November 16, 2005
We Must Spend More on our Ground Forces
By Jack
Kelly
Most of the .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine guns being used by our
soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan were manufactured
during World War II.
This is a testament to the durability, reliability and effectiveness
of "Ma Deuce", the most popular infantry weapon in Iraq. (The
military designation for the .50 caliber machine gun is M2.) But
it also suggests we don't spend as much money, effort and imagination
as we should on upgrading the equipment our ground forces use.
The goal of our enemies is to kill Americans, both because they
enjoy it, and because their only hope for victory is to cause
us to lose heart and abandon the fight.
The news media made much ado about the death of the 2,000th service
member in Iraq, an event without military significance in the
traditional sense.
How and why our news media became the principal allies of our
enemies is a story for another day. It is sufficient here simply
to note that this is the reality with which we must deal.
We've always had a moral imperative to hold down casualties. We
now have a strategic imperative to do so as well.
Our enemies would prefer to kill our civilians, but have been
unable to do so largely because our soldiers and Marines have
been killing them in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So the Americans our enemies have the greatest opportunity to
kill are our ground troops. Finding better ways to protect them
should be our highest defense procurement priority. It isn't.
So the Americans our enemies have the greatest opportunity to
kill are our ground troops. Finding better ways to protect them
should be our highest defense procurement priority. It isn't.
Retired Army Major General Bob Scales notes that our experience
in Iraq and earlier conflicts makes it clear the best way to keep
our guys from getting killed is to provide them with armor protection.
Putting more of our troops in armored vehicles also makes them
better fighters. A vehicle can carry heavier weapons and more
ammo than a dismounted infantryman can, and can get across the
battlefield faster.
A little armor protection makes a big difference. If our soldiers
and Marines can be protected against small arms, mortar fragments,
heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), casualties
could be reduced substantially. The vehicles need to be light
so we can afford to buy them in large numbers, and to move them
by air to hot spots.
The vehicles also need to be light to cut down the size of our
logistics "tail," which to a large degree we've been chasing in
Iraq.
Our Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles are hard to kill,
but require enormous amounts of logistic support. The Abrams burns
three gallons of gas for every mile it travels.
Our enemy is a thinking enemy. Omar knows that if he pops up with
his RPG in front of an Abrams or a Bradley, his ticket to Allah
will be punched forthwith. So he waits to attack the largely unarmed
and unarmored trucks carrying gas and ammo.
As attacks on our support units increase, more combat units are
needed just to protect the support troops, who then need additional
logistic support.
We could break this vicious circle with a light tracked vehicle
equipped with a hybrid-electric engine, which provides increased
horsepower and substantially reduces fuel consumption. If the
vehicle had band (rubber) tracks, it would be nearly as fast on
roads and as quiet as the Army's Stryker armored car, with greater
cross-country mobility.
Fielding such a vehicle should be our most urgent defense priority.
But while we'll spend tens of billions of dollars next year on
ships, submarines and fighter aircraft of little use in the war
on terror, the Army's program to develop light armored vehicles
is on the verge of cancellation.
The FMC corp. -- by adding a hybrid-electric engine and band tracks
and the communications suite from the Stryker to the venerable
M113 armored personnel carrier -- already has built the kind of
vehicle I've described above (at less than a third the cost of
a Stryker), but the Army's shown no interest in buying it. It
isn't hard to imagine improvements. The boron carbide plates in
the protective vests our soldiers wear are stronger than steel,
but weigh much less. If we can build missiles that can hit nuclear
warheads entering our atmosphere at supersonic speeds, we ought
to be able to build armored vehicles out of this, or similar substances.
Our failure to devote a fair share of weapons research and procurement
dollars to the ground troops who bear the brunt of the fighting
is worse than tragic. It borders on criminal negligence.
Jack
Kelly is national security columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
and the Blade of Toledo, Ohio.
