The WW2 German Panzer Divisions were composed of LIGHT TANKS

Contrary to popular delusion, the German Army was successful in WW2 by the use of LIGHT TANKS.

A light tank is a tracked, armored vehicle weighing less than 20 tons. Remember that. So when the authors of war books like German Tanks of WW2 in Color (Michael Green, Thomas Anderson, Frank Shulz) whine that the German Army couldn't ever get enough tanks in their divisions in WW2, they were talking about LIGHT ones.

When these authors designate a chapter to "light tanks" they make an epic failure in understanding by defining them as under 14 tons. WRONG.

...and miss the whole essence of the German Panzer experience in WW2 when they epic fail again by defining a "medium" tank at 15-20 tons and to see that the Panzer Mark IV tank at 24 tons loaded was 19 tons empty--and essentially was a LIGHT TANK.

The Battle Against the Earth (TBATE)

The German Mark IV was a LIGHT tank, got it?

The Battle Against Man (TBAM)

Moreover, if your light tanks like STUGs, Hetzers, Jagdpanzers forgo having a turret, height is reduced below a standing man--and armor protection can be very, very thick via the resultant weight savings.

The most successful tanks in WW2 from ANY country were the German turret-less STUG light tanks.

U.S. Army Light Tanks: Successful But Not As Good as They Could Have Been!

Innovative T7 wheel-tracks light tank of 1938 would run circles around today's Stryker trucks: How Far The U.S. Army has Lost Sight of What Right Even Looks Like...

It took a long time for the U.S. Army fixated on light infantry narcissism to realize WW1 foot-slogging wasn't going to work in WW2--even in the closed terrain Far East. Some good ideas were tested but had to be dropped due to war time emergencies. Typical. We even had innovative wheel-tanks like Walter Christie had created and the Russian adopted in their BT series. In that era, tracks other than Christie's were limited to about 35 mph and needed to go to their roadwheels to get to 60 mph on roads.

The Highly Innovative T4 wheel-track Light Tank: What if Your 1930s Technology Beats the Crap Technology You Claim to Have Today? Do the Laws of Physics care how many times the Earth has revolved around the Sun?

Of course today, even steel tracks with rubber pads can go to 60 mph, but the lesson here is to have hybrid electric drive (HED) light tanks with the rear-most roadwheel with a hub motor to power the tank if a track gets blown off. The pictures below prove that a M113 Gavin without tracks can roll back to base on its roadwheels. So much for yet another Strykertard lie that tanks are immobilized if their track breaks--as if any of those idiots had ever heard of short-tracking. Epic Fail from Epic Strykertards.

The typical wailing by so-called "historians" with faulty and superficial "understanding" of WW2 is that we stank at the beginning of WW2 because our tanks were light, but they got heavier and heavier and better and better. How about the historians got dumber and dumber? And their histories wronger and wronger?

THE WHOLE POINT OF LIGHT TANKS WAS (AND STILL IS) TO ACT AS CAVALRY AHEAD AND OFFER INFANTRY FIRE SUPPORT.

Where in this mission statement does it say intentionally clash with the enemy's main bodies and their tanks?

M3 Stuart Light Tank Ashore at North Africa in 1942: Note the 2 Drivers and their Twin .30 caliber (7.62mm x 82mm) Medium Machine Guns on the left and right sponson (firing button on driving controls) and the MMG in the flexible ball-mount. Then there is the .30 cal MMG on the turret and co-axial with its 37mm cannon--that's a LOT of firepower! Two drivers with dual controls is still a GREAT and vital feature considering the deaths we suffer from accidents due to tired drivers. What can I say? We are bureaucratic dumbasses today. NOT professionals. With HED having a second driver's station is easy--if we thought of it.

The much-maligned M3/M5 Stuart light tank series that fools like tour guides at the National Infantry Narcissist Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia declare were so "terrible" they were improved on and kept in production until the last year of the war when even better M24 Chaffee and M18 Hellcat light tanks arrived. Ask the Soldiers at Buna, New Guinea if they appreciated their light tank's closed-terrain mobility and firepower? Or the gyrenes at Guadalcanal? Or Patton's Soldiers coming ashore onto North Africa--only the M3 Stuart light tanks could be delivered across the beaches---the medium-heavy Shermans needed a port to off-load. Ask the British Commandos and Canadians--who were butchered at Dieppe a few weeks before, if it's easy or desirable to try to take heavily defended ports? There's a lesson the moronic USMC can't fathom--if it wants a future at all--it damn well better get light tanks that can FLY--not medium ones that jet ski to shore through seamines and offer selves as sitting ducks to PGMs--and everything else in the enemy's kitchen sink of weapons.

combatreform.org/amphibiousinfantrytanks.htm

If light tanks were sooooo bad why did we keep building them in the thousands? Why did they keep going where the medium tanks couldn't go? Maybe the so-called "historians" don't know what-the-hell-they-are-talking-about and they need to STFU and stop ruining today's generation of Soldiers with their stupid BS that is getting the latter killed in Iraq/Afghanistan?

M3 Stuart Light Tank: Bristling with 5 x .30 caliber Medium Machine Guns; too bad it didn't have a Bigger Gun and Was Too Heavy To Fly by Hamilcar Gliders!

The U.S. Army Airborne could have really used M3/M5 Stuart light tanks in its WW2 battles--especially if the 37mm had the British "Little John" adapter to spit shells out at 4, 000 feet-per-second or the M8 Gun Howitzer turret with a 75mm pack howitzer to punch through German tanks. The American Airborne TODAY would be better off with WW2 light tanks than the crap Humvee trucks it has. Ponder that "Band of Brother" truth.

The question arises, why didn't we or the British put the 75mm pack howitzer on a lighter, turret-less Bren Universal Carrier so their Airbornes had light tank/assault gun capabilities?

Universal Carrier with 40mm Bofors "2-pounder" Gun

combatreform.org/airbornetanksnoexcuse.htm

The retarded historians whine, whine and whine about the 37mm gun not being able to take-out German Mark III and later model LIGHT TANKS. What about the Little John adapter? Or putting bigger guns in? Then they whine, whine, and whine about the turreted M22 Locust light tank's lack of armor protection. Do you hear them whine about it when the Germans put big guns on turretless light tanks like the Marder II?

Nazi Germany's Turretless Light Tanks Kicked Ass: Why Don't We Practice the Sound Military Practice We Preach? Call them "SPHs" if it makes you happy and shields weak tanker egos. Just Do It.

No, because these are often neo-Nazi sympathetic lemmings who lick the boots of whatever the establishment bureaucracy wants them to say. They are such dishonest scoundrels they will not even follow through in the sound logic their Nazi idols used--if it means bucking the current establishment. What the Germans realized in tank design was that one cannot afford to lose 50% of your potential with a turret--especially if you are on a tight weight budget and need your light tanks to be under 20 tons with low ground pressures to be mobile in closed terrains to act as cavalry and go where the walking infantry goes when it dismounts--and ideally fly by large numbers by aircraft.

Aircraft + Light Tanks = 3D Maneuver = Victory

So if you want better armor protection in a light tank (or any tank), GET RID OF THE TURRET.

Amazingly, an U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel figured this out BEFORE we entered the war.

Notice his turretless STUG-clone light tank was fully enclosed and not open-topped. Of course, it was rejected by our dumb, lazy Type B personality tankers who want turrets so they can play "land battleship"--not realizing this made them into high silhouette, flaming Zippo lighters with human wicks if hit at the hull/turret junction. We persisted with turrets on our light tanks--then bitched and moaned about their "lack of armor protection and armament"...maybe its the lack of BRAINS in between the ears of the Army tankers that is at fault who are ignorant of tank design? While we struggled to replace the 37mm gun because we insisted on placing bigger guns only in turrets, the German easily up-gunned their turretless STUGs--and KEPT KILLING ALLIED TANKS--of ALL SIZES. We couldn't up-gun the TURRET of the M3/M5 Stuart any more so we had to start all over with new light tanks with wider hulls and wider turret rings--the M24 Chaffee and the M18 Hellcat.

M18 Hellcat: 60 mph speed; 76mm gun in turret; thin armor

German STUGs were operated by their Field Artillerymen; what did American "Red Legs" do in the war? Just lob shells indirectly, from the rear? No, they saved-the-day by mounting howitzers on M3 half-tracks and Sherman medium tank tracks with open-tops. They called them Self-Propelled Howitzers (SPHs). Of course, they kicked ass--but get no credit in today's narcissistic idiot military. They did get the attention of the WW2 combat veterans who wanted to WIN and get home alive and in one piece--by being able to saturate the ground ahead with High Explosive (HE) shells to evict the camouflaged and hiding Axis/Communist enemies--as you shall soon see. Open-top SPHs while not as protective as fully enclosed STUGs were and still are a step in the right direction: better than what we have today in our BS Humvee truck motorized light Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) which now constitute over 50% of the U.S. Army's force structure today!

combatreform.org/PENTOMICARMYAGAIN/index.htm

While the M24 and M18 could have been outstanding turretless YankeeSTUGs with fantastic increased armor protection as well as 90mm guns, it was and still is possible to fit 90mm and larger guns in their turrets--it just comes at the cost of less armor protection. The 90mm was originally our towed anti-aircraft gun.

combatreform.org/tankterror2.htm

The Super Hellcat below has the 90mm gun and turret from the M36 Jackson tank destroyer on top. It worked. Could have been long ready for Task Force Smith in 1950 to blast Communist T34/85mm medium tanks to bits--had we thought of it.

The light tank with a big, heavy tank-killing gun in a turret is available today in the M8 Buford 105mm and Thunderbolt 120mm "Armored Gun Systems" (AGSes), if we can get past weak heavy tanker egos to buy them.

combatreform.org/lighttanks.htm

Another benefit of turretless tanks is its easy to have infantry in back fighting from open hatches and gunshields to be able to reach up onto rooftops with grenade launchers, rifles and machines guns super-elevated beyond what most turreted weapons can do.

Light tanks-with-turrets, caveats aside, by war's end our mechanized cavalry units were really kicking the German's derrières by aggressive tactics to get off roads and flank them with cross-country mobility to gain shots into their infantry's rear and the weak spots of their tanks if encountered. The excerpt below from Hunnicutt's book Stuart: American Light Tanks illustrates WW2 skill.

One Chassis for a Family of Vehicles, a New Idea? NOT.

M24 Chaffee Family of Vehicles: Send a Memo of this to Mr. Solis at the GAO and any Strykertard that Needs it

One of the lies perpetrated by the Stryker truck incompetents and the incompetent GAO writer William Solis is that having brigades based on a family of vehicles using the same (in this case wheeled) chassis is somehow some "new" and "revolutionary" idea, when if they were not so ignorant about tactics, physics and U.S. Army history they'd know far more powerful combat teams have already been created and used successfully in high intensity combat using common chassis types. Epic Fail again. They must have never cracked a book open and read about the U.S. Army Light Combat Teams based on the M24 Chaffee chassis-based, family of vehicles that kicked ass in the Korean war--and certainly in their prejudice failed to notice the M113 Gavin family of vehicles IN SERVICE WITH THE U.S. ARMY AS WE SPEAK, and have been for 5 DECADES winning battles and wars all over Planet Earth.

M113 Gavins in COMBAT

Epic Failure Squared.

Excerpts from Jim Mesko's book M24 Chaffee in Action follow.

1950-1953 Korean War Success

M24 Big Direct-Fire Gun Light Tank

M19 Small Automatic Cannon Light Tank

M37-M41 Big Indirect Fire Howitzer Light Tank

M39 Open-Topped Infantry Carrying Light Tank (M18 Hellcat-based)

Research has uncovered that the U.S. Army finally figured out in 1944 what the Germans did when they started WW2; that the main body of maneuver formations must be composed of LIGHT TO LIGHT-MEDIUM TANKS in order to have the best mobility in all terrains with overmatching firepower and adequate--not invincible--armor protection.

Heavy tanks were to bust openings in the enemy's lines for the light (cavalry) and light-medium tank composed main body to exploit. The whole point of a heavy tank in offense is to be armored enough to withstand a direct hit from an enemy heavy tank and not just survive--but keep going in order to bust open the breakthrough. Yet in 1944, the turreted M26 Pershing had the 90mm anti-aircraft gun in its turret to bust Tiger I/II tanks--but it, itself couldn't afford to be hit even once by an enemy 88mm--or years later a 85mm shell from a Russian T34/85 in Korea. So, Armor branch absorbing Tank Destroyer branch function moves on to the M48 Patton with the same 90mm gun and a little better armor and sloping--but still can't withstand a 85mm direct hit--much less a 100mm strike from a T-54/55 BECAUSE THEY INSIST ON HAVING A TURRET. Next, comes the M60 evolution of the Patton with a 105mm gun--that yet again cannot withstand enemy tank gun direct hits. Yet, Armor branch is getting heavier and heavier--without the benefits of temporary invincibility to force an opening--but all the disadvantages of lack of closed terrain mobility, increased maintenance and fuel costs. Then came the M1 Abrams with armor protection overmatch in 1982; and all other battlefield functions get abandoned in a lust for the entire main body to be invincible in a 70-ton heavy tank. We go from one extreme where no one is protected to trying to put everyone in a heavy tank and suffering the consequences of no closed terrain mobility resulting in our light infantry being tank-less in Afghanistan and in open terrain being unable to pursue and destroy the Iraqi Republican Guard because we have to constantly stop to refuel heavy tanks with JET ENGINES that gulp down fuel.

Burned-out M1 Abrams Heavy Tank in Iraq: Size Cannot Protect You if You are Surrounded because You Lack a Cavalry in Light Tanks

combatreform.org/heavytankshelicopters.htm

However, as you can see from the revealing facts below, U.S. Army light infantry was supposed to have a family of low ground pressure, light tanks that can go anywhere the infantry could walk--helping them all along--this was put into combat action and proven by Ridgway's Army in Korea.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/m-24-chaffee-light-tank.htm

Hunnicutt points out that this light combat team also had cargo carriers, too and M39 infantry carriers based on the M18 Hellcat.

So we had a combined-arms light combat team fighting in Korea fighting alongside our walking infantry with a 11.3 PSI M24 Chaffee light tank as the common chassis. FWIW, the M18 Hellcat was significantly faster and may have been a superior common chassis for light combat teams than the slower but slightly better armored M24 chassis. The M24-based light tanks offered vehicular firepower that was decisive in overcoming massed North Korean and Chinese wave infantry attacks.

http://lemairesoft.sytes.net:1945/weben/char/complet/524.html

Nevertheless, the M24 could be fitted with grousers--"duck bill" attachments to the end of each track shoe that could have reduced the ground pressure by another 50%.

Thus, the grouser-equipped M24 Chaffee derivative light combat team would have a ground pressure of 5.65 PSI--superior to even the 8 PSI fully enclosed infantry-carrying M113 Gavins that entered the force in 1960. Setting aside that the M24 chassis was begun to be replaced in 1953 by the M41 Walker BullDog light tank chassis with marginal advantages, the fact remains that we had a complete light combat team with the advent of the M113 fully protecting light infantry by 1960--that could have flown by available USAF C-130 and larger aircraft.

combatreform.org/lighttanks.htm

M24s could also dig themselves in with combat engineering dozer blades so infantry doesn't have to exhaust itself digging fighting holes with tiny e-tools.

The necessity for light infantry to have a complete light tank chassis combat team for anti-tank, assault bunker destruction, artillery preparation fires, and anti-aircraft and automatic cannon fires was apparently lost sometime between General Ridgway's retirement in 1955 and the ROAD reorganization of 1960--that polarized the Army into tank-less light formations and tank-centric heavy units.

Type A Personality Light Infantry vs. Type B Personality Tankers

Clearly, the American infantry composed of Type A personality narcissists have resisted any kind of mechanical advantage offered by Type B personality Tankers--be it carts, bikes or tanks--that takes away limelight from their bodies which has had disastrous results in war.

www.answers.com/topic/type-a-personality

M113A4 Gavin Big Direct-Fire Recoilless Rifle and TOW ATGM Light Tank

M113A4 Gavin Big Indirect Fire 120mm Heavy Mortar Light Tank

M113A4 Gavin Small 30mm Automatic Cannon with .50cal/7.62mm Machine Guns

+

Infantry Carrying Light Tank

We can easily achieve a modern Mechanized Commando (MECHANDO) light brigade combat team capability today by using available M113 Gavins as a common excellent, cross-country chassis that can be upgraded into an "A4" form with v-hull shaping and applique' armor to withstand land mines and RPGs/ATGMs, as well as be made stealthy with band tracks, multi-spectral camouflage and hybrid electric drives. These high technology Gavins would be supplied to the light infantry battalion's Delta (renamed "Dragoons") Weapons and HHC companies in lieu of flimsy Humvee trucks.

combatreform.org/itmaneuversabattalion.htm

The Direction for the Future Can be Found in the Past...

The recent announcement that the 82^nd Airborne is reworking its strategic forced-entry skills is progress--but its working AROUND inefficiencies created by narcissism and bureaucratic stupidity.

1. The 82^nd Airborne should already be doing QRFs in Iraq/Afghanistan for Sub-National Conflicts (SNCs)

Paratroopers in QRFs should be ready to parachute drop Rhodesian Army-style in Afghanistan/Iraq:

www.combatreform.org/RLIinfantryfireforce.htm

So their Airborne skills should not have atrophied.

2. QRFs for Nation-State War Need M113 Gavin Light Tanks that can PARACHUTE DROP

It's absurd and dangerously predictable to have to take a runway to airland crap road-bound Stryker trucks or M2 Bradley and M1 Abrams heavy tanks. We need to parachute airdrop cross-country-mobile, M113 Gavin light tanks alongside Paratroopers onto unpredictable, rural DROP ZONES--not heavily defended airfields:

combatreform.org/itmaneuversabattalion.htm

FYI, I just read the dishonest GAO report by William Solis on the M113A3 Gavin vs. Stryker evaluation.

Has anyone checked his bank accounts or for signs he is under someone's corrupting influence?

He makes absurd statements like the Gavin is cheaper to operate then contradicts himself and says Strykers are cheaper. He implies Strykers are a family of vehicles and Gavins are not (?), when the after the Korean war LCTs based on the M24, the M113 CREATED THE FAMILY OF VEHICLES CONCEPT IN THE FIRST PLACE! He flat-out lies that Gavins need trucks to transport them when the same year his BS GAO report was published, 3rd ID (M) M113 Gavins fought 344 miles from Kuwait to Baghdad on their own steel tracks with rubber pads. I have a friend who commanded an Engineer company and several of his vehicles were SHORT-TRACKED and fought their way to Baghdad! Solis dishonestly concludes Strykers fitted with ceramic tiles are OK protection wise, but Gavins with vanilla hulls are not--as if they cannot be fitted with applique' armor--and more of it---to be far better protected since their hulls are stronger from the start.

3. It's ironic to read brethren infantry officers complain about infantry fighting vehicles when what they want is already attainable by MODIFYING THE M113 GAVINS WE ALREADY HAVE.

The upgraded M113 Super Gavin will do everything he wants in his "FIV" and remain under 25 tons easily. And we could actually afford to BUY THEM and equip all the light BCTs at risk now of battlefield defeat in NSWs and constant bleeding in SNCs. Consider the following excerpt from the SSI Army After Next report:

www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub261.pdf

However, by 2010 the initial production Bradleys will be almost 28 years old. Given the rapidly accelerating technological advances, continued upgrading may not be cost effective. A new vehicle designed to meet the 2010-2015 threat and capable of autonomous dispersed battlefield operations is required. To meet this need, the United States Army Infantry School has developed the requirements document for the Future Infantry Vehicle (FIV). Designed for greater mobility, the FIV will weigh no more than 25 tons, be transportable by C-130 or airdropped from the C-17 or C-5. Capable of high dash speeds and rapid acceleration, the vehicle would employ advanced propulsion systems (possibly an electric drive) and be fuel efficient relative to current systems. The vehicle will be designed to automatically provide digital fuel and ammunition status to logisticians, thus eliminating voluminous reports, enhancing anticipatory logistics, and increasing optempo.

Page 11

Addressing a critical mobility shortfall in the current Bradley, the FIV will be amphibious capable with 5 minutes preparation. Some unique capabilities such as an autopilot and formation capability are being examined, along with robotic control by the dismounted squad.[17] Although considerably lighter than the Bradley, the FIV will be more survivable. Anticipated as a turretless design, the system will employ composite armor, saving weight, and, through low-observable technology, provide a significantly reduced visual, radar, acoustic, and infrared signature. Current design criteria specify 30mm or better frontal protection and defense against top-attack munitions, employing false target generation/jamming or conceivably the Phalanx shotgun type close defense weapon. Stand off mine detection and destruction technologies are to be incorporated, providing the vehicle an in-stride breach capability. For the first time an environmental control and overpressure system designed to protect the infantry soldiers from chemical attack will be incorporated as well. For offensive employment the FIV will feature a new on-board multispectral smoke system designed to defeat thermal sights. Like the Bradley, add-on armor will be available.[18]

The FIV concept represents a significant increase in flexibility by employing both lethal and non-lethal weapons. With acquisition and weapon ranges out to 8000 meters, the system will probably employ a lethal gun (perhaps electromagnetic), fire & forget missile, and laser mix. The system must defeat troops in the open or in trenches (implying microfuzed munitions), destroy threat tanks beyond main gun range while the FIV is in total defilade or moving, and be capable of defeating both rotary and fixed wing aircraft. Advanced target acquisition will allow for multiple simultaneous tracking and precision engagement similar to that of LOSAT. Non-lethal systems are employed for close in self defense, especially in OOTW situations. Finally, the FIV capability to carry an entire Land Warrior squad of 9-12 Soldiers represents the greatest increase in

Page 12

lethality over the Bradley, which severely restricts squad size. [BECAUSE OF ITS BLOATED, 2-MAN TURRET] [19]

Employing a wide variety of integrated electronic sensors, the digitized system will identify threats beyond maximum engagement range and provide warning of threat optical, laser, and radar acquisition and thermal indication of munitions launch, direction, and velocity. The FIV must be capable of employing unmanned aerial and ground sensors, NBC alarms, jammers, and perhaps weapons. Built-in test and training systems, including the ability to download digital mapping and imagery directly from space based or aviation platforms, complete a wide range of digital capabilities. Digitization, however, will not be limited to the vehicle alone. [20]

If it looks like a Super Gavin...weighs like a Super Gavin...operates like a Super Gavin...do the math.

4. The Type A personality light infantry narcissists now run the U.S. Army.

They HATE the Type B personality tankers who use tracks. Because of their emotional prejudice they use wheeled trucks that are tactically unsound just so they don't look like the hated tankers (called "mech pussies").

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_of_the_United_States_Army

Combat Brigades: 45

· 17 Heavy Brigade Combat Teams
· 7 Stryker Brigade Combat Teams
· 11 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (light)
· 6 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (airborne)
· 4 Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (air assault)

LIE: Only 11 x BCTs are "light" vs. 17 x "heavy" BCTs.

TRUTH: 28 x BCTs are "light"--the Stryker truck is actually a LIGHT, under 20 ton vehicle---if you overload it with crap and it exceeds 20 tons this doesn't count to make it a "medium" vehicle and falsely imply its better armored than it is.

So 28 x light BCTs vs. 17 x heavy BCTs manned by Type B personalities constitutes a COUP DE'TAT COMPLETE TAKE OVER OF THE U.S. ARMY BY THE TYPE A PERSONALITY LIGHT INFANTRY NARCISSISTS (LINNIES), thanks to Pete Schoomaker, life-long hater of Armor branch.

Forget combined arms.

Forget cross-country maneuver.

No can-do.

Wheeled, high ground pressure trucks can't do it. Even if UNARMORED. See picture above.

Armor Center/School is coming to tree-covered Fort Benning to DIE at the pace of the walking LINNIE. Walking the halls of building 4 without hooah! badges, the Type B personality heavy BCT Soldier will be brow-beaten and smirked into his second-class citizenship or if he's a Type A guy--switch over to the LINNIE mafia and get the chicks with the big tits wanting to be with a "Ranger" stud.

All that matters to the LINNIE is PT, marksmanship and battle drills.

James Jones' "From Here to Eternity" pre-WW2 blues and get-your-ass-kicked-by-the-enemy Luddite crap.

At least they had Donna Reed back then.

---

PoliticsDaily.com
March 8, 2011

82^nd Airborne Quick-Strike Force Gives Obama New Option in Mideast Crises

DAVID WOOD
Chief Military Correspondent

FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As revolution zigzags chaotically across the Middle East and North Africa, the U.S. Army is sharpening its readiness to launch rapid-reaction, kick-in-the-door combat forces, adding capabilities and skills that had atrophied during a decade of counterinsurgency missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For the first time in years, the 82^nd Airborne Division here has stood up its "ready brigade," trained to a razor's edge and poised to move instantly, as one of its Paratroopers said, "to the sound of the guns."

This new capability gives President Obama the option to swiftly land powerful military forces anywhere in the world for missions that could include evacuating American citizens, safeguarding fragile new democracies from counterattack, or violently taking down a renegade regime.

At the same time, the Army is considering reinforcing this Global Response Force with heavier combat units that could swiftly reinforce the 82^nd Airborne's lightly armed Paratroopers.

With these steps, said the division commander, Maj. Gen. Jim L. Huggins, the United States is regaining the "strategic depth" it lacked during much of the past decade when the Army was struggling to man the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and simply lacked the troops to set aside for crisis response. "The resources are flowing, and we are building that capability back," he said.

And it's coming just in time. Few may hope more devoutly for peaceful, democratic change in the Middle East than the division's 20,000 hardened war-fighters, many of whom are facing their fifth or sixth combat deployment.

But hope is not a strategy.

Instead, Huggins' Soldiers are honing their skills at "forcible entry" -- the ability to parachute into enemy territory with their armored gun trucks and 155mm howitzers, seize and defend an airfield to enable reinforcements to land, and fight their way to the objective. Safely landing 2,000 Paratroopers and equipment at night on a three-mile-long, blacked-out drop zone and then swiftly organizing and moving out, Huggins observed dryly, "takes some practice."

But as political upheaval boils, from nuclear-armed Pakistan to the oilfields of the Persian Gulf fiefdoms and North Africa, sending in Paratroopers may not be enough if heavy armed conflict begins to threaten vital U.S. national interests.

With the encouragement of Gen. Martin Dempsey, selected to become the Army's new chief this spring, the Army is considering adding "medium and heavy combat brigades" to the Global Response Force, said Col. Dan Baggio, a spokesman for the Army's Forces Command. The units being evaluated, which could include elements of a Stryker brigade and even heavy armored brigades, are stationed in the United States and would have to be airlifted into combat.

The idea is to provide a heavy force quickly for major combat, Dempsey wrote in a new addition to the Army's operations field manual, to "gain the initiative ....and set conditions for stability operations" to follow.

All these steps seem in sync with an emerging vision for a leaner, smaller, faster Army after Iraq and Afghanistan. In a widely noted speech last month at West Point, Defense Secretary Robert Gates memorably trashed the idea of sending a massive land force into war in the Middle East or Africa, saying big wars should be the responsibility primarily of naval forces and aviation. But he strongly endorsed the "strategic rationale for swift-moving expeditionary forces" as "self-evident" for counterterrorism, rapid reaction, disaster response, stability or security force assistance missions.

The Obama administration also has proposed cutting the size of the Army by 27,000 Soldiers beginning in 2015, assuming that by then the Afghan war will be winding down, Gates said last week.

Expanding from the narrow mission of counterinsurgency to quick-reaction missions -- which might demand a full-spectrum of skills, from providing disaster relief to fighting the opening battles of World War III -- marks an abrupt change for the 82^nd Airborne Division. For a decade it has fought in small units, squads of nine to 12 Soldiers and platoons of 30 or 40, working with local Soldiers and villagers in a kind of armed nation-building. These operations required little or no coordination with neighboring units.

But now, with its ready brigade unhooked from this counterinsurgency mission, it can refocus on the skills required for larger company- and battalion-size maneuvers involving hundreds of Soldiers in tight coordination with artillery, mortars, helicopter gunships and Air Force strike fighters. And the Paratroopers, relieved of counterinsurgency duty, can catch up on the jumping skills they hadn't been able to practice in Iraq or Afghanistan. Before 2001, it was common to see a staff sergeant here with 60 or 70 jumps to his credit; today, a senior enlisted Paratrooper may have fewer than 20, said 1st Sgt. Christian Requejo of the 2^nd Battalion, 505^th Parachute Infantry Regiment.

They are getting the practice. In one exercise last month, the division and the Air Force coordinated an airdrop of 1,600 Paratroopers, together with eight armored Humvee gun trucks, two howitzers, a dump truck and a grader (for building airfield defensive fortifications) from an air armada of 27 x C-17 and C-130 airlifters.

Doing all that quickly and safely requires an immense amount of preparation. "We were not used to maneuvering as a company or a battalion," said one company commander, Capt. Mike Thompson. "It takes meticulous planning -- or it can be a goat-screw."

Early on a recent, chilly morning, a clutch of captains and lieutenants of the division's ready brigade gathered to rehearse a complex mission: coordinating air strikes from F-16s and attack helicopters with artillery and mortar fire as Paratroopers maneuvered through bands of enemy to seize a small village.

A scale model of the terrain was laid out on the grass behind their barracks, with tape marking out routes and plastic blocks representing houses. In what is called an ROC (rehearsal of concept) drill, the lieutenants who lead platoons walked through their actions as they engaged the enemy and made quick decisions on whether calling in artillery strikes would endanger nearby troops or conflict with the Apache helicopter gunships and UAVs orbiting over the battlefield.

Their battalion commander, Lt. Col. Marcus Evans, is a demanding teacher and coach. "If you haven't run through this four or five times with a chalk board before you come out here, you're missing something," he told his young officers. "Drill it, drill it, drill it!" And plan for the unexpected, he added. "We can't war-game all the contingencies -- but we can do the top 10 and rehearse them!"

Brigades training in these skills will get severely tested at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has built extensive facilities for counterinsurgency training, including mock Afghan villages and Pashtun-speaking role players. But starting this August, the NTC will switch from training only for counterinsurgency, and instead will hold six month-long war games over the course of a year, pitting visiting brigades against the battle-hardened 11^th Armored Cavalry Regiment in simulated, but grueling, full-spectrum combat.

None of the skills and capabilities the Army is regaining may be applicable as upheaval sweeps across the Middle East and North Africa. As Gates and others have noticed, the Pentagon has a perfect record in predicting where and when future conflict will erupt: It has gotten it wrong every time. But that is one reason for the "full-spectrum" preparation of the 82^nd Airborne Division's ready brigade.

"We've been deficient as a great power in being overly committed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan without having any additional capacity to do anything else that could come along," said John Nagl, a former West Point armor officer and Rhodes scholar who is president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan research institution in Washington, D.C. "The Army was really tapped out."

"Particularly with what's going on in the world, it's not hard to imagine the president needing a brigade of the 82^nd at short notice," Nagl said. "But having that capability doesn't mean we're going to use it."

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FEEDBACK!

Phil West writes:

"Random pondering inspired by several things I've come across recently.

MTW.

The role usually proposed for Airmobile forces is vertical envelopment. The unit leapfrogs the enemy's ground forces and takes a position where they can menace his rear. A variation of this is using an Airmobile force to seize an objective. Like Paratroopers in WW2 the unit lands on or near a location, occupies it and digs in until relieved by other forces.

On the defensive, the Airmobile force's speed and mobility make it a useful 'fire brigade' or reserve that can rapidly be deployed to reinforce areas under threat. Co-In/LIC.

The speed and mobility of Airmobile forces makes them useful against elusive foes such as insurgents. Any insurgent of moderate intelligence will hide as soon as he sees or hears a helicopter so it is unusual for an Airmobile force to catch insurgents in the open. However, Helicopters can be used to land tracking patrols at various locations. Once an enemy is discovered Airmobile forces can be used to rapidly bring combat power to bear or to block escape routes.

Airmobile forces also have a role to play in the destruction of insurgent bases or staging areas. Such camps are often located in places where it is difficult for conventional military vehicles to approach.

Issues Arising.

Several of these likely roles require an Airmobile unit to dig in and hold ground. It is highly likely that the forces they must oppose will enjoy an advantage in combat power, particularly in armour. While the unit's attack helicopters and air support can help against such threats the unit will also need a considerable ground based anti-armour capability. I've seen a TOE for a British Army Airmobile Anti-tank Battalion from the late 1990's where each rifle company has two rifle platoons and one anti-tank platoon, the latter having 6 Milan teams (12 launchers?). This was in addition to the ATGWs held by the Support Coy. Such an allocation of ATGWs for an Airmobile force does not seem unreasonable.

It may not be possible to land Airmobile infantry close to their objective so more attention needs to be paid to air-mechanisation. Even if a unit is dug in and holding a position some ground vehicles will be needed for reconnaissance, patrolling and carrying messages. Airmobile brigades/groups should include a Ground Vehicle Transportation battalion with a pool of vehicles that can be moved by helicopter. Lt.Col Michael Robel's TAB proposal using M113s is a good start but we also need to be aware that the Airmobile unit may have to operate in areas where even the M113 might prove too large and unwieldy. Vehicles such as the Supacat or a modern version of the Bren/Universal carrier may also be needed, as will Quad and Motorbikes.

www.combatreform.org/robelm113tab.htm

What will be the likely tactical unit size of an Airmobile force? It seems more likely that individual battalions will be assigned to areas rather than the brigade operating as a field forceThe basic unit of deployment might be an assault helicopter/infantry battalion with units of Attack Helicopters, Heavy Lift and Ground Vehicles attached as seen appropriate. The structure of the brigade will need to reflect this if this is so.

If the brigade is used to field reinforced battalion-sized units to other formations this begs the question what sort of organic artillery assets the Airmobile brigade needs? In his book Race to the Swift Brigadier Richard Simpkin MC theorizes about an Airmobile brigade that includes 20 indirect fire helicopter/vehicles. These would be lift helicopter that would land small vehicles equipped with rocket batteries. The vehicles would move a short distance from their carriers, fire their rockets then be recovered and flown to another firing location.

If an Airmobile battalion is serving as part of a larger non-Airmobile formation it can probably rely on that formation for many of its indirect fire support. Another of Simpkins ideas was that all brigades should include an artillery regiment of several battalions strength and we see such a structure in use by some nations. It is probable that an Airmobile brigade would not need organic artillery assets of more than a battalion, and this would be a mixed unit of helicopter transportable light guns, heavy mortars and rocket batteries.