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Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,790,552 times
Reputation: 3587
Quote:
Originally Posted by ProudCapMarine
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev promised on Monday a "crushing response" to any attack on its citizens.
"We have all the necessary resources, political, economic and military. If anyone had any illusions about this, they have to abandon them."
Russia promises to "crush" future aggressors - Yahoo! News (broken link)
We are not going to go to war with a nuclear armed nation to save a few little troublemaking satellite countries from their own stupidity. When you live next to a bear, tread lightly and don't poke it with sticks (as Georgia did).
I really don't think any of the people we have running for president really should have the job. Thats how bad off things have gotten. The problem between Russia and Georgia is just that between them.
It is from the Defense Departments internal assesments reports. For you to say it is not credible is more damning of the Bush DOD then anything I could say. If they don't know what they are doing who does or would?
It was probably written by civilians who have no military experience. A light infantry division is a light infantry because it is not a straight-leg infantry division or mechanized infantry division. It does not have armor, or vehicles of any kind (excepting wheeled-vehicles to transport supplies), or heavy caliber weapons, because that is contradictory to the unit's mission, which is to move rapidly through jungle (for the 25th Jungle Infantry Division) or through mountain (for the 10th Mountain Infantry Division) terrains. You're going to have 4 people on a crew-served weapon like a .50 caliber machine? Why? There's only 7 troops in a light infantry squad. You can't exactly move stealthily and with speed through the mountains lugging a .50 cal and 7,000 rounds of ammunition (the basic loadout).
Do people understand that southern Afghanistan (and Pakistan and northern India) is the Himalayas?
In the 1971 Pakistan Civil War the Indian 38th Armored Squadron was operating T-55s in the Rann of Kutch. Okay that's a relatively flat coastal area with saltwater marshes on the periphery. The 17th Grenadiers (a recon unit like Brit Lancers or US cavalry) used T-55s, but then they were operating near Gadra City, another relatively flat area with rolling hills. But the 2nd Grenadiers used camels, not T-55s, because they were up in the Himalayan mountains.
What was true in 1942, was true in 1971 and it's still true. You can't take armored vehicles into the mountains. There's no room to maneuver. There are few if any roads, and what "roads" exist aren't capable of handling a 60 ton M1 or 30 ton M2/M3 armored personnel carrier (or infantry fighting vehicle if you wish). Even HUMVs are limited in where they can go.
Armored units don't do so well on urban terrain either. The weakest points of any armored vehicle is the top decking. That's where the armor is the thinnest and easily penetrated at close range by 7.62 mm rounds and larger calibers. When someone is above you on a mountain pass or building firing down, you can't return fire because the guns on armored vehicles have a maximum elevation. You can point a tank gun tube straight in the air any more than you can aim the cannon on a Bradley straight up in the air. The only way to attack the target is to dismount the vehicle, which makes you vulnerable to enemy fire (especially if they have a crew served weapon trained on the ramp), but then that's better than sitting in the vehicle with 11.7 mm or 20 mm rounds ricocheting around inside ripping everyone to pieces.
So arguments like "If the US wasn't in Iraq we could move the 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) to Afghanistan" are just plain wrong. They'd be effective outside the urban areas that are not in the mountains, but that isn't going to reduce the Taliban and Pashtun (and several dozen other) tribal militias by attrition, unless you send them dismounted into the mountains (and they aren't trained to fight like that).
Even the Soviets knew you can't take armor into the mountains and they didn't. After 7 years in Afghanistan, they came to the conclusion that the only way to win was to invade Pakistan and cut off the flow of money, munitions and men into Afghanistan. The Soviets needed 6 or 7 mountain infantry divisions to move into Pakistan, they didn't have them, and didn't want to spend the time or money to train them, so they left.
History repeats itself as after 7 years in Afghanistan, the US is saying it needs to invade Pakistan, except the US doesn't have 6 or 7 mountain infantry divisions and doesn't have the time or money (or the troops) to train so it's settled on "air strikes on selected targets" in Pakistan.
You can use armor in Iraq, but in the urban areas in order to get the job done, the troops have to dismount from the vehicles and move on foot without their armor, so armored vehicles are of limited use, mainly to transport troops the point of attack. You can't exactly see through buildings or shoot around corners, to the big gun on a Bradley is of limited value.
If you're a defense contractor, you'd probably love the report, since it's crying out "more contracts for the defense industry." I bet stocks in BAE Systems went up after the report was released (their Fairfield, Ohio plant builds "up-armored" and armored HUMVs).
another war would trump the hard right election. even at my worst i would not think such a cynical thought, i am betting on nothing more than an obama smear campaign at the last minute.
how many ground forces are currenty on duty in Europe. This isn't a setup I don't know the answer but I am sure the Russians do.
An armored division, a cavalry regiment, and an infantry brigade (2 infantry battalions and a tank battalion), all based in Germany. They have combat aviation, engineer, field artillery and ADA support. There's an airborne brigade in Italy.
The issue isn't so much troop strength as it is logistics. Tanks and APCs don't go very far without fuel or ammunition. It took the US 5 months of 24 hour operations just to move enough fuel and supplies into Saudi Arabia to attack Iraq during Desert Storm, and that was only 6 months of supplies.
Contrary to what people might say or think, the US army has no reserve divisions. It does have 8 national guard divisions, but those are tasked out to Korea, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Balkans.
The way the reserve system works is that there is a core cadre for each division, meaning there's a division commander and a skeleton staff, and a couple of brigade commanders and their skeleton staffs.
The army reserve also has highly specialized units that require intense training and experience, like field artillery, air defense, intelligence, engineers, signal and military police, but no infantry, armor or cavalry.
If a draft is called, infantry, armor and cavalry troops are trained, then added to the divisions, and then the specialized reserve support units are assigned.
The US has left over equipment from deactivated units, like the 2nd and 3rd Armored Divisions, and the 5th, 8th and 9th Infantry Divisions (Mechanized), plus 2 national guard armored divisions to train and equip them in about 20 months.
It has additional equipment for the 10 reserve divisions, which were intended to be 4 mechanized infantry divisions, 4 straight leg infantry divisions, and 2 armored divisions. About 16 months to draft and train them.
After that, the US is reliant on controlling supply routes to import what it needs and getting war production geared up to train and equip new divisions.
If you trust globalsecurity (and I don't) the Russians have about 36 divisions.
It would take the US about 4 years to draft, equip and train enough troops to go force-on-force with the Russians, which is unfortunate, since US doctrine calls for a 3-1 force advantage.
Still, it all revolves around logistics. Troops are useless without fuel and ammunition. The US has a well developed logistical hub in Germany that can supply 3 divisions for 5 years, but in theory that's only through eastern Germany/western Poland. To move beyond that into eastern Poland and on into Belarus and Russia, or into Ukraine and Russia would require tremendous logistical support. The US would have to control supply routes across eastern Europe and they would have to be unmolested from Russian air attacks and missile attacks (with conventional warheads).
A lot of the US success would be dependent on controlling the Black Sea (which it does in part with Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey -- but if Turkey defects that's a problem but not fatal).
Controlling Iran would make things easier for the US, since it would have land and sea access to Central Asia and southern Russia and create a "two front" problem for Russia (which is exactly where US geo-strategy has been taking us for the last 30 years).
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