Amphibious Assault.
I wasn't a fan of the former Commandant, but one thing he did do right is keep his eyes and by extension the eyes of the Marine Corps squarely on forcible entry. The debate has been heated, I've absolutely loathed his ideas of becoming a "tilt rotor" biased force but at least the discussion and the THINKING was taking place. I'm of the opinion that we will have to do it the old fashioned way. Carriers, USAF Bombers, 82nd parachuting in waiting for us to link up with them before they're over run, a full scale Marine Expeditionary Brigade running the whole thing and a Regiment sized Landing Team to get the job done before follow on Stryker Brigades land to exploit the initial assault.
Yeah its rolling back enemy defenses, feints to draw off enemy defense and a whole lot of naval gunnery pounding the enemy just for fun but its workable. It can be done. It will be messy but forcible entry is never pretty.
Airborne Assault.
Not real solid on the concept of operations for an Airborne Assault except for what I've read and picked up in a few short conversations with Para-Troopers on how they apply their skill set. From what I gather this is risky beyond belief. You send a Division Ready Company, Brigade or higher into bad guy land and then expect this lightly armed force to hold a set piece of ground (or create havoc) behind enemy lines until they're linked up with. But in discussing forcible entry we also have to remember the insertion method. You're flying C-130's into a hostile area (and if we're treating them like we treat USMC amphibious ops) that's against a moderate to high tech force...which means that they will be facing S-300/400/500's on the run in to the drop zone. They'll be facing enemy fighter planes. If by the Grace of God they make it to the drop zone then they'll immediately be faced with linking up with their comrades all while fighting off mechanized infantry or even combined arms task forces that play it smart and simply call in artillery strikes on their positions. It can be made to work but is much more risky than any amphibious operation, will be operating farther away from supporting forces, will require the dedication of probably the entire remaining USAF to stay supplied and will desperately need those much maligned Stryker Brigades to take the governors off their vehicles and zoom in to help out.
Heliborne Assault.
This form gives me the jitters. I can see Amphibious and Airborne but for some reason the Joint Chief's list this a one of the three forms. I'm not sure and I'm not sold on it. Never forget the mauling that our Apache's got in an assault they carried out against a mechanized division. Small arms chewed them up. But before I go on, let me state clearly that I've never discussed how the 101st would conduct a forcible entry operation. I've never even read a scenario that would make it a viable option. Quite honestly in my opinion the 101st would be better served to revert back to an Airborne outfit, farm out its helicopters to the rest of the Army and relieve some of the pressure on the 82nd.
Conclusion.
Its easy to toss stones at the USMC when it comes to the forcible entry mission, but lets be honest here. Currently the USMC is really the ONLY game in town when it comes to getting into bad guy land when the bad guy doesn't want you there and they're not adjacent to a country that will let you stage.
I doubt very seriously if the JCS will ever get serious about the forcible entry mission but if we're going to be real then we have to acknowledge that at least the USMC is taking the role seriously.
In your Pivot to the Pacific, you wont have an option to go in via a forcible land invasion/entry. The only country that you can invade via land here is North Korea. To counter China, there is no possibility to invade them from land to land. Unless you take North Korea as the Germans took Belgium and then into the ardennes you go surprising the Fren....oops....the Chinese. If that is possible in today which looks highly unlikely.
ReplyDeleteUltimatly any US invasion of China has to be from the Sea. The only decent land invasion part of China is protected by the Russians, Monglians and Kazakhs. It is definately not an easy country to Invade.
North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Burma, India, Bhutan, Nepal, India again.
DeleteVietnam.....hmm forgot about that. India ?.....Naah.
DeleteAny contemplated invasion of China is a recipe for high-megatonnage reply in about 30 minutes, or your pizza is free. It would result in the nuking of between 1-3 US allies, and probably lead to Hawaii's secession and declaration of national independence in about a day, as the fallout from the former Pearl Harbor drifts across Waikiki.
ReplyDeleteNext question.
The 101st A/A is Big Green's legacy placeholder for 8 years of helicopter-borne jungle warfare.
The fact that we aren't interested in another one of those, and haven't been for 35 years, leads to the conclusion that yes, they should revert to A/B status, and split duties with the 82d for those missions. Having two fire brigades available at a time for those contingencies wouldn't go amiss.
But any sort of forcible entry in larger terms than a Bn is something we've frittered away. It's nice to note that we could do that on a grand scale in 1944/45, but the reality is that now, we'd be hard-pressed to take on much of anything larger or even as relatively simple as Grenada or Panama. No one in four services, nor all of them combined, has those assets anymore.
A simple embassy evac would stretch our current capabilities. Anything larger demands days to weeks of coordination, which in an instant world is a luxury we'll pretty much never get.
We made the decision in 1992 to spend our treasure on not guns, nor butter, but bread and circuses for the welfare EBT Free Shit Army.
Anything that doesn't contemplate gutting that and re-purposing the funds to defense is 25 years too late.
We just spent 10 years losing two wars simultaneously finding out the truth of how limited our global reach is.
And now we're beyond cutting that to the bone, we've actually begun sawing limbs off.
We don't have a government that has the will or stomach for the military they fondly remember. We may again, someday, but likely only because we've been forced to, by another Pearl Harbor type of event, and we may not have a helpful 1-3 year build-up period to get our crap in one bag next time.
Given that reality, our contingency forces should be constructed knowing that they will be the Wake Island and 26th Infantry formations of the future, sacrificed of necessity, and dying in place, and should therefore be either husbanded better to avoid that fate, or else given the most formidable arsenal possible to take as many of the SOBs with them as humanly possible. Probably including theatre "special" weapons.
If anybody is too squeamish to contemplate that, bring them all home, issue them ceremonial dress uniforms, and use them solely for parades and such, and get on with the Brit-ification of a once-formidable armed forces.
We can have a pretty military, but no one wants to pay the freight on a ferocious one any more.
I think you overestimate China's willingness to open up a can of sunshine.
DeleteChina might risk it, but I wouldn't give you even odds. Nuke a US military base and a I'd expect a dozen coming back at Chinese bases
Regarding forced entry
Sutton - Forced entry, resisted by the air
Rosario - Entry resisted off the beach
Musketeer / Telescope - Resisted but Egypt was already heavily engaged against Israel.
Inchon - Sort of resisted but it was all over before the NorKs realised they'd been bent over.
Before that we're back to the second world war, which, yeah, things got bloody.
There was probably some in Iraq both times too.
China doesn't need the canned sunshine to win a war. Russia does if facing massed western forces. The US will if facing China.
Delete@Aesop. you don't know how much i want to disagree with you right now. BUT i can't. the pussification of the military and our society is almost complete. historians will look at the times that we're living in as America's silly season. a time when we could have tackled real issues but instead played and toyed with nonsense.
Deleteyou're see the beginning of the end.
TrT,
DeleteChina has over a billion people; excess is a problem to them, not an asset. They would trade cities all day, and at the end, there'd be 600M of them, and none of us.
Still think they'd hesitate to trade a couple cities to blow us out of the Pacific for 100 years?
You're dreaming.
If we initiated any such attack, the first casualties would be Japan and S. Korea, where most of our airbases in the PAC live, and those two countries would accommodate the Great Khans in about a minute after the mushrooms blossomed, and our westernmost major facility would be Anchorage AK for the next 20 presidents. ANZAC would align as them saw fit, and the rest of the continent would do as their own conscience dictated, knowing we wouldn't be back there anytime in living memory afterwards.
China would strangle their children's pets in front of them for that outcome.
You don't trade chess pieces with a guy who has 50 chess sets.
Solomon, I'd like to be wrong about the assessment too, but we've been headed to this place for a quarter-century.
We're parking carrier battle groups for pete's sake. Just parking them.
This is like taking out an ad that says "We aren't serious about our global commitments".
And everyone else can read that, even if our own Congress can't.
Note the exact point when Putin decided to get frisky, and China started rushing to fill the vacuum we're creating.
While we were busy squandering blood and treasure trying to pull nations out of the back ends of goat-humping retards.
If we'd spent the same time and money on B-52 bomb payloads in 2002, we'd have been done in a year.
The people would have become a problem again, long about 2195 AD. The savings would have sorted out Iran and Syria at the same time, and there would have been enough left over to have funded the defense we need for the next 20 years, instead of the wars we didn't for the last 10.
The last time anyone strategically miscalculated to this extent in history was the Great Powers in 1914.
They're all still paying for their "victory", to this very day.
As we will, probably for a century to come.
So if its such a slam dunk, why hasn't China mounted your blitz?
DeleteAll chinamen may be the same in some views, but reality is there are 20 official ethnicities, the PRC might not care about 19 in 20, but they are the other 1 in 20, and for the most part live in the easily assaulted east
Does China have missiles that can even reach D.C?
Their stockpile is rather vague.
To what end?
DeleteMaybe it escaped your notice, but we haven't attacked them yet, and we seem to be fucking up by the numbers without them risking any conflict already.
Like all wisely-led forces, they realize that when your enemy is making a colossal cluster of things, the best thing to do is simply stay out of his way.
Another ten years on our present course, and we won't even be part of the discussion.
If someone is jacktarded enough to have a go at China, I'll wager they'll find out all too quickly what they can and will do.
Try a considered study of those who have attacked them in the last century or so, and note the success rate over that time. The only saving grace has been that they lacked any force projection capability beyond their shores.
Those days are ending before your eyes, in case you haven't noticed the parade of burgeoning Chinese military capabilities in the photos on this site.
And I'd be a lot less than sanguine about their missile capabilities. At this point, they could have already pre-positioned a nuclear strike inside shipping containers already here. Their "missile strike" may arrive by parcel van, with a better CEP and similar flight time to an ICBM, at a vastly lower cost. Nobody in charge likes to talk about that, because it gives them quiet little panic attacks in the dark corners of their souls.
Well, Russia and Japan both ran rampant throughout china for a very long time, China was saved by others.
DeleteIts won wars against India and Russia, neither significant wars with significant outcomes and it only beat Russia because Russia decided not open up a whole lot of cans of sunshine.
Its intervention in to Korea cost it a million dead or injured for, SQAB, and its intervention in to Vietnam cost it 50,000 of the same for no better result, boldly proclaiming that the road to Hanoi is open when the Vietnamese have cleared the route because they plan to slaughter you in Hanoi is a poor victory.
China looks dangerous on paper, and it probably is in reality, but its also racking up enemies VERY fast. Who doesn't want to see China taken down a peg? The chavez republic of bankrupt?
I just dont see China setting off nukes in New York unless Beijing has already been nuked back to Peking.
The hindrances I see to true mechanized Airborne assault is mindset, politics & C130.
ReplyDeletethe mindset of the army tends to lock on the legacy systems but from time to time you get the right commanders who push for it then the execution all gets screwed up.
that leads up to politicians who don't want to spend the money & if they do they push beyond the needs because it's good for their district.
finally that big lock the C130. fine for when it was created, still a great ol' bird for some jobs but as a tactical lifter in the 21st century its wanting, it's cargo capacity is locked that means that you have keep the armor light and vulnerable, only 3 vehicles every really offered a chance the M8 Ridgway, M113 and M551. Ridgway was killed by the politics,both M113 & M551 are to thin skinned
Stryker just can fit but only just & that's without add on armor nor combat ready.
The Closest The Army ever seems to have gotten to a Airborne mechanized Assault was the Much Derided FCS system which would have been literally tailor built for it. but Iraq and A-stan plus perceived thin skin.
If we really want to discuss Airborne Assault in the 21st century we need to put away the chutes & start working on the light IFV's & a lifter that can carry at least as much as the A400M with options for STOL if not S/Vtol
That's do able the Army and Air Force have had programs to work on that for over 20 year although S/Vtol is probably a huge stretch.
then a modern family of Preferably rubber band tracked light armor with V shaped hulls & active protection systems
The Marines are changing and charging to try to deal with the cards they have been handed & one of the big kicks in the pants they have taken is the ASBM
DF21D is meant to deny the seas to the USN. If the Chinese have it then it's not likely long before it starts showing up elsewhere, the Iranians claim they have there own & if they do have it. then copies of the blueprints are already likely to be in pyongyang from there... Suddenly the carriers the USMC depend on whether CVN or LHA as well as the rest of the large transports are vulnerable. the threats to them not just being ships but now ground based. there are only 3 methods to respond.
Avoidance, keeping the ships and transports at a distance. but that means that the over the Horizons assault comes back in. that means increased air operations and pushing the distances from disembarking from the ship to hitting the beaches longer. Ironically this was just the thing the pundits said was unnecessary.
Shield and countermeasure means investing in Anti Anti Ship ballistic missile technologies, including upgrades to anti ballistic missile systems, electronic warfare and detection denial.
Directly disable via offensively attacking such systems Air assaults and long range missile strike to capture, destroy & neutralize said systems.
hence I think the Marines started debating Air Assault.
Heliborne Assault.
Well best way to keep it relevant is higher and faster, up the altitude and velocity of there choppers use them to quickly disperse grunts and seize key light targets. for that they need FVL. sure you can try and drop light infantry in the opener of action via parachute but that's more and more a suicide mission. in iraq and Afghanistan the 101st Airborne was Driving MRAPs.the unit has shown it can adapt and alter. as I see it deploying Infantry from Choppers is likely to bring more of those units home then dropping them off from a chute.
Mechanized airborne/air assault operations are a pipe dream.
ReplyDeleteYou can't fit real armor in a C-130. You can't drop real armor from a C-17.
Your only real option is to drop thin skinned stuff with heavy punch in the form of TOWs and Javelins so they can kill the other guys armor.
Now, if you can get an Airborne Brigade, or Air Assault Brigade onto the ground, and fight forward as a combined arms team with helicopters and CAS in addition to LPCs and HMMWVs, then you can take ground, even against armored forces. However no one wants to consider the human cost of such an operation until it is literally the only thing you can do.
"Vertical Envelopment" was always a pipe dream, just as "Victory through Air Power" and "mobility can replace mass" thinking.