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Great read -- and actually a comparison that should have been looked at a while back. Had we done so - might have saved us a decade of learning where we needed to go. Good points!
Allgeyer Motor-Rifle Brigade
Posted from armyupress.army.mil
Doctrine
Stryker Leaders Course
Technology
Tactics
Posted >1 y ago
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good read... questions:
1) it appears from the org charts that our logistical train is orders of magnitude bigger than the russian version. is this an illusion? is there any way to trim that? if it ain't fightin' it has to be protected.
2) the ADA component may be over-spoken on the russian side. IIRC didn't their anti-air component consist of Man Portable rockets? sure, the had the old ZSUs but didn't they hang with the heavies?
3) we have had ample opportunity to tinker with russian hardware, was somebody napping when the Stryker was in development?
1) it appears from the org charts that our logistical train is orders of magnitude bigger than the russian version. is this an illusion? is there any way to trim that? if it ain't fightin' it has to be protected.
2) the ADA component may be over-spoken on the russian side. IIRC didn't their anti-air component consist of Man Portable rockets? sure, the had the old ZSUs but didn't they hang with the heavies?
3) we have had ample opportunity to tinker with russian hardware, was somebody napping when the Stryker was in development?
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Thanks LTC Eric Udouj ! I agree with his analysis and recommendations on nearly every point. However, there are some Army analysts who see every scenario as an Army vs Army scenario, as NTC exercises often reinforce. In the joint fight, US Army units have enjoyed blue skies and the ability to call in Blue air since late WWII, with few exceptions. Unless we imagine we will be operating US Army units under red skies in the future, I don't think ADA battalions will add to the fighting effectiveness of Stryker brigades. But ADA battalions would add to the weight, cost and logistics support requirements. And it's a zero-sum game for Army manpower, so ADA will come at the expense of something else.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Sir, great point. However, I think there is a middle ground. While chances are that they will be blue skies, we can't afford to bet the larger part of a BCT that there isn't something up there. Whether it slipped through the USAF/USN/USMC/USA/Coalition air defenses, or the majority of their air assets are tangled in a air war and unable to clear the skies or provide CAS, it is something that has to be identified as a possibility. The near-peer fight is the "MLCOA" that the Army is planning for. That said, I agree in that I don't see ADA organic to the SBCT as a huge need, while it can be accomplished with attachments from an ADA BN, which is a current TTP. We should focus on training jointly with them and ensuring we understand their TTP and capabilities. More troublesome is the ubiquitous UAS threat, and another RAND study found that Russian forces in Ukraine are essentially flooding the air with UAS teamed with Field Artillery units that stand ready to launch thermobaric artillery barrages, capable of decimating medium vehicles and people. There are efforts to develop technologies to combat drones, and that has to be fielded to all combat formations ASAP.
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Col Joseph Lenertz
MAJ (Join to see) - Yes, I agree the UAS threat is real and growing quickly...the article didn't even touch on it, yet we have a near-term gap in that area.
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LTC Eric Udouj
When I read it - it was the USA/UAV threat that I saw as the need for additional ADA = one of those items that we are seeing in both the military and para-military growth areas (and then there is the insurgents use of them as well) . We may or may not have air superiority in the near future in specific locations an enemy will attack - we forget such times when we learned that the hard way when over confidence allows a cunning enemy to use that to his advantage. But I agree - great article.
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