Shades of the Falklands, where Harriers were a vital component of the surface warfare air defense capability (albeit against attack aircraft vs drones). We've got what we've got with regards to our armed forces. It will be a five to ten year effort (will and funding present, no guarantee there) to grow and retool our defense. Right now the logistics of the total force across the board look suspect from a maintenance and supply status. Open question how much time we have before something "big" happens in Europe, the Middle East or (God forbid) the Pacific.
\sarc\The Brits went from a vast & mighty colonial empire with many vital interests abroad to a colonized county with many pressing internal concerns, so what need of a big navy? The debate between Guns & Butter has given way to a howl for More Bread & Circuses. Small wonder then that when pieces of the pie get divvied up, the once robust military wastes away and the nation grows unhealthily obese and gets infections in her clay feet.\sarc\
There is no Great Britain anymore. What you have now is the City of London (i.e. the financial district between St. Paul's and the Tower) and the rest of the island where tourists can see palaces, castles, cathedrals, museums, Stonehenge, the White Cliffs of Dover, etc.
I visited Penzance and Portsmouth in 1967. There were no pirates in Penzance but the steak & kidney pie was surprisingly good and the barkeeps iced down the beer for us. Had some street vendor fish & chips in Portsmouth...to die for. When the Brits put their mind to it, they can create a culinary heaven. Or maybe it was the high %ABV of the beer. Anyway, I have fond memories of the visit. Friendly people. Nah, if I ever visit Europe again it'll be Malmo in the hope of catching an ABBA reunion. Last time I was in Europe it was Marseille in 1991. Banlieue's are real. Nope. Made it a point to not get a passport after I retired. Am never leaving CONUS again.
" When the Brits put their mind to it, they can create a culinary heaven"
They keep it well hidden. My experiences differ. More like, to paraphrase a popular movie, Fifty Shades of Brown. Even the imported Indian cuisine seems to have succumbed to Britain's legendary understatement. Close proximity to France's vaunted culinary accomplishment doesn't seem to have had any effect.
Like it or not, the political and social priorities of most of the advanced countries of the world have changed. In GB Empire is out, NHS is in. In Germany et al., NATO is out, "Green" and social welfare is in. Don't expect that mythical "2%" defense expenditure to be met. Guns is out, butter is in. We can whine and cavil all we want, but the people have spoken--Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
You are looking at the symptom. The disease has many ways to be treated, primarily by amending the constitution. Here, perhaps making a national presidential primary day, maybe even a separate election day.
Article V "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Black Letter is that Congress shall call the Convention. At no point is Congress required to approve of a CoS to be held.
It is possible that Congress may not want to call a CoS and then SCOTUS would get involved, but Article V is clear on the Shall part, not May or Should. The States would not be in a mood to play pattycake with Congress on this issue.
16, 17, and 18 destroyed the founder's vision completely. Without them, no limitless tax and spend, Senators represent states rights, not their own interests, and the internal police state don't exist.
Defund the Deep State by ending the income tax, the Fed and restoring the gold standard. That will prevent the government from taxing, borrowing and printing the money necessary to feed Leviathan.
The Marines have always been good at wringing the last bit of utility out of their kit. When was the Falklands? 82? 42 years ago and the Harriers are still getting it done. I'm interested in the "We took a Harrier jet and modified it for air defence" comment. I've got plenty of 35Bs zorching around the sky as they head out to the warning areas from Beaufort, and I'm betting they are itching to get into the fight.
When are the Marines planning to seize the islands off the coast of Yemen as well as that piece that sticks out toward Africa? Airpower and sea power are nice, but wars are ultimately won by boots on the ground. Our enemies may interpret our reluctance to take casualties as a weakness.
Hard for me to believe that any adversary today could be tougher than the Japanese soldiers and kamikazes who defended Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc.
Have missiles and drones done to amphibious and airborne assaults what the long bow and pike did to mounted knights in shining armor?
Chinese Red-Arrow ATGM is essentially a reverse engineered Javelin with a slightly heavier warhead. Fire and Forget, no backblast, top attack, range in excess of 3,000m.
Imagine approaching a shoreline with a Marine Company in 12 AAV or ACV at 6 kts, and the Chinese PLAN Marine platoon defending it has 3 launcher units and a dozen missiles.
That's a dozen armored vehicles on the ocean floor and a dead company, while the PLAN Marines go back to watching VR porn.
Not a problem. Our cruisers and battleships will pour 8' and 16" shells on the beaches and landing grounds as if they were raindrops and turn them into parking lots. Oh wait.....
Those Japanese might have been tough, but the average soldier was equipped with a bolt-action rifle and about 40 rounds of ammunition. Their Machine guns were slow firing, and had short belts and had to re-load frequently. And there was no such thing as guided missiles.
Their weapons were sufficiently non-garbage to kill 12,000 Americans on Okinawa. The Japanese had been in combat since 1937 in China, though I don't know how many troops were transferred from China to the Pacific.
And the Chinese, not one of the world's best armies, managed to inflict well over two million casualties on the Japanese. The Japanese were, at best, a WWI army. Given their defensive advantages on Okinawa they would have done almost as well with rifled muskets.
A bolt action rifle in the hands of a trained hardened soldier, as the Japanese Infantry were, will kill you very dead; and he'll have another 39 rounds to use on your mates.
in the hands of an insurgent, or in low intensity warfare, that can be true.
In modern high intensity warfare, he may kill YOU dead.
But he still ends up suppressed and killed by grenades.
This was hard to explain to my Marines.
I wanted everyone of them to want to shoot and kill the enemy.
Micro-level, that matters.
Macro level, the infantry small arm is not there to kill the enemy. It's to keep their head down with suppressing fire while you maneuver close enough to kill them with grenades, or nowadays with drones.
That bolt action rifle nowadays cannot maintain the rate of fire needed to keep enemy troops heads down, whereas the incoming fire from their semi and full auto rifles will keep your head down until one side is close enough to kill the other with grenades or drones.
This has been true since we stopped standing in lines and shooting at each other across fields.
This is why stopping power is less important than ammunition supply.
Are there exceptions? Sure. Special operations, direct action raids and the like.
But in conventional warfare, like in Ukraine, your looking at thousands, if not tens of thousands, of rounds fired from Infantry small arms for every enemy soldier killed or wounded by small arms fire.
So that Japanese soldier may get off that first round, maybe a 2nd, but then he's suppressed, and unable to get off any more, and then he's dead.
In modern combat, things like suppressors can also change the dynamic, as they reduce the likelihood the enemy can pinpoint the shooter.
But if the shooter has LOS, the enemy has it back. And where suppressors might hide the sound and flash, they can't hide the thermal signature of the shooter, so if he's in LOS, the drone up above will find him and they will drop a drone or mortar on his ass.
This is why snipers have been less effective than expected in Ukraine.
They do have SOME effectiveness. But not as much as you'd think, and mostly at either very long ranges, or at night.
Noted. I'm a big-fat fraidy-cat though; and the prospect of being killed never thrilled me. Conventional is as conventional does and as long as you've got all of those nice supporting arms and drones and such all of those things will matter.
A brigade size air assault would be mighty impressive and equally disastrous in a peer-to-peer conflict. SAM, AAA, .50, etc. distributed and covering your LZs will wreck havoc. CAS only goes so far against an enemy willing to sacrifice. Think Crete '41...preponderance of force may win the day but you'll never do it again. Consider any number of hot LZ battles in Vietnam where the enemy possessed little more than AAA, 12.7mm, and the occasional RPG. Modern weaponry in the hands of a determined peer makes such assaults damn near futile at scale.
ANY kind of air movement of troops has been reduced to a tool for permissive environments against non-peer adversaries, or a tool for rapid redeployment within friendly controlled airspace.
We are rapidly approaching the point at which mechanized capabilities are no different.
Infantry assault of the future will be foot-borne, aided by UGV's and supported my mechanized forces following in trace, providing direct LOS fire support as well as indirect.
Will there be exceptions? Sure, always are.
But Desert Storm actually ended up hurting us, because it validated the concept of the huge mechanized force rapidly advancing around an enemy we still continue to treat as a near-peer, since it was equipped with some of the best Soviet gear.
You can do a lot in an Air Superiority environment. You can do almost anything in an Air Supremacy environment.
You ain't pushing shit forward rapidly in a contested air environment.
So, while Ukraine is not exactly what will happen anywhere else, it does offer key lessons.
If you cannot maintain both air superiority and effective Electronic warfare suppression of enemy drones, you will pay a heavy price in armored vehicles.
Counter-battery fire is shifting to a drone mission. If your adversary has FPV drone teams conducting "hunt/kill" missions in coordination with spotter drones AND counter-battery-radar, your probability of killing enemy SP's get's much higher.
Tube or rocket counter-battery may be slightly faster than re-tasking or launching an FPV.
But that tube or rocket can't see if the SP 'shoot'ed and scooted'
The drone might arrive after the SP has moved, but if it was vectored to the area, it will probably find it, and kill it on the move.
So, ability to employ SP effectively hinges on keeping enemy FPV drones and other loitering munitions on their side of the LOC. That means EW and hard-kill anti-drone systems paired with the SP.
And how much and how effective your ground based mobile short-range air defense is, and how much it cost per engagement. The US Army and USMC are both in deep shit, as their plan basically is 'That's what the zommies do.'
The zoomies are not going to be doing much against 500 FPV drones per day per battalion. That is up to guns or EW.
The USA expects to have 4 battalions of mobile SHORAD, which will possibly cover one (1) division if you commit them all. Assuming they all get built. And with EW, having sold off their EW heritage for a mess of pottage 20 some years ago, there isn't enough people, gear or skill.
The USMC littoral plan is suicide, as the PLA will track them and when the shooting starts will just bomb the crap out of their 'hidden' missile batteries from above the range of Stinger. As they have no medium range air defense they just get to take it.
SP Artillery is great as long as you have the "P" part; one advantage to towed artillery is that if/when your prime mover craps out you can use another. Unless SP mounts have gotten dramatically more reliable the carriage will always be the weak link - well, that and your hydraulics. There's still a lot to be said for a towed 105 - or mortars.
"Infantry assault of the future will be foot-borne, "
As long as it is not opposed by artillery or mortars. Plenty of examples in WWI & WWII, Korea, etc. A few VT fuzed rounds will also end that assault right quickly. I suspect that is what happened to those "Russian mercenaries" in Syria a few years ago. And I suspect that is what is happening in Ukraine.
Very true, but those issues are true regardless. The defense technology pendulum has swung hard back in favor of the defense over the offense for land-warfare.
My point is that it is harder to target infantry individually than to target vehicles.
In an setting between peer adversaries, multiple conditions will need to be present to successfully execute an offensive action - attack.
For dismounted infantry, that threshold will be lower than for mechanized forces.
All attacks will require combined arms, suppression of enemy air support (at least temporarily, localized), and counter-battery suppression of enemy artillery.
Dismounted infantry attacks by trained infantry forces - not human waves, but using proper movement techniques - will be less detectable than large vehicles, and will prove harder to target by those systems still capable of operating in that environment.
If you can't at least temporarily suppress enemy arty (including heavy mortars) then the attack isn't happening anyway.
But IF the side going on offense has the combined arms capacity to effectively prepare the battlespace for an offensive action, then reaching that level of prep will be easier if the offensive is not dependent upon mechanized movement.
It is far easier to deploy a Lancet or FASCAM with AT mines in front of an armored/mechanized attack, than it is to shift tube arty onto target on dismounted infantry who are properly trained.
The single greatest challenge for dismounted infantry will be penetrating enemy defensive barriers - minefields.
Once penetrated, the most effective infantry forces will know that survival means rapidly closing with the enemies ground forces, and then maintaining that momentum.
It's hard to call in artillery on attacking infantry that are already in your trench-line with you.
Query: ARAPAHOE? A quick web search brings up a whole bunch of stuff, but nothing that sounds like airplanes off of container ships. Relative of the Brits and their CAM ships early in WW2?
Back when you could put an LT in charge as a program manager and not be laughed at.
"The ARAPAHO program is funded in two stages at a total cost of $12 million to systems-design and hardware-compatability with merchant ships down pat. The second stage, scheduled to be completed this spring, is to see if antisubmarine deterrence can be made operational on container ships (most likely aboard a British merchant vessel.)
According to ARAPAHO project manager Lt. James Mulquin (Naval Reserve, ret.), the main ingredients are:"
A lot of people have come to the realization that the reporters in the media either have no idea what they are talking about or have an agenda and are trying to tell you what to think.
What finally sold me on that idea was watching CSPAN and then comparing what I saw with my lyin' eyes with newspaper and television coverage of the same event. That and doing my own "fact checking" with my copy of The Statistical Abstract of the United States. I don't mind their bias so much, but their ignorance, laziness, and lack of curiosity and skepticism bother me.
An LHA/LHD can operate aircraft to include VSTOL but they are by no means actual carriers. They are slow, not very survivable due to their design that allows for lots of gasoline storage, and are unable to operate the full spectrum CTOL airwing that includes EW and AEW aircraft. They are however good for operations like this. I would not under any circumstances call them actual aircraft carriers.
The Harrier II’s are working with USAF E3’s and USN E2’s for joint mission prosecutions. They have Link 16 and are very capable aircraft. Just because they didn’t launch from the same deck doesn’t mean the Navy and Marines aren’t capable of integrating the airplan at the point of operations. Think bigger my man. The AEW and EW assets are provided as part of joint mission planning.
If you can get land-based EW and AEW assets then yes, its ok. Not discounting the good that comes from using big deck amphibs in this role. I just would not call them "carriers." They remain amphibious ships.
F-35B, you may have heard of it? Also, think about one of these escorting convoys with a squadron or two of ASW helicopters. EW and AEW can be carried out by UAVs.
One of the reasons we are still relying on the still capable AV8B’s is because the big deck amphibs need to be modified for the F35B to operate. It’s a sort of level loading between the F35 capable decks and the procurement of the F35B’s.
To Phib’s point, the Harrier is a single engine subsonic aircraft. It’s pushing 39 years old of service in the fleet (IOC with USMC in 1985) and has a combat range of around 350-400 miles. The ranges to strike the Houthis from the Mediterranean using cocktail math is approximately 1,375 miles ONE WAY. This requires at least 2 hits of a tanker likely 3. These Marines are doing a fantastic job using a 22 - 39 year old aircraft that is likely older than the pilots flying it. Semper Gumby Marines!
You're not aware of how long I was not only a skeptic, but also actively disparaged the airplane. It still has its problems, but for a 34 year old concept it's doing fairly well considering all the design changes caused by changing the mission. People like you forget that even the F-16 has had its empty weight increase by over 50% as well.
Bell just performed a land-based test of their HSVTOL concept. Clearly a ways off from something with a suitable airframe gets put into the fleet (if ever) but could it eventually up the game - runway independent, significant range and speed? When distance is an operational anchor around one's neck, HSVTOL seems darn appealing.
Won't argue that, but would argue that amending the constitution is quite...challenging. In China, the only option is to wait out the current leadership, and hope the next installment doesn't feel as casual about violent solutions to international disputes.
Only tangentially related, but I thoroughly appreciated "Barrett the Privateer's" (pseudonym) recent piece on the crisis over in USMC land regarding the ability to do that thing we have Marines for, namely: conducting opposed amphibious assaults. (link to his piece is the at end of this comment)
I'm curious: how much is this issue something my fellow Porch Sitters are following? I'll tell on myself - I was not; not at all. Seems hard to imagine the Corps got itself into such a bind, but then if one truth seems to be emerging as we scramble to get ready West of the IDL it is that every single capability that was *not* a core competency of the GWOT should be treated as suspect until decisively proven otherwise. Much has atrophied during our misadventures in the desert and it seems like an entire generation of weapon systems and the doctrine they are designed to enact is turning out to be a fraud.
Just to pick up on a couple of threads here. The Atlantic Conveyor used by the Royal Navy in the Falklands was what I imagined the Arapaho concept referred to; a merchie with VSTOL air embarked. Second, I believe that the final Brit Harrier iteration was air to air enhanced with Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM. I think the US wound up with those airframes as spares for the AV-8. On a flight back from Europe last year I had former Marine Harrier pilot trapped next to me. He said air to air was not really a training priority.
Shades of the Falklands, where Harriers were a vital component of the surface warfare air defense capability (albeit against attack aircraft vs drones). We've got what we've got with regards to our armed forces. It will be a five to ten year effort (will and funding present, no guarantee there) to grow and retool our defense. Right now the logistics of the total force across the board look suspect from a maintenance and supply status. Open question how much time we have before something "big" happens in Europe, the Middle East or (God forbid) the Pacific.
Brits learned little from that, instead built two clown car class aircraft carriers that can barely get underway.
\sarc\The Brits went from a vast & mighty colonial empire with many vital interests abroad to a colonized county with many pressing internal concerns, so what need of a big navy? The debate between Guns & Butter has given way to a howl for More Bread & Circuses. Small wonder then that when pieces of the pie get divvied up, the once robust military wastes away and the nation grows unhealthily obese and gets infections in her clay feet.\sarc\
There is no Great Britain anymore. What you have now is the City of London (i.e. the financial district between St. Paul's and the Tower) and the rest of the island where tourists can see palaces, castles, cathedrals, museums, Stonehenge, the White Cliffs of Dover, etc.
I visited Penzance and Portsmouth in 1967. There were no pirates in Penzance but the steak & kidney pie was surprisingly good and the barkeeps iced down the beer for us. Had some street vendor fish & chips in Portsmouth...to die for. When the Brits put their mind to it, they can create a culinary heaven. Or maybe it was the high %ABV of the beer. Anyway, I have fond memories of the visit. Friendly people. Nah, if I ever visit Europe again it'll be Malmo in the hope of catching an ABBA reunion. Last time I was in Europe it was Marseille in 1991. Banlieue's are real. Nope. Made it a point to not get a passport after I retired. Am never leaving CONUS again.
" When the Brits put their mind to it, they can create a culinary heaven"
They keep it well hidden. My experiences differ. More like, to paraphrase a popular movie, Fifty Shades of Brown. Even the imported Indian cuisine seems to have succumbed to Britain's legendary understatement. Close proximity to France's vaunted culinary accomplishment doesn't seem to have had any effect.
I do like the crumpets, though.
Like it or not, the political and social priorities of most of the advanced countries of the world have changed. In GB Empire is out, NHS is in. In Germany et al., NATO is out, "Green" and social welfare is in. Don't expect that mythical "2%" defense expenditure to be met. Guns is out, butter is in. We can whine and cavil all we want, but the people have spoken--Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
1 year, give or take.
Funny how aging leaders coming to the end of their tenures can impact the timelines of world events.
You are looking at the symptom. The disease has many ways to be treated, primarily by amending the constitution. Here, perhaps making a national presidential primary day, maybe even a separate election day.
Absent a seminal event, little chance of getting a Constitutional Amendment accomplished. I'd prefer a Convention of States over a single Amendment.
Agreed
A CoS is a very dangerous thing. Even so, it has to be called by Congress, and they can refuse to do so.
Why is it dangerous? We've never had one.
Article V "The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate." Black Letter is that Congress shall call the Convention. At no point is Congress required to approve of a CoS to be held.
It is possible that Congress may not want to call a CoS and then SCOTUS would get involved, but Article V is clear on the Shall part, not May or Should. The States would not be in a mood to play pattycake with Congress on this issue.
Before we add, let's subtract:
17th Amendment
New Deal legislation
Great Society legislation
Then re-evaluate.
16, 17, and 18 destroyed the founder's vision completely. Without them, no limitless tax and spend, Senators represent states rights, not their own interests, and the internal police state don't exist.
Defund the Deep State by ending the income tax, the Fed and restoring the gold standard. That will prevent the government from taxing, borrowing and printing the money necessary to feed Leviathan.
The 18th is already repealed, and the 16th can be repealed once the debt is under control.
Don't mind if we overcorrect and repeal the 19th too..😜
Oohraa!
Gator Freighters are back in style!
I wish the rest of the Navy would notice. The admirals seem determined to kill em off.
The Marines have always been good at wringing the last bit of utility out of their kit. When was the Falklands? 82? 42 years ago and the Harriers are still getting it done. I'm interested in the "We took a Harrier jet and modified it for air defence" comment. I've got plenty of 35Bs zorching around the sky as they head out to the warning areas from Beaufort, and I'm betting they are itching to get into the fight.
Really a shame we're down one "little carrier".
Likely changing the hard points for 2 more aux tanks due to the extreme range from the Med to Houthiville.
Yes. Approximately 2,500 miles round trip.
When are the Marines planning to seize the islands off the coast of Yemen as well as that piece that sticks out toward Africa? Airpower and sea power are nice, but wars are ultimately won by boots on the ground. Our enemies may interpret our reluctance to take casualties as a weakness.
Those would be some of the few places where we might actually be able to use our sorry excuses for landing craft.
Against anything more formidable than goat-raping tribal zealots, we are currently shit-out-of-luck.
https://barretttheprivateer.substack.com/p/sorry-sir-we-cant-do-that
Hard for me to believe that any adversary today could be tougher than the Japanese soldiers and kamikazes who defended Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc.
Have missiles and drones done to amphibious and airborne assaults what the long bow and pike did to mounted knights in shining armor?
Chinese Red-Arrow ATGM is essentially a reverse engineered Javelin with a slightly heavier warhead. Fire and Forget, no backblast, top attack, range in excess of 3,000m.
Imagine approaching a shoreline with a Marine Company in 12 AAV or ACV at 6 kts, and the Chinese PLAN Marine platoon defending it has 3 launcher units and a dozen missiles.
That's a dozen armored vehicles on the ocean floor and a dead company, while the PLAN Marines go back to watching VR porn.
Not a problem. Our cruisers and battleships will pour 8' and 16" shells on the beaches and landing grounds as if they were raindrops and turn them into parking lots. Oh wait.....
even if we had them, they wouldn't, because they would be in range of Chinese shore-based ASCM 100nm before they came into range of the big guns.
And they can't obliterate every inch of the shoreline.
How well did all those big guns do at eliminating the Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima?
You think the Chinese will just stand in the sand and wait to be blown up?
Red Arrow/Javelin has a range of 3,000m+
That means they can be up to 2,000m INLAND with elevation and LOS and still engage our amphibs while they are 1,000m from shore.
Why do all you big gun fans refuse to see the limitations of range and LOS?
The era of the missile is here. Those who don't understand that will die from it.
And missiles have the limitation of (relatively) shallow magazines.
Missiles and guns both have advantages and disadvantages.
Exactly. Oh, Wait....
What battleships?
Those Japanese might have been tough, but the average soldier was equipped with a bolt-action rifle and about 40 rounds of ammunition. Their Machine guns were slow firing, and had short belts and had to re-load frequently. And there was no such thing as guided missiles.
Roger that. Their weapons were garbage, generally speaking. Yet, the resistance they displayed....
Pre-war Arisaka is actually one of the best bolt-action combat rifles ever made.
Like I said, generally speaking. Pistols, strip fed MGs, unreliable grenades, wonky mortars, tanks, etc....not premium weaponry.
"bolt-action combat rifles"
"bolt-action". By 1942 bolt-action was garbage.
Their weapons were sufficiently non-garbage to kill 12,000 Americans on Okinawa. The Japanese had been in combat since 1937 in China, though I don't know how many troops were transferred from China to the Pacific.
True. How many Japs did the Americans kill with their weaponry by comparison?
And the Chinese, not one of the world's best armies, managed to inflict well over two million casualties on the Japanese. The Japanese were, at best, a WWI army. Given their defensive advantages on Okinawa they would have done almost as well with rifled muskets.
A bolt action rifle in the hands of a trained hardened soldier, as the Japanese Infantry were, will kill you very dead; and he'll have another 39 rounds to use on your mates.
in the hands of an insurgent, or in low intensity warfare, that can be true.
In modern high intensity warfare, he may kill YOU dead.
But he still ends up suppressed and killed by grenades.
This was hard to explain to my Marines.
I wanted everyone of them to want to shoot and kill the enemy.
Micro-level, that matters.
Macro level, the infantry small arm is not there to kill the enemy. It's to keep their head down with suppressing fire while you maneuver close enough to kill them with grenades, or nowadays with drones.
That bolt action rifle nowadays cannot maintain the rate of fire needed to keep enemy troops heads down, whereas the incoming fire from their semi and full auto rifles will keep your head down until one side is close enough to kill the other with grenades or drones.
This has been true since we stopped standing in lines and shooting at each other across fields.
This is why stopping power is less important than ammunition supply.
Are there exceptions? Sure. Special operations, direct action raids and the like.
But in conventional warfare, like in Ukraine, your looking at thousands, if not tens of thousands, of rounds fired from Infantry small arms for every enemy soldier killed or wounded by small arms fire.
So that Japanese soldier may get off that first round, maybe a 2nd, but then he's suppressed, and unable to get off any more, and then he's dead.
In modern combat, things like suppressors can also change the dynamic, as they reduce the likelihood the enemy can pinpoint the shooter.
But if the shooter has LOS, the enemy has it back. And where suppressors might hide the sound and flash, they can't hide the thermal signature of the shooter, so if he's in LOS, the drone up above will find him and they will drop a drone or mortar on his ass.
This is why snipers have been less effective than expected in Ukraine.
They do have SOME effectiveness. But not as much as you'd think, and mostly at either very long ranges, or at night.
Noted. I'm a big-fat fraidy-cat though; and the prospect of being killed never thrilled me. Conventional is as conventional does and as long as you've got all of those nice supporting arms and drones and such all of those things will matter.
So will a bow and arrow in the hands of an Apache.
A brigade size air assault would be mighty impressive and equally disastrous in a peer-to-peer conflict. SAM, AAA, .50, etc. distributed and covering your LZs will wreck havoc. CAS only goes so far against an enemy willing to sacrifice. Think Crete '41...preponderance of force may win the day but you'll never do it again. Consider any number of hot LZ battles in Vietnam where the enemy possessed little more than AAA, 12.7mm, and the occasional RPG. Modern weaponry in the hands of a determined peer makes such assaults damn near futile at scale.
ANY kind of air movement of troops has been reduced to a tool for permissive environments against non-peer adversaries, or a tool for rapid redeployment within friendly controlled airspace.
We are rapidly approaching the point at which mechanized capabilities are no different.
Infantry assault of the future will be foot-borne, aided by UGV's and supported my mechanized forces following in trace, providing direct LOS fire support as well as indirect.
Will there be exceptions? Sure, always are.
But Desert Storm actually ended up hurting us, because it validated the concept of the huge mechanized force rapidly advancing around an enemy we still continue to treat as a near-peer, since it was equipped with some of the best Soviet gear.
You can do a lot in an Air Superiority environment. You can do almost anything in an Air Supremacy environment.
You ain't pushing shit forward rapidly in a contested air environment.
Depends on how much SP artillery you have. And ability to keep it fed.
So, while Ukraine is not exactly what will happen anywhere else, it does offer key lessons.
If you cannot maintain both air superiority and effective Electronic warfare suppression of enemy drones, you will pay a heavy price in armored vehicles.
Counter-battery fire is shifting to a drone mission. If your adversary has FPV drone teams conducting "hunt/kill" missions in coordination with spotter drones AND counter-battery-radar, your probability of killing enemy SP's get's much higher.
Tube or rocket counter-battery may be slightly faster than re-tasking or launching an FPV.
But that tube or rocket can't see if the SP 'shoot'ed and scooted'
The drone might arrive after the SP has moved, but if it was vectored to the area, it will probably find it, and kill it on the move.
So, ability to employ SP effectively hinges on keeping enemy FPV drones and other loitering munitions on their side of the LOC. That means EW and hard-kill anti-drone systems paired with the SP.
And how much and how effective your ground based mobile short-range air defense is, and how much it cost per engagement. The US Army and USMC are both in deep shit, as their plan basically is 'That's what the zommies do.'
The zoomies are not going to be doing much against 500 FPV drones per day per battalion. That is up to guns or EW.
The USA expects to have 4 battalions of mobile SHORAD, which will possibly cover one (1) division if you commit them all. Assuming they all get built. And with EW, having sold off their EW heritage for a mess of pottage 20 some years ago, there isn't enough people, gear or skill.
The USMC littoral plan is suicide, as the PLA will track them and when the shooting starts will just bomb the crap out of their 'hidden' missile batteries from above the range of Stinger. As they have no medium range air defense they just get to take it.
SP Artillery is great as long as you have the "P" part; one advantage to towed artillery is that if/when your prime mover craps out you can use another. Unless SP mounts have gotten dramatically more reliable the carriage will always be the weak link - well, that and your hydraulics. There's still a lot to be said for a towed 105 - or mortars.
"Infantry assault of the future will be foot-borne, "
As long as it is not opposed by artillery or mortars. Plenty of examples in WWI & WWII, Korea, etc. A few VT fuzed rounds will also end that assault right quickly. I suspect that is what happened to those "Russian mercenaries" in Syria a few years ago. And I suspect that is what is happening in Ukraine.
Very true, but those issues are true regardless. The defense technology pendulum has swung hard back in favor of the defense over the offense for land-warfare.
My point is that it is harder to target infantry individually than to target vehicles.
In an setting between peer adversaries, multiple conditions will need to be present to successfully execute an offensive action - attack.
For dismounted infantry, that threshold will be lower than for mechanized forces.
All attacks will require combined arms, suppression of enemy air support (at least temporarily, localized), and counter-battery suppression of enemy artillery.
Dismounted infantry attacks by trained infantry forces - not human waves, but using proper movement techniques - will be less detectable than large vehicles, and will prove harder to target by those systems still capable of operating in that environment.
If you can't at least temporarily suppress enemy arty (including heavy mortars) then the attack isn't happening anyway.
But IF the side going on offense has the combined arms capacity to effectively prepare the battlespace for an offensive action, then reaching that level of prep will be easier if the offensive is not dependent upon mechanized movement.
It is far easier to deploy a Lancet or FASCAM with AT mines in front of an armored/mechanized attack, than it is to shift tube arty onto target on dismounted infantry who are properly trained.
The single greatest challenge for dismounted infantry will be penetrating enemy defensive barriers - minefields.
Once penetrated, the most effective infantry forces will know that survival means rapidly closing with the enemies ground forces, and then maintaining that momentum.
It's hard to call in artillery on attacking infantry that are already in your trench-line with you.
Seems like we'd need a Declaration of War from Congress (if we still did that) for that kind of invasion.
Subsidies for container ship construction, and use the first few for the old ARAPAHOE System.
Query: ARAPAHOE? A quick web search brings up a whole bunch of stuff, but nothing that sounds like airplanes off of container ships. Relative of the Brits and their CAM ships early in WW2?
https://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0106/010636.html
Back when you could put an LT in charge as a program manager and not be laughed at.
"The ARAPAHO program is funded in two stages at a total cost of $12 million to systems-design and hardware-compatability with merchant ships down pat. The second stage, scheduled to be completed this spring, is to see if antisubmarine deterrence can be made operational on container ships (most likely aboard a British merchant vessel.)
According to ARAPAHO project manager Lt. James Mulquin (Naval Reserve, ret.), the main ingredients are:"
The "E" at the end was throwing me off for searching, apparently.
Gracias.
https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/arapaho.htm
The VP isn't that kind of Indian. She's more a 'CalcuttaHoe'.
:) Sorry, couldn't resist
"Dot, not feather" as Dennis Miller put it.;)
That BBC article is a hoot:
"Equipped with an elite radar system, the crew of the Arleigh Burke"
Maybe that's just a Britishism but "advanced" instead of elite would have been my choice.
Here is the kicker though:
""We are now living in a complex and uncertain operating environment," says Colonel Dennis Sampson, the ship's commanding officer."
It's been almost thirty years since I fit in my uniform but are MEU commanders driving boats now? Who drives the boat after they go ashore?
He's the MEU commander, and the Captain of the LHD is the ARG commander, subordinate to him. Journalists don't understand details.
Journalists don't understand much of anything.
You found the BBC factually wrong on a subject you're knowledgeable about.
Fair to think this happens on subjects you know little off?
A lot of people have come to the realization that the reporters in the media either have no idea what they are talking about or have an agenda and are trying to tell you what to think.
What finally sold me on that idea was watching CSPAN and then comparing what I saw with my lyin' eyes with newspaper and television coverage of the same event. That and doing my own "fact checking" with my copy of The Statistical Abstract of the United States. I don't mind their bias so much, but their ignorance, laziness, and lack of curiosity and skepticism bother me.
Yep. The Gell-Mann effect!
Michael Crichton has entered the room:)
Do you really think the Brits speak English? :-P
An LHA/LHD can operate aircraft to include VSTOL but they are by no means actual carriers. They are slow, not very survivable due to their design that allows for lots of gasoline storage, and are unable to operate the full spectrum CTOL airwing that includes EW and AEW aircraft. They are however good for operations like this. I would not under any circumstances call them actual aircraft carriers.
The Harrier II’s are working with USAF E3’s and USN E2’s for joint mission prosecutions. They have Link 16 and are very capable aircraft. Just because they didn’t launch from the same deck doesn’t mean the Navy and Marines aren’t capable of integrating the airplan at the point of operations. Think bigger my man. The AEW and EW assets are provided as part of joint mission planning.
If you can get land-based EW and AEW assets then yes, its ok. Not discounting the good that comes from using big deck amphibs in this role. I just would not call them "carriers." They remain amphibious ships.
Well tongue in cheek… they are aircraft and they are being carried. Lol.
Viewed like that it makes the Brit carriers look even worse.
Tip of the hat Laz on your National Review interview. Well done and BZ!
Thanks. It was a good venue and the NR staff that set it up were great. Hat Tip to Jerry Hendrix for recommending me for that interview.
Agreed (from someone who was in the Gator Navy).
F-35B, you may have heard of it? Also, think about one of these escorting convoys with a squadron or two of ASW helicopters. EW and AEW can be carried out by UAVs.
Not sure any current vertical takeoff airframe is much of an AEW or EW platform. LHA/LHD is very slow, loud, and susceptibel to submarine attack.
I concur with that. They are capable of using a detached Romeo squadron and give them an DDG and they have a capability.
One of the reasons we are still relying on the still capable AV8B’s is because the big deck amphibs need to be modified for the F35B to operate. It’s a sort of level loading between the F35 capable decks and the procurement of the F35B’s.
To Phib’s point, the Harrier is a single engine subsonic aircraft. It’s pushing 39 years old of service in the fleet (IOC with USMC in 1985) and has a combat range of around 350-400 miles. The ranges to strike the Houthis from the Mediterranean using cocktail math is approximately 1,375 miles ONE WAY. This requires at least 2 hits of a tanker likely 3. These Marines are doing a fantastic job using a 22 - 39 year old aircraft that is likely older than the pilots flying it. Semper Gumby Marines!
" These Marines are doing a fantastic job using a 22 - 39 year old aircraft that is likely older than the pilots flying it."
More failure from the MIC praised in another essay.
The F-35 was meant to be a replacement for the F-117 and AV-8. Neither of which are fighters. It is an excellent replacement for both aircraft.
🤣
You're not aware of how long I was not only a skeptic, but also actively disparaged the airplane. It still has its problems, but for a 34 year old concept it's doing fairly well considering all the design changes caused by changing the mission. People like you forget that even the F-16 has had its empty weight increase by over 50% as well.
The F-16 turned out to be one of the best designed aircraft ever. Along the same lines as the legendary A-4’s.
Draken International is flying the heck out those Kiwi Scooters they acquired. https://en.defence-ua.com/news/ukraines_future_f_16_pilots_will_be_trained_by_draken_international_private_company_in_romania-7358.html
One would not say this of the older B-52, but yes.
I’m wondering how many UAV / drone/ Scud kills to become an “Ace”. Have we worked that metric out yet?
How did the Brits count V-1 intercepts?
I don’t know that answer. But our first navy ace, David Ingalls was credited with a lighter than air kill.
They did not count as a kill. However, if a RAF pilot shotdown a BF-108 for example? It didn't count as the aircraft was unarmed.
So shooting down transport aircraft didn't count?
Most of their transports were armed. Even a Siebel 204 counted if it had a gun. A Klemm KL-35 would not.
Shooting down a V1 was decidely dodgy.
Some say it was a blast😜
Bell just performed a land-based test of their HSVTOL concept. Clearly a ways off from something with a suitable airframe gets put into the fleet (if ever) but could it eventually up the game - runway independent, significant range and speed? When distance is an operational anchor around one's neck, HSVTOL seems darn appealing.
Agree that we need a larger Navy but building more ships and planes will not man them. The personnel fix could be the most difficult.
If you want more sailors you must recruit men who want to serve. Most men don't want to serve under woke admirals and woke master chiefs.
I tried explaining that to a woke ensign but he didn't seem to understand...
Blonde can’t see they are blonde.
No doubt zhe is destined for stars
Did … did you just assume xis gender??!!?!?! 😱
Oh... right... yeah I guess I screwed that up. Sorry for being part of the problem.
I feel attacked. I'm tattling on you to the zampolit, comrade.
Back to the gulag I go for re-re-education since the first re-education didn't seem to stick.
The recruiting crisis has been solved. The answer is lower standards and less discipline. which degrade self-esteem.
(At first, I thought I was reading the Onion not the WT.)
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/feb/14/new-navy-regs-allow-sailors-to-keep-their-hands-in/
The faith had been broken with the “leadership” and the enlisted. Likely forever.
Trust our Marines to innovate and excel. BZ the Corps!!
Won't argue that, but would argue that amending the constitution is quite...challenging. In China, the only option is to wait out the current leadership, and hope the next installment doesn't feel as casual about violent solutions to international disputes.
Only tangentially related, but I thoroughly appreciated "Barrett the Privateer's" (pseudonym) recent piece on the crisis over in USMC land regarding the ability to do that thing we have Marines for, namely: conducting opposed amphibious assaults. (link to his piece is the at end of this comment)
I'm curious: how much is this issue something my fellow Porch Sitters are following? I'll tell on myself - I was not; not at all. Seems hard to imagine the Corps got itself into such a bind, but then if one truth seems to be emerging as we scramble to get ready West of the IDL it is that every single capability that was *not* a core competency of the GWOT should be treated as suspect until decisively proven otherwise. Much has atrophied during our misadventures in the desert and it seems like an entire generation of weapon systems and the doctrine they are designed to enact is turning out to be a fraud.
https://barretttheprivateer.substack.com/p/sorry-sir-we-cant-do-that
concur
I precommed the Mesa Verde...
Just to pick up on a couple of threads here. The Atlantic Conveyor used by the Royal Navy in the Falklands was what I imagined the Arapaho concept referred to; a merchie with VSTOL air embarked. Second, I believe that the final Brit Harrier iteration was air to air enhanced with Blue Vixen radar and AMRAAM. I think the US wound up with those airframes as spares for the AV-8. On a flight back from Europe last year I had former Marine Harrier pilot trapped next to me. He said air to air was not really a training priority.
The Marines got the former UK harriers but never flew them. Parts only. Attributes to the high FMC rate.