"Paul Austin" wrote in message . ..
"Kevin Brooks" wrote
"Paul Austin" wrote

You've waived away logistics loads in using SBCTs far from
litterals.
Can you support that?

No, I have not. But, unlike you, I realize that the SBCT is not the
*only* force structure design that requires log support. In order
for
the current LI force to acheive the same mobility on/over the ground
that Stryker offers, you have to either send in a boatload of soft,
less useful trucks to haul them around in, or helos--care to guess
how
much POL those helos will burn? The difference between the two
forces,
if you force both to acheive significant ground mobility, will be
insignificant in terms of log requirements. The *only* way the
current
force wins in this regard is if you send them in with *no* transport
capability--in which case congrats, you just forced us back to the
same rate of movement that we enjoyed during the Civil War (if that
much, since those poor grunts are going to be carrying about five
times the load that their 1860's counterparts were burdened with).

Now, one more time--given that urban combat scenario that you
snipped,
do you want to go in as a naked grunt, or with light armor support?
You *really* don't want to answer that question, do you???

I agree that light infantry needs heavier support. My dislike of the
Stryker concept comes from the concept's origins: Clintonian notions
that the primary use for US arms in the future would be constabulary
operations and peace keeping.

I believe you are reading a bit too much into it. Yes, they will be
valuable in such roles. But the real reason the Army decided to shift
in the IBCT direction was recognition of the fact that we are usually
not going to be able to depend upon our old Cold War-era "forward
deployed" strategy that dovetailed quite nicely with a really heavy
force, nor could we always count on having tremendous port and support
facilities easily available as we had during ODS (note the 4th ID's
difficulty in getting into a port during this last conflict). So we
were moving from a forward deployed stance to a force projection mode,
where early-entry/forced-entry forces assume an even more important
role, and where deployability becomes critical. What force structure
did we have to address this new paradigm? Why, the old light infantry
on one end, and the heavy armor at the other end--with pretty much
nothing in-between. Even the old M551 was now history, since the last
Sheridan battalion deactivated during the early 90's. That the LAV
became the best interim choice for a new "medium" force is little
surprise; all of the Rand studies put together have less value than
the opinion of those armored troopers at FT Bragg who begged to get
LAV's back when the Sheridan went away (and especially after the XM-8
AGS went kaput) (little known is the fact that the 82nd evaluated the
LAV back in the 90's, using USMC vehicles IIRC).

The only force that combines strategic
manueverability and enough weight to operate against enemy mech
formations right now is the Marines and if you get too far from the
water's edge, they have to leave a lot of equipment on the boat. We
need strategic airlift that can insert and support forces with
something like the tonnage of a MEU a thousand miles for water and we
have no count them none under development to do that. The SBCT is in
fact better than nothing but does not serve our needs.

Yes, it *does* serve our needs, those needs being the ability to get
*some* kind of armor protected/decently mobile/upgunned force into
those distant theaters while we are putzing around trying to get
permission to use ports (or clear those that the bad guys trash, like
they did in Iraq), the need for a force better equipped for urban
combat than the typical LI force (and which in reality will augment
that LI force in the urban fight), and the need to lighten up such an
early deploying force in terms of its teeth-to-tail ratio, accepting
some log risk in return for being able to get it into the fight
earlier.

We need
something heavier than SFOR.

SFOR? For gosh sakes, IFOR/SFOR was originally structured around
predominantly mech/armored units! You want something heavier than
*that*?

We_know_what happens when you use forces
too light for the mission. Just look at (former) Yugoslavia.

And we don't *want* to know what happens when we can't get anything
but LI rapidly into the A/O, which is why the SBCT does indeed fill a
critical niche in the Army. I believe the last I heard, the plan is to
field only five SBCT's, with one of them being an ARNG unit; given a
total of some 73 brigade combat teams in the total force (34 in the
AC, 39 in the RC), I can't see where anyone should have serious
heartburn over converting 5 of them to SBCT's. As an aside, some of us
engineer types tried to lobby for an even more widespread fielding of
the LAV, hoping to get them for some of our combat engineer units,
since the original system swims quite nicely, and we are losing our
M113's as time goes by; the LAV would not only provide us with an
ability to conduct armored assault river crossings (the M2 is a really
lousy swimmer, despite the nifty pictures you sometimes see of it in
that role), but would be a super vehicle for corps-level combat
engineers performing rear area security (route
sweep/clearance/maintenance) duty. Unfortunately, in a dumb move on
the Army's part (IMO), they decided to delete the swimming requirement
for the Stryker, and the Engineer School is committed to deploying
engineer versions of the Bradley (complete with 25mm chain gun, for
what reason I have no idea; though they have at last apparently
belatedly bought into developing a breaching round for the onboard
TOW, something they initially scoffed at when the concept was
presented to them a couple of years ago--Afghanistan seems to have
changed their mind...)

Brooks