WT Forums

http://www.house.gov/hasc/openingstatem ... gregor.pdf

Very good points about the limitations of light infantry, the need to avoid sacrifacing survivability and lethality in exchange for deployability, and the usefulness of new, truly self-contained, formations that are in between the division and brigade in terms of size.

That said I am not sure I subscribe to eliminating divisions because it would be tough for a 3-star Joint Headquarters to C2 10 different combat brigades, plus logistics, engineer, intelligence, signal, police, artillery, and civil-affairs units. Either many 3-star CGs and their staffs will be needed so that C2 can be limited to 4 or 5 combat brigades (too much brass in that case), or 2-star CGs and their staffs will remain a need.

I used to be an infantry advocate but the last few months I've seen the light (no pun intended). Armor works. One thing that would really help though would be a heavy IFV other than the Bradley. The Bradley is so ungainly in shape and limited in payload. A very well-armored vehicle that had a better silohette and could carry close to a full squad would have been helpful.

They have that. It's called the M-113.

IFVs are great for some things, as is mechanized infantry. For others, it's not so hot and light is better.

Depends who you're fighting and where...and with what corps lvl assets at your disposal.

Take Panama for instance. In Panama city we used Mechanized infantry to excellent effect. In the superdense Panamanian jungle however the Mech vehicles would have to be left behind and you've now deployed a division of light infantry that took triple the assets and many times the time to deploy.

There are IMO too many chefs stirring the pot at the field grade and above levels. There were always too many damned officers to avoid around the barracks too, lol.

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