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US Army to Up-Armor Two More Brigades

Rogue Valley

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US Army to Up-Armor Two More Brigades

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9/20/18
The U.S. Army will up-armor a pair of brigade combat teams over the next two years, the second and third such conversions as the Defense Department shifts its focus to the possibility of conflict with China and Russia. Next spring, the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Armored Division, stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, will begin to switch from a Stryker brigade combat team to an armored brigade combat team. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division, based in Fort Carson, Colorado, will become a Stryker unit the following year. “The Army leadership determined that we needed to convert two brigade combat teams to armor and Stryker in order to deter our near-peer adversaries or defeat them if required,” Maj. Gen. Brian J. Mennes, director of force management, said in a statement on Thursday. There’s no public indication yet where the two units might deploy once they finish the conversion—a long, complex process that can take a full year. The first such conversion was ordered in 2016; that former infantry BCT in Fort Stewart, Georgia, has yet to deploy. But the National Defense Strategy, with its focus on near-peer adversaries, offers a few clues.

One former commander of the Army’s forces in Europe, Ben Hodges, said the shift “is a reflection you’re looking at Korea and Russia,” as opposed to when the Army was “almost completely focused on Iraq and Afghanistan.” The retired lieutenant general described the move as “trying to get more depth” in armored brigades. “We don’t have enough armored brigades,” Hodges said. “Think about Korea. Think about the Middle East. Think about Europe. We don’t have any margin.” New heel-to-toe rotations in Europe that began in 2016 amid concerns about a resurgent Russia raised concerns that the new workload would strain the Army’s armored BCTs. Armored experts say it takes three BCTs to sustain a continuous rotation: one deployed, one returning, and one preparing to leave. The conversions, the Army said in a release, will ensure “a more balanced distribution between its light and heavy fighting forces.” It will bring the total number of armored BCTs to 16.

Conversion of the 1/1 AD and 2/4 ID will begin in the spring of 2019 and spring of 2020 respectively.
 
No **** sherlock. I haven’t a clue if they still use the Long Bow or not.
 
Army chief of staff Mark Milley is focused on rebuilding and restructuring the Army in accordance with the new National Security Strategy which the Joint Chiefs played a major role in developing. The wear and tear of Afghanistan -- to include its lessons -- is a major factor. A major theme of Gen. Milley's program is armor.

For instance Milley has researchers getting close on a tank barrel that angles higher given the new focus on urban warfare as we experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Army is remaking the old rule of urban warfare -- which is to stay out of cities -- in respect of armor especially. Milley has pointed out we learned since 2003 Army needs to engage the enemy in the cities and to do it decisively. Failure to defeat, eliminate or suppress the enemy in urban centers, or to bypass 'em or wait 'em out, is no longer an option to be considered. Further, any conflict against Russia, China, Iran or NK will be more in and against urban and metropolitan centers as much as in the open fields and mountains -- often more so. One of Milley's commands was btw 10th Mountain Division.

Both urban and field combat operations will continue but the focus will be specific and particular. A conflict against Russia will include each prominently, in urban eastern Europe especially. Against China the Army will not invade in force with the intention to seize and control the landmass, so Navy and Air Force share the central role jointly with Army artillery/missile forces being integrated and Marine amphibious forces prominent. In Iran the A2/AD are weak and its armed forces equipment dated -- as are its tactics -- so Army and Marines would likely replicate Desert Storm or the 2003 penetration of Iraq to Baghdad. Against NK it would be a full spectrum integrated total force operation to include SK and Japan.

Gen. Milley's single four year term expires next summer and rather than see him retire Pentagon has penciled in the special ops soldier as either chairman of JCS or vice chairman. (Trump gushes when he calls Milley "the bomb thrower in the White House.") The present CJCS Marine Gen. "Fighting Joe" Dunford who is former CMC also retires next summer after the max of two 2-year terms. It's typically the turn of AF in the chairmanship but nothing about the nomination is written in stone. Dunford for instance is only the second Marine chairman and the only one of the two to serve the max of two terms. Each Dunford and Milley come from Rotc.
 
This is one of the several up-armor offensive platforms CSA Gen. Mark Milley has either set in motion or dusted off to examine upgrades.

Says US Defense News which produced the video....

The US Army plans to build prototypes in the next several years of a new lightweight Mobile Protected Firepower armored vehicle expected to change land war by outmatching Russian equivalents and bringing a new dimension to advancing infantry as it maneuvers toward enemy attack.

Long-range precision fire, coordinated air-ground assault, mechanized force-on-force armored vehicle attacks and drone threats are all changing so quickly that maneuvering US Army infantry now need improved firepower to advance on major adversaries in war, Army leaders explain. Infantry today needs tank-like firepower to cross bridges, advance off roads and to engage the enemy quickly wherever he moves and maneuvers while trying to penetrate allied defenses.





Army has doubled its self-propelled artillery firing range, bought almost 500 new Bradleys and is well into implementing the new multi-domain operations strategy. Marine Corps has reconfigured its rifle squads for increased firepower and lethal force to include drone weapons. Army, Marine Corps and SecDef Mattis agree that number one is to intensify lethal force. More bang for the buck as the saying goes.
 
All sounds good. But remember to bring one thing to any large urban slugfest; lots of body bags. Cities tend to negate the advantage of technology.
 
I gotta say this....anyone who cares about the military almost has to be thrilled that Trump came along....things had gotten even worse than I have been saying....we were very lucky that we never needed the military to do anything big over the last ten years, because they almost certainly would have failed. If you dont believe me go look, starting with the new Aircraft carrier that is many years away from being trusted in combat....this Somebitch is going to cost over $30 billion in construction and operation before we get there...FOR ONE SHIP!
 
All sounds good. But remember to bring one thing to any large urban slugfest; lots of body bags. Cities tend to negate the advantage of technology.

Chief of Staff Army Mark Milley is promoting a new Next Generation Armored Combat Vehicle to replace the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. Gen. Milley is working with Congress to include several smaller successors to the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. Milley says Army needs more agile and adept armored tank-like vehicles that can cross bridges with rapidly advancing troops that are dispersed, and which the heavy Abrams cannot often do.

Milley noted that more than half the world's population lives in cities and that the US with allies fought a multiplicity of urban battles in Iraq and Afghanistan. Field combat operations will continue yet there are more cities of different sizes and configurations in more places than before. The city is the enemy combatant's first choice and his last refuge.



THE ARMY NEEDS AN URBAN WARFARE SCHOOL AND IT NEEDS IT SOON


DEH_8325.JPG

CSA Mark A. Milley offered a "contract with the American people" while speaking at the private Association of the US Army annual meeting in Washington.
"We, the United States military, the U.S. Army will never lose a war.” "Your part of the contract is to pay for it."


The chief of staff of Army, Gen. Mark Milley, recent detailed his thoughts on urban warfare at the annual AUSA conference, stating that the future battlefield “will almost certainly be in dense urban terrain” and that in the future the Army will have to “optimize for urban combat.” He described the urban environment’s “huge implications” on intelligence collection, vehicles and weapons, target discrimination, and maneuver, and concluded ominously: “Army forces operating in complex, densely populated urban terrain in dense urban areas is the toughest and bloodiest form of combat and it will become the norm, not the exception in the future.”

“So the Next Generation Combat Vehicle…will eventually replace the entire family of vehicles that we have,” Milley said. “It must be optimized for urban operations, which our current families of armored vehicles are not,” Milley added. “It must be optimized so that it can be both manned and either autonomous or semi-autonomous, robotic, depending on what the commander chooses to do in the situation in the battlefield. Those are significant, radical changes.” (Note that the optionally manned NGCV is separate from but complementary with the proposed Robotic Combat Vehicle, which will never have a human aboard).


Future adversaries could end the air superiority the U.S. Air Force has provided since the Korean War, Milley said, and anti-access, area-denial capabilities [A2/AD] could prevent the Navy from getting to the fight. So “land forces will have to enable sea forces,” and the Army “is definitely going to have to dominate the air above our battle space,” he said. Milley said the Army also must be prepared to engage in cyber warfare, operate without the space-based communications and precision navigation it has taken for granted, and fight in a complex urban setting.

The military strategist Sun Tzu advised that “the worst policy is to attack cities. Attack cities only when there is no alternative.” Military forces prefer not to fight in cities for good reasons. With infinite enemy locations, vertical and subterranean confined spaces, massive civilian populations that can be injured or killed, and psychologically taxing operational requirements, it’s no wonder past urban battles have been described as combat in hell. But alongside Sun Tzu’s maxim sits another, equally venerated in military circles: the enemy has a vote. From the sack of Troy to the fight against ISIS in Mosul, military operations have been forced into cities, and will continue to be. Cities provide a witches’ brew of potential instability, conflict, adversary safe havens, and violence.


https://www.ausa.org/news/army-chief-future-war-almost-guaranteed

https://mwi.usma.edu/army-needs-urban-warfare-school-needs-soon/
 
Let's see what it looks like on the ground Over There....



"Welcome.....welcome friends.....welcome to Prague."

Elements of US Army 2nd Cavalry Regiment welcomed on arrival in the outskirts of Prague for Nato Operation Saber Strike





You guys over there can't pass a camera without looking in and waving and smiling can you. Honking horns. Worse hams than The Old Guard I say. :cool:








Advance detail of Nato Operation Dragoon Ride, the 2 Cavalry Regiment arrives in Polish village where residents line the road with USA flags to wave 'em in.



More hams yet I fear ha. The 2 Cav showed the flag while it covered 1100 miles across eastern Europe in Nato Dragoon Ride.







Support for US Army 2 Cavalry Regiment Arrival in the Czech Republic




Catch the old guy showing his photo with General Patton when he was 13 in 1945.
 
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All sounds good. But remember to bring one thing to any large urban slugfest; lots of body bags. Cities tend to negate the advantage of technology.

Cities do negate technology somewhat, however technology can improve odds. But in reality the us govt considers 75% loss as still being a victory in urban combat, this is based off of how deadly urban combat is, and thankfully we have been fighting insurgents in urban combat rather than an organized military force, as such fights get brutal no matter how well trained a military is.

If 75% is an acceptable loss, and lets say if we had to fight a real army in urban combat and suffered a 50% loss while they suffered a 90% loss, and some high tech stuff dropped us down to a 35% loss, I would say the tech is not worthless.
 
Cities do negate technology somewhat, however technology can improve odds. But in reality the us govt considers 75% loss as still being a victory in urban combat, this is based off of how deadly urban combat is, and thankfully we have been fighting insurgents in urban combat rather than an organized military force, as such fights get brutal no matter how well trained a military is.

If 75% is an acceptable loss, and lets say if we had to fight a real army in urban combat and suffered a 50% loss while they suffered a 90% loss, and some high tech stuff dropped us down to a 35% loss, I would say the tech is not worthless.
You jest. To even hint that the US would be willing to accept losses over 15% for the temporary claiming control of an urban area is completely armchair and drivel.
 
You jest. To even hint that the US would be willing to accept losses over 15% for the temporary claiming control of an urban area is completely armchair and drivel.

You seem to not understand urban warfare or even how deadly it can be to even the best militaries, rarely if ever it hits 75%, probably the last time anyone hit that number was ww2, however their number was based off realistic expectations of what can be encountered in urban warfare, not some know it all who knows nothing's opinion.
 
You seem to not understand urban warfare or even how deadly it can be to even the best militaries, rarely if ever it hits 75%, probably the last time anyone hit that number was ww2, however their number was based off realistic expectations of what can be encountered in urban warfare, not some know it all who knows nothing's opinion.

Sure. Your failure to conceptualize real-time combat makes a mockery of human logical deduction.
 
Sure. Your failure to conceptualize real-time combat makes a mockery of human logical deduction.

I would say you have a failure to understand doctrine or the realistic expectations that are made for each scenario, the army and the marines did not crap out these numbers for no good reason, it is realist expectation of losses in urban combat against an organized military, not numbers created to fulfill your fantasy world expectation.

The military of the us has not survived this long using fantasy numbers, it has survived through doctrine, and that doctrine based on reality will hopefully carry it long into the future.
 
I would say you have a failure to understand doctrine or the realistic expectations that are made for each scenario, the army and the marines did not crap out these numbers for no good reason, it is realist expectation of losses in urban combat against an organized military, not numbers created to fulfill your fantasy world expectation.

The military of the us has not survived this long using fantasy numbers, it has survived through doctrine, and that doctrine based on reality will hopefully carry it long into the future.
fantasy numbers................. about time you came back to earth. Keep self accessing your concepts. Good job so far.
 
fantasy numbers................. about time you came back to earth. Keep self accessing your concepts. Good job so far.

Those numbers are used by the us military for urban combat, where do your numbers come from?
 
Those numbers are used by the us military for urban combat, where do your numbers come from?
Those numbers are used by the US military.................... go ahead. Continue.
 
Those numbers are used by the US military.................... go ahead. Continue.

Yes they are used by the military, in a realistic assesment of what an all out war against a competent military would be like in an urban environment.

But do you have a counter to this argument, I doubt you do since you think amraams can be used to assault a country by carrier not knowing they are not carrier launched and they are also air to air meaning aircraft can not use them except against other aircraft.
 
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