When in Doubt Load It Out." is not something that a mech troop commander takes half as seriously as someone who walks his mission in. And all I care about is if he can DO that mission as what the next war calls for.
Yet with the exception of some FAVs in the hands of the SEALs and some technicals which are assigned on a theater by theater basis (See: The pickups which Delta used in AfG so they would not be totally dependent on the local warlord who hosted them. _Kill Bin Laden_ has the vehicle park photo inside his villa's courtyard...); the SpecFor have no routine access to protected transport let alone armed platforms as a standing force.
And the real military doesn't want them to have it because that would be stepping on Big Track's toes and from your own attitude, you are fearful enough of their status as a light infantry unit which has as much in common with SWAT as 11B.
I have no dog in that fight.
What I want is cool hands as decent time-in experience operating as an independent force with at least some language/social skills for the region. Along with the ability to be called up with their go bag in the closet and without notifying half the media that things are about to get strategic with an emergency deployment.
SOCOM gets you all that, in spades.
What SOCOM doesn't get you is more than a hilltop observer's understanding of what's going on around a 2-3nm wide location. And that's because they depend on covertness rather than mounted speed and firepower to break into and out of bad situations, take a peek, not a peak, and call down pain on what needs it.
They are seriously overmatched by platoon level mortars.
I don't want them that close. I want them stood off, using drones and masted sensors/directional comms on small arms protected vehicles that can get them into and out of a fight at 40mph as a Wiesel certainly can. If push comes to shove, you have a 20mm RH202 to play the he-who-follows-fastest game with. And the kit can be pretty serious because THEY ARE NOT CARRYING IT YOURSELF.
Water, MREs, First Aid. The basics of 'camping' become important when you are expected to do 10 days without real support, particularly the desert.
M240 + 5,000rds. M107 + 500 rds. 10X Javelins. PGMM+Dragonfire (Wiesel has tested this). Satcomms and decent, redundant, radios for talking to air. Plus a RORO VLS pallet stack of something like Switchblade but with a rocket to get it downrange in a hurry and a couple more hours of battery or gas endurance to keep it there.
no access to armor? are you kidding? THEY DON'T WANT IT! additionally what are you talking about when you say they walk in? SOCOM hasn't done long range missions in ages! if you're being doctrinally accurate then you could rename the entire institution Rangers and been done with it. for the past 10 years SOCOM has done raids and nothing but raids. even SF has been bitten by the bug and no longer does host nation training.
DeleteName one SOCOM unit that has the capability of doing long range patrol these days? show me one outfit under their banner that is capable of onsite recon of a high value target without detection! show me one mission where we've seen them do anything but raids!
YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THEY DON'T! no hatred of the institution but i'm facing a reality. if we have 60,000 troops assigned to one mission set then why do we need that many? do we need that many raiders? i don't think so...and SOCOM will never come out and say it but this move by MARSOC to get rides with MEUs is based on two things. the first is that they see the future and its moving toward a conventional world...again. SOCOM has had its day in the sunshine and someone somewhere is going to look at the tally sheet and wonder why we have so many special operators that bring the exact same thing to the table. the second thing is that the former commandant was a SOCOM bitch....and a MV-22 freak. he wanted to do anything to prove the value of that airplane even if it meant that the entire USMC would become subservient to and serve SOCOM.
the swing to the Pacific is hazardous to SOCOMs future though. its a mech world out there. you send raiders into that environment and they're gonna get chewed up. have you read the Joint Special Ops manual? IT EVEN SAYS THAT special ops are vulnerable to conventional troops.
so yeah. back to my original point. SOCOM IS NO LONGER LIGHT. they don't want armor (although someone was operating PANDUR APCs) and they're a bitch to work with because they soak up every ounce of support in whatever sector they're working in.
trust me ... i know. it might have changed but it was once that way.
Sol,
Delete>>
No access to armor? are you kidding? THEY DON'T WANT IT!
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Special Operations wants what it needs and has proven a utility for. If you give them a Long Range Desert Group mission set (not just walk to here but /patrol/ this area) and tell them they had better all be able to come out of the back of a pair of C-17 SOLL-IVs, they will get jiggy with the notion of light tracks over wheels for the same reason that we didn't enjoy having to replace worn tires at twice the warstock predicted levels during the little jaunt to Baghdad in 2003.
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Additionally what are you talking about when you say they walk in? SOCOM hasn't done long range missions in ages! If you're being doctrinally accurate then you could rename the entire institution Rangers and been done with it. For the past 10 years SOCOM has done raids and nothing but raids. Even SF has been bitten by the bug and no longer does host nation training.
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Read _No Easy Day_ or _Kill Bin Laden_. They started out doing tactical inserts right ontop of the threat with the full blown Somalia style Little Birds and Pavehawks, razzle dazzle.
They found out (duhh) that it was loud and it was dangerous when you were under the hover footprint of something you wanted to come take you back home. Not come down on your head, in pieces.
So they switched back to walking it in from a remote insert. The Afghans have dogs and occasionally an inner-zone (the richer places are set up as villas with a protected courtyard) alarm but basically depend on walls and knowing the neighbors to remain safe.
It worked. Just like it also worked to go back to silent guns rather than flash-bang entries.
Fighting primitive makes it easier to do things you normally wouldn't against a sophisticated adversary, simply because you aren't facing the kinds of automated and shift based security which makes foot borne assaults attrition heavy if you don't bring them off at speed.
At the same time, if you're looking for POIs to talk to or you're in a valley where everyone hates the U.S., it really helps to be able to set up a remote screen line on higher elevation to keep the other houses from getting nosy and to accomplish things as quietly, initially, as you can. All of which happens when you scrape knuckles to walk it in.
If playing Caesar In Gaul is your mission, this is fine.
We go hot with China or DPRK or Iran and we will not be dancing a slow waltz to COIN sheet music. It will be _grab the nukes_. Or _stop the spearhead_. And SOF will be going in first because they are ready for independent ops as most Rangers and Marines really are not.
The latter are good soldiers but they are trained to work as part of a larger theater plan rather than as own-initiative conditioned operations where they are developing intel and scripting their own mission brief, on the fly.
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Name one SOCOM unit that has the capability of doing long range patrol these days? show me one outfit under their banner that is capable of onsite recon of a high value target without detection! show me one mission where we've seen them do anything but raids!
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Rock And Hardspot With No Working Radio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njbTLYSh1bM
The whole point Sol is that they need to be able to do so. The above video can be summarized as: "Can't run, can't fight, can't see beyond their local vantage proximity with the road under surveillance." All of which is pure lethal to a team stuck in the great wide open of a dead flat desert with 26 million Iraqs all around them. You're predictable and static just on the proximity with that damn road.
OTOH, if you keep the team size small and air-mech them in 30-50nm away from the road, they can do all of the above (see, run fight) -plus- bring useful quantities of sustenance to stay fresh without having to risk a resupply walkout-walkin transit to a helo drop.
All because they can insert distant, _drive_ into the mission area without risk of the deployment itself being detected and then use UGS or drone relays from _onboard their vehicles_ to look over the local horizon and get the same kind of "Well, milcons on that highway is bare-minimum, let's go find some other fun." traffic monitoring as they tried to do in the above Desert Storm recce. If the place is dead, you need to have the mission authority (read: experience and intel access) to pull up stakes and move elsewhere.
DeleteThey whole reason they ended up getting detected by the locals as they sat in their drainage ditch pretending they were inconspicuous was because it was the only depressed terrain defilade for 30 miles in any direction and thus the only place they could walk it in in a single night to dump their gear below surface level. Dirt in Iraq being an alternate term for what we would call concrete.
They simply had no way of knowing the little kids grazing goats also treated it as a boundary marker for their common area and so they ended up in trouble because they were sharing the same terrain space. Nobody walks out into the deep desert without a reason though, which means if you are as little as 5-10 miles back, you and your team are safe even if you are streaming a ten foot stars and stripes behind each vehicle.
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YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THEY DON'T! no hatred of the institution but I'm facing a reality. if we have 60,000 troops assigned to one mission set then why do we need that many?
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SOCOM will shrink because SOCOM isn't fighting the hostile pacification mission anymore. The question is, now that they are an independent command and cannot be submarined by their 'parent' services, what do you want them to configure to in meeting the /next/ mission set?
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Do we need that many raiders? i don't think so...and SOCOM will never come out and say it but this move by MARSOC to get rides with MEUs is based on two things. the first is that they see the future and its moving toward a conventional world...again. SOCOM has had its day in the sunshine and someone somewhere is going to look at the tally sheet and wonder why we have so many special operators that bring the exact same thing to the table.
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The Corps has it's own too-big-for-mission-britches problem to deal with, the very least of which is that if they think they are going to get 11 LHAs when the USN is tying up CSFs dockside for want of deployment money, they're nuts.
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The second thing is that the former commandant was a SOCOM bitch....and a MV-22 freak. he wanted to do anything to prove the value of that airplane even if it meant that the entire USMC would become subservient to and serve SOCOM.
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Sir, the name of the game is getting forces into the fight by whatever means necessary. If the Marines have the platforms (CH-53K, not Osprey) to get that done then there should be no pride lost in being the bus driver. You are taking these soldiers into danger and you are dragging their nuts from the fire.
That's brave enough.
Having said this, the Marines have basically made their beds:
Delete1. By acting as a main force element in their own right. Which means time to assemble battalion sized combat teams, board them on ships and sail into the ops zone is 'better than the Army'. And not much else.
2. By failing to acknowledge that Asia is the world's largest land mass. And failing to heed Boyd's words about not getting so damn headlocked around the notion of the white water. The war is -beyond- the beach, not on it.
3. Like it or lump it, you are no longer the rough boys. You can do the dirty mission sets but with your prestige status, you will not be excessively risked in doing so because a loss to the Marines is a loss to the National face. This was a given after the Barracks attack in Beirut.
What America needs is a force that can get into the OCO theater 'we failed to predict this time' and quickly size up the feeling and disposition of the threat force with an eye towards coordinating seamlessly with (air and missile) assets flowing into the theater and acting on their own recognizance in certain, key, situations. As I mentioned: Seizing a nuclear storage facility in the middle of a Failed State crisis.
And blunting a thrustline by killing it's POL push columns as they move up.
This can _only_ be achieved by going all air on entry (C-130 direct delivery or C-17 HVAD) and driving, not walking, away from the site when you get down.
The Marines don't do this. Their thing is water. And the cost of a constant ARG deployment in the PacRim is going to be no less than it is for the CSF force which is currently being eyed for serious cutting in it's own right.
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The swing to the Pacific is hazardous to SOCOMs future though. It's a mech world out there. You send raiders into that environment and they're gonna get chewed up. have you read the Joint Special Ops manual? IT EVEN SAYS THAT special ops are vulnerable to conventional troops.
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Spec Ops aren't special that way. Any more than Vietcong were special. Anymore than Waffen SS or Red Devils or Darby's Rangers were special. You cannot walk out of a fight you cannot win so long as you are facing threats with 500-1,500m fires dominance. And as long as your ability to /maneuver/ is determined by how much weight you can carry for how many hours to cover a given radius from last encounter point you are vulnerable to a 'Farmhouse, Outhouse, Doghouse' search like anyone else fugitive-afoot.
Believing that point and click competence with a gun and march until you cry endurance means much in an age of radio and vehicle transport is really kind've lame.
What makes Spec Ops unique is the experience threshold by which they bring language/culture skills and cross trained capacities to a cool headed senior sergeant or higher individual who is very much a team player but a _small team centric_ around singular objective MAs not prolonged terrain holding or attritional warfare type missions.
They are small and they are unacknowledged. So if you lose a Team, nobody is going to cry, especially if it's the opening to a really big op. But if you have a Battalion MAGTF on an LHD that takes a DF-21D to the captain's forehead, there will be no end to the crying and accusations as to why such a vulnerable, high value, asset was sent into harms way with 3,500 men onboard.
Delete>>
So yeah. back to my original point. SOCOM IS NO LONGER LIGHT. They don't want armor (although someone was operating PANDUR APCs) and they're a bitch to work with because they soak up every ounce of support in whatever sector they're working in.
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See the above video. SF gets what it needs because their operators hang it all out there and they really are living on reputation more than capability if seriously engaged. They are closer to SWAT than they are light infantry in terms of their excellent shooter and SUW/CQB skills but utter absence of heavy crew served capabilities. A Toyata Hilux with a DShK on the roof is not an armored unit and thus they are not 'heavy'.
The whole point is that they are not able to fight and maneuver, fluidly, on their own right now and that is what a future conflict is going to need. If you are truly tired of the entire military being 'on call' at SOCOMs beck and whim, then give them the fundamentals of mobility and force protection to take care of themselves while moving from patrol area to patrol area.
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Trust me ... I know. It might have changed but it was once that way.
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Shrug. I'm not doubting your knowledge sir, I'm questioning it's relevance to a world where the world's premier armed forces won the battle but spent a decade losing the war, in the process throwing way a trillion dollars on a backwards nation that has severely endangered our own country's ability to sustain it's debt ratio with states like China refusing to cover our trillion dollar deficits without serious 'collateral' (as real estate, stock guarantees in companies and holdings on infrastructure, guaranteed by the U.S. government, here in the U.S.) to justify their own risked position.
Denying the U.S. Army and USMC a major landwar capacity is the easiest means by which to avoid the protracted occupational COIN campaign and free up discretionary funds to feed the social welfare habit.
What this means is that Sequestration in a world of zero threats will continue apace until the major landforces in particular are utterly ruined.
If you want to continue to be combat effectors in this world, you have to learn to do more with less and one of those is the employment of light, sacrificial, forces to gain early entry from a single pass parachute or landed delivery. So as to disrupt the revolution in progress to as great an extent possible while we make phone calls to set up another coallition and find another Northern Alliance to act as our Condottieri avoidance mechanism to a prolonged stay.
In this, my SOF 'light(ning) brigade' is just the first step towards a major rethink in how we treat armor as a whole but it is a valid one /because/ the SOF are more open to new ideas than the other, hidebound, service branches.
If the SF 'other activity' at the Annex had had armor to roll hot with, the Embassy relief would have happened sooner. If the SOF coming out of Sigonella (who were told to stand down, midway) had had armor the Annex itself would not have been mortared for hours.
As light infantry, few in number, the Special Forces could have done, honestly, very little to force the situation to a resolution before the Ambassador was drug out and killed in Benghazi, there were hundreds there.
DeleteBut as a mounted force, protected under armor (NERA and APS against RPG threat) and with a 20mm "Hello! My Name Is Inigo Montoya!" door knocker, they could have rolled /through/ the enemy forces and interposed to create a security perimeter so the the embassy group could debus and go relieve the Ambassador in the safe room.
Which is something that the SOF do _very well_ and in which, total numbers make less of a difference.
Veniremus, Attenti Sumus, Reversi.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/10/21/new-details-emerge-on-attack-on-us-consulate-in-libya/
Start small, pick the favored group who have the emperor's eye and are willing to try bigger things and make jealousy your driving vector towards "Look what the SOF just got, boy I shoulda signed up with them!" a leaner-meaner-NLOS capable force.
See, I'm not planning on SOF fighting the Tawalkana Division on their own. I want them to call down the rain from other fires assets when they can. But they have to be able to keep up with the theater commanders OPPLAN target shifts and when they are reduced or 'unknown', go find something worth killing. They must be an armored recon scouting force in a rapid evolution sense of getting into the theater and being fragmentable into platoon level component teams after arrival.
ReplyDeleteThis is the other reason for having SpecFor be the service of choice. They are used to fighting at large numeric disparities and maintaining opsec through fluidity and standoff. Main force elements are taught a different style of assault warfare with the intent of completely attriting the threat as owning their dirt.
We cannot afford another 800 billion dollar war. Which is precisely why the Chinese are standing up formations designed to achieve fait d'accompli mission sets with rapid, lightweight, maneuver elements but little or no real logistical depth.
If you push riskable forces into that kind of battle, quickly enough to interrupt the threat first and second evolution call to CS/CSS formations, you can _stop_ an armored thrust, in it's tracks. For want of POL and Bullets.
When Jessica Lynch got taken by the Fedayin we rolled back an entire Cav Team to resweep and clear the area they had just passed through in a sandstorm because our support elements were all but helpless against Allahu Ackbar screaming irregulars in Toyota pickups.
Do that in the next hot war (to the enemy) and you grant TIME to stand up the MEU which is going to come by boat with the heavy gear.
Bleed for time. Bleed for lives. Bleed for victory. But never bleed for dirt.
SOF knows this. SOF is too small to be a dirt taker force. And there is a historical precedent with the SAS jeeps running down Luftwaffe flightlines in Libya with Lewis Guns blazing.
See, also: Securing nuclear depots in failed states at minimum notification. Sending recce units to hunt down DPRK missile TELs in a peninsular war where we cannot afford to 'start winning' (across the DMZ) until the threat has no sunshine. Hostage/Embassy rescue similar to the LIbyan fiasco where operators were ON THE PLANE when they were told to turn back. Helo carried expeditionary forces which do the anti-piracy mission in Somalia, from the backside of the beach.
Light Armor with reconfigurable turret wells and MODERN ORDNANCE can do an incredible amount to leverage smaller-faster-meaner-leaner doctrine into emergent situations where threats are too well equipped to be dealt with by light infantry forces but the need to go eyeball to eyeball with a heavy mech force isn't there.
Think every theater of operation has its own dynamics, based on your own and the enemy's capabilities. So if were saying that it may be crucial to have forces with special capabilties, that can be deployed quickly, operate with large autonomy even behind enemy lines and wrack havoc or slow down enemy buildup then I would agree that is a way forward for SOCOM future. However this means they're part of a more general plan and not the central element of your effort at defeating the enemy.
DeleteThing is, what I've seen in the past not so long ago is that that specifics of US war effort in the big sandbox have tainted strategic planning and views on warfare in the US in general and even in some of the military's minds.
Truth is the war on terror has been a side note in military history and now that we're moving away from it were getting back to basics. The crucial part Will be for the US To fully realize this return to Clausewitz principles of "large war" as opposed to "small war" before they have to fight an opponent that has even just moderate conventional capabilities on the ground combined with air support that is able to challenge total US air power superiority.