One of the things that makes me a lousy blogger is that I don’t like to post my thoughts immediately on issues of the day. I didn’t post my opinions within 5 minutes of the President’s address last night because I wanted to digest them a bit. I also wanted to see what others thought, as that almost always gives me a deeper insight into what I truly think, rather than my first emotional reaction.
Oddly, two of my favorite blogosphere sources are from retired Naval officers, CDR Salamander, and Neptunus Lex. And of course, Drew M. at Ace’s has some thoughts that illuminate. Why take the Navy guys take on what is primarily an Army operation? Well, CDR Salamander is dialed in on the operational and strategic implications of policy changes in Afghanistan (traditionally, I think the Navy has trained its officers to think at that level better than any other service). And Nep Lex has a wonderful clarity of thinking and such a terrific ability to write that you can hardly afford to not read him. As for Drew? Look, I read Ace’s all day every day.
My own thoughts…
1. Good on Obama for adding an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. There is clearly a need for more troops if we are to shift to a counterinsurgency approach there. I think that is the proper approach, vice a counterterrorism approach. And COIN warfare is inherently a manpower intensive approach.
2. Bad on Obama for only adding 30,000 additional troops. GEN McChrystal requested 40,000 troops. You can be sure he didn’t just pull that number out of a hat. He had a reason for requesting the number he did, tempered by what he believes can be logistically supported in theater, and by what the Army staff tells him can be generated for deployment. I’m certain he didn’t just request a number of troops, but rather a particular force structure that happened to add up to 40,000. The President has authorized only 30,000. Which troops and what units did he think that McChrystal didn’t need? Why did he think that? What justification has he given for not including those forces? Does he think the additional 10,000 troops will be forthcoming from our NATO allies (fat chance!)?
3. Other than an arbitrarily imposed timeline that will enable the President to show a troop drawdown, why impose a 2011 timeline? Is this in there solely so Obama can show this drawdown during a presidential election cycle? One of the concerns I had about the surge in Iraq was that it was a “one-shot” deal. It simply had to work, because there was no way the Army could double down, and the ability to maintain that level of effort was time limited. They could surge additional troops, but only for about one deployment cycle, before real issues developed in maintaining readiness. That is potentially a problem here in Afghanistan, but it isn’t nearly the problem that the Army faced in 2007 in Iraq. But when President Bush announced the surge in Iraq, he did not announce that the surge was a limited time offer. In fact, the open ended nature of the commitment was a key component of its success. Those Iraqi factions that were beginning to consider aligning with us were convinced that we would still “respect them in the morning” and weren’t going to leave them hanging. In contrast, President Obama’s speech last night pretty explicitly told the Afghani people, “I’m love you, but I’m not in love with you.” If you were a tribal leader, and had to choose to align yourself and your tribe with either the US or the Taliban, who would you choose? That kind of undoes the whole point of a counterinsurgency strategy. The anti-coalition forces are pretty good at information operations. You can bet that this will be a major bullet point on their presentation.
4. The money thing. Look, no commander gets everything he wants. There are never unlimited resources. The Army understands that. But this sudden pennypinching impulse in an era of massive government expenditures for bailing out banks, and the Porkulus Stimulus spending that magically seems to fund every Democrat pet project of the last 20 years costs a heck of a lot more than funding the fight in Afghanistan. And you may rest assured that spending a ton of money to win a war is a lot cheaper than losing a war by trying to save money.
5. Dithering and deployments… What did the President say last night that justified the three months that it took for him to reach a decision? Nothing. So why did it take so long? And this three month delay is on top of the fact that back in March, the President announced his own new approach to the war and appointed his own commander for Afghanistan. Are we going to see quarterly revisions to strategy all the way through this administration? I understand that circumstances change, and that you have to adapt. But there has been no clear communication of our goals and how we intend to fulfill those goals by this administration (and this isn’t a problem exclusive to this administration. The Bush administration did a poor job in this respect as well).
The President has attempted to make up for his three month delay in reaching his decision by expediting the deployment schedule for those brigades that will be going. I was asked about this at The Hostages last night, and here was my response:
Brad, I’m thinking moving 2+ Divisions into inland and mountainous regions without ports and decent roads is going to take just a bit longer than the first few months of 2010.
Your thoughts?
Dave, the Army has a plan to move them (and more, don’t forget that McChrystal offered options of 80k, 40k, and 20k to Obama). It won’t be easy but it will be doable. The problem is that Obama is gonna “push” the deployment and get them in theatre faster than the original plan.
That will pose logistical problems, I’m sure, but the real assfuck will come in training. Brigades that see their deployment date moved up will have less time to integrate new troops, develop their training plans, implement individual, squad, platoon and company training, less time for cultural and language training, less time for Bn and Bde leadership to do leaders recons on the ground in A-stan and develop their campaign plan.
It’s impossible to quantify, but some troops will die because of these training deficiencies.
6. GEN McChrystal seems to be onboard with the President’s decision. He really has only two choices. Either say “Yes, Sir!” and try to do the best he can, or hand in his resignation. Given that the President has voiced support for his strategy and resourced most of it, GEN McChrystal really had no choice to but accept the challenge. If the President had instead provided only token increases, or none at all, he would have been sorely tempted to call it a day, I’m sure. Still, we as a nation have civilian control of our military, and at the end of the day, expect our officers to do what they are ordered to do by the President. For a theater commander to resign, he better have a damn good reason. And every commander that faces that choice also has to struggle with the issue that he could be abandoning his troops on the battlefield. That goes against the grain of every moral fiber in a soldier.
7. Delivery. For a guy that has a wonderful reputation for oratory, it sure seemed like he was just phoning it in. Of course, I’ve yet to be impressed by his public speaking. I’m biased, of course. I didn’t vote for him, and tend to have an immediate distaste for whatever he’s pitching the moment he opens his mouth. But it seems to me that his best speaking comes when he is making campaign speeches, and his worst comes when he discusses policy. And, to me, he seemed to lack any enthusiasm for what he was selling last night. His handlers like to stage manage this sort of thing, putting him in front of the Corps of Cadets at the US Military Academy. That struck me as being a bit too smart for themselves. While the Commander-in-Chief is guaranteed to have a polite audience there, Barack Obama was unlikely to have an enthusiastic audience there. I still clearly remember when President George H.W. Bush announced the doubling of troop deployments for Operation Desert Shied/Desert Storm in November of 1990. He gave that speech from the Oval Office. It seemed presidential and had the proper gravitas. I didn’t get that impression last night.
Overall, I’m somewhat disappointed and less than fully optimistic for the campaign in Afghanistan. But I’ve not given up hope. I have a near boundless faith in the ability of the American Soldier (and Marine, Sailor and Airman) to persevere in the face of daunting challenge and to overcome. Time will tell the result of the President’s approach to his leadership in what he himself called a war of necessity.
I don’t usually think of the Air Force as a fierce band of bloodthirsty warriors. Hell, most of them don’t either. But even our blue suited cousins can recognize there’s a fine line between care for the well-being of Air Warriors and smothering them with preventative safety measures.
Go see what I mean. CDR Salamander has always had a good eye for sp0tting this kind of stuff.
Our armed forces are the best in the world. I don’t think there’s any great dissent from that sentiment among my audience. But the fact remains, as an institution, our armed forces do some things better than others. Some of that is an institutional bias, in that the forces would rather do some things than others. To some extent, there’s also a bit of empire building going on. And some of it is just our culture doesn’t like to do some things. For instance, our society found it a good deal easier to support the 100 hour ground war in the 1st Gulf War than our ongoing operations in Iraq since 2003. Why? Well, as a rule of thumb, our society has a fairly short attention span.
As I said, some things, we do well. The US Army spent practically the entire Cold War figuring out the best way to stop a massive Soviet armored assault through Western Europe. The Army’s organization, procurement, doctrine, training, logistics and basing were all geared toward stopping a Soviet attack and fulfilling the Army’s NATO commitment. Indeed, having such an overriding mission made the task of organizing the Army a lot easier. To a great extent, the clarity provided by the Soviet threat also greatly guided the organization and training of the Air Force, Navy, and the Marine Corps.
Once you know what you want to accomplish, it is a lot easier to plan. Indeed, no one plans to fail, they fail to plan.
Let’s take a look at a Cold War centric program, that has proven remarkably useful- the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System. Barrage rockets have a long history in the US. Mind you, “…the rocket’s red glare” in our national anthem refers to British bombardment rockets being fired at our Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812. Barrage rockets in our Army really took flight in WWII. A simple fin-stabilized 4.5in rocket was mounted on al sorts of vehicles to lay down large volumes of suppressive fires on enemy positions. This was a short range, inaccurate rocket. But it was cheap, easy to use, and easy to mount on everything from jeeps, to tanks, to landing craft to PT boats. The Russians, on the other hand, used a larger rocket, known as the Katyusha, as a counter battery weapon. They would fire awesome barrages onto German artillery positions to keep them from firing on Russian formations. The later Soviet BM21 launcher was so successful in this mission, the Russians still use it. The US Army, however, used conventional cannon (or “tube”) artillery for the counter battery role. The problem with this was that US artillery has traditionally been outranged by almost every other nation’s artillery. The Army made up for this mostly by having a better system of fire control. US artillery was almost always better able to locate targets and bring fires to bear on them. But having a shorter range left them vulnerable to Soviet counter battery fires. Having a longer range system would solve this problem, but simply building a bigger cannon wasn’t really the best approach. The bigger the cannon, the harder it is to move, the bigger the vehicles needed to support it, and the increase in range may not be that great. For instance, even the massive 16in guns of the Iowa battleships only have a 23 mile range. Pretty much the only way to get a real increase in range was to use rockets. But rockets have their own issues. Traditionally, rockets haven’t been very accurate weapons. Now, we weren’t looking for a precision weapon, but it would be nice to have a fair idea of where the rockets would land. Also, rockets take up a lot more space than regular artillery ammunition. Rockets aren’t particularly heavy, but they are bulky. Resupply can quickly become a real issue.
When the Army decided in the 1970s to pursue a rocket artillery system, these were some of the issues they needed to address. The accuracy issue was primarily addressed by using a spin stabilized rocket. Additionally, precise navigation and meteorological data led to greater accuracy. Knowing where you are shooting from, and what the winds are makes for better shooting. For the most part, US artillery was already blessed with these systems. This was good enough to get a rocket in the ballpark. But since an enemy artillery battery might cover an area several hundred meters wide, that’s not good enough. Even a fairly large warhead won’t do much damage to an artillery piece unless it scores a direct hit. So how do you ensure a hit? The answer was sub-munitions. Instead of each rocket having one large warhead, each rocket carried a payload of several hundred hand-grenade sized bomblets. The rocket would open its payload over the target, scattering the bomblets over a wide (but very predictable) area. Each bomblet could punch a hole through the light top armor of a vehicle or its fragments could cut down any exposed personnel.
Mobility was important as well. Once the rockets were fired, Soviet radars could track the path of the rockets to determine where they were fired from. If we could fire the rockets, then leave the firing position before they even hit, we would be safe from any counter battery fire that was in range. This is a technique known as “shoot and scoot.” Accordingly, the Army made the decision to mount its new rocket system on a tracked vehicle. Tracked vehicles are heavier, more expensive, and more maintenance intensive than trucks. But tracked vehicles can also travel cross country over terrain that trucks can’t . They can also mount armor that trucks can’t. Rather than design an all new vehicle, the Army’s contractor, Food Machinery Corporation, adapted its M2/M3 Bradley chassis. By using the same engine, transmission, and suspension, development costs were kept to a minimum.
By using a combination of innovative technology for the rockets themselves and the onboard fire control system, in conjunction with legacy technologies such as the navigation systems, and the vehicle chassis, while integrating them into the existing framework of the US artillery system, the Army developed a fearsome capability to fire counter battery missions up to 70 kilometers away. Of course, counter battery wasn’t the MLRS’s only mission. It was also ideal for smashing armored formations in the second echelon or decapitation missions that strike enemy headquarters.
So far, so good. The Army had found a solution to a nagging problem it had faced through most of the Cold War. And the system worked almost to perfection during the 1st Gulf War. When it came to preparing for a conventional war, no one came close to the US.
But not all wars are conventional. In fact, because of our dominance in the conventional warfare arena, possible opponents have quite deliberately decided to avoid a conventional fight with us and instead pursue asymmetric warfare techniques against us. The IED is the typical example of an asymmetric attack. How do you fight an inanimate object? Further, by hiding in the general population, knowing we won’t fire indiscriminately, enemy forces negate much of our firepower. In an era when any civilian casualties will almost certainly be plastered across the headlines as potential war crimes, using an MLRS is pretty much out of the question. Even conventional tube artillery, with a smaller impact than the sub munitions of the MLRS, is too indiscriminate for use in urban areas with nearby civilians.
Eventually, the Guided MLRS round was introduced. Ironically, the rocket artillery was now far more accurate than tube artillery. The GMLRS is accurate enough to be used against a single building, and has a small enough warhead that it can be used in urban areas with minimum collateral damage.
Another example of the lag time in reacting to the new paradigm of limited warfare is in surveillance. By now, you’ve seen plenty of gun camera footage of Hellfire missiles and laser guided bombs smiting jihadis.
You’ve also seen news about the Predator drone and other “eye in the sky” surveillance. For a long time, the video tape was only analyzed after the airplane returned to base. Eventually, real-time transmission of the images gave commanders great information about what was going on in a given area. Building ona legacy of 60 years of designing surveillance systems to “see” the entire battlefield, commanders were thrilled with the level of information dominance they were achieving.
That’s great, but it turned out, troops on the ground weren’t very happy. It turns out that no one thought about them. While the general might be able to see the battle unfolding with a god’s eye view, the guys in the fight couldn’t see any further than if they were medieval yeomen. Pretty soon, a program known as ROVER was instituted that fixed the issue. Now troops on the ground can use a laptop system to view the video from an overhead asset in real time.
The point is this. The armed forces of the US are on the horns of a dilemma. We have to adapt to new conditions on the battlefield, while still equipped and organized primarily to face a conventional enemy. But if the armed forces re-equip to face an unconventional enemy (and re-equipping in these austere times is going to cost more than anyone wants to pay), we face the risk of having some other opponent build its forces along conventional lines. Having re-equipped to face an unconventional foe, we would be ill equipped to face a conventional opponent. Generally, the US forces feel it is easier to adapt our existing conventional forces to face unconventional foes, via training, doctrine, and limited re-equipment (such as up-armored HUMVEES and MRAPs) than it would be to tailor our forces to unconventional warfare and have to face risk at the high end of the warfare spectrum.
And we haven’t even gotten into the messy part of the problem- politics. Virtually all defense related items are purchased from domestic suppliers. And each of these defense contractors has facilities in at least one Congressional District, which means there is a Representative and two Senators who are interested in seeing them get contracts and bring or keep jobs for their constituents. I don’t think anyone here would be surprised to learn that. And while many Congressmen, from both parties, who serve on the Armed Services committees are bona fide experts, it would be asking a bit too much from human nature for us to expect them to cast aside such political concerns when looking at what is procured. For instance, the current kerfuffle over buying several extra Gulfstream jets is probably more aboout getting some extra business to Gulfstream than it is about providing nice jets to Congress.
We’ve talked before about how the post-Vietnam era Army found itself facing down an enormous Soviet Group of Forces in East Germany, and struggling to find a way to deter them from rolling over NATO forces.
The standard Soviet tactic was the echelon attack. A US brigade might find itself under attack by a full Soviet Motor-Rifle Division. Fair enough. As a rule of thumb, units in the defense are expected to be able to handle an attack by a force up to three times their size. The problem came when the second echelon of Soviet forces would slam into our US brigade, before they have had time to reset after the first attack. And if the second echelon didn’t break through, there was a third echelon behind that. Sooner or later, our US brigade would be overwhelmed.
The key to defeating the echelon attack was to disrupt the follow-on second and third echelons. We’ve discussed the Cobra and Apache attack helicopters in the deep strike role. And the Air Force would do its part by performing interdiction missions, dropping bridges, disrupting supply and fuel depots.
But there was another tactic, designed to compliment the strenghts and minimize the weaknesses of attack helicopters and close air support aircraft like the A-10. That was the Joint Air Attack Team, or JAAT. Utilizing artillery, scout and attack helicopters, Airborne Forward Air Controllers, and close air support aircraft like the A-10, a JAAT could overwhelm the air defenses of a Soviet unit and pound it into the dirt. Even if the unit wasn’t destroyed, it would be so disrupted that it couldn’t keep to its schedule. This would buy our defending ground brigade time to reset from the first echelon and prepare for its attack.
Here’s a training film from either the late 70’s or early 80’s showing the basic concept.
With the exception of the A-10, all the platforms shown have been replaced. The M-60 tanks have been replaced by M-1s, the OH-58 scouts by updated OH-58D Kiowa Warriors, the AH-1Qs by AH-64s, and the OV-10 by modified OA-10A’s. Still, the basic concept is still a viable one.
There were a couple of real challenges to making a JAAT work. First, airspace management. It can be a real challenge making sure artillery rounds and airplanes don’t occupy the same airspace. For obvious reasons, the aviators, both Army and Air Force are kinda picky about that. There’s also the challenge of making sure the helicopters and fixed wing air know where each other are, to avoid collisions.
The other challenge was timeliness. It takes some time to put a JAAT together. If the JAAT takes too long to assemble, it can miss its chance to catch the follow on echelon. But if units have trained together before, and have worked out the kinks, it can be put together much more quickly.
We spent a fair portion of our military service making fun of the Air Force. I’m pretty sure it’s in the regulations somewhere that troops are required to…
But the Air Force isn’t all just hanging around the pool and collecting per diem. There’s a fair number of folks in the Air Force who are filling jobs in Afghanistan or Iraq that might rightly be considered Army jobs. That’s one of the problems that having such a small army causes. And many folks in the Air Force aren’t happy about it. If they wanted to play soldier, they would have joined the Army. There’s a lot of folks in the Navy in the same boat (if you’ll pardon the pun).
Not surprisingly, some of these folks blog. Mike at “A Year in the Sandbox” is an Air Force Staff Sergeant blogging about his tour with a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
Ground units, including PRTs of course have a basic load of ammunition for their weapons. But over time, ammo collects dirt, dust, grease, you name it. When possible, troop units rotate their ammo, receiving a fresh load, and using the old load for some live fire training. Here’s an example from Mike of what that can look like.
Mike’s got several more along the same lines, so go here and check them out.
We’ve covered briefly before the history of gunships as a close air support platform. The Marines have never used the C-130 as a gunship, mostly for reasons of cost. The current cost of an Air Force AC-130U is somewhere around $140 million, making it one of the most expensive planes in the inventory.
But the Marines would really like to have access to some form of very persistent overhead gunship platform, if only for the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconissance (ISR) capability it provides.
There’s news out that the Marines are looking at a “bolt-on” gunship capability for their KC-130J SuperHerks. Under a program called “Harvest Hawk,” this would entail replacing one of the drop tanks with a sensor package, the other with launch rails for Hellfire missiles, and bolting a 30mm gun package to one of the troop doors.
It may not be a perfect solution, but the Marines think it would be better than none.
Today is Memorial Day. Today is the day we remember all those who gave their lives in the service of this great nation.
Most of us have seen pictures or film of Arlington National Cemetery, or perhaps the beautiful National Cemetery of the Pacific, better known as The Puchbowl.
Of course, over the last 7 years, we’ve seen servicemembers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq come home to be laid to rest. The older folks among us remember the constant stream of casualties brought home from Vietnam.
Today, if you are killed in action, you will be escorted all the way home, from the battlefield to your final resting place. The Air Force will fly you from the theater of operations to Dover, Delaware. You may well be the only cargo on the entire aircraft. A servicemember will accompany you from Dover to your hometown, or to Arlington, or wherever it is that will be your grave.
But it was not always thus. In WWI and in WWII, thousands of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coastguardsmen made the ultimate sacrifice far from our shores. Thousands upon thousands of American men died in the fields of Europe. They were usually buried very near where they fell, in crude, makeshift graves, with perhaps a single wooden slab as a marker. After the fighting had moved on, they were disinterred, and moved to more permanent cemeteries. After the war, the US government offered to disinter these heroes again, to bring them home to our native land. Many were brought home. But many families, for many reasons, chose to let them rest where they were. And so, throughout Europe, there are cemeteries.
The American Battle Monuments Commission maintains these tiny patches of American soil, paid for and consecrated with that most precious currency, the blood of patriots. If you find yourself traveling to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, or one of the other nations with an American cemetery, by all means, go visit. It is a moving experience.
And even if you aren’t in Europe today, please, enjoy the day off, enjoy the BBQ and cocktails with friends. Enjoy the sales at the store. By all means, do so. But take just a moment, please, to remember those who answered their nations call, and gave the last full measure of devotion.
Many thanks to an anonymous reader of Neptunus Lex for the use of the photos.
Sorry for my absence this past week. I had no internet access while spending time with Dear Old Mom. As a token of my apologies for not bringing you any worthwhile postings, here’s a clip of something going boom.
Boredom, even in a combat zone, is a real problem in the service. In fact, especially in a combat zone. And while the Army and the rest of our services are highly trained and very competent, they are still mostly a collection of young men and women, who, not surprisingly, act like young men and women. I’m a little hesitant about posting this video, because some of the accidents are real, and people really were hurt, but the bad comes with the good. Not all the incidents are our troops. There’s a few from our allies, and even some showing our adversaries.
Sorry for the light posting. Just a lack of motivation on my part. Here’s an Australian documentary on the boneyard at Davis-Monthan AFB. Pretty interesting.
SecDef Gates has testified before Congress about the next defense budget. A lot of people are going to be crying about this or that, but overall, I don’t think it’s all that bad.
First, I don’t think anyone can claim I’m an Obama defender, but when people start crying about cuts in the defense budget, remember, the total budget went up. What we are talking about here is program cuts. And there are a lot of programs that frankly, we can live without.
From the Secretary’s prepared remarks:
We will stop the growth of Army Brigade Combat Teams (BCT) at 45 versus 48 while maintaining the planned increase in end strength of 547,000. This will ensure that we have better-manned units ready to deploy, and help put an end to the routine use of stop loss. This step will also lower the risk of hollowing the force.
And this:
Sixth, and finally, we will significantly restructure the Army’s Future Combat Systems (FCS) program. We will retain and accelerate the initial increment of the program to spin out technology enhancements to all combat brigades. However, I have concluded that there are significant unanswered questions concerning the FCS vehicle design strategy. I am also concerned that, despite some adjustments, the FCS vehicles – where lower weight, higher fuel efficiency, and greater informational awareness are expected to compensate for less armor – do not adequately reflect the lessons of counterinsurgency and close quarters combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. The current vehicle program, developed nine years ago, does not include a role for our recent $25 billion investment in the MRAP vehicles being used to good effect in today’s conflicts.
Guys, this is about as good as we could hope for. In fact, it ain’t bad at all. Here’s the thing- Obama doesn’t care about this stuff. Working on the details of the Defense Budget is well, work. Since he doesn’t care to work, he left Gates in charge of it. And Gates has made mostly grown-up decisions. Sure, there’s room for disagreement, but overall, he’s made choices that can be logically defended.
H/T: Information Dissemination for the prepared remarks. Go visit him to see the impact on the other services as well.
We’ve talked about the A-10 and the GAU-8 30mm cannon before. And we’ll talk about it some more in the future. Pretty much every time we find a cool video, that’s what we’ll do.
The recent Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, Operation Cast Lead, was prompted by the ongoing rain of Qassam rockets into southern Israel.
The Qassam is not a military weapon, but rather a terror weapon. It’s accuracy is far too poor for anything other than aiming at a town, as opposed to targeting a military installation.
As a result of the Israeli embargo of the Gaza, smuggling weapons in to Hamas has been difficult. In response, Hamas began production of crude rockets only slightly more sophisticated than the model rockets we can build in our homes. A Qassam is merely a steel tube filled with homemade rocket propellant and topped with a crude explosive warhead. It has absolutely no guidance system. The only “guidance” it has is fins at the tail, and an angle-iron launch rail than looks only slightly more sophisticated than a bent coathanger.
Being so crude, it doesn’t take much of a factory to build them, and you can see that it doesn’t take a huge base of operations to shoot them. Hamas has a particular affinity for launching Qassams from schoolyards, residential districts and of course, from the grounds of mosques. It is had for the Israelis to pinpoint launchers and storage spots. But they do…
Anyone who has watched more than one Army recruiting commercial is probably aware that the Army has paratroopers. And when I was a recruiter, a lot of young men (and not a few young women) wanted to enlist to be among the jumpers. The history of the Airborne forces in the Army is relatively short, dating only from 1940, but they’ve managed to pack a lot of heritage in that short span of time. They have seen their role evolve as technology has changed, but the fundamentals of airborne assault remain very much as they were almost 70 years ago.
The Army’s first look at airborne troops actually came in 1918, when Gen. John Pershing, commanding the American Expeditionary Forces in France was looking for a way to bypass the Germans trenchworks and put a force behind his lines. Pershing and Gen. Billy Mitchell considered putting one or two soldiers on small planes and dropping them by parachute, hoping to put the entire 1st Infantry Division behind the enemy lines. The war ended before they could do much more than start planning. That’s probably a good thing, as later practice would show there were challenges they hadn’t really considered.
While there was some interest in the concept of airborne operations during the years between WWI and WWII, nothing was done. The Army was terribly short on money, and the Army Air Corps didn’t have money to buy planes capable of carrying paratroopers. Mostly the Army kept an eye on developments in Russia and Germany. For the most part, the Army didn’t really see a need for large scale airborne operations. That changed pretty quickly with the successful German assault on Fort Eben Emael.
Fort Eben Emael was a Belgian fortress guarding a key river crossing that the Germans needed to seize in order to outflank the Maginot Line in their invasion of France. Any ground assault on the fortress would cost a lot of casualties and worst of all, cost a lot of time. Instead of a frontal assault by ground troops, the Germans landed a 78 man force by glider right on top of the fortress. Using shaped charges (the precursor to modern HEAT warheads) they breached the fortifications and forced the surrender of 1200 Belgian troops in one day.
The second German operation that got our Army’s attention was the invasion of Crete. The Germans airdropped troops into Crete, and despite appalling losses, managed to secure and airfield and bring in enough reinforcements to displace the British from this key island base. The German losses were so heavy the Hitler forbade any further large scale airborne operations. Allied leaders, however, learned a different lesson.
In 1940, the Army dipped its toe into the airborne waters by starting a test platoon to learn what the challenges and opportunities of this capabiltiy were. From that very modest beginning, a large force soon blossomed. One of the challenges the Army knew it was going to face was that it would have to make a lot of amphibious assaults during the war, the invasion of France being just the most prominent example. Looking at history, the learned that getting ashore wasn’t the real problem. The challenge was staving off the inevitable counterattack shortly after landing. By using airborne divisions to seize key road junctions and other terrain, the Army could buy some time to build up its forces ashore to defeat any counterattacks, helping to insure the success of any landings. And that’s just how the Army tried to use its airborne forces. At first, it didn’t always work the way they had planned. For instance, the 82nd Airborne in Sicily was scattered so badly that it couldn’t really seize any terrain objectives. But what it did do was so confuse the Germans that they couldn’t figure out where to counterattack until it was too late.
The original design for airborne divisions consisted of one regiment of paratroops and two regiments of infantry that would be flown in by glider. Being a glider grunt wasn’t a very popular option. Paratroops were volunteers, and got extra pay ($50/month, when a Private’s pay was $50/month). Glider guys didn’t get the chance to volunteer, or unvolunteer for that matter. Nor did they receive extra pay. By the time of the Normandy invasion, the Army had enough trained paratroops and, more importantly, enough planes to carry them, that the mix was changed to two regiments of paratroops and one regiment of glider infantry. In fact, later during the war, by reinforcing the divisions with another regiment, they effectively had 3 regiments of paratroops and one of glider infantry.
One of the real limitations of the airborne division in WWII was the limit on equipment size that could be airlifted in. This meant a real limit on the firepower of the division, as only smaller artillery pieces could be brought in by air. Also, while jeeps could be brought in by glider, there was no way to lift in trucks. That meant until the division could link up with ground forces, it could only move as fast as it could walk. If ground forces didn’t link up quickly, airborne forces could be surrounded and chewed to pieces. Doctrine called for a link-up in 48 hours or less, and for the airborne forces to be pulled out and held in reserve. Not surprisingly, it didn’t always work that way. In Normandy, the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions both fought in the line for a month after linking up with ground troops. Same thing happened in Holland. During the Battle of the Bulge, the 82nd and the 101st were the only US divisions not committed to the line when the Germans attacked. They were quickly shipped in by truck to Bastogne and other critical points in the line, where they fought as conventional, if elite, infantry. The US would field five airborne divisions in WWII, the 11th, 13th, 17th, 82nd, and 101st.
After WWII, only the 82nd and 101st would stay in the active Army. The Air Force bought greatly improved transports such as the C-119 and the C-123 (which actually started out as a glider design) which were capable of dropping equipment such as trucks. This gave the airborne divisions far more mobility and lethality on the battlefield. During Korea, both airborne divisions served stateside as a strategic reserve in case the Soviets stirred up trouble elsewhere.
During Vietnam, the 82nd and 101st both served in the war, but neither made any significant combat jumps. Instead, they served as conventional light infantry. The only US combat jump of the war was made by the independent 173rd Airborne Brigade.
After the Vietnam War, the 101st was converted to an air assault division, moving mostly by helicopter (some units do retain airborne capability), leaving the 82nd as America’s sole airborne division. Since then it has served as the nation’s quick reaction force, able to put a brigade in the air in less than 18 hours, ready to jump anywhere in the world. The 82nd fought in Grenada, jumped into Panama in 1989, served as the first forces on the ground in Desert Shield and have made numerous deployments in support of the war in Iraq.
These days, supported by Air Force C-130, C-17, and C-5 aircraft, the 82nd can drop all of the division’s equipment and theoretically can be sustained by airdrop. And everyone in the division jumps, from the cooks to the division commander.
And while technology has greatly advanced, the role of the airborne hasn’t changed all that much. In WWII, the airborne would seize key terrain to allow ground forces to follow on. Today, we might expect to see the 82nd jump to seize airfields and ports to allow heavy units to be deployed to the war zone. And of course, they still offer a theater commander a complete and well trained infantry division, ready and able to execute all traditional infantry missions.
So. The civilian Department of Defense has SefDef, with individual Secs below that, SecNavy, etc. What is their responsibility? As opposed to the military side Chief of Staff for each service? Is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs roughly analogous to the SecDef?
If the Joint Chiefs and SecDef are not in the chain of command, to whom does the Commander in Chief, in real life actually give the ‘go’ order?
As a side note, where does the Coast Guard and the uniformed National Health Service fit here? Not to mention the Merchant Marine?
As always, I have the answer.
We looked at the upper echelons of the chain of command in this post. SecDef is in the chain of command. Sorta. He gives orders to the Regional and Functional Commanders, but only to implement policy from the President. If the President says, “Invade France,” SecDef then turns around and gives the specifics of that to the Commanders. In effect, he’s the conduit by which the President passes his orders to the field.
But he has a second role as well, outside the operational chain of command. He is the primary guy for setting policy for the entire defense establishment. He’s the guy who decides whether the US military will focus on preparing to fight near-peers like China, or will they focus on fighting a series of small insurgencies like Iraq and Afghanistan. That decision will drive the procurement of weapons. He also decides policy on things like manpower (Congress sets the limits on total numbers) and how folks should be allocated.
Each of the individual service secretaries performs a similar function for their branch. The run the procurement programs and personnel programs. They run the institutional side of the services.
Realize this. Only about half the services are in units that deploy to battle. The other half is on the “institutional” side. When you have an organization as large as the Army, you have to have not only infrastructure to support them, but institutions as well. There are the basic training posts, the recruiting stations, the ROTC detachments, West Point, all the Army schools that teach MOS skills to young soldiers, advanced MOS schools for each job, the higher level schools for officers, like the Command and General Staff School and The Army War College.
Then there’s the parts of the Army like the Tank and Automotive Command, and the Missile Command that actually run the procurement programs for individual weapon systems, and the supply folks who buy all the rations, ammunition and spare parts. It is a huge enterprise. That’s the day to day function of the Chief of Staff of the Army. And each of the services has the same institutional structure that builds and supports the forward deployed forces.
As to the Coast Guard, they are part of the Department of Homeland Security (though they used to be under the Department of Transportation). Only in time of war do they transfer to the Department of Defense. Nonetheless, they are organized much like the other armed services. They have a seat at the table for the Joint Chiefs when it addresses matters directly concerning the Coasties. In peacetime, as a matter of law, they are treated more like a law enforcement agency (which they are) than as an armed serviced (which they sorta are).
The Merchant Marine isn’t in any way a member of the DoD. They were coordinated by the Department of the Navy back in WWII, but today, there isn’t an agency or entity that you can point to and say, “That’s the Merchant Marine.” There’s just privately owned shipping. Now, there is a Merchant Marine Academy, at King’s Point, NY, and it does offer a commision in the Navy Reserves to its graduates, but that is hardly unique.
The Uniformed Public Health Service (who’s head is of course the Surgeon General) is not under the DoD and is outside the scope of this discussion.
Ok, I’m getting kicked around in the comments of Pt. 4. Fair enough. The important thing is, we aren’t as screwed up as the dorks in the Air Force. Really, who was drunk enough to try this?
Two years ago, the Air Force was considering this. Your thoughts?
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Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
Being so crude, it doesn’t take much of a factory to build them, and you can see that it doesn’t take a huge base of operations to shoot them. Hamas has a particular affinity for launching Qassams from schoolyards, residential districts and of course, from the grounds of mosques. It is had for the Israelis to pinpoint launchers and storage spots. But they do…
