Posted on Apr 21, 2016
Why the US military can't forget about ground combat vehicles
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RP Members Great article - do agree or disagree?
Ground combat is back and with its return an urgent need for the US Army and Marine Corps to modernize its fleets of ground combat vehicles.
We are talking about tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and their variants, self-propelled artillery and special armor protected vehicles for functions such as neutralizing improvised explosive devices and vehicle recovery.
The idea that adversaries can be deterred or, if necessary, defeated through air and naval power alone has proven to be a chimera. In fact, recent conflicts demonstrate clearly the value of ground combat vehicles.
Russia and its surrogates in the Ukraine have shown that much can be done with tanks, artillery and ground-based air defense systems and without great reliance on airpower.
Ground combat is back and with its return an urgent need for the US Army and Marine Corps to modernize its fleets of ground combat vehicles.
We are talking about tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and their variants, self-propelled artillery and special armor protected vehicles for functions such as neutralizing improvised explosive devices and vehicle recovery.
The idea that adversaries can be deterred or, if necessary, defeated through air and naval power alone has proven to be a chimera. In fact, recent conflicts demonstrate clearly the value of ground combat vehicles.
Russia and its surrogates in the Ukraine have shown that much can be done with tanks, artillery and ground-based air defense systems and without great reliance on airpower.
Why the US military can't forget about ground combat vehicles
Posted from businessinsider.com
Tanks
Combat
Vehicle
Marines
Artillery
Edited >1 y ago
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 15
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If you want to smash, demolish, kill everything in sight it is prudent to use ground attack vehicles sometimes especially if you are facing a conventional peer army. That is an imperative. Insurgent war is just part of the spectrum of warfare.
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In the end, someone must clear the area of enemy personnel and prepare all the activities to follow. Drones don't clear bldgs and jets can't talk to the indig.
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The combined arms team is a basic doctrinal issue for the Army to grapple with COL Mikel J. Burroughs. Generally the Army has focused on winning the last war when it came down to determining materiel requirements.
In the Vietnam the airmobile concept dominated the combined arms team as air mobile divisions were birthed from traditional armored formations like 1st Cav Division.
Once Vietnam ended the Army refocused on the Cold War and the linear development process governed improvement in armored capabilities and tank and artillery gun as well as wire=-guided munitions. In the requirements process we looked at the future Soviet tank, artillery, helicopter which we determined through various methods and extrapolated what the second generation away from the current system would be capable. We tended to optimistic about their capabilities in that arms race.
After the Cold War was over there was a minor crisis because the Army did not have a clearly defined foe. The Army has always had to compete with the Navy and USAF for programmatic funding in weapons system development - Aircraft carriers, Frigates, submarines, B1 and B2 and even F-16 were "sexier" than most arms systems. Plus the other services weapons systems tended to be much more expensive with fewer numbers required.
Ground based vehicle systems requirements should be based on the expected war fight of the future primarily and other ancillary requirements. When we backed off the capability to deal with two different combat scenarios in nearly-simultaneous timeframes to be only able to fight one war we essentially put most of our eggs in the same basket [gross over-generalization]. Developing out system to fight one war is riskier when we are wrong than developing weapon systems to fight two different war fights against different enemies with different capabilities and environments.
In the Vietnam the airmobile concept dominated the combined arms team as air mobile divisions were birthed from traditional armored formations like 1st Cav Division.
Once Vietnam ended the Army refocused on the Cold War and the linear development process governed improvement in armored capabilities and tank and artillery gun as well as wire=-guided munitions. In the requirements process we looked at the future Soviet tank, artillery, helicopter which we determined through various methods and extrapolated what the second generation away from the current system would be capable. We tended to optimistic about their capabilities in that arms race.
After the Cold War was over there was a minor crisis because the Army did not have a clearly defined foe. The Army has always had to compete with the Navy and USAF for programmatic funding in weapons system development - Aircraft carriers, Frigates, submarines, B1 and B2 and even F-16 were "sexier" than most arms systems. Plus the other services weapons systems tended to be much more expensive with fewer numbers required.
Ground based vehicle systems requirements should be based on the expected war fight of the future primarily and other ancillary requirements. When we backed off the capability to deal with two different combat scenarios in nearly-simultaneous timeframes to be only able to fight one war we essentially put most of our eggs in the same basket [gross over-generalization]. Developing out system to fight one war is riskier when we are wrong than developing weapon systems to fight two different war fights against different enemies with different capabilities and environments.
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