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| The Grunts Get Their Due |
| 2005-01-24 |
| January 24, 2005: One of the long time beneficiaries of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns will be the infantry. In addition to all the invaluable combat experience, the infantry is getting attention to its equipment needs in a way rarely seen, even in wartime. For the past sixty years, defense spending went into big ticket items, even for the ground forces. More expensive tanks and artillery got most of the cash, and things like better packs or weapons for the grunts took second place. The current infantry-intense wars have changed all that, and the army is under pressure to cut back on big ticket items, and put lots more money into what the infantry needs. The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut, and other high priced systems are threatened as well. Now the pressure is on to cut the billions budgeted for developing the next generation of armored vehicles (FCS, or Future Combat System.) The navy and air force are also being forced to make cuts, so the army, mainly the infantry, can have whatever they need or, increasingly, whatever they want. Putting more money into the infantry seems like a good investment. The current generation of infantry are the best trained and most effective in American history. They get the job done quickly, while taking historically low casualties. All of this is not an unmitigated disaster for the other services, for one of the things the infantry want is better communications and sensors. The other services must be re-equipped so everyone can talk to each other. The infantry are getting individual radios, micro-UAVs (so a company commander can have his own little air force), better night vision equipment and small, rugged computers to run all the stuff. A generation of kids who grew up on PCs, cell phones and video games are now in the infantry, and they expect all these gadgets, and know how to use them. But to make all this battlefield Internet work, the other services need communications upgrades as well. So to provide the infantry with the "network-centric" tools they want, you have to equip everyone else in the army with the new radios and satellite communications. Same for the air force and navy. Everyone benefits, but they only get new stuff that makes it easier for the infantry to do their jobs. It's about time. The infantry has been left in the dust for several centuries, as most money went into mobile forces (cavalry then, tanks now), artillery and, in the last century, the biggest money pit of all, air power. Ironically, precision weapons have made much of this shift towards emphasis on infantry possible. With things like inexpensive guided missiles and smart bombs, the infantry can quickly call in enormous amounts of fire power to eliminate enemy forces a hundred or so meters in front of them. Speed and accuracy changes everything. So does technology. New lightweight and strong materials make it possible to provide very effective body armor. The U.S. Army is also testing a new assault rifle, a multi-billion dollar project that has been put off for years because of the expense. But now it's the infantry that are the only ones who can do the fighting in low-intensity wars, so you put your money where it will do the most good. Some credit has to go to the elite infantry of SOCOM (Special Forces, Rangers and Delta Force commandoes). They showed what could be done with an expense account. SOCOM has long had a pot of money they could use on any weapons or equipment they thought might be useful. Out of this came a lot of new stuff that would have never made it through the torturous army procurement process. But if something new works in combat, it's "combat tested" and the bureaucrats can't keep it away from the troops. All combat units now have mad money for whatever the commander wants to try out, and no one wants to reverse the practice. The army knows it has good infantry, it's paying larger and larger reenlistment bonuses to experienced NCOs in uniform. Often the bonuses are larger than fighter pilots got in the past when such pilots were scarce. Billions are going into combat simulators for the infantry, again more money than the fighter pilots ever got for their simulators. Two decades of being selective about who they let into the infantry, and spending more money on equipment and training, has paid off. Of course if you ask a marine, he'll allow as how the GIs have gotten better, and some might even make it as marines. The marines have always stressed excellence in training, but, like riflemen everywhere, did it on a short budget. For too many generations, the infantry were seen as unlucky saps who got a bad break when they were handed a rifle and orders to the front. But infantry fighting is a complex business. Studies done during World War I and II showed that. But this realization that putting your best people into the infantry never translated into spending more money on them. Except for the development of "elite" infantry like commandos, it wasn't until recently that it was discovered that all infantry could be "elite" if you spent enough time and money training and equipping them. It's about time. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #21 "The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut" I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress. I wonder if they ever apologized? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM |
| #20 "The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut" I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress. I wonder if they ever apologized? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM |
| #19 apologies are for Republicans. The girl couldn't swim... I did make sure that, if she'd lived, her medicare would've covered drowning injuries, so, no harm, no foul |
| Posted by: Teddy Kennedy 2005-01-24 11:05:44 PM |
| #18 "The new Crusader self-propelled artillery system, and the Comanche helicopters have already been cut" I remember the Dems and some conservatives ready to rip Rumsfeld apart for cancelling these items - and bascially ending the careeers of several generals who tried to backdoor restore them in the Congress. I wonder if they ever apologized? |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-01-24 11:00:29 PM |
| #17 What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them. Andrea any examples of that Andrea? Other than the Dem/Antiwar leftists? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-01-24 9:02:03 PM |
| #16 yes money, equipment , man/woman power is needed. What should be done when they come home....to a broken household, maybe disabled veteran, and a society who wants nothing to do with them. Andrea |
| Posted by: Andrea 2005-01-24 8:55:20 PM |
| #15 arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense I disagree. Britain in the 17-18c experienced an extraordinary increase in trade in the caribbean, north america and africa and india. Such trade could never have been possible without secure sea lanes. In that era piracy, including state-directed piracy, very easily and efficiently knocked out of the global maritime commerce game any nation that could not protect its commercial fleets. |
| Posted by: lex 2005-01-24 7:54:14 PM |
| #14 How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to? I'd have to guess it was related to the vast increase in wealth stemming from the extraction of huge quantities of gold and silver in the New World in the 16c and the vast increase in trade and productive activity that such hard assets financed. Capitalism more than mercantilism. |
| Posted by: lex 2005-01-24 7:49:49 PM |
| #13 Spot on Frank G. A million man army is impressive if your worried mainly about defending your homeland or menacing bordering countries. However, if you've no realistic logistical means to move them or *project* power via naval transpo your military becomes a fairly one dimensional force. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2005-01-24 7:09:43 PM |
| #12 IIUC the British navy allowed them (an island country of limited manpower, compared to, say Russia or China) to project that power/empire more than a bazillion troops |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-01-24 6:54:15 PM |
| #11 Zhang, arguably Britain's navy never made economic sense. They paid for it becuase they could (after the industrial revolution) and becuase preventing invasion was their over-riding geopolitical concern - security at any cost. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-01-24 6:22:31 PM |
| #10 PB: James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean. China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars China dismantled its navy because it cost huge sums of money to maintain. (Today's navies are also extremely expensive). What is interesting is how the European powers found a way to pay for their navies, and how a remote island power on the northwestern edge of Europe became the greatest naval power of all, overawing Portugal, Spain and Holland in turn. How did Europe make naval expansion monetarily viable, where the legendarily commerce-minded Chinese empire was unable to? |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-01-24 5:43:35 PM |
| #9 James, while Chinese circumnavigating the globe may well be myth (many records were destroyed), in the fifteenth century China had the largest blue water navy the world had ever seen and certainly explored the Indian ocean. China's decline and Europe's rise is an interesting study in culture wars with parallels for today with the technocrats on the Right versus the Green/Left 'stability' and change will take us down the road to disaster crowd (ref global warming). Link |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-01-24 5:30:26 PM |
| #8 Hey Chuck, can you back up that statement? I have never heard that the Chinee Navy (even at its height sometime in the middle of the last MILLENIA) ever circumnavigated the earth. Can you back up this little bit of information? |
| Posted by: Jame Retief 2005-01-24 2:21:46 PM |
| #7 Good on 'em! |
| Posted by: Mac Suirtain 2005-01-24 2:17:13 PM |
| #6 China is building a blue-water navy. But they have no realistic naval target for the next generation but Taiwan, and they don't need a carrier for that. Don't let that fool you. Many in Peking still recall the last Chinese blue-water Navy which circumnavigated the world. |
| Posted by: Chuck Simmins 2005-01-24 2:11:21 PM |
| #5 I hear ya lex & that's a good point. We don't want to get so bogged down in using Iraq/Afghan as the model for future conflicts when it's very likely China will be the next main opponent. The USMC actually has what's called a LWTC, Littoral Warfare Training Center. As 80% of all the countries in the world have their capital within 200 miles of a major body of water/ocean (or some such stat I've heard.) |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2005-01-24 1:57:09 PM |
| #4 Would most of that doctrine involve staying over the horizon in various directions, and shooting hellishly accurate boom-things at them, thus wiping out lots of them while our guys kvetch about the occasional stubbed toe? (.com, your spell check has kvetch in it!!) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-01-24 1:55:50 PM |
| #3 Unless the Chicoms engage in a crash program of a modern blue water Navy complete with aircraft carriers, most of their naval operations will be littoral in nature, and we are working out the doctrine for this type of naval warfare. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-24 1:25:27 PM |
| #2 The navy and air force are also being forced to make cuts, so the army, mainly the infantry, can have whatever they need or, increasingly, whatever they want No military expert here but what does htis mean for our ability to stay far ahead of the ChiComs in naval and air power? Don't let China sneak up on us while we're killing the jihadists. |
| Posted by: lex 2005-01-24 1:23:16 PM |
| #1 God loves the infantry. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-01-24 12:58:31 PM |