"Nothing that results in human progress is achieved with unanimous consent."
LTC John Barker, U.S. Army, former XO of 3/73d Armor said about the 152mm gun system:
Robert W. Black, in his book, "Rangers in World War II" said the following about the disastrous Dieppe Raid where commandos assaulted fortified positions with little fire support other than what they carried in their hands;
Official U.S. Army ACTD web site statement
"...the U.S. Army has fielded the world's heaviest and most thickly armored tank and infantry fighting vehicle combination: the 70-ton M1 Abrams tank and the 30-ton M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle. These vehicles are designed almost exclusively for dueling with other armored vehicles. The M1 mounts a massive 120mm high-velocity direct-fire cannon and the M2 Bradley carries a high-velocity 25mm auto cannon and direct-fire heavy antitank missiles.
The M1 tank's weight and limited main gun elevation reduce its effectiveness in the urban, mountainous and wet terrain typically found in potential theaters of operation such as Korea. Heavy armor often requires extensive engineer assistance to cross natural and manmade obstacles. For example, it took three days of intense bridging efforts to get M1 tanks across the Sava River in Bosnia. Finally, the heavy division, with limited infantry and helicopters, is seldom tasked for operations other than war because it has difficulty projecting presence beyond road networks or valleys."
Military Review, March-April 1997, Air-Mech Strike: Revolution in Maneuver Warfare by Major Charles A. Jarnot, U.S. Army
THE NEED FOR THE LIGHT CEV
Our world today is rapidly urbanizing as proven by analysts like Robert Kaplan
(The Coming Anarchy http://www.theatlantic.com/election/connection/foreign/anarchy.htm]
...and moves by the speed of the AIR as predicted by visionaries like Generals James Gavin
(Airborne Warfare:
www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7963/airbornewarfare.htm) and
Sir Francis Tucker
(The Pattern of War: www.geocities.com/Pentagon/7963/war1.htm)
Despite urban combat realities, we've mothballed our Iowa Class battleships, retired the M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle (CEV) with 165mm demolition gun, withdrawn the M551 Sheridans to NTC as OFOR Vis-MOD training aids, cancelled the M8 Ridgway Armored Gun System, thrown M113s into the sea to feed fish. Combat Engineer, CSM Timothy Chadwick suggested putting the M728 CEV turret on the only BIG GUN carrying vehicle left, the M1 Abrams at a cost of $900,000 each to win a direct-fire urban fight, but his ideas were dismissed. The 70-ton Abrams tank that is too big to fit into narrow Third World Country streets and too heavy to fly in large numbers or airdrop to accompany our light troops who are the first to fight. Even if M1s can be delivered in time, their turbine engine exhaust prevents infantry from following behind to use the tank as moving cover in a city fight or to tow trailers with more main gun ammunition and/or supplies for infantry. "Passing the buck" to other combat arms/services does not work.
We are now in a situation where the only way to reduce buildings and open mouseholes is by hand-emplacing demolition charges, exposing our Combat Engineers to murderous enemy fire. Without a stand-off obstacle and building reduction capability in a light CEV, we will suffer high casualties like in Somalia just a few years ago. The hard-won lessons of past wars fought and won, forgotten to be relearned at the cost of blood.
CPT Stanley Crist, the U.S. Army "C" Company Commander of 1/37th Combat Engineers (Airborne) who parachute airdropped in his light CEVs (M113A3s with Sheridan 152mm gun turrets) to support the 82d Airborne Division writes; "Our first encounter with the Communist Mobile Force Network (CMFN) as the infantrymen of 1st Battalion, 504th PIR were establishing a supply route from the International Airport to their initial objective of Tinajitas. The convoy had only moved a few kilometers when it stopped to clear a roadblock located on a bridge. As the Gordon
light CEVs moved to the edge of the highway to support the infantry, SSG Velovitch, the lead light CEV commander, called me on the radio and stated, 'This is hell of a place for an obstacle, buildings all around and no cover. It looks like swamps on both sides of the road'. As the infantry dismounted and began to execute their obstacle drill, they began receiving automatic weapons fire from the buildings no more than 50 meters away. The lead CEV commander opened up with .50 caliber HMG fire as the wing Gordon commander screamed to his gunner to identify the threat. A moment later, SFC McShoe, 1st Platoon Sergeant, yelled, 'I got 'em, concrete building, second floor, fourth window from the right'...He fired a 152mm heat round at the target, ripping through the room, collapsing the right side of the building. The enemy fire stopped and the infantry finished clearing the roadblock..." (see notes on the bottom)
"The Sheridan with its 152mm main gun was the near-perfect light infantry support vehicle. It could swim. It had thermal sights. It had long-range armor destruction capability equal to or greater than a Hellfire missile (check your PH/PK classified data!) The Shillelagh with its 152mm HEAT round could blow a hole in a reinforced concrete wall large enough for infantry Soldiers to walk through side by side. An infantry leader could use the external phone, it boasted a flechette' round that could blast 17,000 one-inch nails into enemy infantry as close support, and oh by the way, you could parachute it into combat for those nasty 'forced entry' missions typically laid at the feet of the Paratroopers of the "Devils in Baggy Pants", "Panthers" and "Falcons" of the 82d....."
Quotes from U.S. Army Armor magazine, Jan-Feb 1997, Mar-Apr 1990, pg 15. The first excerpt modified to reflect a future reality using the Sheridan turret on a Combat Engineer M113A3 AFV.
"68% of the 4,963 Canadian troops were casualties and 913 were killed outright.... On August 19, 1942, the Canadians did all that flesh could do against fire, but has been proven on battlefield after battlefield against an aroused, entrenched enemy, COURAGE IS NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR FIRE SUPPORT..."
"Within this evolutionary climate, fiscal realities and the aging of existing systems have resulted in a significant gap in our forced/early entry capabilities. The deactivation of the 3d Battalion, 73d Armor, coupled with the termination of the Armored Gun System (AGS), has created a critical need for enhanced direct fire assault support and anti-armor capabilities for forced/early entry forces".
The motto of U.S. Army Combat Engineers is "Essayons" or "Let us Try". Now is the time to try. Heavy Combat Engineer units have M113A3 Gavin AFVs, fantastic vehicles. Easy to maintain, the obvious answer is to take some of the hundreds of M551 Sheridan light tank turrets now available and mount them on designated M113A3s to creat a building/bunker busting Light CEV that can be fielded immediately to LIGHT/Airborne unit Combat engineers who are the first to fight, as well as in the Heavy Divisions.
LIGHT DOZER BLADE
To top this all of there are M113 dozer blades available off-the-shelf to augment the SEEs now in use in Light Engineer units.
ARMORED VERTICAL ASSAULT CAPSULES
THE GORDON LIGHT CEV
I suggest we name the new Light CEV after General Charles "Chinese" Gordon of "Khartoum" fame, who as a Combat Engineer and a General freed slaves in Africa and responded to world crises as today's U.S. Army Engineers are doing in Bosnia to defend the weak. A superb film starring Charlton Heston illustrates the unselfish leadership and craftiness of General Gordon who worked miracles with scarce materials, as we must do today.
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