http://fletcher.tufts.edu/faculty/shultz/pdf/SHOWSTOPPERS1.pdf www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/613twavk.asp?pg=1

Showstoppers: Nine reasons why we never sent our Special Operations Forces after al Qaeda before 9/11

By Richard H. Shultz Jr.
01/26/2004, Volume 009, Issue 19

SINCE 9/11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has repeatedly declared that the United States is in a new kind of war, one requiring new military forces to hunt down and capture or kill terrorists. In fact, for some years, the Department of Defense has gone to the trouble of selecting and training an array of Special Operations Forces, whose forte is precisely this. One president after another has invested resources to hone lethal "special mission units" for offensive--that is, preemptive--counterterrorism strikes, with the result that these units are the best of their kind in the world. While their activities are highly classified, two of them--the Army's Delta Force and the Navy's SEAL Team 6--have become the stuff of novels and movies.

Prior to 9/11, these units were never used even once to hunt down terrorists who had taken American lives. Putting the units to their intended use proved impossible--even after al Qaeda bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, bombed two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, and nearly sank the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. As a result of these and other attacks, operations were planned to capture or kill the ultimate perpetrators, Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, but each time the missions were blocked. A plethora of self-imposed constraints--I call them showstoppers--kept the counterterrorism units on the shelf.

I first began to learn of this in the summer of 2001, after George W.Bush's election brought a changing of the guard to the Department of Defense.

Training the new team as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict was Bob Andrews, an old hand at the black arts of unconventional warfare. During Vietnam, Andrews had served in a top-secret Special Forces outfit codenamed the Studies and Observations Group that had carried out America's largest and most complex covert paramilitary operation in the Cold War. Afterwards, Andrews had joined the CIA, then moved to Congress as a staffer, then to the defense industry.

I'd first met him while I was writing a book about the secret war against Hanoi, and we hit it off. He returned to the Pentagon with the new administration, and in June 2001 he called and asked me to be his consultant. I agreed, and subsequently proposed looking into counterterrorism policy. Specifically, I wondered why had we created these superbly trained Special Operations Forces to fight terrorists, but had never used them for their primary mission. What had kept them out of action?

Andrews was intrigued and asked me to prepare a proposal. I was putting the finishing touches on it on the morning of September 11, when al Qaeda struck. With that blow, the issue of America's offensive counterterrorist capabilities was thrust to center stage.

By early November, I had the go-ahead for the study. Our question had acquired urgency: Why, even as al Qaeda attacked and killed Americans at home and abroad, were our elite counterterrorism units not used to hit back and prevent further attacks? That was, after all, their very purpose, laid out in the official document "Special Operations in Peace and War" (1996). To find the answer, I interviewed civilian and military officials, serving and retired, at the center of U.S. counterterrorism policy and operational planning in the late 1980s and 1990s.

They included senior members of the National Security Council's Counterterrorism and Security Group, the interagency focal point for counterterrorism policy. In the Pentagon, I interviewed the top leaders of the offices with counterterrorism responsibility, as well as second-tier professionals, and their military counterparts in the Joint Staff. Finally, the U.S. Special Operations Command, headquartered in Tampa, Florida, is responsible for planning and carrying out counterterrorism strikes, and I interviewed senior commanders who served there during the 1990s.

Some were willing to speak on the record. Others requested anonymity, which I honored, in order to put before the top leadership of the Pentagon the detailed report from which this article is drawn. My findings were conveyed to the highest levels of the Department of Defense in January 2003.

Among those interviewed, few were in a better position to illuminate the conundrum than General Pete Schoomaker. An original member of the Delta Force, he had commanded the Delta Force in 1991-92, then led the Special Operations Command in the late 1990s. "Counterterrorism", by Defense Department definition, is "offensive," Schoomaker told me during a discussion we had over two days in the summer of 2002. "But Special Operations was never given the mission. It was very, very frustrating. It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender."

AS TERRORIST ATTACKS escalated in the 1990s, White House rhetoric intensified. President Clinton met each successive outrage with a vow to punish the perpetrators. After the Cole bombing in 2000, for example, he pledged to "find out who is responsible and hold them accountable." And to prove he was serious, he issued an increasingly tough series of Presidential Decision Directives. The United States would "deter and preempt...individuals who perpetrate or plan to perpetrate such acts," said Directive 39, in June 1995. Offensive measures would be used against foreign terrorists posing a threat to America, said Directive 62, in May 1998. Joint Staff contingency plans were revised to provide for offensive and preemptive options. And afteral Qaeda's bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, President Clinton signed a secret "finding" authorizing lethal covert operations against bin Laden.

These initiatives led to the planning of several operations. Their details rest in the classified records of the National Security Council's Counterterrorism and Security Group. Its former coordinator, Dick Clarke, described them as providing the White House with "more aggressiveoptions," to be carried out by Special Operations Forces (or SOF, a category that includes the Green Berets, the Rangers, psychological operations, civilian affairs, the SEALS, special helicopter units, and special mission units like the Delta Force and SEAL Team 6).

Several plans have been identified in newspaper accounts since 9/11. For example, "snatch operations" in Afghanistan were planned to seize bin Laden and his senior lieutenants. After the 1998 embassy bombings, options for killing bin Laden were entertained, including a gunship assault on his compound in Afghanistan.

SOF assaults on al Qaeda's Afghan training camps were also planned. An official very close to Clinton said that the president believed the image of American commandos jumping out of helicopters and killing terrorists would send a strong message. He "saw these camps as conveyor belts pushing radical Islamists through," the official said, "that either went into the war against the Northern Alliance [an Afghan force fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan] or became sleeper cells in Germany, Spain, Britain, Italy, and here. We wanted to close these camps down. We had to make it unattractive to go to these camps. And blowing them up, by God, would make them unattractive."

And preemptive strikes against al Qaeda cells outside Afghanistan were planned, in North Africa and the Arabian Gulf. Then in May 1999, the White House decided to press the Taliban to end its support of bin Laden. The Counterterrorism and Security Group recommended supporting the Northern Alliance.

These examples, among others, depict an increasingly aggressive, lethal,and preemptive counterterrorist policy. But not one of these operations--all authorized by President Clinton--was ever executed. General Schoomaker's explanation is devastating. "The presidential directives that were issued," he said, "and the subsequent findings and authorities, in my view, were done to check off boxes. The president signed things that everybody involved knew full well were never going to happen. You're checking off boxes, and have all this activity going on, but the fact is that there's very low probability of it ever coming to fruition. . . ." And he added: "The military, by the way, didn't want to touch it. There was great reluctance in the Pentagon."

FROM MY INTERVIEWS, I distilled nine mutually reinforcing, self-imposed constraints that kept the special mission units sidelined, even as al Qaeda struck at American targets around the globe and trumpeted its intention to do more of the same. These showstoppers formed an impenetrable phalanx ensuring that all high-level policy discussions, tough new presidential directives, revised contingency plans, and actual dress rehearsals for missions would come to nothing.

1. Terrorism as Crime

During the second half of the 1980s, terrorism came to be defined by theU.S. government as a crime, and terrorists as criminals to be prosecuted. The Reagan administration, which in its first term said that it would meet terrorism with "swift and effective retribution," ended its second term, in the political and legal aftermath of Iran-contra, by adopting a counterterrorism policy that was the antithesis of that.

"Patterns of Global Terrorism," a report issued by the State Department every year since 1989, sets forth guidance about responding to terrorism. Year after year prior to 9/11, a key passage said it was U.S. policy to "treat terrorists as criminals, pursue them aggressively, and apply the rule of law." Even now, when President Bush has defined the situation as a war on terrorism, "Patterns of Global Terrorism" says U.S. policy is to "bring terrorists to justice for their crimes."

Criminalization had a profound impact on the Pentagon, said General Schoomaker. It came to see terrorism as "not up to the standard of our definition of war, and therefore not worthy of our attention." In other words, militaries fight other militaries. "And because it's not war," he added, "and we don't act like we're at war, many of the Defense Department's tools are off the table." The Pentagon's senior leadership made little if any effort to argue against designating terrorism as a crime, Schoomaker added derisively.

"If you declare terrorism a criminal activity, you take from Defense any statutory authority to be the leader in responding," a long-serving department official agreed. Whenever the White House proposed using SOF against terrorists, it found itself facing "a band of lawyers at Justice defending their turf." They would assert, said this old hand at special operations, that the Pentagon lacked authority to use force--and "lawyers in the Defense Department would concur. They argued that we have no statutory authority because this is essentially a criminal matter."

In effect, the central tool for combating terrorism would not be militaryforce. Extradition was the instrument of choice. This reduced the Pentagon's role to providing transportation for the Justice Department.

To be sure, Justice had its successes. With the help of the Pakistani government, it brought back Mir Amal Kansi, the gunman who opened fire outside CIA headquarters in 1993; with the help of the governments of the Philippines and Kenya, it brought several of the terrorists responsible for the first World Trade Center bombing and the attacks on the U.S. embassies in East Africa back to stand trial. But those were lesser al Qaeda operatives. Against the group's organizational infrastructure and leadership, there were no such successes. Law enforcement had neither the access nor the capability to go after those targets.

2. Not a Clear and Present Danger or War

Since terrorism had been classified as crime, few Pentagon officials were willing to call it a clear and present danger to the United States--much less grounds for war. Any attempt to describe terrorism in those terms ran into a stone wall.

For instance, on June 25, 1996, a truck bomb killed 19 Americans and wounded another 250 at the U.S. military's Khobar Towers housing facility near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. In the aftermath, a tough-minded subordinate of Allen Holmes, then the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, asserted that the Defense Department needed a more aggressive counterterrorism policy to attack those responsible for these increasingly lethal terrorist attacks. Holmes told him, "Write it down, and we'll push it."

The aide laid out a strategy that pulled no punches. Khobar Towers, the World Trade Center bombing, and other attacks were acts of war, he wrote, and should be treated as such. He called for "retaliatory and preemptive military strikes against the terrorist leadership and infrastructure responsible, and even against states assisting them." In his strategy, he assigned a central role for this to SOF.

Holmes ran the proposal up the flagpole. A meeting to review it was held in the office of the undersecretary of defense for policy. As the hard-charging aide explained his recommendations, a senior policy official blurted out: "Are you out of your mind? You're telling me that our Middle East policy is not important and that it's more important to go clean out terrorists? Don't you understand what's going on in terms of our Middle East policy? You're talking about going after terrorists backed by Iran? You just don't understand." And that was that.

In the wake of Khobar Towers, Secretary of Defense William Perry asked retired General Wayne Downing to head a task force to assess what had happened. Formerly the head of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Downing had been in counterterrorism a long time. He was more than willing to pull the trigger and cajole policymakers into giving him the authority to do so. Interviewed in 2002 during a year-long stint as President Bush's deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, he reflected on his report: "I emphasized that people are at war with us, and using terrorism as an asymmetrical weapon with which to attack us because they can't in a direct or conventional manner." It was war, he told the department's senior leadership; they needed to wake up to that fact. But his plea fell on deaf ears. He lamented, "No one wanted to address terrorism as war."

Even after bin Laden declared war on America in a 1998 fatwa, and bombed U.S. embassies to show his followers that he meant business in exhorting them to "abide by Allah's order by killing Americans . . .anywhere, anytime, and wherever possible," the Pentagon still resisted calling terrorism war. It wasn't alone. A CIA assessment of the fatwa acknowledged that if a government had issued such a decree, one would have had to consider it a declaration of war, but in al Qaeda's case it was only propaganda.

During the late 1990s, the State Department coordinator for counterterrorism was Mike Sheehan. A retired Special Forces officer who had learned unconventional warfare in El Salvador in the late 1980s, he was considered one of the most hawkish Clinton officials, pushing for the use of force against the Taliban and al Qaeda. His mantra was "drain the Afghan swamp of terrorists."

I visited Sheehan at his office at the U.N. building in New York, where he had become assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping. He recounted how aggressive counterterrorism proposals were received in the Defense Department: "The Pentagon wanted to fight and win the nation's wars, as Colin Powell used to say. But those were wars against the armies of other nations--not against diffuse transnational terrorist threats. So terrorism was seen as a distraction that was the CIA's job, even though DOD personnel were being hit by terrorists. The Pentagon way to treat terrorism against Pentagon assets abroad was to cast it as a force protection issue."

"Force protection" is Pentagon lingo for stronger barriers to shield troops from Khobar Towers-type attacks. Even the attack on the USS Cole did not change that outlook. As far as causing anyone to consider offensive measures against those responsible, "the Cole lasted only for a week, two weeks," Sheehan lamented. "It took a 757 crashing into the Pentagon for them to get it. "Shaking his head, he added: "The near sinking of a billion-dollar warship was not enough. Folding up a barracks full of their troops in Saudi Arabia was not enough. Folding up two American embassies was not enough."

Of course, Washington continued to try to arrest those who had carried out these acts. But the places where terrorists trained and planned--Afghanistan, Lebanon, Sudan, and Yemen--remained off-limits. Those were not areas where the Defense Department intended to fight. A very senior SOF officer who had served on the Joint Staff in the 1990s told me that more than once he heard terrorist strikes characterized as "a small price to pay for being a superpower."

3. The Somalia Syndrome

In the first year of his presidency, Bill Clinton suffered a foreign policy debacle. The "Fire Fight from Hell," Newsweek called it. The Los Angeles Times described it as culminating in "dozens of cheering, dancing Somalis dragging the body of a U.S. Soldier through the city's streets." Those reports followed the 16-hour shootout portrayed in the movie "Black Hawk Down," pitting SOF units against Somali warriors in the urban jungle of Mogadishu on October 3-4,1993. The American objective had been capturing Mohammed Aidid, a warlord who was interfering with the U.N.'s humanitarian mission. The new administration had expected a quick surgical operation.

The failure caused disquieting questions and bad memories. How could this happen? What had gone wrong? Some Clinton officials recalled that the last time the Democrats had held the White House, similar forces had failed in their attempt to rescue American hostages in Tehran ("Desert One"), a catastrophe instrumental in President Carter's 1980 re-election defeat.

Some senior generals had expressed doubts about the Mogadishu operation, yet as it had morphed from a peacekeeping mission into a manhunt for Aidid, the new national security team had failed to grasp the implications. The Mogadishu disaster spooked the Clinton administrationas well as the brass, and confirmed the Joint Chiefs in the view that SOF should never be entrusted with independent operations.

After Mogadishu, one Pentagon officer explained, there was "reluctance to even discuss pro-active measures associated with countering the terrorist threat through SOF operations. The Joint Staff was very happy for the administration to take a law enforcement view. They didn't want to put special ops troops on the ground. They hadn't wanted to go into Somalia to begin with. The Joint Staff was the biggest foot-dragger on all of this counterterrorism business."

Another officer added that Somalia heightened a wariness, in some cases outright disdain, for SOF in the senior ranks. On the Joint Staff, the generals ranged from those who "did not have a great deal of respect" for SOF, to those who actually "hated what it represented, . . . hated the independent thought process, . . . hated the fact that the SOF guys on the Joint Staff would challenge things, would question things."

During Desert Storm, for example, General Norman Schwarzkopf was reluctant to include SOF in his war plan. He did so only grudgingly, and kept SOF on a short leash, wrote the commander of all Special Operations Forces at the time, General Carl Stiner, in his book "Shadow Warriors." But SOF performed well in Desert Storm, and afterwards Schwarzkopf acknowledged their accomplishments. In 1993, Mogadishu turned back the clock.

4. No Legal Authority

August 1998 was a watershed for the White House. The embassy bombings led to the reexamination of preemptive military options. President Clinton proposed using elite SOF counterterrorism units to attack bin Laden, his lieutenants, and al Qaeda's infrastructure.

Also considered was unconventional warfare, a core SOF mission very different from counterterrorism. The Special Operations Command's "Special Operations in Peace and War" defines unconventional warfare as "military and paramilitary operations conducted by indigenous or surrogate forces who are organized, trained, equipped, and directed by an external source." For the White House, this meant assisting movements like the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

Both the Special Operations Command's counterterrorism units and Special Forces training for and executing unconventional warfare operate clandestinely. That is what their doctrine specifies. But because such operations are secret, the question arose in the 1990s whether the department had the legal authority to execute them.

This may seem baffling. If these missions are specified in the military doctrine of the Special Operations Command, and actual units train for them, isn't it obvious that the Department of Defense must have the authority to execute them? Perhaps, yet many in government emphatically deny it.

A gap exists, they believe, between DOD's capability for clandestine operations and its authority under the United States Code. In the 1990s, some Pentagon lawyers and some in the intelligence community argued that Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which covers the armed forces, did not give Defense the legal authority for such missions, Title 50, which spells out the legal strictures for covert operations, gave this power exclusively to the CIA.

Title 50 defines covert action as "an activity of the United States Government to influence political, economic, or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly." Covert action and deniability go hand-in-hand. If a story about a covert action hits the newspapers, the president must be able to avow that the United States is not mixed up in it.

But is it the case that only the CIA has this authority? Title 50, Chapter 15, Section 413b of the U.S. Code stipulates: "The President may not authorize the conduct of a covert action by departments, agencies, or entities of the United States Government unless the President determines such an action is necessary to support identifiable foreign policy objectives of the United States and is important to the national security of the United States, which determination shall be set forth in a finding that shall meet each of the following conditions." The key condition is: "Each finding shall specify each department, agency, or entity of the United States Government authorized to fund or otherwise participate in any significant way in such action." Title 50 leaves the choice of agency to the president and does not exclude the Pentagon.

At the heart of this debate, said a former senior Defense official, was "institutional culture and affiliation." The department took after all, their very purpose, laid out in the official document" Special Operations in Peace and War" 1996). To find the answer, I interviewed civilian and military officials, serving and retired, at the center of U.S. counterterrorism policy and operational planning in the late 1980s and 1990s.

The position that it lacked the authority because it did not want the authority--or the mission. He told me, "All of its instincts push it in that direction."

One senior member of the National Security Council's counterterrorism group recalled encountering this attitude during deliberations overcounterterrorism operations and clandestine support for the Northern Alliance. To the Joint Staff, neither was "in their minds a military mission. It was a covert action. The uniformed military was adamant that they would not do covert action." And, he added, if you presented them with "a legal opinion that says 'You're wrong,' then they would say, 'Well, we're not going to do it anyway. It's a matter of policy that we don't.'"

The authority argument was a "cop-out," said a retired officer who served in the Pentagon from 1994 to 2000. Sure enough, the Defense Department could have bypassed Title 50 by employing SOF on a clandestine basis. While both clandestine and covert missions are secret, only the latter require that the U.S. role not be "acknowledged publicly," which is Title 50's key requirement. Using SOF to preempt terrorists or support resistance movements clandestinely in peacetime is within the scope of Title 10, as long as the U.S. government does not deny involvement when the mission is over.

But this interpretation of Title 10 was considered beyond the pale in the 1990s. The Pentagon did not want the authority to strike terrorists secretly or to employ Special Forces against states that aided and sheltered them.

5. Risk Aversion

The mainstream military often dismisses special operations as too risky. To employ SOF requires open-minded political and military leadership willing to balance risks against potential gains. Supple judgment was in short supply in the Pentagon in the 1990s.

Walter Slocombe served as Clinton's undersecretary of defense for policy, and took part in all counterterrorism policy discussions in the Department of Defense. "We certainly looked at lots of options which involved the possible use of SOF," he stressed. But in the end they were never selected because they seemed too hard to pull off, he acknowledged. Options that put people on the ground to go after bin Laden were "much too hard." It was much easier and much less risky to fire off cruise missiles.

During Clinton's first term, someone would always find something wrong with a proposed operation, lamented General Downing. The attitude was: "Don't let these SOF guys go through the door because they're dangerous. . . . They are going to do something to embarrass the country." Downing recalls that during his years in command, he "sat through the preparation of maybe 20 operations where we had targeted people who had killed Americans. Terrorists who had done bad things to this country, and needed either to be killed or apprehended and brought back here, and we couldn't pull the trigger." It was too risky for the Pentagon's taste.

The other side of the risk-aversion coin is policymakers' demand for fail-safe options. A general who served in the Special Operations Command in the 1990s encountered "tremendous pressure to do something," he said, but at the same time, the requirement was for "perfect operations, no casualties, and no failure." There were some "great opportunities" to strike at al Qaeda, "you couldn't take any risk in doing so. You couldn't have a POW, you couldn't lose a man. You couldn't have anybody hurt." It was Catch-22. There were frequent "spin-ups" for SOF missions, but "in the end, the senior political and military leadership wouldn't let you go do it."

In the mid-1990s, and again at the end of the decade, the Clinton administration flirted with supporting the Iraqi resistance and then the Northern Alliance. An officer who served on the Joint Staff recounted how the senior military leadership put the kibosh on these potentially bold moves.

The CIA ran the Iraqi operation. But its unconventional warfare capabilities were paltry, and it turned to the military for help, requesting that SOF personnel be seconded to bolster the effort. The Joint Staff and its chairman wanted nothing to do with it, he said. "The guidance I got from the chairman's director of operations was that we weren't going to support this, and do everything you can to stall or keep it in the planning mode, don't let it get to the point where we're briefing this at the National Security Council or on the Hill."

Later, the National Security Council's counterterrorism group proposed supporting the Northern Alliance. They pushed the proposal up to the "principals" level. But attached to it was a "non-concurrence" by the Joint Staff, opposing it as too complex and risky. That was the kiss-of-death.

None of this was new to the Joint Staff officer, who had been in special operations for a long time. "Risk aversion emerges as senior officers move into higher positions," he explained. "It's a very common thing for these guys to become non-risk takers. They get caught up in interagency politics and the bureaucratic process, and get risk-averse."

A member of the counterterrorism group in the late 1990s noted that General Hugh Shelton, a former commander of the Special Operations Command, considered the use of SOF for counterterrorism less than anyone when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs. The official said Shelton directed the Joint Staff "not to plan certain operations, I'm sure you've heard this from others." In fact, I had. "It got to the point," he said, where "the uniforms had become the suits, they were more the bureaucrats than the civilians."

6. Pariah Cowboys

When events finally impelled the Clinton administration to take a hard look at offensive operations, the push to pursue them came from the civilians of the National Security Council's Counterterrorism and Security Group.

One of the hardest of the hard-liners was the group's chief, Dick Clarke. For nearly a decade, this career civil servant began and ended his workday with the burgeoning terrorist threat to America. He knew in detail the danger the bin Ladens of the world posed, and it worried him greatly. Defensive measures were just not enough. "Clarke's philosophy was to go get the terrorists," one former senior Pentagon special operations official told me, "Go get them anywhere you can."

Asked if that meant using SOF, he replied: "Oh yeah. In fact, many of the options were with special mission units." But "Dick Clarke was attempting to take on a Pentagon hierarchy that wasn't of the same philosophical mindset."

Clarke was not alone. Mike Sheehan also pushed for assisting the Northern Alliance and striking al Qaeda with SOF. Such measures worried the senior brass, who proceeded to weaken those officials by treating them as pariahs. That meant portraying them as cowboys, who proposed reckless military operations that would get American Soldiers killed.

Sheehan explained: Suppose one civilian starts beating the drum for special operations. The establishment "systematically starts to undermine you. They would say, 'He's a rogue, he's uncooperative, he's out of control, he's stupid, he makes bad choices.' It's very damaging. .. . You get to the point where you don't even raise issues like that. If someone did, like me or Clarke, we were labeled cowboys, way outside our area of competence."

Several officials who served on the Joint Staff and in the Pentagon's special operations office remembered the senior brass characterizing Clarke in such terms. "Anything Dick Clarke suggested, the Joint Staff was going to be negative about," said one. Some generals had been vitriolic, calling Clarke "a madman, out of control, power hungry, wanted to be a hero, all that kind of stuff." In fact, one of these former officials emphasized, "when we would carry back from the counterterrorism group one of those SOF counterterrorism proposals, our job was to figure out not how to execute it, but how we were going to say no."

By turning Clarke into a pariah, the Pentagon brass discredited precisely the options that might have spared us the tragedy of September 11, 2001. And when Clarke fought back at being branded "wild" and "irresponsible," they added "abrasive" and "intolerant" to the counts against him.

7. Intimidation of Civilians

Another way the brass stymied hard-line proposals from civilian policymakers was by highlighting their own military credentials and others' lack of them. One former defense official recounted a briefing on counterterrorism options given the secretary of defense by senior civilians and military officers. "The civilian, a political appointee with no military experience, says, 'As your policy adviser, let me tell you what you need to do militarily in this situation.' The chairman sits there, calmly listening. Then it's his turn. He begins by framing his sophisticated PowerPoint briefing in terms of the 'experience factor,' his own judgment, and those of four-star associates. The 'experience factor' infuses the presentation. Implicitly, it raises a question intended to discredit the civilian: 'What makes you qualified? What makes you think that your opinion is more important than mine when you don't have the experience I have?' 'Mr. Secretary,' concludes the chairman, 'this is my best military advice.'" In such situations, the official said, civilians were often dissuaded from taking on the generals.

Wayne Downing, the former special operations commander, had plenty of experience providing such briefings. "Occasionally you would get a civilian champion," he said, who would speak up enthusiastically in favor of the mission being presented. "And then the chairman or the vice chairman would say, 'I don't think this is a good idea. Our best military judgment is that you not do this.' That champion is not going any further."

During the 1990s, the "best military advice," when it came to counterterrorism, was always wary of the use of force. Both risk-aversion and a deep-seated distrust of SOF traceable all the way back to World War II informed the military counsel offered to top decision makers. Almost all those I consulted confirmed this, and many, including General Stiner, have described it in print.

When President Clinton began asking about special operations, one former senior official recounted, "those options were discussed, but never got anywhere. The Joint Staff would say, 'That's cowboy Hollywood stuff.' The president was intimidated because these guys come in with all those medals, [and] the White House took the 'stay away from SOF options' advice of the generals."

Another former official during both Clinton terms described several instances where "best military advice" blocked SOF options under White House review. "The Pentagon resisted using Special Forces. Clinton raised it several times with [Joint Chiefs chairmen] Shalikashvili and Shelton. They recommended against it, and never really came up with a do-able plan."

Occasionally, policymakers kept pushing. When support for the Northern Alliance was on the table after the embassy bombings in Africa, the senior military leadership "refused to consider it," a former counterterrorism group member told me. "They said it was an intelligence operation, not a military mission."

The counterterrorism group at the National Security Council pushed the proposal anyway, but the Joint Staff strongly demurred and would not support it. They argued that supporting the Northern Alliance would entangle the United States in a quagmire. That was the end of the line. Let's suppose, said the former counterterrorism group member, that the president had ordered a covert strike "despite the chairman going on record as opposing it. Now, if the president orders such an operation against the best military advice of his chief military adviser, and it gets screwed up, they will blame the president who has no military experience, who was allegedly a draft dodger." The Northern Alliance was left to wither on the vine.

8. Big Footprints

The original concept for SOF counterterrorism units was that they would be unconventional, small, flexible, adaptive, and stealthy, suited to discreet and discriminate use, say those "present at the creation" following the Desert One disaster. Force packages were to be streamlined for surgical operations. The "footprint" of any operation was to be small, even invisible.

By the 1990s, this had dropped by the wayside. One former official recalled that when strikes against al Qaeda cells were proposed, "the Joint Staff and the chairman would come back and say, 'We highly recommend against doing it. But if ordered to do it, this is how we would do it.' And usually it involved the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The footprint was ridiculous." In each instance the civilian policymakers backed off.

To some extent, SOF planners themselves have been guilty of this. "Mission-creep," one official called it. Since you can't "totally suppress an environment with 15 guys and three helicopters," force packages became "five or six hundred guys, AC-130 gunships, a 900-man quick-reaction force ready to assist if you get in trouble, and F-14s circling over the Persian Gulf." The policymakers were thinking small, surgical, and stealthy, so they'd take one "look at it and say that's too big."

One original Delta Force member traced this problem back to Desert One. "We took some bad lessons from that," he said. ". . . One was that we needed more. That maybe it would have been successful if we'd had more helicopters. That more is better. And now we add too many bells and whistles. We make our footprint too large. We price ourselves out of the market."

It's a way of dealing with the military's aversion to risk. "One way we tend to think we mitigate risk," he said, "is by adding more capabilities for this contingency and that contingency." Asked if this thinking had found its way into the Special Operations Command, he replied, "Yes. Absolutely."

9. No Actionable Intelligence

A top official in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy in the 1990s described the intelligence deficit with respect to targeting Osama bin Laden: "If you get intelligence, it's by definition very perishable. He moves all the time and he undoubtedly puts out false stories about where he's moving, "making it extremely difficult" to get somebody from anyplace outside of Afghanistan into Afghanistan in time. The biggest problem was always intelligence."

But if the target had been broadened to al Qaeda's infrastructure, the intelligence requirements would have been less demanding, noted Dick Clarke. "There was plenty of intelligence. We had incredibly good intelligence about where bin Laden's facilities were. While we might never have been able to say at any given moment where he was, we knew half a dozen places that he moved among. So there was ample opportunity to use Special Forces."

In effect, to turn the need for "actionable intelligence" into a showstopper, all you have to do is define the target narrowly. That makes the intelligence requirements nearly impossible to satisfy. Broaden the picture, and the challenge of actionable intelligence became more manageable.

Special Operators are actually the first to seek good intelligence. But according to an officer on the Joint Staff at the time, "no actions [were] taken to pre-position or deploy the kinds of people that could have addressed those intelligence shortfalls"--people who could have provided the operational-level intelligence needed for SOF to deploy rapidly against fleeting targets in the safe havens where terrorists nest.

What was essential for counterterrorism operations was to establish intelligence networks in places harboring targets. This "operational preparation of the battle space" is accomplished by infiltrating special operators who pass for locals. Their job includes recruiting indigenous elements who can help SOF units enter an area of interest, and organize, train, and equip local resistance and surrogate forces to assist them.

But no such preparation took place in the 1990s in terrorist havens like Afghanistan, Yemen, Lebanon, and Sudan. Operating in those lands "would have taken official approval that prior to 9/11 would have never been given to us," one knowledgeable individual explained." Prior to 9/11 there was no willingness to put Department of Defense personnel in such places. No such request would have been authorized."

Why? Because it's dicey, was the bottom line for a former senior Clinton appointee at the Pentagon. Asked if there were proposals at his level for it, he said: "Not that I remember," adding, "I can understand why. It raises a lot of questions. Without saying you shouldn't do it, it is one of those things that is going to cause concern. . . . You're talking not just about recruiting individuals to be sent, but recruiting whole organizations, and you think about it in the context of Somalia. I'm sure that would have raised a lot of questions. I can see why people would have been reluctant."

DURING CLINTON'S SECOND TERM, then, the possibility of hunting down the terrorists did receive ample attention at the top echelons of government. But somewhere between inception and execution, the SOF options were always scuttled as too problematic.

War and tragedy have a way of breaking old attitudes. September 11, 2001, should have caused a sea change in SOF's role in fighting terrorism. To some extent, it has. Consider the stellar contribution of Special Operations Forces to the campaign in Afghanistan in 2001-02. In the early planning stages, SOF was only ancillary to the war plan; but by the end of October 2001, it had moved to center stage. It played a decisive role in toppling the Taliban and routing al Qaeda.

Since then, SOF have deployed to places like Yemen and the Philippines to train local militaries to fight al Qaeda and its affiliates. And last year, Secretary Rumsfeld ordered the Special Operations Command to trackdown and destroy al Qaeda around the globe. In effect, he ordered a global manhunt to prevent future 9/11s, including attacks with weapons of mass destruction.

In the war against terrorism, a global SOF campaign against al Qaeda is indispensable. Happily, our special counterterrorism units are tailor-made for this. And now that the United States is at war, it should be possible to overcome the showstoppers that blocked the "peacetime" use of those forces through the 1990s.

It should be--but will it? The answer is mixed. Some showstoppers have been neutralized. While law enforcement still has a role to play, we are clearly fighting a war, in which the Department of Defense and the armed forces take the lead. Thus, there should be far less latitude for turning advocates of tough counterterrorism missions into pariahs. September 11 and the president's response to it changed the terms of the policy discussion.

Yet the other showstoppers have not ceased to matter. Competing power centers continue to jockey for influence over counterterrorism policy. In a war in which the CIA may feel it has both a role to play and lost ground to regain, the Title 10/Title 50 debate and arguments over actionable intelligence are likely to persist. In our democratic society, fear of another Somalia remains. And the conventional military's mistrust of SOF has not evaporated.

Once again, a civilian is pushing for greater use of Special Operations Forces. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld wants the Special Operations Command, for the first time in its history, to play the role of a "supported command," instead of supporting the geographic commands, as it has in the past. Neither those commands nor their friends on the Joint Staff are likely to welcome a reversal of the relationship in order to facilitate SOF missions. "Who's in command here?" could become a new wartime showstopper. Some in SOF believe it already has.

Once again, the problem involves institutions, organizational cultures, and entrenched ways of thinking. "Rumsfeld might think we're at war with terrorism," observed one former general, "but I'll bet he also thinks he is at war within the Pentagon....The real war's happening right there in his building. It's a war of the culture. He can't go to war because he can't get his organization up for it."

Donald Rumsfeld may believe that Special Operations Forces should be in the forefront of the global war on terrorism. But for that to happen, he will have to breach what remains of the phalanx of resistance that blocked the offensive use of special mission units for over a decade--and he'll have to overcome the new showstoppers as well.

For now, it appears that the most powerful defense secretary ever has failed in his attempt to do this. In a disquieting October 16, 2003, memo to the Pentagon elite in the war on terror--General Dick Meyers, Joint Chiefs chairman; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; General Pete Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs; and Doug Feith, under secretary of defense for policy--Rumsfeld laments that progress has been slow and the Defense Department has not "yet made truly bold moves" infighting al Qaeda. And he wonders whether his department "is changing fast enough to deal with the new 21st century security environment."

It's a good question. As al Qaeda regroups and deploys to new battlefields in Iraq and elsewhere, our special mission units--the Delta boys, the SEALs, and the rest--remain on the shelf. It's time to take them off.

Richard H. Shultz Jr. is director of international security studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and director of research at the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence in Washington, D.C.

American SOF on occasion has successfully used light tracked AFVs in special missions on an ad hoc basis--namely when someone with clout like a General Officer (GO) likes Generals Wayne Downing and Carl Stiner put together a "panzer group" that was extremely effective in Panama urban combat. But after the success, American SOF because of ego doesn't want to admit that it needed tracked armored vehicles and to date has not incorporated them into permanent force structures for the next conflicts. So 4 years after, Panama Army Rangers did not have any tracked AFVs and the preventable Somalia debacle ensued.

The modern non-linear battlefield demands non-linear, tracked AFVs that can be inserted by air, land or sea. SOF units with a reputation for function over form have yet to overcome their own pecking order existentialist hubris to become all they need to be then wonder why Washington and the Pentagon are not eager to send them into risky, direct action missions against "high value" targets that will likely be HEAVILY DEFENDED(?) and require AFV SHOCK ACTION to overcome them, vehicles they don't have.

SOF Fishing Line Paradigm fails to catch the big fish: cast a bigger net using M113A4 Gavin light tracked AFVs

Currently American SOF works around the fundamental foot-mobility weakness of its direct action (DA) units instead of getting rid of their "glass jaw" which makes National Command Authorities reluctant to use them to get sub-national terrorist groups before they can do 9/11 attacks. American SOF will pool resources so when a DA unit is inserted it can be "reeled in" if it is discovered and "compromised" on the ground by the enemy usually by way of V/TOL helicopters. The emergency extraction of WO Ballwantz's team by helicopter and the British SAS Team Bravo Two-Zero's ordeal by foot evasion in Iraq during the first Gulf War after they were discovered, warns us that the non-linear battlefield requires self-sufficiency beyond what can be carried on a man's back. The forgotten lessons from the Vietnam war where entire battalions of North Vietnamese "head hunters" went after small American LRRPs and MACV-SOG units on foot, denying us intelligence dominance on the ground in the enemy's backyard must be heeded.

This "fishing pole" paradigm that DA units are on a fragile, radio communications dependant "umbilical cord" at all times limits the areas and number of targets that can be struck at the same time resulting in the "big fish"--terrorist leaders getting away. Asking for intelligence to pinpoint a high-value enemy target so only a single thrust can get the big fish is unrealistic and may simply never happen. Limiting ourselves to only DA vehicles that are wheeled restricts us on the ground where we can and cannot go; so again the asymmetric-advantage-seeking enemy can hide in no-go terrain for wheels and keeps SOF fragile to ANY enemy contact which will compromise the mission resulting in an abort-by-helicopter. High value enemy targets are likely to be heavily defended so superior overmatching armored mobility and shock action not possible by wheeled vehicles will be required to keep friendly casualties down and insure mission success.

We propose that instead, American SOF fixes its "glass jaw" on the ground to enable a wider "net" to be cast so multiple targets can be hit at the same time with multiple teams so we can get the fortunes of war favoring our boldness. To do this, we must have DA units that are mobile on the ground by hybrid-electric, band-tracked upgraded M113A4 Gavin amphibious, light tracked armored fighting vehicles (TAFVs) that can go cross-country at will with greater stealth than current diesel engined and road/trail-limited wheeled trucks. These Non-Linear Special Operations (NLSOF-TAFVs) or simply "Gavins" would have 600 mile range and armor protection so DA units on the ground can if need be, can FIGHT their way back to friendly bases and continue their operational maneuver/intelligence gathering deep inside enemy territory even if they brush up against enemy security forces. By carrying superior amounts of ammunition, water, food and electrical power, Gavin DA units could cut their fishing pole "umbilical cord" of helicopter insertion/extraction means and be parachute airdropped en masse simultaneously striking several named areas of interest (NAIs) with local, on-the-ground superiority. Just like the Rhodesian Fire Forces did so well--but better with light mechanized capabilities.

We have plenty of USAF C-130 turboprop STOL aircraft, parachutes, riggers and Airborne-operation qualified SOF personnel to insert multiple DA Gavin teams to throw down a large net and snare enemy terrorist leaders with surprise and superior violence of action by heavy vehicle-mounted weaponry in addition to the dismounted weaponry and firepower of rested SOF shooters. The model to study is the most successful POW rescue operation ever conducted: the WWII Los Banos prisoner of war camp raid that featured American Paratroopers swarming the camp guards and then reinforced by a link-up of amphibious tracked armored vehicles. Size does matter in DA missions against enemies hiding amongst difficult terrain and populations; and to get this size without becoming cumbersome and alerting the enemy, the QUALITY of the forces involved must be dramatically improved so overmatching capabilities are thrust at the enemy not just more-of-the-same foot-mobile shooters. After the multiple raids are done, the DA Gavin teams need not run away for immediate helicopter extraction but can stay inside enemy held territory using their vehicle's extreme stealth and supply carrying capability to keep "eye's on" the enemy as he regroups from the strikes. This information can then be exploited immediately by the Gavin DA team using organic weaponry or precision air strikes called in by long-range C4I means.

Using 10-11 ton M113A4 Gavin NLSOF-TAFVs does not prevent helicopter extractions since the CH-47D can sling-load them distance of around 50 miles. A DA Gavin Team of 4 x M113A4 NLSOF-TAFVs could secure a short section of road/highway and have 4 x C-130 Hercules aircraft exploit their STOL capabilities and pick them up to fly back to base. ESTOL capabilities by MC-130Js Combat Talon IIIs using tracked and/or air cushion landing gear and pantobase skis for water landings could expand mission options further. The Gavin DA SOF mission profile by enabling multiple forms of insertion/extraction gets SOF out of the predictable small foot-mobile team insertion/extraction methodology which is easily countered by the enemy.

The cost to upgrade M113 Gavins now in storage to M113A4 NLSOF-TAFV configuration is just $478,000.

PLAN A: NLSOF-TAFV capabilities

Supply M113A3/4 Gavin tracked AFVs to current Army Special Forces Groups to use in lieu of their HMMWV wheeled trucks for DA missions. Create a 18H MOS skill specialty of SF Heavy/Light Vehicle Sergeant.

PLAN B: AMS LOGOPS

Put the 173^rd Airbone BDE's IRF-M (Airborne) from the 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One) personnel and M113A3 Gavins on parachute jump status. Ditto that for the IRC taken from the 3^rd Infantry Division that supports the 82^nd Airborne Division. No longer restricted to airland delivery of TAFVs, the IRF-M (A) and IRC (A)---fully "Air-Mech-Strike" (AMS) capable could then parachute force-entry simultaneously with their Paratroopers to provide vital shock action, fire support and armored mobility/maneuver.

Its also conceivable that if SOF is unwilling to employ the NLSOF-TAFV concept that the Airborne's defacto AMS Forces available to the 173^rd and 82^nd Airbornes could be sent deep into enemy territory as the modern equivalent of the still thriving "LGOPS" ethos; Little Groups Of Paratroopers operating as maneuver groups bringing destruction wherever they go. The pros are the Airborne already is half-way there to AMS capabilities with M113A3 Gavins; the IRF-M has combat experience, the cons are these folks are still constrained by being part of the unimaginative, stay-in-your-lane conventional Army and may not be bold and independent of spirit enough to be used as small AMS LGOPS to work alongside SOF to strike multiple sub-national enemy targets at the same time. Also, their M113A3 Gavins are still noisy and would need to be upgraded to HE drive M113A4 configuration to effect a covert operational maneuver while deep in enemy territory.

AFGHANISTAN:

Washington Times writers, Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough write in their "Inside the Ring: Notes from the Pentagon" column about recent Afghanistan U.S. Army "Green Beret" lessons learned:

Some [U.S.] Army Special Forces Soldiers (the Green Berets) are saying that while their mission in Afghanistan has gone extremely well, some "lessons learned" must be addressed for future unconventional warfare.

But Soldiers say the operations revealed flaws. There is not enough training in direct fire. They also lack vehicles to move around in harsh terrain, such as Afghanistan's mountains and deserts.

We obtained one Green Beret's lessons-learned list:

[Special Operations Command] "stopped developing SOF-unique [unmanned aerial vehicles] a couple of years ago as a policy decision, a shortsighted and bad decision." Such a spy system, the Soldier said, would help Green Beret "A teams" of 12 troops see the enemy first and direct fire.

Green Berets need a special inventory of vehicles from which to draw depending on the terrain.

"Our guys need to be able to move," the Green Beret said. "Need pre-stocked 'tool kit' of ground transportation in every theater, and at home station for training, for the Kosovos, the Afghanistans, the whatever. Mix of Humvee platforms, Toyota 4-by-4s, whatever, with configurable armor, weapons, sensors, must be available fast. Cannot tell you how much mobility has become critical factor. Also need air transport independent of multi-million-dollar helos and fixed-wing."

The Vehicle

Unprotected U.S. Army SOF Soldiers have been killed by errant B-52 strikes improperly rendering Close Air Support (CAS) and enemy small-arms fire. While its true that USAF A-10s can fly in close proximity and with direct coordination with SOF units on the ground to get accurate CAS without fratricide, Senior USAF leaders hate the A-10 and play their "favorites" in a war to later brag on them to Congress to get increased budgets. So AFSOC or Army SF Aviation (160^th Special Operations Aviation Regiment-160^th SOAR) should own some A-10s to insure CAS, but don't hold your breath. What Army SOF needs is a "ground spectre" gun platform for on-the-spot firepower and to transport them under armor protection, with maximum ground mobility and stealth---that can be delivered by round and ram-air parachutes and helicopters.

A M113A3 Gavin as-is or width-reduced (Lynx), could roll-on/off 160^th SOAR MH-47E Chinook helicopters and be paradropped and airlanded by AFSOC MC-130 Combat Talons. The "Mini-Gavin" would be propelled by stealthy hybrid-electric drive (HE) and quiet, vibration-less band-tracks for maximum unpredictable, cross-country and amphibious movement.

An option would be to build the entire Gavin body of ceramic composites to make it less visible to ground surveillance radars. In the 1980s, FMC built two M113s and two M2s Bradleys. The ceramic could defeat .50 caliber heavy machine gun rounds at 50 feet while weighing that same as the thick, aluminum armored hull which can as-is defeat (7.62mm x 51mm AP) .30 caliber.

The HE drive large reserve battery capacity would power electro-optical sensors and laser target designators for long duration surveillance "eyes-on-target". The Mini-Gavin would be covered in thermal camouflage to be both optically and infared-sensor invisible. Armament packages would range from Javelin fire/forget ATGMs to hunt/kill SCUD-type ballistic missiles from long ranges deep behind enemy lines, to ASP-30mm autocannon and 7.62mm Gatling mini-guns, 106mm recoilless rifles to blast heavily defended enemy targets. Some Mini-Gavins could have 120mm mortars with 7 kilometer plus ranges, over-the-horizon targeting provided by quiet Pointer electric, hand-launch UAVs providing infared day/night TV imagery. Guided 120mm mortar bombs are also available to take out key targets with fewer rounds of ammunition.

Having Mini-Gavins organic to the SF A-Team insures tracked armored vehicles to bust through possible enemy fire, obstacles will not be denied special operations during direct action missions against high-value, defended targets like what ruined the Ranger/Delta helicopter air assault operation to catch Somali warlords in 1993 ("Blackhawk Down!").

The Course

Proxy forces advised by Army SOF that use tracked armored fighting vehicles like the Afghan Northern Alliance need the best mounted warfare (tracked, wheeled vehicles, horses, mules, bikes, carts) advice possible; SOF must create a Mounted Operations Course to teach and pass on these skills to its Soldiers to effect Coalition and/or Unconventional Warfare.

The Military Skill Identifier

Graduates of the SOF Mounted Operations Course would maintain and operate the various ground vehicle force packages as needed in training and real-world missions. Those with 18A, 180A, B, C, D, E and F MOSes would receive an Additional Skill Identifier (ASI). But what is crucial is that a new SF Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) "Special Forces Mounted Operations Sergeant" 18H be created to expand the A-Team to include a Subject Matter Expert (SME) who would be responsible for mounted operations of the team.

The Stealth Transport Aircraft (MCX)

Lastly, there is much expressed Army SF dissatisfaction with the availability of complex rotary and fixed-wing aircraft provided by separate units subject to politics if they deploy or not (playing political favorites again). At one time, Army SOF had an air component with robust UV-18 TwinOtter STOL fixed-wing, twin-turboprop engined aircraft. A Twin Otter can be armed and drop Paratroopers. A Twin Otter was flown into Desert One in Iran to mark the landing strip with infared lights for the larger USAF C-130s to later land on. The existing C-12 turboprop transport plane could be modified to be an attack/STOL transport for SOF. Its reasonable to assume a creative designer like Burt Rutan could create a stealthy extremely short take-off and landing aircraft with long ranges using the Burnelli MCBY-100 fuselage aerofoil design that can deliver a SOF half an A-Team and their Mini-Gavin to anyplace in the world. Legendary X-1 pilot and Burnelli design advocate Chalmers Goodlin was recently on CNN's Lou Dobb's Moneyline TV program detailing the need for crash-worthy aircraft. For the SOF mini-Gavin mission, we'd change the MCBY-100's turboprops to turbofans mounted over the wings to get 400+ mph speeds and exploit the Coanda effect to get extremely short take-offs and landings like used on the YC-14 and Russian AN-72 and AN-74 STOL transports. The civilian airliner Burnelli design with this arrangement is called the GB-108. Replacing vulnerable and high ground pressure air-filled rubber tires with Tracked landing gear would allow landings on grassy fields and rural areas--a near V/TOL capability that General Gavin advocated in his book, Airborne Warfare. The MCBY-100 as a STOL transport could airdrop or short field airland with tracked landing gear an Army mini or full-sized M113A3 Hybrid-Electric "stealth" armored vehicle and a 12-man Special Forces "A" team. Also, Army Aviation has suffered when it lost the CV-2 Caribou which though a superb conventional STOL design of course is inferior to the MCBY-100.. The USAF demanded they be given the Army's Caribous and flew them for a short time into Vietnam's short base camp runways, but as soon as no one was looking, retired the Caribous!, leaving the Army without a fixed-wing transport aircraft to supply its forward bases!

A "stealthy"...."MCBY-2000" made of non-metallics could be the ideal way for Army SF to self-insert/extract much faster than their 100 mph helicopters at greater ranges and without the unsafe hazards of the V-22 abomination...The Burnelli design is fully crash-resistant, an important design criteria for a combat aircraft and tragically, a non-existant priority in civilian air travel where profits matter more than human lives which has resulted in thousands of needless deaths.

A less visionary approach would be to use a CASA 212 or C-27J Spartan twin-engined STOL aircraft could be upgraded to meet SOF needs to air-deliver them and their Mini-Gavins. Flying these small, austere stealth transport aircraft would be a 160^th SOAR pilot/co-pilot bearing the new SF MOS of 18J. The now 15-man A-Team can self-deploy itself anywhere in the world by either air or ground organic vehicles. Another 18J task would be the operation of UAVs/U/MCAVs when on the ground and not conducting air operations with their stealth transport aircraft.

Another Airborne/Special Operations application would to form a separate transportation M113A3 Gavin Battalion that would be tasked to high-altitude stand-off, precision parachute themselves and their vehicles from above 15,000 feet and most enemy air defenses; a defacto return of the "stealthy" ASSAULT GLIDER. The stand-off airdrop of armored vehicles is the creation of creative RAND researcher Peter Wilson.

Ocean-Going Amphibious Gavins: the shocker.

OFFICIAL M113 ARISGATOR HOME PAGE

Detailed AmphiGavin proposal:

Air-Mech-Strike Airborne and Amphibious Combat Engineers

1. In 1983, the Mc could have rejected buying LAV-1 rubber-tired death traps and obtained 10.5 ton M113A2s from the Army or the manufacturer at a very low cost to create its own "Cavalry" type force that can fight as well as gain reconnaissance.

The M113s could swim ashore a short distance from their landing craft like LSTs, LCUs, LCACs as several world armies do: Israel, Italy, Brazil and Australia (see photos above from East Timor). By being aluminum alloy armor they do not rust like steel. This is how LAV-1s get ashore since they are not surf-zone swim capable, the difference is that the light tracked M113s would not get stuck in the loose sand like the LAV-1s often do.

And by being lighter than the 14-ton LAV-1 thin-skinned deathtraps, the Mc could have also sling-loaded better-protected and armed M113s ashore by CH-53D/E helicopters, as well as by C-130 fixed-wing aircraft from shore bases.

2. Then, using the monies saved from not buying new armored cars that are steel and rust from getting wet with salt water and are now falling apart, they could have upgraded their M113s to "A3" standards with RPG-resistant applique' on the outside, and a superior weapons turret, 25mm autocannon, TOW/Hellfire ATGMs, 81-120mm mortars, even a 90mm assault gun etc. Certainly a force more formidable than the wimpy LAV armored cars they have now.

3. Then with just a little R&D money a kit could have been developed to make the M113 surf-zone capable via a new nose section and waterjets...so it could swim itself to shore from 4-5 miles out, easing the need/workload of LCAC/LCU landing craft while still remaining HELICOPTER TRANSPORTABLE.

Italian Surf-Zone Capable M113 Kit
www.jed.simonides.org/fulltrack/mike/m113_series/arisgator/arisgator_001.jpg

An Italian M113A2 conversion by the Italian company ARIS, developed as a cheap alternative for the more expensive amphibious AFV's like the LVTP-7 or AAAV. Besides the floatation kit and water jet propulsion system the M113 is unchanged and it can still transport the normal 11 men. Only 2 prototypes existed by July 1998 and they were used for trials & demonstrations.

In contrast, the huge, bloated 30+ ton AAAV (EFV) will NEVER be helicopter transportable, and will be extremely expensive to buy and possible impossible to maintain its complicated retractable tracks to do its 30-knot swim speeds....a feature of doubtful utility if sea mines are not cleared.

A Vietnam combat veteran and retired Lieutenant Colonel writes:

"I think any comparison of the FCS/AAAV to an AmphiGavin must revolve around several factors:

1. Cost per vehicle: an AmphiGavin company would cost less than one AAAV, I'm sure. Probably buy 2 companies worth. The FCS won't be here for a while, so I don't even count on it.

2. Vehicle utility once ashore: The USMC won't risk high-value vehicles in the brush going after bad guys [Nelson platform loss combat avoidance paradigm] . A 4-vehicle AmphiGavin platoon could have 2 x 40mm HVGLs and 2 x .50s at the commander positions, and go Vietnam ACAV-style with a pair of M240Bs [7.62mm MMGs] off the rear corners of each top hatch, behind gun shields. The same marine platoon would have to be carried in a pair of AAAVs, with much more limited firepower. Let's not mention 120mm mortars, TOWs, 106mm Recoilless Rifles, Javelins, mini-guns, Engineers, etc., which can all be (or already are) standard for M113 series vehicles. The armored MEDEVAC vehicle is also M113-based.

3. Size: To quote from the Godzilla 2000 movie trailer, "size does matter", but in this instance, the smaller size is more useful. Smaller target, more firepower, less noise, LESS REPLACEMENT COST, able to travel in tighter areas.

4. Mobility: A marine CH-53E could lift an AmphiGavin and two squads into a blocking position quickly, even from an assault ship deck. Mobility, firepower, ammo; a real 3D move for the marines, even if it's only a few klicks from the shore.

5. Maintenance: Much simplified over an AAAV (EFV).

But the real question the NAVY must answer is: Why won't you get close to shore? The marines (and potentially, the Army) end up with the smelly end of the stick because the NAVY can't get close to shore with their poorly armed/armored "cruisers" to support a contested landing. A bozo on shore with a three-barrel 23mm ADA gun in an untouched bunker would eat a Tico CG alive in 20 seconds. Some jokers with a 107mm 12-pack launcher, fed data from an FDC, would make life exciting for the Navy very quickly.

Imagine that a dozen 23mm guns and 20 rocket launchers aren't neutralized by USAF and Navy/marine Air. The AAAVs lumber ashore and get chewed by half the guns. 4 x LCACs get smacked by a dozen launchers. If the Navy has to put a big ship close to shore, several reserve guns and rocket launchers wait for it to get close, then hit it. Not a good scenario for a Service that doesn't like to get ship's paint marred.

The AAAV keeps the Navy out of harm's way and supports lofty "Operational Maneuver From The Sea" and "Over-The-Horizon" assaults. The whirring sound in the basement crypt of the USNA Chapel is John Paul Jones spinning. A whole lot of people in the Pentagon better pray I never get elected President; property values in the DC area will take a decided drop".

An Army transportation official writes about how AmphiGavins could be used to speed Logistics Over The Shore (LOTS) operations from the Army's Prepositioned Set (APS-3) TAKR Large Medium Speed Roll-on/roll-off sealift Ships loaded with a heavy brigade set of vehicles--M1s, M2s, M113A3s....if the latter were upgraded to be able to swim themselves ashore...

M113 Gavin rolls off side TAKR RO/RO ramp
Stern ramp used to off-load M113 Gavins
M113 lifted onboard top deck by crane
Mighty M113 Gavins roll-off a sealift ship-delivered powered lighter onto the beach

"It is a concept that should be explored as a near-term improvement to throughput during a LOTS operation. Remember, the LMSR has three ramps during LOTS operations. With a little judicious ship loading, two of the ramps can be used for cargo that requires lighterage (tanks, wheels & trailers) and the third for APCs that have learned to swim. Bottom line is that this would reduce the lighterage requirement for small tracks and place more combat power in the hands of the commander faster."

Additionally, the light M113A3 Amphibious Gavin could be FLOWN OVER THE SEA MINES by both Army and Mc helicopters from sealift ships. THAT is "Over-The-Horizon" assault.

So the M113A3 AmphiGavin should replace LAVs, AAV-7s and AAAVs in the marine corps, the latter program cancelled. M113A3s stored in Army APA sealift ships should be upgraded to AmphiGavins, with users provided upgrades to their M113A3s to train on. The amphibious capability could also be applied to M113A3/IAV IBCTs.

If the harbor is shallow, like in Somalia and Albania, its hard to put anything ashore by sea landing craft and the ships draw too much water to. In some areas there will be no ports at all. If you have just a few hostiles with guns, like the Haiti embarrassment, M113 AmphiGavins could be lowered over the side run them off.

During the Sava River crossing a few years back a mighty 2D heavy armor brigade was stuck in Hungary for several days as engineers tried to bridge a river, in peacetime. Let's not forget operation MARKET GARDEN, where the paras where chewed up because the Germans blew up a bridge ("A Bridge Too Far") and stalled a non-amphibious tank army. With AmphiGavins, the Combat Engineers can swim across ANY body of water, secure the far side and rapidly emplace any bridging needed to get the heavy 2D forces across. The operational mobility of an M113A3 AmphiGavin force could be decisive as PT-76 light tanks were in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War. Captain Adam Geibel writes about this in the May/June 2001 issue of U.S. Army ARMOR magazine:

PT-76 Light Tank in the Indo-Pakistani Wars: the amphibious armor advantage

Today, we could put a 20-90mm gun stabilized turret system on the M113A3 AmphiGavin and have an even better capability than the PT-76! ...from the ocean.....too....restoring the bunker-busting capability we lost when the M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle (CEV) was retired and not replaced. There are already on board Army APS-3 sealift ships over 100 x M113A3s that could be upgraded to be AmphiGavins that could also be operated by a designated Tracked Assault Battalion as proposed by LTC Mike Robel.

Another thing M113 AmphiGavins could do is water insertions from fixed-wing C-130 seaplanes, flying low over the water, under-the-horizon to evade enemy radar detection exploiting the curvature of the earth..

This would be easy from C-130 floatplanes since they could slow to a taxi in the water to allow the AmphiGavins to drive off the back ramp (extended to touch the water with floats) into the water. Imagine a flight of 48 C-130s dumping 48 M113s into the Tigris River outside Baghdad---an entire Infantry Battalion (44) plus a 120mm turreted mortar platoon for heavy fire support. A perfect cavalry or combat engineer force to secure terrain ahead for a 2D overland advance.

The M113A3 is the standard Engineer Squad Vehicle (ESV) of the U.S. Army's heavy divisions but should be organic to ALL of it Light, Airborne and Air Assault Divisions.

Light Mechanized Sapper Company (Airborne) power point presentation

M113A3 Gavin ESV with MICLIC rocket-mice-clearing charge tracked trailer

M113A3 with trailer deploying robotic mine flail tracked vehicle

Strykers don't swim: Amphibious M113 Gavins would have prevented 3 Soldiers dying

Soldiers in boat were trying to stop Iraqis firing at them from small sand bars in river. Their wheeled Strykers don't swim. They used a boat, it capsized, killing a Soldier. Then dispatched a scout helicopter to find him, it crashes and/or gets shot down and we lose two more Soldiers.

In contrast, M113 Gavins are amphibious, and could have been used to attack the Iraqis in the river. We did this in Vietnam. But we are too fascinated with computer screens inside Strykers doing mental gymnastics to PHYSICALLY swim armored vehicles to attack a cunning and adaptive enemy. We have the M113 Gavins, but do we have the will to use them?

KIROTV.com - News - Reward Offered For Recovery Of Missing Stryker Brigade Soldiers

www.kirotv.com/news/2832270/detail.html

POSTED: 6:01 AM PST February 9, 2004

TACOMA, Wash. -- The Army is offering rewards for information leading to the recovery of two Soldiers missing in the Tigris River, The News Tribune of Tacoma reported. The Stryker brigade from Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, will advertise on Iraqi television and radio, in newspapers and in leaflets for help in finding Staff Sgt. Christopher Bunda and 1st Lt. Adam G. Mooney, missing since Jan. 25, the newspaper reported Sunday. The paper has an embedded reporter in Mosul, Iraq, with the brigade, the first to be deployed with the Army's new Stryker combat vehicles.

The reward offer, prepared by an Army psychological operations team, includes up to $1,000 for information leading to recovery of either Soldier's body and up to $500 for tips leading to recovery of their gear." The families of these Soldiers will be grateful for your help in their return," the messages say. Bunda, 29, of Bremerton, a squad leader, fell into the Tigris when an Iraqi police boat capsized. At least two Iraqi police officers also are missing and presumed dead. Mooney, 28, of Cambridge, Md., a helicopter pilot, and his co-pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Patrick D. Dorff, 32, of suburban Minneapolis, disappeared hours later when their OH-58D Kiowa Warrior crashed into the river during the search for Bunda. Both were from the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, based at Fort Drum, N.Y. Navy divers recovered Dorff's body Jan. 29 in the crash area. His comrades at the 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment, in Qayyarah were planning a memorial service Monday.

AJ Wagner in Strategypage.com writes:

Commando Container Ship Conversion

February 4, 2004: The U.S. Navy, spurred on by Special Operations Command, is studying the idea of modifying a container ship for use as a "sea-basing" platform for Special Forces units. Twice in the past ten years, Haiti in 1996 and Afghanistan in 2001, the Navy has stripped an aircraft carrier of most of its air wing and replaced it with Army or Special Operations helicopters. While this tactic shows a tremendous flexibility for the traditionally rigid Navy, in many ways, it squanders a valuable and limited asset: the Navy's carriers and their busy crews.The proposed solution is to buy, or more likely lease, a container ship and paint it gray. The hull would be fitted out as crew quarters, (similar to those used by oil platform crews) for up to 800 special operators and 200 support troops. A command post, medical and recreation facilities, a hardened armory for Soldiers' weapons, ammunition and explosives, and so forth, would all be built into standard modular containers. Because the ships' power generating capacity was originally designed to support the high demand of refrigerated cargo, they should have no trouble providing ample power in their new role. In its new configuration, the deck would be covered with one level of modular containers that would bolt together to serve as a helicopter hangar and flight deck with two elevators. It would be able to simultaneously launch a dozen MC-47E Chinook-sized helicopters and carry 1 million gallons of aviation fuel. Options include V-22 Osprey variants, Harrier or STOVL F-35 fighters, and up to half a dozen 40-foot rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIB). The concept has several great advantages over traditional approaches. Commercial vessels, even ones the size of aircraft carriers, typically require crews that number in the dozens, rather than thousands. A large container ship could be operated by as few as 20 Sailors, compared to 1,100 on an LHD or 3,200 on a Nimitz-class carrier. It would also be easier to upgrade, as the modules could be removed and replaced independently. The plan is for the Military Sealift Command to own and operate these ships with civilian crews. If the concept works, the Navy might keep one or two configured at all times and have a reserve of containers on land for MSC-owned ships leased to commercial users. This flexible concept opens up a range of other missions for such containerized cargo carriers, including replacing the current aging underway replenishment fleet, the Navy's two hospital ships, and the Afloat Pre-positioning Ships parked at various locations around the world. Five vessels of this type can be acquired at the cost of one LPD-17 and they can be available, converted, from the Maersk shipping company within one year of the decision to go ahead.

We have "re-discovered the "Arapaho" concept already used by the British in combat in the Falklands in 1982.

The M113 Gavin is 98" wide at its tracks; its needs at least 8 feet 6 inches (102" total) to give 2 inches of play on the left and right when driving into the container. You can't go by just track width though, that's the catch with containers. You have to take the complete 106" wide body into account, including add-ons like antenna mounts in particular. This is an exciting concept if the right containers can be acquired, especially if that container can be compatible with PLS trucks. The concept is far reaching. Could be M113 Gavin, could be British SEP/FRES, could be FCLV. Why in this day and age would you procure a vehicle that doesn't get inside ISO containers? What about using a logistics system that was container based as well? One set of containers carry the vehicle. The others have all the fuel, another the ammo, workshops, etc. Appliqué armor sets can be unbolted for transit and re-attached on deployment.

A Container based Army! The UK already has a container-based field hospital.

20' containers, below 11,000 kg can be underslung from a CH-47D/UK Mk 3.

Basically, if you are in the Rapid deployment business, there's no point in being anything other than an ISO Army.

In a nutshell, yes, that is exactly the idea. The real strength of the containerization idea is that the containers can be sealed and could, in theory, protect anything inside from the elements. This might even resolve many of the problems associated with prepositioning of vehicles and systems because you can control the environment in the container. Throw in the transport flexibility and this could be an outstanding idea. Even if the right containers don't exist today, they aren't expensive at all to design and build. This has got some serious potential in a variety of ways.

For the record, the U.S. Army is currently in the process of achieving a true ISO compatibility in its logistics systems. One of the key design criteria of the Future Tactical Truck System is operability with ISO standard containers of 20 feet in length. Unfortunately, the rest of FTTS (and the Smart Distribution program) is pretty much complete crap but they are at least beginning to recognize the need. On the strategic side of logistics, we've been using ISO containers for years but this has mainly been for secured storage in garrison locations and for moving bulk goods. The Army calls them a "CONEX" but these are actually ISO shipping containers. Like they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. CONEX dates back to the mid '60's. This is certainly nothing new or original in this. It's just adopting the mindset that makes it work. The horse will drink. You just got to hold it's head under!! What is new is the transportation side of the equation, particularly at the tactical level. As you note, we've had the containers literally for decades but only now are the log folks seriously considering using them as part of a transport system with the FTTS. Even with the PLS system, compatibility with ISO containers was a complete afterthought, they made an adapter for the PLS to handle ISO containers after the fact - they made the flatracks capable of fitting inside the container but didn't bother allowing the PLS to carry the container without using a separate add-on. Quite frankly, we think if we held this particular horse's head under water, we'd be giving it an enema by default.

Most sources list the Gavin as being just under 106" wide across its body. Can still fit into a container, but it limits the applique' armor on options. Length may be an issue with some models as would the height. Again, doesn't rule out the concept but you're going to need a high cube container, preferably in the 9 ft. width and ideally with a length of about 24' or else you're going to have too many headaches with loading and unloading. The main thing is to be sure to account of the various add-ons you want on the vehicle, like cupolas, armor upgrades, and such when taking the measurements. Scott Miller says he'd still rather see the Army just head straight to the Skycat 1000 LTA airship like CPT John Wilson proposes and be done with it. You could damned near fit an entire battalion in a single load and it can operate from any open area - load them up on the post parade field and deliver to just outside the AO wherever on the planet that may be. The container idea does have merit though, especially if you can come up with a container to carry the Gavin that is compatible with the existing PLS vehicles - then you can pack up the vehicles at home station and carry out the entire deployment without vehicle operators, not to mention that a single PLS truck with trailer could carry two. Definitely worth looking into.

We also wonder what it would take to stuff a helicopter into something like this? Helicopters as you know are plastic shrink-wrapped etc. and LO/LOed by cranes gingerly onto the deck. If we had ISO-type containers for the CH-47D/F, the UH-60 and the OH-58D or A/MH-6 we'd be in business! The ISO container if sealed would better protect the helicopter which wouldn't need to be shrink-wrapped, and could be rapidly moved by TRUCKS to the SPOD. This goes to the issue of the availability of ro-ro ships with cranes to lo-lo. As stated, the helicopters are placed in plastic cocoons and lo-lo-ed aboard the ro-ro's. If ro-ro's aren't available, then containers become a worthwhile consideration. A container is slightly smaller than the cargo compartment of a C-130.

We usually count 18' long, 12' wide and 12' tall as the external measurements for an ideal M113. It may be closer to 13' wide now that I've reassessed the width of appliqué and the side-mounted RRs. This is a better size to shoot for than hoping all M113s will be 9' wide (no spaced appliqué then! that's for sure!).

A complete force that could be effectively containerized would be very deployable on a cost effective basis. 120" is more than enough....the M113 Gavin is only 98" at the tracks...If you made the M113A4 into a Hybrid-Electric drive you could easily drive via electric motor power in/out of sealift ship containers slightly wider than 8 foot (96 inches) ISO standards without fear of engine exhaust suffocation dangers. The photo below shows two wide stackable sealift containers that each could hold 1 x M113A4 Gavin!

ISOs for M113 Gavins www.matts-place.com/intermodal/part4/csfu.jpg

www.matts-place.com/intermodal/part4/non_standard.htm

European domestic containers:

Many domestic European container operators use 2.5-meter wide containers. This is to accomodate slightly larger European pallets. Although these containers sometimes have an ISO-assigned size code, they are not considered a world standard size. Some containers also have special lengths...7.15 meters (23.5 feet), 7.45 meters (24.4 feet) and 13.60 meters (44.6 feet) are common.

ALNU 7452706; registered owner is ECR Gordijn Containers BV. This is a 7.45m long ISO type D5G1 container. Note the stacking posts at 20' to allow it to stack with standard 20' ISO containers. This is also a high-cube container (9'-6" tall). (Photo by Cor Rood)

AXIS 13.60x2.5x2.5m container. ISO class KDG1. (Photo by A. Lindner)

Some CDH bulk containers used for carrying cocoa beans in Europe. They look like they're 20' long, but the ISO code of 7280 suggest that they're longer. Cor Rood indicates that they are 8'-6" wide. (Photo by Cor Rood)

Top view of these CDH containers - note how the ISO corner castings are inset to allow the containers to be lifted with standardized cranes. (Photo by Cor Rood)

A Containerships European-spec 45' container. This is built to slightly-different dimensional specifications than standard ISO 45' containers. (Containerships photos courtesy of Juha Leskinen)

A Containerships 20' container that is 8'-6" wide.

A Containerships 20' container that is 9'-0" wide.

European Freight Services open-sided container, probably 13.60m long. (Photo by Michael McGowen)

Here's a couple Groupo Leche Pascual containers of ISO type 4MG3 (40' long, >2.5m wide, 9'-0" tall). GLPU 401009, GLPU 4020765, GLPU 4030104. (Photos by Cor Rood)

Danzas container, probably 13.60m long. It almost looks like the sides are removable. (Photo by Michael McGowen)

DHL 45' European domestic container. (Photo by Michael McGowen)

A European Containers 13.60m corrugated-side dry van container. This container is 13.60 meters long and 2.50 meters wide, which makes it slightly smaller than an American 45' domestic container. (Photo by Cor Rood)

NEW! IBTU 1310197. ISO code AMT5. This is a 7.15m extra-wide (>2.5m) tank container operated by IBT. (Photo by Ari Elenius)

IMTU 7001957. ISO code 4CG1. From a distance it looks like a typical 40' standard ISO container but this one is 2.5m wide. Here's a close-up of the end doors. (Photos by A. Lindner)

JSV "curtain-side" containers. These are probably longer than 20'. They are definitely high-cubes. (Photo by Cor Rood)

MMSU 100015. Owned by Mosca Maritima of Spain. This is a 40' long, 2.5m wide, 9'-6" tall container. (Photo by Cor Rood)

Nizzi tarped half-height flat rack. I can't determine the dimensions of this container. (Photo by A. Lindner)

NPWU 4000340. Owned by Navieras Pinillos of Spain. Another 40' long, 2.5m wide, 9'-6" tall container. ISO code is 4EG0. (Photo by Cor Rood)

FMBU 0011150 - operated by P&O Ferrymasters. A 13.60m European domestic container. (Photo by Michael McGowen)

Two P&O Ferrymasters European domestic containers. FMBU 0010852 is a 13.60m container similar to the ISO 45' boxes. FMBU 4000209 looks like a 40' long container but is probably 2.50m wide. (Photos by Cor Rood)

RDLU 9610403. Owned by Rodella Transport. This is an ISO type ADTS, indicating it is 7.15m long - about 23'-5 1/2". (Photo by Michael McGowen)

RNFU 4-7150495. Owned by RENFE (Spanish Railway). 40' long, 2.5m wide, 9'-6" tall. ISO code is 4410-2. (Photo by Cor Rood)

Here are some United Container Systems 7.15m "curtain-side" containers: UXXU______, UXXU 6000346, UXXU 6000515. These are 2.55m wide to carry European pallets. Photos courtesy of Carsten Seier.

More UXXU swap bodies from Europe. These are 7.45m long, 2.55m wide, and between 2.60 and 3.15m tall. Note the roll-up doors. Photos: UXXU 6217835, UXXU 6216799. (Photos by Carsten Seier)

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On a very tight budget we have surpassed the U.S. Army's large roll-on and off sealift ships that need lots of drivers to drive them off onto a pierside! With M113 Gavins inside a sea-air-land container, cranes could rapidly load/off-load the mighty M113 Gavin force without needing a driver for each vehicle, dramatically speeding pierside off-load. Though the U.S. Army doesn't realize and appreciate that they have the world's greatest AFV of all time, ever--the M113 Gavin in their ranks, someday soon real-world pressures will force objective professionals to exploit the M113 Gavin to its full potential.

An Army sealift expert writes:

"The use of ro-ro ships, especially some of the older ones that lack the ramp capacity for a heavy force and have a slightly shallower draft, would offer competitive bang for the buck. I'm a bit confused about how these containers would be discharged from the container ships and un-stuffed, and I'm equally confused about how this would result in a savings of time. Yes, I'm aware of the existing crane ships. Several are berthed in Newport News. Disharging containers in-stream to RRDF complicates breakbulk operations.

Dishcharging containers pierside makes good sense, but implies adequate draft alongside the pier, the usual problem in such operations. Like I say, I don't understand the concept of operations. American President Lines (APL) has done the most comprehensive work with containerization, but their concept of operations was that the containers would be used in a re-supply operation, where discharge times are not a consideration.

The beauty of an M113-equipped force is the relative lack of weight. Bradleys weigh around 30 Short Tons (2,000 pounds) and the Abrams weighs twice that amount. Weight means increased draft in sealift operations. The draft of a Fast Sealift Ship increases one inch for @173 Short Tons (This varies depending on the type of FSS) loaded. The older ro-ro's have immersion rates over 100 short tons per inch. The largest sub-class of Large, Medium Speed Roll-On / Roll-Off vessel gets 368 STON per inch of immersion. And the M113 Gavin force if fitted with waterjets can swim itself ashore without need of a pier at all! Perhaps the real solution to the problem of Army deployment is reinventing a family of vessels for the LOTS mission, so that we have a broad-based capabilities set.

Like I said, I didn't understand the concept. APL has done the most work with military containerization. The stuff that they do with laying out container yards and accounting for the "boxes" is worth checking in to."

1st TSG (A): The containership M1123 Gavin idea is primarily for the British Army who don't have access to RO/RO ships.

We are just showing another aspect of the light tracked AFV to get the Army to wake up to the full potential of its M113 Gavins.

SHINSEKIITE FRAUD, WASTE & ABUSE: "Cracks" in the U.S. Army's MENTALITY results in the FULL capabilities of the M113 Gavin Family unfulfilled

A crack in something is generally a cleavage in the surface structure, a void into which things may fall. Cracks are not generally thought of as good things, because stepping on one might break your mother's back. That refers to a particularly vicious nursery rhyme, but come to think of it, almost all nursery rhymes seem to involve some sort of social mayhem, from falling off walls to stealing oatmeal to devouring small female pedestrian's grandmothers. But I digress .

The M113 Gavin has fallen through a "crack" in the Army's management structure because its so damn effective it doesn't need constant pampering and "fixes" as other allegedly more "advanced" systems require. Actually, it has fallen through several, no, many cracks. Some of these cracks developed as rotating Army Chiefs of Staffs (CSAs) departed and arrived, each with their "sweeping", "new" acquisition strategy (as in Army of Excellence, Army 2000, Division XXI, Army After Next, Digitization, Force XXI, and Transformation). As a distinctly "not-new" item, the M113 Gavin has not been a part of any of the CSA's initiatives where spending lots of money for less capability is a major priority. The 10.5 ton tracked M113 Gavin is still going to be in the motor pool for the next 28 years and is one of the few Army vehicles that is actually C-130 air-transportable (the "new" 19-21 ton LAV-III/Stryker armored car is too heavy), can be parachute airdropped, swims, be lifted by helicopters and made fully autocannon and RPG protected with its own lethal autocannon/missile turret but the "visionary" CSAs didn't see the wisdom to spend any actual money on it to get NEW CAPABILITIES as part of their initiatives. Even today, with the light tracked M113A3 Gavin besting the expensive LAV-III/Stryker medium-heavy armored car newcomer in comparison mobility tests, the Generals would rather waste money than switch to the more capable Gavin to make the new Brigade combat teams more capable....they can't admit a mistake even if its in the best interest of their pet "transformation visions". Let's call this the initiative crack.

As more expensive systems were developed, they were categorized as "major systems", and DoD wrote many directives to instruct the component departments on the intricacies of major system management. If your's was a major system, you got it all - Logistic Support Analysis Records, Milestone Reviews, Cost-Effectiveness Analyses, Operating and Support Cost Analyses, dedicated cost gathering mechanisms (MRIS), Selected Acquisition Reports, and a lot of attention on all fronts. Your system was "ERC A", and the entire chain of command got reports on the readiness of every one of your systems.

The M113 Gavin was categorized as something other than a major system and accordingly got no attention, gathered no data, was asked no questions, and slowly passed into the shadows of visibility, which allowed many to assume that they were no longer in the Army. Let's call this the "management crack".

Each system has a program/project manager, and within the acquisition community this person is the developer for the system. For priorities and the fulfillment of legitimate requirements, someone in the user community is assigned as the proponent. The user community is represented by TRADOC, and normally a schoolhouse is assigned as the proponent.

The M113 Gavin is different, as every school in TRADOC is the proponent for some form of this incomparable, versatile Armored Fighting Vehicle (AFV), with the predictable result that nobody is the proponent for the entire fleet. So a "notional" proponent was assigned - the Infantry School - but that was a problem because many think "real" infantrymen jump from planes and walk into battle at 1-4 mph exposed to all kinds of enemy fires (and think they don't need the armor protection and 1-55 mph stealthy mobility of M113 Gavins with hybrid-electric drives and band tracks, the M551 Sheridan and M8 AGS light tank firepower needs quickly forgotten in lightfighter hubris) or if they realize they must ride to war over large open areas like deserts it'll be done at a liesurely deployment pace without aircraft using overweight 33-ton Bradleys, which compete in the same budget line as the lighter, more air transportable M113. I forgot, the National Guard still has infantrymen in M113 Gavins, but then again, who cares? They want overweight Bradleys, too because they don't plan to jump from aircraft and de-rig airdropped M113 and fight with them. Folks that would fight mobile warfare using air-delivered light tracked AFVs would be called CAVALRY; and there is no branch by that name anymore in the U.S. Army with budgetary power. The M113 Gavin suffers from the "proponent crack".

Some facts may be in order here:

1. The first Division XXI initiative had 27 modernization systems, and when they were all installed, the 4th Mechanized Division rolled to the field to test the concept, with none of its M113 Gavins converted to the A3 configuration. All the command post vehicles were A2, as were the mortars, medical vehicles, smoke vehicles, engineer vehicles, and others. Is this a valid test?

2. The Army's Counter-ATtacK Force (CATK) has lots of M113 Gavins (about 2,100), and the readiness of this fleet is hovering around 84%. It is the force that would be deployed first, yet most of its combat vehicles are not at the 90% minimum deployable level of readiness. Everybody comfortable with that?

3. In FY02 the Army is closing the PM-M113 office and has budgeted exactly zero funding for retro-fits, overhauls, conversions, replacement vehicles or anything else for the M113. The vehicles in the motor pools today will still be there in 2030, only they will have 28 more years of wear on them. See any problem here?

There is no outrage that our Soldiers may have to fight in M113 Gavins that have been abandoned in the Army's motor pools. But this was predictable, since nobody is responsible for the fleet, nobody is monitoring the fleet, and maintenance/readiness/upgrade of the current fleet costs money, which otherwise could be used for someone's new strategic initiatives.

And the Soldiers in the motor pools what do you tell them? "Boy, just wait until you get your (fill in the name of an "exciting" "new" system in the current strategy, but which will never replace the M113 Gavin, the greatest AFV of all time, EVER, period)! In the meantime, be careful not to drive your M113 Gavin into any cracks ..., since the Army thinks it can skimp and not supply it with any spare parts...and one other thing...quit reading nursery rhymes.

Summary and Conclusion: 4th GW Non-Linear Warfare demands we fully exploit our M113 Gavins

M113 Gavins tracks leading vulnerable HMMWV trucks in Iraq: notice they are not "hurting" the pavement and they are travelliing fast down the highway amongst Iraqi civilian cars without problems. The M113 Gavin is actually HMMWV-sized and a bit taller while being much more armor protected. With 1,300 Gavins in Iraq the question is WHY ARE WE MOVING 100,000 TROOPS IN 10,000 HMMWV TRUCKS WHEN WE HAVE ENOUGH M113 GAVINS HERE IN STORAGE IN THE U.S. TO MOVE EVERY SOLDIER UNDER TRACKED ARMORED MOBILITY MEANS?

We are in 4th Generation War (4GW) where the enemy bypasses traditional armies and strikes directly at the will of the people themselves. This can be done by a sub-national terrorist group and/or a nation-state. Those that think we are in some new "enlightened age of warfare" where firepower replaces ground maneuver and thus we can dismantle our military and just chase down terrorists would have us make the exact same mistakes the pacifists did in England and France in the 1920s and '30s---except when the nation-state threat appears the "Pearl Harbor" might be nuclear and fatal. There may be no time to recover and "get our act together", mobilize war industries, build new tanks and planes. We win, lose or die with what's already on hand.

Air-Mech-Strike Force (AMS) structure using M113A3-type Gavin or redesignated "M113A4" light tracked AFVs is what we need in the U.S. Army to defeat 4GW because it can cut through a harboring nation-state, find the sub-national group, surround it and kill it, Roman Legion-style through MANEUVER. Not "mouse-clicking firepower" to hope we can bombard the enemy into submission and peaceably occupy him afterwards. "AMS" is another name for the general-purpose, 3D mobile armored combat Cavalry force the U.S. Army has lacked since Vietnam, though the deficiency began in WWII. If a nation-state tyrannical threat appears (hint: Red China) trying to do a land grab by pummeling an ally with SSC fires while taking out sea and airports to deny us access to the fight, we can force-entry and defeat their SSC and their maneuver by AMS surveillance-strike-maneuver capabilities. Everything we want to chieve in the FSCS Tracer program can be achieved by upgrading M113 Gavins at a lower cost and faster.

www.waronline.org/IDF/pictures/Army/M-113_Zelda/index.html

Funny how the wheeled armored car fanatics are always saying M113 Gavin light tracks cannot do stability operations on paved roads when they have been doing them for years and are doing so as we speak. So while U.S. Army Soldiers are getting killed/maimed in Iraq/Afghanistan, Army leaders sit on thousands of thick-skinned, M113 Gavins that are sitting in storage and at National Guard armories while they beg for millions of dollars from Congress to buy vulnerable, road-bound thin-skinned HMMWV trucks rolling on air-filled rubber tires. "That dog don't hunt."

REAL OPTIONS TO MAKE THE U.S. ARMY 4GW CAPABLE:

How the M113A3/4 Gavin can create U.S. Army World-wide Strategic Operational Maneuver (AWSOM) capabilities by air, land and sea

*Parachute airdroppable

*C-130 STOL airland

*Cargo 747 air-transportable

*CH-47D/F Chinook and larger helicopter transportable

*Ocean amphibious swim capable with ARISGATOR kit

*Can splash into the water from C-130 seaplanes to effect operational and tactical surprise to attack or defend from unexpected places

*RPG and ATGM protected with armor applique'

*River and lake amphib crossings

*Can rumble over obstacles, crush car barricades

*Fully cross-country mobile in mud, swamps, jungles, snow, rain, mountains

*Excellent interface with light infantry not security guards for tanks

*No flat tires

*Band-tracks for 50+ mph road speeds, low-vibration, quietness

*Can be fitted with 20-90mm cannon weaponry without major modification and still be air-transportable

*Can be fitted with every combat-arms branch equipment type to create combined-arms teams using the same vehicle type

*Does not need truck transporters for operational mobility

*Hybrid-Electric drive for 600 mile stealthy range possible today

*Any kind of digital equipment and commo gear can be applied

*Thellie infared camouflage applicable to render vehicle invisible to thermal sights

*Low-cost: for a few hundred thousands of dollars per vehicle we get "Future Combat System" leap-ahead technology capabilities TODAY not in 2010, not $3 million each for inferior LAV-III rubber tired armored cars

M113: GREATEST ARMORED FIGHTING VEHICLE OF ALL TIME, EVER PERIOD.

Traditional military structures regardless whether you cut them down from Divisions to Brigades---is by CULTURE dehumanizing blind obedience based---cannot effect the kind of robustness and initiative needed to make a 3D AMS force prevail to win the real victories (not media spin) America needs. It needs to be a force of "straight-shooters" who can tell it like it is ALL THE TIME, 24/7/365 and not have to be concerned with individual egos and career survival. Clear thinking, all the time. Most power-hungry military existentialists do not want to treat people as equals even for information's sake. They are in the military for the ego trip, NOT TO DO WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN. America doesn't need them or their smug attitudes, we need winning attitudes and Soldiers equipped with winning vehicles.

U.S. ARMY TRANSFORMATION OPTIONS TO CREATE VIABLE 3D AIR-TRANSPORTABLE COMBAT FORCES

OPTION #1. Cancel purchase of wheeled LAV-III as unworkable IAV; upgrade M113s, use M8 AGS light tanks for General Shinseki's IBCTs

This will transform the following units:

3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division
1st Brigade, 25th Light Infantry Division
172nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Light Infantry Division
2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, XVIII Airborne Corps
56th Brigade, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard (already has M113s better vehicles than the LAV-III/IAVs being forced on them!)

Three light tracked IBCTs would be on the west coast to respond to crisis in the Pacific, two IBCTs on the east coast to respond across the Atlantic, with the 2nd ACR on parachute jump status to force-entry along with the 82nd Airborne Division as the covering force for the XVIII Airborne Corps

LAV-III/Strykers the Army is stuck with due to contract limitations form a MP peacekeeping brigade at Fort Drum, New York, while the rest of the 10th Mountain Division relocates to Fort Carson, Colorado to be a high-altitude, snow mountain division again; to be better prepared for combats like Afghanistan.

Note the rest of the Army's Light, Airborne and Air Assault Divisions are not transformed via IBCT force structure. There are several ways to fix this:

OPTION #2. Create LTC Robel's M113A3 Tracked Assault Battalion (1989) which is General Gavin's Pentomic separate transport unit to preserve lightfighter ethos (1959) + General Wickham's LIDs (1986) = brilliantly transformed Army light forces

www.combatreform.org/robelm113tab.htm

A handful of TABs could on a case-by-case basis enable 10th Mountain, 25th LID, 82nd and 101st Airbornes to fight in open, desert, MOUT and jungle terrains. If the IBCTs cannot be saved from being damned with LAV-III/IAV armored cars, at least one of the TABs could be on parachute jump status to augment the 82nd Airborne for forced-entries. Eventually this unit would pioneer stand-off guided parachute delivery of M113A3 Gavins above 15,000 feet to defeat enemy air defenses. The 101st Air Assault Division could use a TAB based on the M973A2 armored SUSV that fits inside CH-47D/F Chinook helicopters for helicopter AMS assaults. Or:

OPTION #3. Dave Tooker's M113A3 ACAV Mech-Infantry (1968) embedded into one of the Light/Airborne/Air Assault Brigade's Infantry Battalion + aircraft delivery = as proposed in retired General David Grange's book, Air-Mech-Strike (1999)

Supplying M113A3s or M973A2s to a designated infantry battalion in every Light/Airborne/Air Assault brigade in the Army would be easy since no changes to personnel manning would be required, just some on-the-job training to operate the vehicles.

OPTION #4. A variation of Tooker's M113A3 ACAV Mech-Infantry Battalion with 106mm Recoilless Rifles is LT Mike Sparks' National Guard M113A3 Air Contingency Force (1995) so the active duty Army need not have to spend any money maintaining the vehicles since they are co-located with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

OPTION #5. Stan Crist's M113A3 transport battalion for a situation designated infantry battalion coupled with a M8 AGS light tank battalion (1997) to create an Airborne 73rd Armored Brigade.

OPTION #6. LTC Martin Stanton's M113A3/Javelin platoon in every BFV company in every Heavy Division (1998)and/or a M113A3/Javelin platoon in every "Delta" Weapons Company in every Light, Airborne, Air Assault Division.

OPTION #7. Designating at least one Light Mechanized Sapper Company (Airborne) in each Light/Airborne/Air Assault Division and supplying them with M113A3 Gavin Engineer Squad Vehicles to provide armored mobility/counter-mobility capability against land mines, obstacles and enemy strongpoints.

LMSC (Airborne)

OPTION #8. Designating at least one Light Mechanized Sapper Company (Amphibious) in each Army Heavy Armored/Mechanized Divisions and supplying them with Carlton Meyer's M113A3 AmphiGavins (2002) capable of vigorous ocean, lake and river swimming operations as well as normal combat engineering. The LMSC (Amphibious) would forward deploy with Army APS-3 sealift ships to expeditite the offload by swimming M113A3 AmphiGavins ashore en masse.

LMSC (Amphibious)

OPTION #9. Ranger historian LTC John Locke ("To Fight with Intredity") proposed to the 1st TSG (A) creating a Ground Cavalry Troop/Squadron with M113A3 Gavins as a part of the "Air Cavalry" Troops of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (SOAR) to provide armored vehicle protection, mobility and firepower for Special Forces missions to prevent being left without such capabilities like what took place in Somalia and ruined an otherwise successful mission with needless U.S. casualties. A Ground Cavalry Squadron could also be formed in the XVIII Airborne Corps Aviation Brigade or using a designated 2nd ACR Squadron, then placed on parachute jump status to assist the 82nd Airborne Division.

OPTION #10. Create a new "Devil's Brigade" using Air-Mech-Strike or Colonel Douglas MacGregor's "Breaking the Phalanx" Airborne-Air Assault Group with integral Light Recon Strike Group or combinations of the force structure options above by special act of Congress if the institutional Army continues to refuse to do the right thing; drawing on volunteers from all the services, and commanded by the BEST combat leaders America has recalled to active-duty. The "Devil's Brigade" would after being fielded with unlimited resources fight against all other ground combat formations in simulated combat exercises and be used to drive all future force structure decisions instead of the way it is now, service budget politics driving how we are equipped and organized to fight. The Devil's Brigade would be stood up immediately to fight in the war on terrorists as its primary mission, with combat as its ultimate "test".

OPTION #11. Replace impotent HMMWV trucks in Delta Heavy Weapons Companies in the Army's 4 Airborne, Air Assault, Mountain and Light Infantry Divisions

It Maneuvers a Battalion

OPTION #12. Upgrade existing Delta Companies and Scout HMMWV units in both Army Airborne, Air Assault, Mountain, Light and Heavy Divisions with Combat Engineers and upgraded M113A4 Gavins reforming them into "Engineer Cavalry" (ECAV) troops

Simple math and Spinney's "Death Spiral".

THE ENTIRE U.S. ARMY NEEDS TO TRANSFORM, HOW? M113 GAVINS TO THE RESCUE

The model above shows one low-cost variation of a M113A3 Gavin with clear ballistic shields for its Driver and Kasman shields with vision ports for the infantry in the rear top troop hatch. The Track Commander/Gunner has a clasic ACAV full round shield kit. The vehicle itself has AO Bradley armor skirts with Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) tiles. The top troop hatch has a Javelin fire & forget ATGM pedestal mount.

Save your own life: the Army won't

The Army has THOUSANDS of M113 Gavin tracks sitting in storage that could be used as non-linear warfare vehicles and the ARMY REFUSES TO SUPPLY THESE EN MASSE TO REPLACE TRUCKS IN IRAQ TO DRAMATICALLY REVERSE THE SITUATION IN IRAQ.

Its the Army's fault because our senior leaders are anti-tracked vehicle afflicted with the wheels 'n computer sickness I described earlier. Below is a form letter we've written to help several Soldiers run up through the chain of command pleading for M113 Gavins which lists the specific locations of M113s in CENTCOM, other war stocks and where they are in storage in CONUS. (e-mail us for these facts).

Sample Letter to your Chain of Command (where M113s are in CENTCOM etc.)

DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
XXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXX 17 January 2004

SUBJECT: Immediate M113 vehicle plus-ups for xxxxxxx deployment to Iraq

FROM:

1. ____ x M113 light tracked armored fighting vehicles and ____ x M2 .50 caliber heavy machine guns be supplied to my unit in addition to our existing equipment in light of our new mission as provisional infantry. These equipments are in Army war-stocks and I request in writing an answer to this request. If FORSCOM receives this request I am confident it will be supplied to my men to accomplish the mission and save lives. The following explains why this additional equipment is needed.

2. Why is our Army accepting daily casualties in Iraq, Soldiers in Arlington Cemetary and walking around Walter Reed missing limbs when we have thousands of 11-ton M113 thick-skinned, tracked armored vehicles sitting in storage that could prevent these deaths and maimings? We have strong national backing behind the troops, but we're slowly pissing away national will (center-of-gravity) to casualties we didn't have to sustain. The current thinking for remedying casualties is to don more heavy gear, operate in larger units, buy more up-armored HMMWVs, put Stryker into the fray and slap make-shift armor kits again on vulnerable rubber-tired vehicles. EXPENSIVE, slow-to-field, doesn't protect the majority of our troops. NOT A RECIPE FOR SUCCESS. The solution for the non-linear battlefield where the enemy can attack in any direction at any time is not more Balkan-style "presence patrols" in inadequately or unprotected HMMWVs/Stryker wheeled vehicles. We are taking dozens of casualties simply "driving to contact". Even up-armor HMMWVs cannot sustain an RPG. What can? Is cheap? What'll work---Now?

M113 Gavins---tracked armored fighting vehicles.

3. Our Army has thousands of 1.5" to 1.75" thick-skinned, 11-ton, metal road wheels, steel-tracked M113A3s are widely availability in war stocks to include CENTCOM and older M113A2s are unused storage here in CONUS (attached excel spreadsheet) and can be made land mine/RPG resistant. This information is compelling and should be forwarded with our request to FORSCOM.

M113s in war stocks (Army Prepositioned Sets)

[M113 Gavins in war stock data write to us if you are a Soldier needed it: itsg@hotmail.com]

4. Cost to to add underbelly and RPG protection to M113 is small; less than $78,000. Much of this add-on armor is already in the supply system.

M113 Gavin RPG resistant applique' armor

Passive Armor: www.rafael.co.il/division/ordnance/arm_prod_line/passive.html

Active Armor: www.rafael.co.il/division/ordnance/arm_prod_line/reactive.html

M113 Gavin underbelly armor

Belly Armor Kit / Cage No. 80212, P/N 4240277

Chapter III: Growth of U.S. Armored Forces in Vietnam www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vietnam/mounted/chapter3.htm

"To reduce mine damage to M113's, "belly armor" kits arrived in 1969. When this supplemental armor was applied to M113's and Sheridans, it protected them from mine blast rupture, saved many lives, and gave the crews added confidence" M113 Gavin Gunshields

NSNs Track Commander's Cupola Shield Kit, Machine Gun / 2510-00-121-8990 Shield, Protective / 2510-01-006-4587

TC's cupola gunshields + side gunshields for the two troop hatch MGs

The NSN number for the complete Gun Shield Kit including the cargo hatch side shields is NSN 2590-00-121-8990. AMDF price is $11,708.00. Check the Army supply system for availability(?) If the "system" doesn't have the shields (likely) the DSC bids for someone to make them like they did in 1999: 25 - SOL:SHIELD KIT, MACHINE GUN (10/29/99) http://www.fbodaily.com/cbd/archive/1999/10(October)/29-Oct-1999/25sol001.htm COMMERCE BUSINESS DAILY ISSUE OF OCTOBER 29,1999 PSA#2465 Defense Supply Center Columbus, PO Box 16595, DSCC-PBAB, Columbus, OH 43216-6595 25 -- SHIELD KIT, MACHINE GUN SOL SP075000R2737 DUE 121799 POC For Information Only, Point of Contact -- Carol Black Phone:614-692-1346 Fax: 614-692-1577 NSN: 2590-00-121-8990, YPC99201000244. Shield Kit, Machine Gun. Made in accordance with Army drawing 11660854 and all current related data. Full and open competition applies. Quantity is 52 each to be delivered within 150 days after date of award to Richmond, Va. All responsible sources may submit an offer which shall be considered. See note(s) 12 and 26. Copies of this solicitation are available at the address above or by faxing 614-692-2262 or e-mailing: incoord @ dscc.dla.mil and will not be available until 15 days after this notice is published in the CBD. Requests should include the company name, address and solicitation number(s). The small business size standard is 750 employees. Technical drawings/bid sets are available from DSCC-VTCD via one of the following medias: internet at http://abiweb.disc.dla.mil; facsimile at 614-692-2344; e-mail at drawings @ dscc.dla.mil or by mail at Defense Supply Center Columbus, ATTN: DSCC-VTCD, P O Box 3990, Columbus, OH. 43216-5000. Requests should include theRFP number, opening/closing date, NSN, Purchase Request number (e.g. YPC), Buyer's name and your complete name and address. FEDERAL, MILITARY AND COMMERCIAL SPECIFICATIONS CANNOT BE PROVIDED BY DSCC. Proposed procurement contains a 100% option for increase quantities. This is an unrestricted acquisition. While price may be a significant factor in the evaluation of offers, the final award decision will be based upon a combination of price, delivery, past performance and other evaluation factors as described in the solicitation. Estimated issue date is 18 Nov 99. Posted 10/27/99 (W-SN395719). (0300) Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0194 19991029\25-0001.SOL) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 25 - Vehicular Equipment Components Index Page However if you don't want to waste months playing with DSC because your men are getting shot at in places like Iraq/Afghanistan, United Defense, the maker of the M113 Gavin can deliver 44 kits in 20-22 weeks. Their price would be around $8,000 per kit, saving you about 4K per kit. Understand that cost does not come into play when we are talking about the safety of our troops but $176,000 buys a hell of a lot of beans and bullets...or better yet more gunshields!

POC: Mr. Tom Reuter
United Defense
M113 Field Service & Spares
(800) 235-0015 Ext: 825
cell @ 256-453-7049

5. M113s are simple to operate and maintain. You could train a Soldier in a week quite well. You don't have 1 DA or civilian contractor per company running around like in SBCTs. The class IX is already in our supply system. The M113 is a multi-purpose vehicle: CSS, INF, ENG, MED. If you want to understand urban ops with a permissive and non-permissive environment blurring, and how to operate in it, look at Israel which oprerates thousands of up-armored M113s and doesn't lose a man a day in combat operations like we are in Iraq. Things Israelis know:

a. Tracked "Tanks rule"!
b. Tanks rule only when working well with infantry
c. Helicopters are great killers: but fly high, fly irregular patterns to avoid shoot-downs. The Longbow is great for precision interdiction. Paint them light tan or gray so they are harder to detect, track and hit during the day time.
d. HUMINT is decisive.
e. Snipers are far more crucial than home station training, manning, employment lend them to be
f. Muslim culture: if it looks bad ass- it is bad ass! Current enemy thinking: "Attack it if it has wheels, if it has tracks, leave it alone, it will shoot back and kill you"
g. That ugly, primitive, simple tracked IDF M113 still is ubiquitious and highly successful: it's heavily armored, it dismounts SOF and infantry, engineers to achieve decisive effects

Are we willing to lose more men than the Beirut barracks to IEDs and RPGs because our leaders are too worried about careers or the funding of Stryker to ask the hard questions of a caring Combat Commander: Why can't I have M113s? They are sitting in storage awaiting a use. Would we rather have me and my men die than weld or strap plates to the side of my HMMWV or wait for expensive and inadequate kits? A Ford Explorer SUV has better armor!

SSG Paul Johnson, 1-505 was KIA in Iraq from an IED.

He didn't die right away.

He died after a few minutes from burns. His HMMWV was blasted and burned. An up-armored M113 would have kept rolling and he'd be alive today.

6. HQDA PAO spokesman, Major Tallman recently stated in a DEFENSE WEEK article "that no ground commander has requested M113s". This is not accurate,

WE and many others ARE REQUESTING more M113s to fully equip our Soldiers with armored mobility and a means to aggressively fight back behind gunshields. Our men are going into harm's way and do not need to be put off with bureaucratic excuses about "MTOEs" and "TRADOC procedures"; we need the tools we require to accomplish the mission and get our men home alive and well.

If combat commanders knew M113s were available even more would request them. However, there is no reason why upgraded M113s couldn't be supplied immediately to us as a "test case" that could be expanded to be applied to the rest of the Army.

7. Iraqi Freedom Key Facts to Date

* 400 Soldiers killed by RPGs and IEDs in unarmored 3-ton HMMWV, 10-ton FMTV and thin-skinned 20-ton Stryker trucks or on foot that could have been saved had they been in up-armored M113s

* 4000 Soldiers wounded and maimed from all types of attacks, specific causes not known, but at same ratio as KIAs would likely mean 1000 Soldiers could have been saved disfigurement had they been in up-armored M113s

* Rebuilding up-armored but still thin-skinned 4+ ton HMMWVs will require two years which at current casualty rates will mean 250 more dead and 500 more wounded by next June's planned major troop reductions

* Up-armored HMMWVs severely stressed by weight their engine and suspension systems are not designed to handle will be even more road-restricted than current HMMWVs and will incur drastically higher operations and maintenance costs negating any desired cost advantages

* M113A3 tracks and engines can easily accept the extra armor/gunshield weights necessary to attain land mine/IED and RPG protection without excessive O & M costs

* Enemy is not targeting up-armored HMMWVs with weapons mounts, it's not accurate to assume up-armoring will protect our Soldiers when we know vehicle is too light to not be tossed into air by land mines/IEDs and cannot be armored to protect against RPGs

* If we up-armor all our HMMWV trucks at a cost of $250,000 each, the enemy will be forced to discover that they are NOT adequately landmine/IED and RPG protected and incur more friendly casualties despite 2 years and $239 million dollars

* Up-armoring M113s will cost $78,000 per vehicle and make them far more protected from land mines/IEDs and resistant to RPGs than any existing Army wheeled vehicle and this can be done in a matter of weeks

* The up-armored M113s are far more cross-country mobile than any wheeled vehicle to fully traverse the entire desert-urban terrain of Iraq to render more effective pre-emptive convoy security clearing of land mines/IEDs and small-arms/RPG ambushes

* M113s have a lower center-of-gravity than Army wheeled vehicles. M113s can swim and at least float if they should drive into an Iraqi river or marsh saving Soldier lives now being lost in roll-overs.

8. There may be built-in resistance to upgrading M113s within those that prescribe to the former CSA's wheeled vision but their private agendas should not matter when we can and should save lives and limbs with upgraded or even as-is M113s. It would be highly embarrassing to the Army that Soldiers were killed/maimed just because a mere 10 more M113 armored vehicles were denied a commander headed for combat.

9. Upgraded M113s would have a "home" in our Army after Iraq for non-linear war

The Stryker armored car purchase is very expensive at $3 million per vehicle and only affects 5 brigades out of 33 in the active Army. If a larger number of M113s were upgraded to get the majority of our troops out of trucks in Iraq, there is an easy "home" for them in the current/future force post-Iraq: supply them to the Delta Weapons Companies and Scout platoons in our light/heavy Divisions who now use inadequate HMMWV trucks for anti-tank and security missions. M113s are fully C-130 air-transportable, combat-loaded to include parachute air-drop. Furthermore, Light Sapper Combat Engineer units with HMMWV trucks transformed to upgraded M113s would be able for the first time to breach under armor using rocket line clearing charges and greater safety. Their brethren, Heavy Division Sappers use old M113s now and need upgraded M113s, too. These M113s could be fitted with hybrid-electric drives, band tracks and the full C4I digital networking features now only resident in the 4th ID and a handful of Stryker wheeled brigades, transforming the rest of our Army to "Future Combat System" capabilities.

10. Specific Requirements

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

11. POC for this memorandum is (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Soldier XXXXXXXXXX
unit XXXX

A noted Armor combat leader writes:

"Having been retired for 22 years, I'm somewhat out of touch with the details of current programs, though I'm aware of GEN Ski's desire to be able to insert a force of infantry and wheeled LAVs by air to be followed by heavier forces by sea. Actually, we did the former in Viet Nam in 1966 to put down the Buddhist Mutiny in the crack ARVN 1st Div. I was Sr Advisor to the ARVN Chief of Armor when Prime Minister Ky asked us to airlift a troop of M41 (76mm gun) light tanks to DaNang. We did this using three sorties by three C133s ("stretch C130s) each carrying two tanks fully combat loaded with crews mounted. They went into action immediately upon arrival and put an end to the foolishness.

I can't agree fully that we're reluctant to maneuver because of heavy casualties in 'Nam. We did a pretty good job in Panama, Haiti, and especially Desert Storm where we pretty much destroyed the Iraqi Army. I believe it was a tragic error to fail to Seize Bagdhad and depose Sadam, but that's water over the dam.

As to the M113 ACAV's ability to withstand multiple RPG hits, I would take that to be well established. We sustained multiple penetrations without catastrophic results unless the round hit the fuel tank or ignited on-board explosives. ARVN countered this by 'refusing' the fuel tank mounted on the left rear by presenting the right front to the enemy. We suffered an average of 0.8 personnel casualties per penetration on ACAVs often carrying a dozen or more people. Later, quite by accident, we discovered that a three- or four-inch layer of styrofoam on the wooden trim vane used for swimming completely stopped penetrations by igniting the RPG too far from the actual armor.

Based on all this, I would argue that a force of ACAVs backed by M41's would still suffice for anything short of World War III against China. I'm not sure whom we should contact to promote this concept since my impression is that the overwhelming majority of current flag officers got there by kissing ass rather than standing on any principle."

An Armor officer on active-duty writes:

"I like your site about the bikes in military use. I am a recreational mountain biker and feel that there are uses for these systems. As a straight-leg tanker (last I checked, no airborne armor units, just some poor Humvee driving scouts that jump) I don't know much about jumping with the folding bike but I would take your reservations to heart. I think that using non-folding bikes is better - less to go wrong with the bike, lighter, stronger, etc. Also, palletized drops have gotten more accurate, haven't they?

Hmm, anyway, with 5 guys in a vehicle, two can set a short term OP or combine with 2 others from the section and set a long OP. The other two vehicles set their own OPs out. I know about the reservations of using wheeled vehicles. I wonder if you have any info on the band-tracks specifically referencing noise. I know a 113 is noisy, especially when turning and I have heard SUSVs on the road at JRTC - not exactly quiet! Anyway, that is my key reservation against using 113s for recon missions. We were roadmarching back from an NBC exercise (yes tankers know how to place one foot after the other over long distances) and some Foxes were waiting in line to get on the wash rack. I was literally two feet away or less and carrying on a quiet conversation with my CO while the Fox was idling. Talk about quiet, better than a Humvee by far.

Well, enough rambling, like what you guys are doing and I might soon start showing you my ideas on a few systems that ALREADY EXIST and would augment us in a great way! Such as turreted mortar tracks for MOUT ops, Engineers making a breach, etc. Gotta go..."

Our reply:

Some of us were at JRTC last April and the German Airborne Wiesels were there with band tracks. WOW! Shhhhhhhhhhhhh they were silent. Just think of a rubber tire stretched over road wheels--without the air to hold its shape and steel inner cables so bullets don't harm them.

M113 on band tracks:

Noise - Reduced by 6 dB (A), interior and exterior (reduction to level comparable to heavy truck)

Vibration Reduced by 30%

I'm not into that "leg" non-sense, you are warrior. USAREUR has a M113A3 IRF that airlands by C-130s, wish they airdropped, but its a start.

www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/m113a3setaf.htm

And consider hybrid-electric drive------near silent operation. And FLIR camouflage.

Another insider writes:

"Yeah, I've never understood why they didn't use the '113 for this role.

As far as I can tell, TACOM's wanted the M113 to go away and stop being so doggone useful and reliable since about 1969. It gets in the way of all the neat new development initiatives, and someone-usually foreign- is always coming up with neat aftermarket stuff to cover evolving missions that the Army wants to deal with on a blank-sheet-of-paper basis. A cynic might point out that PM M113 is a lieutenant colonel and PM ASM is a brigadier general."

MY REPLY:

The Army wouldn't be in this inability-to-rapidly-air-deloy mess if it had kept a portion of its forces based on the M113 family and supplied them a light tank. Kind of like what I proposed in the January/February 1995 issue of U.S. Army ARMOR magazine.

Someday when everything is falling apart and the outlook is grim, they will turn to the greatest AFV of all time to save the day--the M113 Gavin--and it will be ready---as it always is to save the fools that occupy our fad conscious republic from themselves.

Don't be fooled..while the Canadians sell us junky LAV-III SUV-tired armored cars to get our cash, they upgrade their tracked M113s to A3 standards...the Aussies boast of their ASLAVs yet they are doing the same thing, upgrading their tracked M113s...when their C-130s landed in East Timor it wasn't ASLAVs rolling off the rear ramp....this was no accident....its a capability only the M113 has.

Airborne Armor!

Mike

A combat U.S. Army Ranger veteran writes:

"Read your piece on the Rangers need for armor.

I was with 2/75 during Urgent Fury when the jeep team got blasted. I remember the SEAL who E&Ed to Pt. Salines to beg for help for his guys surrounded in the radio station. We got a convoy of gun jeeps lined up to go to the rescue. However, air recon showed armed road block points on the highway. Without armor, the CO had to make the hard decision to leave them to their fate. I have had the opportunity to work with the WIESEL armored vehicle in use by the German Parachute Regt. Three will fit on a C-130, It can be carried internally in a CH-47. It can be air dropped. I wrote a letter to the Regiment to invite them to try out the ones located at Ft. Benning in use by the Battle Lab there. They looked at them, but that was it. Seems there is much prejudice among the hooahs for anything with tracks on it, especially if its not made in the US.

I think that SOCOM should form a separate Special Ops Airborne Cavalry Troop to support their operations".

MY REPLY: Have 160th SOAR get some M113A3 Gavins (cost = zero) to form a Ground Cav Troop to their defacto "Air Cav troop"!!

"Great article..

I cannot wait to pass it to my 1SG upon his return from leave.

I am the current commander for X/X-CAV (Brigade Reconnaissance Troop (light) in the XX ID (M);

Man, the number of times I've said out loud what I would do for a Troops worth of 113's and toss the HMMWV's I currently own.

The truth is in the pudding, I just hope the light vs. heavy mentality doesn't cost any of my Troopers lives in the not so distant future.

Keep the faith and the good info. flowing!

XXXXXXXXXXX Captain of Cavalry Commanding

Vietnam Armored combat veteran and distinguished author, Ralph Zumbro writes:

"Mike. it gets worse.

There is a precedent for what is happening to the Gavin.

Back in the 1840s, the old Mounted Riflemen (we didn't have cavalry yet) rode captured and broken Spanish Mustangs. Rodgers and Clarke bought them from the tribes. Just after the Mexican War, a troop of mounted riflemen who'd just ridden up from Mexico, were ordered to go from Ft Leavenworth, Mo. to Walla Walla Washington...They just mounted up and went.

The point being belabored here is that there was no forage provided and no horseshoes provided. Those animals are still in existance and I have seen them do incredible things.

When 9-11 hit. I was right in the middle of a wild horse roundup in Montana, outside the Crow indian reservation. Those animals are like the Gavin. Incredible range and reliability and low maintainence. While the Rifle Regiments were riding them, they could keep up with and catch the Indians.

Then came the Civil War, and we got CAVALRY, who thought that they had to have large blooded mounts. Thoroughbreds, Tennissee walking horses, Morgans, etc. OK, they made nice copy, did pretty charges, but right there, the Cavalry began to lose the capability to march 100 miles in 10 hours about once a week or make the tradtional "40 miles a day on beans and hay".

After the war, the Cavalry, mounted on large blooded horses were regularly outrun and out maneuvered by the tribes on Mustangs that could live off prairie grass and did not require steel shoes.

Mike, I can document most of this. We've been this way before. To check me, just turn on Google and type in Endurance Horse Races. Then try Spanish Mustangs and Iclandic Horses...I just may bring back the cavalry. I know some of this is a repeat, but your last two essays triggered the current blast. It makes a real good comparision."

My reply:

The Bradleys and LAV-IIIs are the look-goods but less capable FORMS while the M113 Gavin is their FUNCTIONAL superior. The M1 Abrams LOOKS GOOD with a turbine engine to dart around the battlefield for short distance tank-on-tank gun duels. However, its horrendous 7 gallons per-mile fuel consumption makes it conk-out if we are on the march to seize a Baghdad---had we been less vain and used a less vain diesel engine we'd have a heavy OFFENSIVE maneuver capable tanks, like the campaign-winning horses you describe. The LAV-III/Stryker looks great at NTC where there is no MILES sensors on its 8 rubber tires to simulate them getting shredded by artillery, mortar and small-arms fire as always occurs when armored cars try to survive in COMBAT. The LAV-III/Stryker's 8 air-filled rubber tires will need constant replacing if they try to take the overloaded, high-ground pressure monster off-road. Its already a high-maintenance nightmare, ask the marines who have been suffering since 1987 with smaller LAV-Is! The Bradley bristles with turret armament THAT LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER, CAPABILITY DEMOS AND PARADES but smothers the dismounting infantry in back so they cannot fight heads-out or be in sufficient numbers to be anything more than short-range "security guards".

This is what you get when you have an Army that doesn't DO THINGS enough so the value of FUNCTION takes precedence over BS vanity!

M113 GAVIN: VICTOR IN THE WAR ON TERROR