BREAKING NEWS!
U.S. Army CALL Report admits Stryker trucks are failures!
www.geocities.com/paratroop2000/strykerhorrors.htm
The REBELLION: Fueled by American Oppressive Occupation of Iraq and "faction-ocracy" same mistake we made in South Vietnam with Diem, Belgans in Ruwanda
Iraqi Guerrilla Cadre M-14 the brains behind roadside and suicide bomb attacks
I'm hard pressed to see how this changes things. They are completely
decentralized, which we already knew, and they've planned it from the
beginning, which has always been suspected.
Emery Nelson, 1st TSG (A) S3
www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/politics/29ENEM.html?hp
Hussein's Agents Are Behind Attacks in Iraq, Pentagon Finds
By THOM SHANKER
ASHINGTON, April 28 A Pentagon intelligence report has concluded that
many bombings against Americans and their allies in Iraq, and the more
sophisticated of the guerrilla attacks in Falluja, are organized and often
carried out by members of Saddam Hussein's secret service, who planned for
the insurgency even before the fall of Baghdad.
The report states that Iraqi officers of the "Special Operations and
Antiterrorism Branch," known within Mr. Hussein's government as M-14, are
responsible for planning roadway improvised explosive devices and some of
the larger car bombs that have killed Iraqis, Americans and other
foreigners. The attacks have sown chaos and fear across Iraq.
In addition, suicide bombers have worn explosives-laden vests made before
the war under the direction of of M-14 officers, according to the report,
prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The report also cites evidence
that one such suicide attack last April, which killed three Americans, was
carried out by a pregnant woman who was an M-14 colonel.
Its findings were based on interrogations with high-ranking M-14 members
who are now in American custody, as well as on documents uncovered and
translated by the Iraq Survey Group. While the report cites specific
evidence, other important assessments of American intelligence on Iraq have
been challenged and even proven wrong.
The contents of the report were either quoted directly or summarized by
five United States government officials and military officers who had read
it. It provides a more detailed portrait of the insurgency. In the past,
American officials have typically described the insurgents as a rudderless
guerrilla movement of foreign fighters, Islamic jihadists, former
Baathists, and common criminals. The report does not address the question
of how broad-based support for the insurgency is.
The seven-page "Special Analysis" was written under Defense Intelligence
Agency guidance by the Joint Intelligence Task Force, which includes
officers and analysts from across the civilian and military espionage
community. It is not known whether it represents a fully formed consensus
or whether there might be dissenting assessments.
Officials who have read the study said it concludes that in Falluja, which
is currently encircled by the marines, an estimated 1,500 to 2,000
hard-core insurgents, including members of the Iraqi Special Republican
Guard who melted away under the American-led offensive, are receiving
tactical guidance and inspiration from these former intelligence
operatives. "We know the M-14 is operating in Falluja and Ramadi," said one
senior administration official, speaking about another rebellious Sunni
Muslim city nearby.
The report does not imply that every guerrilla taking up arms against the
Americans is under the command of the M-14, nor that every Iraqi who dances
atop a charred Humvee is inspired by a former Iraqi intelligence agent. But
the assessment helps explain how only a few thousand insurgents, with
professional leadership from small numbers of Mr. Hussein's intelligence
services and seasoned military officer corps, could prove to be such a
challenge to the American occupation. "They carefully laid plans to occupy
the occupiers," said one United States government official who has read the
report. "They were prepared to try and hijack the country. The goal was to
complicate the stabilization mission, and democratization."
The report, completed March 26, was commissioned to answer a simple but
provocative question: in Iraq, who is the adversary?
As the American-led forces approached Baghdad last spring, the M-14 put
into place "The Challenge Project," in which Mr. Hussein's intelligence
officers scattered to lead a guerrilla insurgency and plan bombings and
other attacks, the report states. The M-14 officers, according to the
report, were sent "to key cities to assist local authorities in defending
those cities and to carry out attacks."
The operation was designed with little central control, so community cells
could continue to attack American forces and allies even if Mr. Hussein was
toppled, and in the event that local commanders were then captured or killed.
The intelligence report was first mentioned publicly last week, during
testimony before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, in
appearances by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, and Gen.
Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The classified
study was sent to Capitol Hill for scrutiny by lawmakers, and is being
distributed to commanders in Iraq to help focus their planning to quell the
insurgency.
The report also illustrates how Hussein loyalists are manipulating
dissatisfaction with the occupation and cultivating a climate of fear that
did not vanish with Mr. Hussein's capture. Policy makers who have read the
document say it underscores their concerns that a pervasive fear that
allowed Mr. Hussein to rule his nation is, even today, deterring millions
of Iraqis from supporting the American-led occupation. The pacification of
Iraq cannot succeed without the consent and participation of a larger
number of Iraqis, according to officials on Capitol Hill and within the
administration.
The document says that "cells of former M-14 personnel are organizing and
conducting a terrorist I.E.D. campaign against coalition forces throughout
Iraq. The explosives section of M-14 prepared for the invasion by
constructing hundreds of suicide vests and belts for use by Saddam Fedayeen
against coalition forces." The fedayeen are former government paramilitary
forces that attacked American forces on the initial offensive toward
Baghdad, and are said to be among the insurgents still fighting today.
The report says that under Mr. Hussein, M-14 was responsible for
"hijackings, assassinations and explosives," and that its officers are
responsible for "the majority of attacks" today. In one detailed section,
it describes how M-14 organized "Tiger Groups" of 15 to 20 volunteers
trained in explosives and small-arms who would organize and carry out
bombings, including suicide attacks.
It cites an attack in the first week of April 2003, when a suicide bomber
killed three American special operations soldiers near the Haditha Dam. The
dam had been captured to prevent Iraqi forces from blowing it up A civilian
vehicle approached a checkpoint, and a pregnant woman stepped out and began
screaming, the military said in a statement issued after the attack. When
the Soldiers approached, the woman and the vehicle detonated. The new
intelligence report quotes captured M-14 officers as saying that the woman
who carried out the suicide attack was a colonel in their organization.
The Targets: Stupid Americans who use excessive fuel requiring lots of wheeled truck resupply columns who will neither leave predictable smooth road paths using tracked AFVs or secure the main supply routes by picketing combat troops along them so roadside bombs cannot be placed there
We've argued for a long time that the M1 and the Tiger heavy tanks were/are both strategic disaster posing as tactical successes. A good article that lays out our concerns.
The Agenda
The Military
Gas Pains
One of the U.S. military's greatest vulnerabilities in Iraq is its enormous appetite for fuel. The insurgents have figured this out
by Robert Bryce
The Department of Defense now has about 27,000 vehicles in Iraqand every one of them gets lousy gas mileage. To power that fleet the Defense Logistics Agency must move huge quantities of fuel into the country in truck convoys from Kuwait, Turkey, and Jordan. All that fuel gives American Soldiers a tremendous battlefield advantage (in communications, mobility, and firepower, among other things). But overseeing and carrying out this process requires the work of some 20,000 American Soldiers and private contractors. Every day some 2,000 trucks leave Kuwait alone for various locales in Iraq.
In addition to the challenges posed by the volume of fuel needed, the Army's logisticians must deal with the sheer variety of fuels. Although the Pentagon has tried to reduce the number of fuels it consumes, and now relies primarily on a jet-fuel-like substance called JP-8, the Defense Energy Support Center is currently supplying fourteen kinds of fuel to U.S. troops in Iraq.
In short, the American GI is the most energy-consuming soldier ever seen on the field of war. For computers and GPS units, Humvees and helicopters, the modern Soldier is in constant need of energy: battery power, electric power, and petroleum. The U.S. military now uses about 1.7 million gallons of fuel a day in Iraq. Some of that fuel goes to naval vessels and aircraft, but even factoring out JP-5 fuel (which is what the Navy primarily uses), each of the 150,000 Soldiers on the ground consumes roughly nine gallons of fuel a day. And that figure has been rising.
Some of the rise in consumption is due to the insurgents' use of improvised explosive devices, which account for about 30 percent of all American combat deaths since the occupation began. As John Pike, the executive director of GlobalSecurity.org, told me, "This is a war of convoy ambushes and car bombs. There is no front line." Perhaps hundreds of American vehicles have been destroyed by IEDs (the exact number is classified), and hundreds of Soldiers many of them guarding convoyshave been killed or injured by them. (And more than sixty-five private contractors are known to have been killed by convoy attacks or IEDs since July of 2003.) Cheap, easy to use, and highly effective, IEDs have forced the Americans to add armor to their fleet of Humvees in Iraq. A fully armored Humvee weighs more than five tonsand requires a larger engine and heavier suspension than the non-armored model. The Army also recently allocated more than $500 million to add armor to its utility trucks.
The added armor will help protect U.S. Soldiers from IEDs and snipers but it also means higher fuel consumption for their vehicles. Which means, in turn, that more tanker trucks will have to be driven into Iraqand those trucks will provide more targets for the insurgents, who have become skilled at attacking them. It's difficult to guard them all. When insurgents see that American patrols are increasing in one region, they can quickly and easily shift their attacks on fueling stations, pipelines, truck convoys, refineries to another region.
It's a vicious cycle: attacks on convoys produce a need for more armor, which produces a need for more fuel, which produces larger convoys, which produce more targets for attack. Over the past six months the Army and the Air Force have had to specially train more than 1,000 additional Soldiers to perform convoy security. One tank commander, who returned from Iraq last spring, told me that he had been so concerned about his supply lines that he had stationed sentries at one-mile intervals along the highway in his sector.
Logistics is an old and critically important issue in war. During World War II the German general Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps was stymied in North Africa by a shortage of fuel for its tanks. A lack of gasoline also halted the gallop across France of General George Patton's Third Army in the summer of 1944. The Third Army had about 400,000 men and used about 400,000 gallons of gasoline a day. Today the Pentagon has about a third that number of troops in Iraqyet they use more than four times as much fuel.
Given that the longer the fuel supply lines, the greater the vulnerability for our military, logic would suggest we try to reduce our fuel requirements. But over the past several decades the Pentagon has bought billions of dollars' worth of tanks, trucks, and other vehicles with little or no consideration to their fuel efficiency. In decades past, U.S. Army logisticians assumed that 50 percent of the tonnage moved onto a battlefield was ammunition, 30 percent was fuel, and the rest was food, water, and supplies. Today the fuel component may be as high as 70 percent, according to a study done in 2001 by the Defense Science Board.
The insurgents' tactics may not stop the flow of motor fuel to American troops, but they are part of the broader war that is forcing the United States and its allies in Iraq to defend every pipeline, every refinery, every tanker truck, and every fuel depot. Even in peacetime that's a difficult task.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military in Iraq is in a bind. It has no choice but to continue fortifying its vehicles with armor and pumping imported fuel into, for example, the Bradley fighting vehicle (which gets less than two miles per gallon) and the M1 Abrams tank (less than one mile per gallon). But all the fuel demanded by those armaments and vehicles creates logistical and military headaches. The tank commander I spoke to told me that Soldiers on the ground are beginning to see that "the more fuel-efficient we are, the more tactically sound we are."
But U.S. military commanders seem not to see that connection. At the conclusion of its study the DSB recommended that the Pentagon make fuel efficiency a key consideration when buying new weapons systems. The Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the proposal in August of that year.
Richard Truly, a former astronaut who recently retired as the head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, chaired the DSB study. "The thing we were trying to get across was that this doesn't have anything to do with moral values," Truly told me. "It has to do with running the goddamn military with as little fuel as possible and showing the advantages to the warfighter himself so that instead of having ten fuel trucks, you can have five." Unfortunately, Truly says, the prevailing wisdom at the Pentagon is that "fuel efficiency is for sissies."
Please look at this slide show carefully; particularly the TERRAIN
ADJACENT TO THE ROAD.
1. M113 Gavin light tracked AFV infantry security forces as an advance guard
could travel up both sides of the shoulders adjacent to the roads 1000m
ahead of convoy main body with dismount infantry AND thermal sights to
spoil command-detonated mine ambushers before they can spring ambush on
road-bound wheeled resupply trucks. Wires to command-detonated mines/IEDs can often be seen. Look at slide #10.
This cannot be done in Stryker wheeled armored cars (or even lighter HMMWVs)
because they will not be able to with certainty traverse this terrain,
light track AFVs can.
2. Incinerated HMMWV shown was NOT SANDBAGGED.
This is criminal negligence and institutional incompetence.
ALL vehicles should be sandbagged; including the Driver's side which may be first to run over a land mine. Even sandbag the M113 Gavin's driver side since units have not ordered the front hull undedrarmor kit.
3. The lead vehicle should be the heaviest vehicle, i.e. a tank or a dump truck filled with sand, etc. in event of contact with pressure or trip-wire activated mines or IEDs. Engineers should lead way with mine/explosives detecting equipment/dogs, mine rollers/plows.
4. Troop-transport FMTV series vehicles should have the tailgate removed for rapid dismount.
April 29, 2004
The Atlantic Monthly | May 2005
5. We used to know how to do this, re: FM 90-5 Jungle Operations. We need a revised SOP for modern vehicles from 3/4 ton HMMWV series up to 5T FMTV series.
6. ALL VEHICLES ARMED
The Jessica Lynch 507th Maintenance Company debacle revealed the unit had vehicles with machine gun mounts that were RUSTED and inoperable. They are not alone. Every FMTV truck can have a 360 degree rotating turret kit fitted to mount heavy, medium and light machine guns. Units with these mounts need to insure they work, taking them apart, cleaning them of rust/dirt if need be. Those without the MG mounts need to obtain them immediately.
Despite popular myths that only hard-top HMMWV trucks can be armed, there is a M197 pedestal mount that can be fitted to ANY soft-top HMMWV. Details:
Every Vehicle Combat-Ready NOW
7. Remove HMMWV doors and have Soldiers in hard body armor facing out, weapons ready-to-fire
8. Order every available armor kit possible for your vehicles; M113 Gavins have gunshields and front hull under mine armor kits.
Be resourceful!
9. Red River Arsenal has some old TOW CAP armor kevlar 8' x 10' blankets that can be used to line vehicle floors and sides in a lighter form than sandbags:
NSN 1440-01-031-7397 Ballistic Blankets
part# 11567425
10. We need Air Cover from reliable, fixed-wing manned observation/attack aircraft over our convoys to thwart roadside ambushes
8. WE need to start being driven by external realities created by the enemy not our internal non-sense and procedures
Why is the soft-skin Army getting clobbered in Iraq?, part 1: the
HMMWV truck
With now over 200 dead American Soldiers, its time we
face the truth that our Army and marines are poorly
organized and equipped for 21st century non-linear
conflicts. Our current land forces are designed for
non-existent linear conflicts where huge land forces
march on an enemy capital and thoroughly clear out all
enemy pockets of resistance as in WWII. While this
took place "safe rear areas" were created where
Soldiers could shuttle supplies back and forth inside
unarmored, rubber-tired trucks manifesting itself
today in the ever-present and extremely vulnerable
5-9,000 pound HMMWV and 22,000 pound FMTV type trucks.
This is not WWII with 100 Divisions of U.S. Army
troops, this is 2003 and the enemy's center-of-gravity
can be knocked out with concentrated maneuver forces,
but the stability afterwards has to be won with an
enemy coming from ANY direction. There are no "safe"
rear areas in 4th Generation warfare (4GW).
The central idea that the Army's utility vehicle be an
unarmored HMMWV truck is incorrect and Soldiers are
now dead from repeated ambushes. The idea that general
tasks can be done with a mass-produced, unarmored
truck is one driven by economy and cheapness with a
subtle idea that the other option a tracked vehicle
will wear out if tasked to do this. The myth that a
rubber-tired vehicle can scoot around large areas
without break down to have "operational mobility"
comes from ignorance of basic laws of physics and
experience with what light tracked armored vehicles
can do. The Army is now "losing its shirt" replacing
rubber tires that are busting in Iraq.
The U.S. Army at one time was much smarter and better
equipped for non-linear combats when it was a M113
Gavin AFV Army til the early 1980s with the advent of
the HMMWV and the too-heavy for general use M1/M2
family of heavy AFVs. Now we have light units in
HMMWVs getting clobbered in combat without ANY armored
vehicles and heavy AFV units that cannot roam around
as needed without wearing their tracks out. In stark
contrast, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) right now at
the bare minimum moves its troops around non-linear
battlefields in light tracked M113 Gavins with armor
protection against small arms and with appliqué armor
RPGs. The IDF is not losing a man a day like we are in
Iraq.
Its high time the U.S. Army relearn that a light
tracked AFV should be the primary troop carrier for
ALL its units in combat situations not the horrible
HMMWV. A light tracked M113 Gavin AFV (under 11 tons)
with current steel tracks can go anywhere, swim, be
airlifted to include helicopters, and with a light
8.63 PSI ground pressure get 10,000 miles on its
tracks which will not bust daily as rubber tires do.
The maneuverists who lust for the rubber-tired
LAV/Stryker armored cars need to go back through their
notes to their favorite 1940 fall of France battle and
realize that "operational mobility" they are so quick
to praise as necessary to knock out enemy centers of
gravity was done by TRACKED light tanks that could go
cross country through the "impassable" Ardennes forest
not road-bound, fragile armored cars. Study the ACRs
in Vietnam, their combat experiences with M113 Gavin
operational mobility saved the day during the Tet
offensive and saved Saigon.
The quickest way to get M113 Gavins in Army light
infantry units is to re-equip their Delta Companies
with 30+ light tracked AFVs so they can now give A, B
and Charlie companies armored mobility as needed. When
not used for troop transports the M113 Gavin's armored
mobility renders better firing positions for Delta
companies during anti-tank missions.
If we have folks who cannot accept the M113 Gavin
because its not new, they need to go take a look at
the B-52. Planet earth doesn't care about fashion, all
that matters is what works. The unarmored HMMWV truck
and rubber-tired armored car do not work in combat
against violent humans. The light tracked AFV, the
M113 Gavin does and it needs to become the prime troop
carrier in the U.S. Army via modest upgrades other
smarter armies have done to keep its men alive and get
the job done in a violent world.
Getting clobbered in Iraq part 2: where are the gunshields?
"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be
wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet
it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its
food at harvest. Four things on earth are small, yet
they are extremely wise: Ants are creatures of little
strength, yet they store up their food in the summer."
Proverbs 6:6, 30:24-25
One summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about,
chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant
passed by, bearing an ear of corn he was taking to the
nest.
"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper,
"instead of toiling in that way?"
"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the
Ant, "and recommend you do the same."
"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; "we
have plenty of food now."
The Ant went on its way. When winter came the
Grasshopper had no food and found itself dying of
hunger, while it saw the ants distributing corn and
grain from the stores they had collected in the
summer.
--Aesop's Fable: The Ant and The Grasshopper
*******************************************************
Our Soldiers are dying in Iraq today because we
squandered billions of dollars and 4 years of
preparation time on defective Canadian-made Stryker
wheeled armored cars sitting idle at Fort Lewis like
fad-conscious "grasshoppers" when our men could have
been better protected had we diligently economized and
upgraded like "ants" our existing and superior M113
Gavin tracked armored fighting vehicles (AFVs) at half
the cost and time that are actually in combat in Iraq;
thereby insuring we had enough money to buy the body
armor our troops need for the Afghanistan/Iraq wars.
We chatted about "transformation" instead of making
actual war capability improvements until the enemy
struck on 9/11/01. We could whine about the difficult
geo-political situation our Soldiers are in, but
that's evading the truth that the supposedly "world's
best military" needs to better anticipate the future
and diligently use its resources to prevail
regardless. For the first-time since Somalia, U.S.
Soldiers are occupying a country that is not fully
glad to see them there. In the past, after a brief war
to overthrow a bad government, U.S. forces could
switch into a docile peacekeeping mode, not right now
in Iraq. So let's face the problem, head-on shall we?
The U.S. military is populated by weak, co-dependant "sheeple" (people who act like naive sheep) and often led by egotistical types of
mini-tyrants. Like "grasshoppers" these people in peacetime
make decisions based on feel-good style and not
substance; to be reality-centric requires HUMILITY and HONESTY, things that egomaniacs cannot face and sheeple are not willing to confront anyone over. The Army can be seen as divided into two
sub-camps; light and heavy. The light people think
they can walk free of having to care for motor
vehicles anywhere on the battlefield and not need any
armor protection; they look down on the heavy people
who fight from armored vehicles. If the wars are in
closed terrain, don't last too long, the enemy is not
difficult, light infantry can prevail with light
casualties. However, lo and behold you have to cross
hundreds of miles of open desert, you can't walk far
with only the water you can carry on your back. We
discover we "need" the heavy forces we disparaged with
words like "legacy" because they toil in a motor pool
more than they do sports PT to look sexy for the
opposite sex. The heavy people are to blame for not
wanting to take risks in anything less than very heavy
vehicles too hard to fly to a fight so the light M113
Gavin AFVs our Army needs to move the light infantry
and resupply ourselves on the non-linear battlefield
are neglected. Then came Iraq. In open terrain without
cover and closed terrain of cities full of lurking
gunmen, we discover we can't mouse-click steer
firepower (Tofflerian RMA mentality) to hold the
ground and the peace, either. Holding this contested
ground with light infantry without ANY armored
vehicles, we are losing our men to gunmen, snipers,
RPGs, and grenades. In the years leading up to the
second Iraq war, light infantrymen refused to wear
body armor in training saying they were overloaded
(they are more on this later). Then came Somalia and
the Ranger Regiment was rescued from soft-skin vehicle
annihilation by armored vehicles and hard body armor
that could stop rifle bullets, called "Ranger Body
Armor" to make it acceptable. The full post-Somalia
response should have been requesting war-stock M113
Gavin light tracked armored vehicles instead of
continuing to drive around in easily destroyed
rubber-tired HMMWV and LandRover trucks--but Ranger
egotism will not allow this, to admit you need armor
protection means you are less of a man. However, the
current rifle-caliber resistant body armor,
"Interceptor Body Armor" (IBA) has saved many lives in
Afghanistan and now Iraq and the other troops of our
Army unashamedly want IBA even though there is not
enough to go around.
Why is there not enough IBA to go around?
There is not enough IBA for all our troops because
before the war in our peacetime training fantasy our
egotism and lack of professional understanding of the
battlefield did not make it a priority (i.e. we
squandered our money on defective Stryker armored
cars). It should not take getting shot at to make a
so-called professional to see the need for armor on
the automatic weapons fire-swept battlefield. But the
basic problem with arrogance is a lack of RESPECT for
others; when you look down on the other half of the
Army, is it a surprise you do not respect the enemy?
If you do not respect the enemy as a clever human
being, though fighting for an evil cause, you don't
"what-if" what he can do to you weapons-wise and you
don't take counter-measures like armor protecting
yourself. As stated in the first article, the force
structure of our light infantry that lacks ANY tracked
armored mobility that depends on unarmored soft-skin
vehicles for re-supply is madness on the current
non-linear battlefield. This can be quickly fixed by
outfitting our light units with the world's greatest
and easiest to maintain light tracked AFV, the M113
Gavin which waits in the wings by the thousands to
rescue our Army from its descent into all-or-nothing
Light/Heavy madness that took place at the dawn of the
'80s. By canceling the overweight, road-bound, thinly
armored Stryker "medium" rubber-tired armored car
one-size-fits-all delusion, we can save over $9
BILLION dollars and be able to buy every Soldier in
harm's way IBA and upgrade their M113 Gavins into "A4"
models with RPG applique' armor, chemi-bio-nuclear air
filtration systems, digital firepower/situational
awareness, a shoot-on-the-move autocannon 1-man
turret, band-tracks and hybrid-electric drive for
stealth and 60 mph road speeds. We would have the best
general purpose troop and supply armored transport
possible on planet earth in 2003. 50% of an Army Heavy
Division moves by M113 Gavins now, all we have to do
is fully exploit their full potential throughout the
rest of the Army to make its men and its supplies
mobile on tracks with basic armor protection like the
IDF wisely does.
Why is our Infantry on foot overloaded?
Once we respect the enemy and the earth itself, we can
properly employ and develop future Army ground
vehicles, creating the best force mixes possible with
what we can do today and in the near future. However,
we can't fight successfully only while mounted in
armored vehicles because there are simply too many
places that are inaccessible to any vehicle in a
tactically prudent manner that require foot troops to
secure. Here again, the light-itis egotism strikes
again; lacking a force-on-force feedback war game
system that requires ANSWERS, the light infantry
revels in its overloaded weights it carries and its
heavy casualties it takes in peacetime MILES "laser
tag" training. Now that the bullets are real, they are
born-again believers in rifle-caliber bullet resistant
IBA. However, due to a lack of intelligent focus on
the individual Soldier's load---actual thinking and
tinkering to get loads under 40 pounds to get 4-7+mph
foot mobility--not hubristic chest beating to be
"tough"-----Soldiers really are overloaded more than
ever before. If you are a slow moving target you can
be more easily aimed in on by the enemy and hit. The
ability to be nimble and evade being hit is not a
solution to everything, look at how the light infantry
without body armor has failed in those unavoidable
situations where you don't have cover/concealment to
cling to: deserts and urban areas when you are
supposedly at "peace". Since we do not weigh our loads
and try to trim them and move them creatively (M113
Gavin AFVs, bikes, carts, pack mules, ATVs) to get
tactical speed march benefits, its not surprising that
we are carrying unnecessary and overly heavy items
into the field for comfortable living. Then when
actual ammo loads are carried plus IBA Soldier
mobility goes to nil. The solution here is to
Army-wide change the current sports PT test to a 6
mile 30-pound ruck march in full combat gear for time
with dummy ammunition. Whenever ANY Soldiers go to the
field they carry their basic dummy load of ammunition.
This will force Natick Labs, private industry and
leaders to find and use lighter field living means
than our current bloated tentage. The majority of the
30 pound weight of the rucksack should be ammunition
and water. An Army that trains as it would fight will
not be surprised when it has to carry ammo and wear
IBA.
Are we a "hard" or "soft" target for the enemy?
While we are reorganizing our Army to use armored
tracked vehicles for troop transport/resupply in the
new non-linear warfare paradigm, we will be stuck
using soft-skin trucks---its way overdue but THE BEST
sandbagging procedures for both the HMMWV and FMTV
trucks need to be determined and published immediately
throughout the Army like the diagram in FM 90-5 Jungle
operations. The FMTV truck stands so tall over its
rubber tires it needs a ladder for the troops to get
out--this is unacceptable---we need to find a way to
rope the rear ramp in an open position at an angle so
troops can flop down and slide off onto the ground for
faster dismounting. The M197 pedestal machine gun
mount needs to be on several of EVERY Army unit's
HMMWVs so M249 LMGs are employed in a ready-to-fire
manner. Sandbagging, anti-mine hardening and weapons
mounting, Escape and Recovery training needs to be
standard in ALL convoy operations and this should be a
CTT task done by every Army unit each year. This
should have already been SOP throughout the Army, we
are running late and men and women are dead.
Armored MP HMMWVs now are getting gunshields, the
officer with the foresight to push this forward should
be promoted. Gunners exposed firing machine guns from
vehicles are vital to convoy defense--the enemy knows
this, fires back and they are killed. The Russians
know this and open their AFV hatches FORWARD so they
act as shields and have bullet deflectors in front of
their driver's hatches. Our AFVs don't have these
protective features. The U.S. Army learned the need
for gunshields at the 1963 battle of Ap Bac, created
gunshield kits for its M113 Gavins but they languish
now in supply warehouses because during peacetime the
egotistical Soldier doesn't respect the enemy and
since it takes more work/red tape to mount gunshields
he doesn't. Every M113 Gavin right now in combat in
Iraq should immediately be fitted with the TC's
gunshield kit. The already too high Bradley AFV with
its huge 2-man turret has neither forward opening
hatches or gunshield kits:
www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/04/1057179167614.html
Compare this to the fact that we have known for YEARS that Chechan snipers
have focused in on AFV crewmen and at JRTC OPFOR successfully does the same to U.S. Army troops yet no gunshields for M1 Abrams or M2 Bradley AFVs. The M113
Gavin gunshields are not mounted. Compare this tragic
story to the IBA success story described in the "Small
Arms and Individual Equipment Lessons Learned"
gathered from 5 through 10 May 2003 from Soldiers
serving in the Baghdad sector during Operation Iraqi
Freedom. Comments came from Brigade Commanders down to
riflemen. The following units were interviewed:
HHC/1-187 IN, 101st ABN, 2d BCT, 82d ABN, 3-325 PIR,
2-325 PIR, 3-7 CAV, FSB, 1st BCT, 3 ID, 3-69 AR.
Interceptor Body Armor: Soldiers have great confidence
in their body armor. As one battalion commander stated
"Soldiers felt comfortable 'trolling for contact'
because they felt their body armor provided sufficient
protection." There were numerous comments about
comfort and weight but, in general, comments were
positive. The comfort comments dealt mainly with
maneuverability. Soldiers indicated that it was
difficult to maintain a good prone firing position
while wearing the IBA with plates. Their Kevlar
[helmet] interfered with the back of the vest and it
was difficult to keep your head up while prone. Also,
the plates made it difficult to seat the stock of the
weapon into the shoulder as Soldiers are trained. The
foam impact pad in the Airborne Soldier's Kevlar
[helmet] further exacerbated the problem of contact
between Kevlar and vest. Most importantly however, is
the performance demonstrated by the IBA during the
operation. There were numerous examples of impacts
that could have been fatal that resulted in minor or
no injury to the Soldier. The A/3-69 AR XO's tank
responded to a threat to the field trains of about 60
dismounted enemy. While engaging the enemy with the
7.62 MG, the loader felt an impact to his chest that
knocked him back into the turret. He told the XO he
had been hit. The XO checked him for a wound, found
none and directed him to continue to engage the enemy.
After the fight they found the entry hole to the IBA,
significant damage to the edge of the SAPI plate and a
7.62 round embedded in the protective liner of the
OTV. Other soldiers in A/3-69 AR made fun of the
loader above because he wore an IBA inside the turret
of an M1 until he was hit in the chest and survived.
Vehicle crewman expressed a desire for similar
protection. Some of the Soldiers we interviewed said
IBA was suitable for the turret. Others said it was
not. Due to the nature of the threat, M1 and M2 crews
spent a significant amount of time exposed in the
hatches, engaging dismounted enemy around their
vehicles, as they pushed through. Vehicle crewmen took
it upon themselves to modify their issued Spall Vest
to increase the protection. One crewman in 3-7 CAV
took the protective pads from three different spall
vests and put them into one. The Soldiers in 3-69 AR
found they could put IBA SAPI plates into the spall
vest.
Where is our Soldier face, neck and eye protection?
Jim Dunnigan's Strategypage reports:
www.strategypage.com/search.asp?target=d:%5cinetpub%5cstrategypageroot%5cfyeo%5chowtomakewar%5cdocs%5chtinf.htm&search=molle"
"May 16, 2003: More medical reports indicate that the
new Interceptor protective vest was, indeed, bullet
proof. Only nine percent of the combat wounds to 118
Army casualties were in the trunk, and these were
either by larger caliber weapons or shots that came in
at odd angles and got around the Interceptor (like via
an armpit.) Autopsies of 154 dead Soldiers showed that
the single most common area hit was the head (neck and
face, the rest is well protected by the Kevlar
helmet.) The next largest category is multiple wounds,
including ones that sever major [arteries] in the
arms, and most dangerously, in the legs."
Non-linear war requires a paradigm change; another
that must change is the current SLA Marshall
men-against-fire mentality that units that are pinned
down by enemy fire are helpless and can only be
rescued others not pinned down. In the days before
bullets infantry had SHIELDS. Over the years larger
weapons like artillery pieces, machine guns and rocket
launchers have had gunshields to protect their
Soldiers employing them to get a line of sight to hit
their targets. We have the technology today to take an
Interceptor Body Armor plate proof against 7.62mm
bullets and attach it to the end of our rifles and
machine guns to be a man-portable gunshield. The 1st
TSG (A) has created a working prototype
www.combatreform.com/gunshield.htm.
We should not have to fight an uphill battle against small minded egotism and can't-do to field small gunshields on our Soldiers in harm's way now in Iraq. Portable gunshields that are separate from the weapon are in use by the IDF and other military/police units. The paradigm change of giving the individual Soldier a portable gunshield on his weapon would give him the
ability to defeat bullets/shrapnel away from his body and face, the latter having no protection at all. A rifleman's gunshield would enable him in a firefight to gain LOS to fire his weapon on the enemy and gain fire superiority even if the enemy has "the drop" and has fired first at him abusing the "peace" illusion created by surrounding civilians.
1st TSG (A) intel specialist, Roy Ardillo summarizes:
"1. Improve Soldier indivual equipment, but
lighten the load. Make sure the body armor
covers all body parts in some fashion.
2. Move to tracked vehicles througout the Army
in both light and heavy units. Use gunshields
where ever possible, even on wheeled vehicles
during the transition.
3. Change tactics to accept that when we use
Soviet Tactics, don't worry about your flanks and
rear, we run the risk of being ambushed and our
supplies cut off.
4. Accept that the non-linear battlefield has risks that technology, without manpower, may not be able to defeat.
In that case, why not convert all of Colonel McGregor's Combat Groups, both light and heavy, to the ACR TO&E with extra infantrymen instead of
scouts. These Brigade sized units are mini-divisions. Why not give them the extra infantrymen and go to a Brigades/Combat Groups of between 5,000-8,000 troops. Call it a division if you like.
I think it is high time to quit acting the fool.
We cannot have 34 brigades with 7 brigade types.
We need heavy brigades (heavy mech infantry/heavy
armor) and light brigades (light mech
infantry/light mech airborne). The only
difference would be the platforms.
Infantry would again learn dismounted warfare.
All of Shinseki's ideas, about an infantry
centric Styker rubber-tired motorized Brigade, are wrong. There is a
problem with the squad. Can carry a full squad
in an M113, but not a Bradely. That can solved
with extra additional platforms until the FCS
which should hold a 9-man squad and be tracked,
comes out."
Emery Nelson writes:
"Talked to a friend on Friday who has experience with IEDs of the kind used
in Iraq. He told me that he's been trying for years to get 'CALL' to
publish an article on how Chechens wire up 152mm howitzers rounds for booby
traps. They used all kinds of methods and electronic devices like pagers
and cell phones for triggering. The Russians have already paid for this
knowledg. He's been trying to get the article published since the mid 1990s
but FMSO is afraid that it would become another 'Anarchist's Cook Book'.
The problem with this belief is as follows: The insurgents already have
this knowledge from a Chechen inspired pamphlet. The only ones who don't
get this info is our Soldiers."
Part 3: Army Hoping to Get By Slapping Armor onto just the trucks in Iraq, Stryker/FCS wheeled cash cows untouched
The really sad thing is that DoD and the Army refuse to admit their Tofflerian RMA world view that mental gadgetry replaces physical things has failed and will continue to fail on today's non-linear battlefields.
While are troops are dying and being maimed in Iraq, the majority of the Army's money received from the tax payers are going to handfuls of Stryker and FCS trucks.
Yesterday evening, a sniper killed a U.S. Soldier who
was standing in the gunner's hatch of a Bradley
fighting vehicle while guarding the national museum in
Baghdad. Yesterday the museum opened its doors for a
few hours - the first time since the war. The Soldier
was evacuated to a military hospital, but died of his
wounds. Attackers detonated an explosive on a highway
in Baghdad's western outskirts yesterday, injuring
three passengers in a civilian car and two U.S.
Soldiers traveling in a Humvee convoy, according to an
Associated Press photographer on the scene. On
Thursday, U.S. troops near Baqubah, north-east of the
capital, attempted to draw out attackers by luring
them into an ambush on a stretch of road known as "RPG
Alley" because of its frequent rocket-propelled
grenade strikes. One suspect was killed and three
captured in the operation, said Lieutenant Kurt
Chapman, with the Army's 4th Infantry Division. "We're
trying to be a little bit more proactive and find them
before they get us," Chapman said.
Table of Contents
Close-up burned off rubber tires
Unsandbagged HMMWV driver's side
View from OP towards ambush site
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Author: 1st Tactical Studies Group (Airborne)
Email: itsg@hotmail.com Home Page: www.combatreform.com |