Another thing to remember is that although the Army is the 'heavy lifter' and although the current shortage of trigger pullers is lamentable (and fixable), the majority of the tasks the US Army -- or any army -- must handle are NOT combat tasks. Even when an army is engaged in combat the vast majority of its actions are non-combat or combat support. Thus, the impetus toward improved technology and information systems will bear fruit in coming years -- by increasing the percentage of 'trigger pullers' in any increase in numbers the Army sees in the next few years.
Note that I'm not saying the gross percentage of combat types to support will change much. My experience with information technology is that the process breeds its own support requirements. This is not all bad, or even partly bad. My department gets a lot more done now than they did even ten years ago because we do most of it electronically. Our staff has grown, but not much. We still accomplish more, per person, than in previous technology setups.
No doubt there are military planners who envision replacing some of the 'shooters' with toys. These people will always be with us. Remember the bombardment theorists of the thirties? The lack of guns on USAF fighters during the early years of the Vietnam war? Impractical crap has a way of getting blown out of the system once exposed to the realities of combat. That is happening now.
But such starry-eyed individuals have their place. Without them the military bureaucrats would never lift their heads above that endless sea of paperwork on which they feed and thrive.
The military version of increased productivity Jim?
I agree with you on the effects of technology, that the greatest impact probably occurs in areas like service support and combat support. The technical end of the business. Fewer truck drivers to carry goods due to bigger trucks, palletized and containerized loads, on board material handling cranes. Or fewer gunners serving automated cannons with longer ranges, more precise delivery and more effective ammunition. Everyone better served through digital comms.
In my view this means that in an army, any army, given a fixed number of bodies available due to budgets then a smaller proportion is necessary in service and combat support roles, which SHOULD free up more bodies for use as "shooters".
However I also accept your observation that once an organization is capable of doing "more with less" then there is a natural tendency for that organization to be asked to do more, tending to prop up the numbers necessary and a corollary tendency for management/leadership to want to find more for their people to do - either to keep their employees employed or to maintain their empire.
If I were the "King of the World" I wouldn't be getting rid of shooters, nor would I necessarily be adding bodies to the Army. I would want to transform some of those support bodies into shooters when the opportunity presented itself to reduce the size of the support structure. "As the opportunity presented", not before the opportunity had been demonstrated.
I am a firm believer that Armies are primarily built around infanteers and the infanteer's ability to hold ground and Control Populations. Everything else exists to support the infanteer in the field or to destroy threats to the infanteer. It follows from that that the greater the amount of control you want to exert the more infanteers you need. Buy as many as you can afford.
This type of re-roling runs into all sorts of road blocks. One road block that shouldn't exist is the risk of command level appointments disappearing. If the same number of bodies are kept on staff then presumably the same number of leadership positions are still available. That seems to be the lesson of the 3ID transformation. The existing F Echelon Brigade HQs had their units reallocated and redistributed while I believe either the Engrs or Arty lost pure units to F Echelon but became F Echelon Brigades themselves.
Basically, where in WW2 it required a 1000 support bodies to deliver a particular effect to the battlefield and thus required a full Unit of Command it may only require 100 bodies today. In WW2 the Formation Commander had to decide where he was going to direct the effort to support his plan. He only had enough capability to support 1 or 2 main efforts. Now, if the above ratio were true, he presumably can support 10 such efforts. He is only being tasked to supply 4 or 5 freeing up 500 or 600 bodies that could be used to thicken the number of infanteers available. Also, given that it is easier to ship infanteers than guns, tanks and trucks it makes it easier to strategically deploy effective forces.
I was just reading an article on a British exercise, now whether this was due to space constraints or otherwise, a unit working up for Iraq on a British range was using a 9 Warrior Platoon backed by 2 Challengers. I found this interesting because I was expecting to find the usual 14 IFVs and 3-4 MBTs. I was wondering if this wasn't an experimentation with a new structure that would effectively maintain the number of rifles (both models have 9 section carriers) but reduces the number of bodies necessary to support the rifles as the effectiveness of the fire support increases.
What all of this argues for is, as a number of others have noted, the "downward diffusion of the combined arms concept" and the formation of smaller formations or larger multi-MOC Units.
The trades most impacted, by this change in view are probably the Armoured and Arty trades. Their entire purpose and tradition is based around their kit. It is their reason for being. Moreso than the job they have to do. And it is the amount of their kit that is being reduced.
Perhaps double hatting them as riflemen would suffice, as in the Marines, and retaining their Units as mixed Units.
