No they didn't. I haven't seen one suggestion except the PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE suggestion that we send more troops which I assure you would not have worked even if we had the men. Also, armored Hummers and Strykers treat symptoms, not the cause. You show me an armored vehicle, I'll show you an IED that will take it out. The reason for the insurgency is there can be a singular reason was the removal from power of Saddam Hussien. Not that it was a mistake. Just that it was Saddam who maintained order in Iraq through the cult of personality and Iranians FEARED him to the point of inaction.

-DA 

Especially as victory in the Pacific was achieved in the Guadacanal/New Guinea Theatre, not in the decisive fleet battle in or around the Japanese Home Islands.

 

- Victory was not only through Guadacanal/NG theatre..

the Japanese also were hampered though the campains on the mainland, they had to secure natural resorses abroad. Losing in Burma and India (the Indians fought brilliantly duing the counter-offensives, along with the Chinese nationalists and Brit/Aussie contingents) cost them thier "natural resorse zones" one by one allowing other, US forces to strike. This cost them more than they could afford through the application of total war, with only one eventual outcome.

Sincerely,

Keith

No they didn't. I haven't seen one suggestion except the PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE suggestion that we send more troops which I assure you would not have worked even if we had the men. Also, armored Hummers and Strykers treat symptoms, not the cause. You show me an armored vehicle, I'll show you an IED that will take it out. The reason for the insurgency is there can be a singular reason was the removal from power of Saddam Hussien. Not that it was a mistake. Just that it was Saddam who maintained order in Iraq through the cult of personality and Iranians FEARED him to the point of inaction.

-DA 

 

IED's suck. The LAV 3 /RG-31 gets hammered by them, The LEO C2(1a5) in use in theatre will get hurt as well, tho' the vehicle's breaching capabilities( mine plows/mine rollers/dozer blades) reduce this threat greatly. The LEO 2a6m has been a god-send, it CAN survive the ied strike with minimal track damage,easily repaired and them returned to action.

Yeah they do! And a lot of times there is very little you can do about them in the short term. I've seen Abrams tossed a dozen feet in the air before by powerful enough IED. But those don't worry me as much. Enough chemical energy still has the advantage over armor technologies ability to resist. And even if the vehicle survives, the crew may not. You know what the inside of a tank is like and they don't have much in the way of creature comforts of airbags! 

Then there are the smaller but much more deadly precision IED strikes. Weapons made in professional grade machine chops or factories with expert craftmanship and the kind of CNC machining you won't find in Mohammads garage! I've seen these devices embedded into walls of buildings with only a small IR sensor exposed. Something the size of a pencil eraser(sensor) set up in an array designed to offset countermeasures and large enough to pierce MBT armor. Sometimes on the insides of structures you will find full scale drawings of coalition vehicles with the weapons pre aimed at the weak points. Scary stuff. You cannot always know when you will be targeted and even the best units WILL GET HIT sometimes. The casualties are unavoidable. The only solution is to win over the locals and get them to help capture/kill the bombers. Then through other means you trace the device back to the source and take it out. It's a long process and you can never be totally sure of success.

But the whole IED campaign was just a big psyop designed to confuse policymakers and the public into believing the situation was a lot more dire than it really is. All this talk of how the LOC aren't secure ect have no bearing on reality. We never were in any danger of being cut off from supplies and they was never even the objective of the enemy. The reasons for IEDs are this. American warfare is extremely mobile. Roads offer a way to channelize that mobility into known locations which assist in targeting. Bombs can be made in the relative safety of a factory in another country or in a makeshift factory in a home, machineshop ect. The people who do this are VERY SKILLED and almost irreplaceble. The people who plant the IEDs are less skilled and are expendible. However, since there is so much road they find places where there is no coalition activity for brief periods to place bombs. Then they wait for a target and KABOOM. You can set the bomb off by a variety of methods and more often than not you will not get the triggermen. It's very rare that the actual logistics vehicles are targeted. They go after the escorts! Thats because the density of US/Coalition personnel is greater than the other vehicles and it makes a bigger impact if the news reports 3 to 4 KIA/WIA vs a lone contracted civilian truck driver. People completely ignore the fact that the mission is successfully completed and focus on the dead Joes. So to the average guy on the streat it seems as if all hell is breaking loose and then that guy pressures his government to end the war for fear of flag draped coffin. Even though we are taking about an average of 1 to 3 deaths a day out of tens of thousands exposed to the danger.

Because of this public misconception, vehicles like the MRAP, M1117 and M1151 are purchased in HUGE numbers to make sure soccer mom at home things the POTUS and Generals are providing adequate protection. It doesn't matter that rollovers in these vehicles kill more soldiers than do the IEDs, what does matter is that it appears something is being done. Add to that a "Surge" which seems to address the concern that not enough troops deployed and you create the appearance of serious response to a problem. But like I said, it's all smoke and mirrors. Nothing changed. Except the perception of the enemy that we were ready to throw in the towel which forced them to reconsider their investment.Anyway, I don't have time to explain it all in one post but I'll entertain any questions as best I can. But I felt it was necessary to dispel this myth that our LOCs are unsecure/vulnerable or that we aren't/weren't properly led and trained.  

ROAD was replaced by Division 86 and AoE which was inspired by DePuy and tested by TRADOC in the late 1970s.  Heavy divisions all had 10 or 11 maneuver battalions.  West Germany had all it's heavy brigades with 4 battalions and a 5th reserve batt for rear area security.  The Red Army's OMG was 4 brigades of 4 maneuver battalions.  Thomas Barnett, to cite one current text, centers his ideas around his heavy brigade (of 4 maneuver batt) with an attached aviation batt.

 

It's interesting that you assume a brigade of 4 or 5 batt in combat will quickly end up with 3.  One might think about that very carefully in terms of the current structure with 2 batt.

 

The cavalry sqdn is not a maneuver battalion.  Compare number of troops, doctrine, and organization.  The cav sdqn in a Brigade (UA) has 3 ground recon troops.  How many dismounts?  The RSTA has around the half strength of a mechanized batt.

 

There are myrid reasons why 4 maneuver elements is actually optimal.  3 generates 2 basic formations- either 2 up and 1 back or 1 up and 2 back.  Four sub units allows one to detach 1 and retain a core of 3, allows more on the line 3 up and 1 back or half the units in reserve and on line with 2 up and 2 back, etc.  Four sub units is actually what every mechanized and armored battalion has today for some very specific reasons.  Four is the magic number of a whole host of reasons.  It's also about the most the average commander can be expected to employ properly.

 

We might have more brigades in the US Army but we have less maneuver battalions.  What we have are more brigade HQs, more artillery batt HQs, more support batt HQs, more cavalry sdqn HQs, etc.  It's a top heavy ticket punching fantasy that wastes resources and creates units that can not engage in sustained heavy combat.  It's not as if the US Army has not inflicted other awful divisional organizations upon it's soldiers in the recent past. 

 

In any case it's a tad silly to call a unit of 2 maneuver battalions a brigade in the first place.  Once upon a time it wold be an understrength RCT...

 

 

All I can say is that COMBAT, as opposed to THEORY, suggests a unit will be lucky to maintain 9 maneuver units...neither the US nor the British nor the Russians or the Germans did not manage to achieve it, under heavy combat conditions.

 

Again the RSTA has three maneuver companies...dismounts aren't everything...the RSTA can bring a degree of firepower to bear.  I don't claim the Cavalry unit is perfect or a substitute for another maneuver unit, but it is silly to ignore it entirely...

and two battalions IS a brigade or a regiment...multiple battalions is the definition of a regiment/brigade.

Agreed DA,

 

but the Armored humvees also restrictred the effectiveness of small arms fire which greatly reduced the casualties. me being a civilian I was more concerned with casualties than the Army, but they agreed with me that we could buy the armored humvee just from 1000 fewer 100% disable troops. what are the lastest figures 1/3 the Veitnam casualties where we had over 150,000 100% disabled vets we are currently setting at less than 10,000 100% disabled vets in both Iraq and afghanistan combined. I feel my plan vindicated

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith