What wars to train for, or, the Afstan/Iraq effect

[MarkOttawa]

Is our Army still planned for "full-spectrum" operations, or did that go out with the MGS idea? 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/equipment.html

And are they back now that we've re-Leoparded?

Busy With Afghanistan, the U.S. Military Has No Time to Train for Big Wars
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/27/busy-with-afghanistan-the-u-s-military-has-no-time-to-train-fo/

We have learned through painful experience that the wars we fight are seldom the wars we planned.
-- Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Feb. 1, 2010
...

The risk of being unready for major combat operations is partly a matter of choice: Defense Secretary Robert Gates has directed the military to focus its time, resources and energy on winning the counterinsurgency struggle in Afghanistan. That's the kind of conflict the United States is likely to be entangled in for the foreseeable future, according to current Defense Department plans.

It is also true, senior officials acknowledge, that the armed forces lack the time to train for and equipment to fight a major conflict that might ignite from friction with Iran, say, or China, or deal with a completely unanticipated crisis that requires American forces to quickly intervene -- like Korea, 1950.

"There's a belief that the president of the United States can pick up the red phone and order forcible entry operations'' like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said Army Maj. Gen. Dan Bolger, who commands the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. "But that takes practice, and we don't get a lot of practice.''

Since 2003, the Army and Marines have focused almost exclusively on learning and conducting counterinsurgency operations...

In the past year, for instance, only one unit, the 3rd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, was able to break from counterinsurgency to practice an air assault to seize an airfield, a critical maneuver that would come at the start of a major combat operation. "It was a new set of challenges,'' the division commander, Maj. Gen. James Huggins, said in an interview.

Before 2001, dozens of Army and Marine Corps battalions cycled each year through the three major ground combat training centers, mastering high-intensity maneuvers with tank and armor formations, artillery, attack helicopters and fighter-bombers in grueling battles that went on day and night for weeks...

The Army training centers at Fort Polk and Fort Irwin, Calif., each have one exercise scheduled for 2011 to train troops in what the Army calls "full-spectrum operations."..

...the Marine Corps just completed its first major amphibious exercise in a decade -- by simulation. An exercise involving real Marines and actual weapons and ships is planned for 2012...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[54/102 CEF]

A quick timeline then an answer

1914 - massive mobilisation - few regs - fewer quickly aval res
1939 - ditto
1948 - 4 Bde forms to go to NATO - many ex WW2 Svc pers
1950 - Korea Bde activated - many ex WW Svc pers - vast pool of reserves
1989 - After 51 years 4 Bde Commitment is killed off - redeployed to Cda - Peace Dividend - FRP - wholesale pers reductions
2001 - Hello Taliban - Al Quaeda ! What to do? - reg force ramp up - massive full time callouts to backfill -
2011 - Right sizings on the outer limits of the bean counters - redeploy to Cda all after 2001
2012 - Trg Team in Afghanistan - 1000 all ranks
2016 - Northern Trg is Company size or below - DND doesn't play ball - cut cut cut - Regs and Reserve little change from 2010 capabilities, Air Force fast movers in the hanger - many drones doing eyeball work - Reg force stable sized (same as 2010)
2017 - Next big F--k up overseas - repeat the 2001 expansion

My point - we always fit into something bigger like NATO deployment - same 18 month Trg/employment cycle

Spectrum - what it is where we find it - can't predict so the trg system we have is what we deploy with

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Is our Army still planned for "full-spectrum" operations, or did that go out with the MGS idea? 
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/equipment.html

And are they back now that we've re-Leoparded?

Busy With Afghanistan, the U.S. Military Has No Time to Train for Big Wars
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/27/busy-with-afghanistan-the-u-s-military-has-no-time-to-train-fo/

Mark
Ottawa

I'm not sure that I understand your question. "Full spectrum operations" means everything from peace support to high-intensity peer to peer combat. When this term was kicked around in 2003, though, it was used by some to mean everything except symetical combat.  How do you mean it in your question?

We train and prepare across the specturm of conflict. Our main effort since 2006, though, has certainly been the specific fight in southern Afghanistan. Combat there, though, has shown that there are limitations to the concept of FSO, since you can have localized characteristics of full-on combat occuring in a counter-insurgency conflict.

Having said that, I've been on exercises and operations since 2006 that have included peace support/stability operations, counter-insurgency, domestic operations (training and ops) as well as peer to peer combat. We've exercised for attacking conventional opponents dug-in behind complex obstacles. We've conducted delays against an advancing mechanized enemy. The term gets overused, but our individual training certainly focuses on "a war" rather than "the war" while still incorporating lessons of Afghanistan.

The bag of preparedness only holds five pounds. I think that it would be a mistake to put only five pounds of COIN or only five pounds of Desert Storm in the bag.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Tango2Bravo: Was simply wondering whether MGS decision in effect meant not doing the highest-end of the spectrum (if one may use the term), e.g. as with NATO in Germany, or operations such as invading Iraq--and if re-Leoparding has at least re-opened the option for acting near that top end.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Infanteer]

The bag of preparedness only holds five pounds. I think that it would be a mistake to put only five pounds of COIN or only five pounds of Desert Storm in the bag.

Yes.  From my observations, excellence in low-level tactics for maneuver forces (platoon/troop to battalion/regiment) is required in both big wars and small wars.  This is generally the focus of our training anyways, so the "5 pound bag" can hold much of the same thing to be useful.  The three variables that I can visualize off the top of my head are:

1.  Formation level tactics:  Anything above battalion (and, in many occasions, even battalion) are largely relegated to "manager" roles, simply dispersing their assets to the wind and managing those distinct AOs.  Irregular wars require minimal capability in formation tactics;

2.  Stability Ops:  Although, as Iraq demonstrated, forces should expect to conduct stability operations during conventional fighting, this is generally only if local power structures are for some reason absent.  Stability operations assume a much lower priority than traditional offensive/defensive combat operations; formations preparing to invade country X don't need to worry about training police officers or building village intelligence profiles.  Regular Wars require minimal capability in stability operations; and

3.  Combat Support Abilities:  This is likely a sub-set of formation-level tactics; those most affected by the difference between regular and irregular warfare are combat support arms like Engineers, Artillery, and Signals.  Going mobile to static implies a different approach for combat support.  Certain tasks like breaching, bridging and large-scale shoots take a back seat to networking, route improvement, and STA.  Regular Wars require a different emphasis of combat support than Irregular Wars.

So, you could take that five pound bag, fill it with 2.5 pounds of small-unit tactics and the other 2.5 pounds with a mix of formation tactics, stability operations, and varying combat support abilities.

Tango2Bravo: Was simply wondering whether MGS decision in effect meant not doing the highest-end of the spectrum (if one may use the term), e.g. as with NATO in Germany, or operations such as invading Iraq--and if re-Leoparding has at least re-opened the option for acting near that top end.

The MGS decision had nothing to do with moving away from "highest-end of the spectrum" fighting; it was based on the erroneous belief that we could replace mobility and protection with firepower and "information dominance".  The MGS, as part of the "system-of-systems DFS Regiment" was supposed to be a high-technology replacement of the tank until the FCS arrived.  This is what happens when idealists run away with their concepts without looking at reality.  I've seen arguments that it was a fiscal measure adopted because the government did not want to purchase new MBTs, but I've read enough articles and viewpoints of people trying to make the concept work to suggest that it was as much about RMA crap as it was about dollars.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Tango2Bravo: Was simply wondering whether MGS decision in effect meant not doing the highest-end of the spectrum (if one may use the term), e.g. as with NATO in Germany, or operations such as invading Iraq--and if re-Leoparding has at least re-opened the option for acting near that top end.

Mark
Ottawa

Ah, seen.

As Infanteer noted, I'm not sure that the MGS decision was made with the intention of getting out of the heavy metal conventional fight, although that may well have been the effect. I think that many drank the Information Age Kool Aid between 1995 and 2003 and thought that network-centric globally mobile forces were going to rule in any fight. Iraq 2003 made some folks take a step back from that view, and the heavy fighting of 2006 in Afghanistan showed that combat hadn't really changed all that much down where the skidmarkhits the underwear. The MGS would have cost as much as the eventual Leopard 2s.