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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (31872)	6/8/2002 3:24:35 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

but artillery has been the backbone of industrialized warfare ever since Napoleon. (I.e. real wars between groups of industrialized nations with universal conscription and where millions of soldiers are killed over decade long conflicts that cover entire continents. The same could be said about the horse. The same arguments were made by the horse soldiers in the 20th century. The US is on the cusp of a revolution in warfighting. We're already a generation or three ahead of everyone else in military technology. Now is the time, while there AREN'T any great power threats to the US, to develop the new doctrine. And the new tools. The Crusader is a pork project. Derek

To: Bilow who wrote (31872)	6/8/2002 4:01:35 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

real wars Those were the good old days! BTW, for the best book ever done on defending the Fulda Gap, read "Team Yankee," by Harry Coyle. >>>A realistic depiction of World War III combat follows Captain Sean Bannion and the tank soldiers of Team Yankee as they battle the Russian invasion force, from Hill 214 in West Germany to the ultimate cease-fire<<< I go back and reread it about once every 3 years. The problem is, "How much is enough?" We are really overbuilding attack aircraft with the F22 and the JSF, while the Air Force tries to get rid of the "Buffs" and the "Warthogs", the airplanes that are winning wars for us now. The Navy's new "Arsenal Ship" is in reality a monster sub that I think is a boondoggle. The Israelis were short tubes in '73, and needed the Paladin more than we did. It is one hell of an artillery system, BTW. here is a link, if anybody is interested. army-technology.com A C-17 can carry two of these suckers, with ammo. This type of argument goes on 24/7 at the Pentagon, with "Power Point" presentations delivered by guys with Stars. One thing we have going for us. I think our Army, man for man and in leadership, up to Battalion level, is the greatest the world has ever seen.

To: Bilow who wrote (31872)	6/8/2002 11:14:00 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hey, if we still had to defend the Fulda Gap, I'm with you!" You've hit upon the crux of the argument. Lindy is claiming (with some merit) that the US is now redesigning its military as a LIC oriented rapid deployment force. But that ignores the fact that wars such as we would likely be required to fight in the Middle East, or even potentially with China, would not be low intensity conflicts, but rather, of a major scale. And there's NOTHING better at breaking up human wave assaults than Proximity Fuzed airburst rounds delivered in Time on Target barrages. And one other aspect that Lindy seems to forget is that artillerymen get tired. Those rounds are heavy and the more they load, the slower they get. The Crusader has an auto-loader, thus being able to fire continuously, if necessary, since it also possesses a means of cooling the tube as well. And I understand that they don't have a manual back-up to the auto-loader since the crew and weapons area are separated in the interest of crew survivability. I don't necessarily like this concept, but understand the logic. Auto-loaders can be fickle mechanisms under combat conditions. But if not the Crusader, then the Pentagon should look VERY HARD at what the Germans have built. The PZH 2000 has a manual back up in case the auto-loader fails and apparently has capabilities that approach those of the Crusader. The problem is that it ALSO weighs in at some 60 Tonnes: army-technology.com But the bottom line is that we should not constrain ourselves to solely being able to fight a low-intensity conflict. If we do so, then we're more than likely to wind up fighting a major conflict because our adversaries and rivals will know that the US is a "paper tiger" that might be able to bomb, but can't seize territory or defend itself from large groups of infantry. And the argument justifying this argument is found in our nuclear weapons arsenal.. How much have we spent on weapons that we never have used in combat? But I will never regret that we spent it because they kept a semblance of peace for 50 years through it own form of mutual terror. Hawk