As for the turn around time on design. I just tossed away my old (3 years) laptop and picked up a new one…designed in the 1990s era of the Balkans and delivered in 2015 with tons of costing over run and design upgrade. Why does anyone think that is acceptable? Ok I know that has worked for GM really well.

Designing to win in a future that never comes and loosing today, is that smart? Fulda Gap, lets see that was in place for some team called the Soviets…you guys are soooo 1970-80s retro, can we move forward into this century please at least.

Brilliant argument there: “racist, sexist, blah blah blah…

These “ists” can’t hold a candle to the IST barry obama is: marxIST…

IF anyone needs to grow up it is those who think barry has the best interest of the USA in mind..

In cavalry alone there was light and heavy, hussars, lancers, dragoons/carabineers etc. An experienced commander would know how and when to use them.

We need to do the same now . We need light infantry, we need cavalry (recon and fast attack), we need special forces, we will need-if only at the begining of a conflicy heavy units of armour and full fledged motorized infantry units.

The answer is right in fron of our eyes. Relish the different combat solutions these unis potentially provide. then react and train new units when the need becomes apparent.

we sgould even consider a real mounted cavalry unit as a ceremonial and real alternative training unit.

The 101st had some of the bloodiest battles of Vietnam’s war with America. Hamberger Hill, Tet offensive and the last major and bloody battle in Vietnam for the 101st was Fire Base Ripcord. But along with being the warriors that they were they were also using CI and Civil Affairs tactics trying to “Win the Hearts and Minds” of the Vietnamise citizens.

John Paul Vann on CI No collateral Damage!!!

Colin Powell Kill’em all Let God Sort Them Out
What is CI? No senitor there are no atrocities in our AO. Well hello Mai Lai.

Well about thirty eight years and the fifth general in Iraq the 101st was back in action being “Warriors and Diplomats” Trying to win the “Harts and Minds”. The 101st was applying the same CI and Civil Affairs tactics used thirty eight years ago. Progress.

After the fall of Bahgdad And our heavy forces deserve alot of credit for an outstanding job, it was then that the Great Paul E. Bremmer and the CPA failed to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi citizens when the citizens were looking to the coalition for security,inferstruction and work. The people were ready to be won. Mental masterbation strikes Paul E. Bremmer, he does not want to have Bathists or Saddam’s people running security or electric power plants or water distrobution. The people are looting there is very little electricity and water,he is not winnig the hearts and minds,they had more securety power water and jobs when Saddam was in power. Now in the vacuume that he has created rushes in the insurgents to TAKE the hearts and minds and to continue the war.

Paul E Bremmer: NOT QUALIFIED.
5 Theater commanders:NOT QUALIFED

As the last ditch effort we will throw Patreas in.

David Patreaus WROTE THE BOOK!

Success.

Intelligent leaders with different ideas and having a set of balls to implement their tactics when they know they are correct will be able to adapt to most situations.

What is better than Mrap, Stryker if you must use roads? The shoe leather express. Foot patrols with close air. Stryker,MRAP in desert, Not bad. Stryker, MRAP in ASIA, SE ASIA Leave them in the motor pool if they can make it that far.

A great asset in wining the hearts and minds of the people would be Joe Snuffy that is intelligent,chrismatic,easy to be around and it would not hurt for him to have a set of balls. He is your key to success. Sorry got to quit gotta go.

Mom Loui

Vietnam “69–70″ 101st ABN

Iraq “04” 103rd Iraqi National Guard BN

Combatant Commanders can handle the current fight, and yes, Pentagon leadership must adjust programs to provide responsive capability where their predecessors “got it wrong”; however, trying to be an “operator” versus a “strategic planner” in the building (because we are comfortable with the certianty of current ops and uncomfortable with the myriad risks associated with resourcing for the far-term) reflects poorly on Pentagon leadership.

Resourcing the solutions for an ever-present strategy to capability mis-match is tough work, but it must be the focus of the Secretary of Defense on down in the Pentagon — lest we risk taking one in the “loss” column with unimagineable consequences.

Thank God for the professional Non-Commissioned Officer Corps that acts as lubrication for this innate friction in our system, and solves for the second, third, fourth order effects between decisions in the Pentagon and decisions/outcomes in the battle space!

Try using 28 ton tracked FCS vehicles.

In the jungle itself, neither will help all that much. On roads, which still have to be protected for logistics, MRAPs will still be very helpful. MRAPs will also work just fine in any African operations, and are beginning to see use on the Mexican border.

If you want armor for the jungle, you want smaller things like Wiesels and Bv206S/BvS10/Bronco tracked vehicles. Which folks like the Swedes and German paratroopers have. The British have also found their BvS10s extremely useful in Afghanistan, where wheeled vehicles, including MRAPs, have real issues off-road.

The other thing that works in Afghanistan are the 60+ ton tanks, whose weight is needed to deal with mud walls around villages.

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/Books%20-%201980%20to%201989/Pentomic%20Era%20-%20July%2086/PENTER.pdf

“The Pentomic Era: The US Army Between Korea and Vietnam”

This book is a classic. It is filled with quotes from heavy hitters like William DePuy and Jack Cushman, from a time when those men were field grade officers. Change the names and the circumstances, it could be front line news as to what is happening to the U.S. Army today.

We do need to understand why it is that the U.S. Army is particularly subjected to each stroke of the electoral cycle, and why it is forced to engage in radical transformative ventures, why it is compelled to continuously redefine its business model. No other army in the world does this. The Marine Corps and the Air Force do not have to wage a continuous battle to justify their existence — or their acquisition programs. They do not junk their doctrine and rewrite it from scratch every 8–10 years.

Part of it, I believe, is that the U.S. Army is always overextended; part of it, I think, stems from an intrinsic American dislike of standing armies. And then there is our national tendency, only partly muted since WWII, to fall into military disrepair and unreadiness during times of (relative) peace. How would we mobilize if we needed a much larger army ever again ? This is not a new problem. The Army’s end strength in the 1950s fell into the 800K range for only 14 divisions of 11K men apiece. Pathetic force generation…just pathetic. But then, this was an army of draftees. Conventional ops ? No, that was outmoded Cold War thinking — the Army was to break with the past, with the last war. The Korean War. We would never be fighting a war like that again.

What the record shows is that in the 50s, the Army went over the top in designing a force supposedly optimized for high intensity conflict, under Eisenhower’s New Look, with SecDef Charles Wilson foreshadowing Rumsfeld and Gates in browbeating the Army leadership. Replace the Crusader, the AGS, and the FCS MGV with the T113 (the prototype M113) and the story is the same. Megabucks for missiles (the latest fad in the inventory), pennies for ground combat vehicles.

After Kennedy’s election, the pendulum swung towards low intensity conflict. Many of the arguments the Army made to counter the New Look came back to haunt it during the 60s. It was only after the Vietnam debacle, under the leadership of Abrams and Depuy, that the Army rediscovered its center. Nonetheless, the strategic tension remained, as many of us well recall; Bacevich reveals himself in the 1986 book to be as pro-LIC as he is today. He actively opines that the US should have declared itself to be an international police force on the model of the Roman imperium back in ’55.

I do find it difficult to fault the Army leadership for this situation; Truman and Eisenhower ended the careers of Douglas MacArthur and Matthew Ridgeway. Bush and Obama ended the careers of Shinseki and McKiernan: what, pray tell, has changed ? Conclusion: while Goure’s premise is correct, his evaluation of the problem’s cause is flawed.

In a proliferated world, what makes us think there is no room for pentomic divisions ? If anything, we should reflect that the pentomic era’s operational motto of flexibility, mobility and depth prefigured our Air Land Battle tenets of agility, initiative, depth and synchronization — words that I now understand to have be buried at Fort Leavenworth.

There are warriors in the ranks of the generals. Men of common sense and toughness, the Tex Goodspeeds of my generation. The Army of the Future awaits their lead, when all this has played out.

Klotzen, nicht kleckern.

My war was Nam for two tours but we were always getting ready for change. Declaring that whatever is happening needs change is how people get promoted so it is essential that every new politician and every new officer or commander announce they will make changes. Then all the footsoldiers (enlisted and junior officers) have to change so those guys can get promoted or re-elected. That won’t ever change.

The reason why so many Senior Military Officers are opposed to hybrid warfare (and other approaches to conflict) is that once you examine this new type of warfare, you realize how increasingly irrelevant and inefficient the modern military command structure is.

Our command structures are built to command and control very large armies against organized enemy forces as large (if not larger. Without a command and control structure on the other side to oppose and analyze, the modern military senior staff and its echelons of officers and senior advisors serve little purpose beyond interference. After it isn’t like we’re fighting a single organized enemy force that can be outmaneuvered or whittled down through attrition; we’re dealing with dozens if not hundreds of smaller groups all of whom share little in common beyond a distrust of outsiders.

Do you still need central command and supervision?? SURE! But the question they all fear is how many? In counterinsurgency and other hybrid wars the Captain, and Sergeant take on duties and command authority once reserved for Majors and Colonels. Taken to its logical conclusion it also makes one wonder just how much all this organizational “command” inefficiency costs us in both fighting strength and effectiveness??

How many levels of command DOES it take to change a light bulb?? How many squads and supporting equipment you could get if you cut out all that dead weight??

Now you know.…and now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Globalization: Keeps India and China on our side when other problems might otherwise tear us apart. It’s irritating that they get to pollute (and guzzle cheaper gas rather than more expensive alternate energy sources) to their hearts content while we will go bankrupt trying to change global temps a few degrees.

Resources: Potential source of conflict over dwindling oil supplies: Drilling near China seas and in arctic may lead to trouble. Kurds/Shiites/Sunnis not sharing oil? Venezuela may seize too much U.S. industry and corrupt neighbors. Just remember: Citgo equals Venezuela gas…don’t buy it.

Youth bulge: Pot calling kettle black…Europeans (you’re in Germany right?) welcoming so may muslims into their countries are inviting trouble when there are no jobs. In contrast, American muslims are fairly satisfied because they have work and freedoms without outrageous European taxes…at least up until now.

Rogue states: When they get more nukes and give them to terrorists and neighbors who use them on U.S./Europe…THAT will be the start of a major war with mass casualties. It may be unavoidable but shouldn’t we at least TRY to delay the possibility until missile defense and detection of nuclear materials improve?

Russians: Want to control Europe’s oil/natural gas and former spheres of influence, but that pesky globalization that you despise works against them. Unfortunately, alliance like NATO may lead to war when sensitive location newcomers want to join.

Chinese: Back to that pesky globalization entangling our interests and reducing the liklihood of war. Same intertwined interests between Taiwan and PRC

Israel: They don’t need our help, other than maybe counter-TBM/rocket tech. WE may need their help on Iran to delay their nuke program to keep them out of Hezbollah hands.

For someone who lives in Germany, you sure gotta lot of nerve to critize warlike Americans and NATO. Do you think “East Germany” is better or worse off being part of Germany than the Eastern Bloc?? BTW, my wife is half German and her German mom lived in Brun (Czech Republic) and barely got out to Germany before the Russians came through…and decided to stay.

Maybe we should have let the German finish off the Jews and seize all of Europe and the Soviet Union. Maybe we should have let the Soviets have Europe instead of standing up to them in the Cold War? Are Japan and Germany nicer world citizens now thanks to allied efforts to thwart their aggression…instead of appeasing it?

So tell me genius. What should we do when terrorists use Chem/Bio/Dirty bomb WMD in Europe and North Korea starts handing out nukes like candy to high bidders? What if Iran threatens oil supplies leaving the Straits of Hormuz and gives nukes to Hezbollah?

Would America have been better off in a primitive state or occupied by the current melting pot? It isn’t like there were millions of native americans when we came to town. We screwed up on slavery, but do you think African-Americans ancestors of slaves or Hispanic-Americans, Indian-Americans, Asian-Americans etc. are better off here or in Africa/Mexico/India/Asia? Sometimes when folks learn to live together, it works out for everyone.