Kirkhill said:
Infanteer and McG:
From where I sit - the only real difference I see between your prescription of 6 Light Infantry and 6 Cavalry Units and the my offer of 9 Light Infantry and 3 Cavalry Units is the ratios involved.
All of us fundamentally agree with the viability of the two types of force. That they are useful, viable, valuable and possible. That they have a role to play across a wide spectrum of conflict.
My main point of contention with what you proposed is based on two factors:
1) The "General Capabilities" framework in which you expect both forces to operate in - the Infantry kick around waiting for a job that may or may not require them to "mech up" with the Cavalry (which many Infantry types have said isn't tactically sound with an IFV) while the Cavalry kicks around looking for any job - in the process designating a significant chunk of its resources to driving around Infantry (meaning sacrifice of "Cavalry" capability at the expense of a taxi tasking).
2) The uneven capabilities mean that the Cavalry side is liable to burn out faster then the Infantry if both are required on a consistent basis. You've attempted to address this by making 9 independent squadrons available for Infantry assignments. Having only a squadron of Cav available for a reasonable readiness-rotation cycle doesn't do us much good if a significant mechanized capability is required (say, Kosovo).
One grey area really revolves around the amount of infantry that the Cavalry force needs to do its job, how that infantry integrates into the force and what type of training it needs to do the job.
The other point of contention seems, in my mind, to revolve around the definitions of Light, Infantry and General Purpose.
I understand in the Canadian context that Light is coming to be synonymous with an American Ranger type of structure, or possibly a British Parachute Regiment. From my understanding these are essentially raiding forces that hold ground, if at all, only for limited periods of time. The Paras are a bit "heavier" than Rangers, having more vehicles and thus are capable of acting in stability operations for an extended period of time, as any other infantry unit can.
At the Heavy end of the scale we have "Panzer Grenadiers" dedicated to their Bradleys, Warriors, Marders and the like and the Cavalry troopers - in the Aussie case tied to their LAVs. These are assault forces that take ground and are most valuable in High intensity conflicts They seem to be valuable in stability operations as reaction forces but, again, seem to be light on bodies to get out and interact with population.
Between those two extremes we have just plain Infantry, delivered by a variety of means, some by helicopter, some by boat, some in trucks - light, medium and armoured, some of them even tracked. They may be optimized for different environments but at heart they are all Infantry. They dismount and do their job on foot, whether it be fighting, patrolling or holding ground.
I cannot fathom how you've come to this outlook. As many of the Infantry Officers and NCO's have pointed out in the Infantry forum, Light and Mech are Apples and Oranges. As the Falklands showed, there is a difference between training and maintaining a "Bergen Soldier" and a "Mounted Soldier". The "Bergen Soldier" fights on his own, taking support from man-portable or Joint force assets if possible, but ultimately he is responsible through tactics, fitness, and tactical ability to get on top of his objective. The "Mounted Soldier",
of which Infantry skills forms a vital part of the whole, is an all-arms battle in which a dismounted forces serve only as one platform in which firepower is delivered from. There are different degrees in weight of both firepower and protection, but the principle is the same.
Looking back on history, I think the last of the "Plain Infantry" went out of style with the Wehrmacht and its 75% Horse-Drawn units or with elimination of National Service/Draftee soldiers in Britain, France, America and Germany.
The American Army formed itself around Light Raiders and Heavy Assault Forces. They have precious little of the force in the middle - standard infantry. That is the gap the Stryker brigades are trying to fill. But there are still on 6 of them planned out of a force of 43 Brigades (70 or so if you include the reserve brigades).
No. Strykers are not meant to fill some "Standard Middle Ground" between "Light Raiders and Heavy Assault Forces" - it is an interim Table of Organization and Equipment that the US Army is using as it transitions from "Legacy Era" Heavy Forces meant for high-intensity, total war between superpowers to a light and flexible expeditionary capability based around the FCS. At least this is what I got from reading General Shinseki's mission statement with the
Interim Brigade Combat Team.
The British Army, and one of the reasons that the Americans keep inviting them to the game, has Raiders and has Heavy forces but the strength of the force is the 20 or Infantry battalions that supply the depth of manpower need to sustain a Northern Ireland type of deployment and are exceptionally useful in the rest of the world doing the same type of job. They also contribute greatly to Kosovo, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Iraq and many other places in all phases of war.
Again, I'll disagree - the British Army has always maintained "specializations" or "niche capabilities" (not Niche Roles). Their Infantry would rotate through various "capability sets" such as Jungle, Mountain, Armoured Infantry (Warrior), Mechanized Infantry (Saxon), Airborne, etc, etc. As was mentioned on a thread on these boards, the Brits are moving away from rotation to a fixing "niche specialities" amongst units in the Army due to the problems associated with skills loss in constant reroling.
So, sure the Brits would rotate a unit to a "general purpose" or "constabulary" role, especially for units rotating through North Ireland. But with our small resource base, this is not something I want to see us "niche capabilied" with, rather I'd focus on the two tasks (Light/Cav) which a far more relevent to combat capable forces.
Now here I will tread carefully and try not to upset BBJ over much. The Royal Marines are not Special. They don't have much in the way of Special kit. Their Commandos aren't manned, organized or equipped much different much different than any other British Infantry battalion. They take their turn in rotation in Northern Ireland and Iraq, Kurdistan and Bosnia. They operate in mountains and deserts and jungles just as much as on beaches. They are capable of mounting assaults just as well as holding ground or securing a country. And they can mount raids. They are not Special. They are Generalists. Generalists that retain particular skills in amphibious operations in addition to all their other capabilities.
However being Generalists does not mean they are inferior or even average.
They may be the best, no doubt BBJ would say are the best, Generalists, in the world. This is accomplished through selection and training and instilling confidence.
I will whole-heartedly disagree here. The Royal Marines are in no way "General Purpose" - they are specialized as a SOC capable, strategically deployable Light Force. As I've stressed many times, putting a RM Commando in Warriors and expecting them to do a Combat Team attack is foolhardy - they are "Bergen troops". They didn't do this in Iraq, it was left to Heavy Force units to fight with Challenger IIs and Warriors.
The RM is a "niche capability", all-arms unit focused on Light Amphibious Ops. Their extremely rigorous "Commando Course" is demanding enough that, along with a Focus on Light Force capabilites (Commando 21 reflects this) and their intimate support of British Tier II and Tier I SOC units (the SAS, the SBS, and the 3 Cdo Bde Recce Troop) would qualify them as as a Tier III Special Operations Capable Unit (akin to US Army Rangers). The latest edition of the CMJ has good overview of SOC capabilities
http://www.journal.dnd.ca/engraph/home_e.asp
Clearly, stating that their "Generalists" is selling the RM short on what they can do and attributing to them things they can't do.
So when I am arguing for a Generalist infantry this is the notion that I am arguing for. Rather than create a Canadian Force based on Light raiding capability and a Light Cavalry force with little capability in the heart of your light/heavy envelope I am saying start from a force that is positioned right smack dab in the middle of the envelope and build its capabilities out from there as budget allows.
The RM sits squarely in the middle of the envelope - all singing, all dancing. It can do many tasks for the British Government on its own. It can operate in high intensity conflict with or without armour support (light or heavy). It can perform raids or it can act along with dedicated raiders like the Paras and with Special Forces.
Clearly, as the article by LtCol Wayne Eyre (which I linked to in the other Light Force thread) points out, there is a middle area where Light Force and Mech/Heavy Force capabilites can be complement eachother in the tactical or operational setting.
However, this doesn't mean that we should mix and match these two unique and seperate capabilites. As I argued above, the RM in no way sits on some middle ground - they, like other Light Forces (such as the US Rangers in Mogadishu) can use vehicles for a administrative purposes (to move soldier, kit, weapons systems, or supplies if possible) but they in no way rely on the vehicles as a vital factor for tactical employment.
Now if you are offering me, the Canadian taxpayer
, a choice between 6 Ranger Battalions and 6 Lt mechanized infantry Battalions operating as Cavalry or 6 Royal Marine Commandos and 6 Lt Mech Inf Bns operating as Cavalry then I'll take the 6 Cdo option and say fill your boots.
1) As I've stressed above, RM and Rangers would both be Tier III SOC units, so they're one in the same.
2) I'm not offering "Lt Mech Inf Bns" - as I said before, Mechanized Infantry, with the loss of the tank and the combat team, really has no utility for us anymore; we can't fight the heavy battle. I'm argueing for a hybrid Cavalry force that performs a different set of tasks and offers us a different capability set then "Mech Inf".
3) I really don't want to offer the Canadian Taxpayer a "general purpose" force that does a bit of everything but nothing well. I believe this will only marginalize our capabilities towards "Constabulary", which is clearly undesirable to the professional soldier. As per the Bland quote I put in above, Canada would be better served by choosing an area we can best contribute and going from there.
My own preference, as stated, would be otherwise. 9 Commandos and 3 Cavalry Regiments. Perhaps there is a need for additional boots in the Cavalry and manning limits don't allow the 9:3 structure to produce viable sized units.
Again, what happens if the need arises for a significant mechanized/cavalry requirement? This uneven allotment will just burn the Cavalry out. As well, we will face undesirable skill loss if we cram our Infantry into LAV's for any period of time and insist that our Light Force Engineers, Artillery, and CSS get involved in Mechanized battle.
Then maybe the answer is to transfer and additional company's worth of bodies from the Commandos to each of the Cavalry and give them an integral infantry company, in addition to their 3x48=144 Scouts/Dragoons/Dismounts/Assault troopers.
That would leave 8 Commandos and 3 Cavalry Regiments capable of producing 9 Squadrons each of which would have a hundred or so dedicated dismounts - or a full company. 1 Commando + 1 Squadron would supply 4 coys with a lot of fire power, range and mobility as well as quick reaction capability.
Now we're just getting helter-skelter with regards to organization, cohesion, capability, and sense of mission. Pulling parts from around the Army to prepare for any inevitability will just create the same problems as plug-and-play (ruining us at the unit level) and throw a wrench into a simple and easy Readiness cycle (which is one of the factors in my logic of making the proposal in this way).
So, at heart, when we are looking at this discussion, as in all others it is necessary to define terms and expectations.
I use the term Light in contrast to Heavy. You appear to be using the term Light in a sense that it gaining popularity over on this side to define a Special Forces type of Raider force.
If that is the case then I can understand why you wish to focus so much manpower on the Mechanized force.
Personally I think that is wrong. That the net result will be tailoring your force too narrowly to meet the needs of today. IMHO a Generalist force will cover both much of today's needs and be in a better position to deal with the unexpected. One of the reasons we are having this discussion today is that Canada withdrew from a Generalist approach and ended up specializing as a Mech Infantry force. Now we find that the Mech Infantry force doesn't meet the needs of the situation and you are having to jump through hoops reinventing yourself. And it is not just a money thing. When the Forward Edge of the Battle Area moved away from the Gates at Lahr and Baden-Baden to everywhere else the old structure became obsolete.
The reason I keep harping on about the Royal Marines is because they are living proof that a Generalist force does not have to be a sub-standard force. Although, in the past Conscripts have been shoved into Generalist forces and thus given the concept a bad name, the Marines prove that a Generalist force can also be an "Elite" force.
I can't for the life of me figure out where you got this "Average Infantry that does a bit of everything and holds the ground" concept from. Perhaps it was relevent in WWII or holding the Fulda Gap as a Heavy Force, but other then that, I see no relevence of the principle to what is required today as either Light Force or Cavalry are capable of "holding ground" in today's come-as-you-are, non-contiguous battlefield. For example:
UNPROFOR: Cav Forces would have been very suited to this, probably more so then our guys who cruised around in dinky M-113's. A more flexible and heavily armed Cavalry unit (as I've sketched out earlier) could project much greater combat power in the area.
IFOR/SFOR: Being a PSO, any force would have really did the trick - boots on the ground is the key. My company cruised around in LPV's while the other company used the LAV III (with no dismounts) to patrol. This is a contingency (like other PSO's) that either capability I wish to see us "niche" towards could fulfill.
Kosovo: Clearly, a Cavalry capability could have fit in well here. Perhaps, it could have been augmented with airmobile Light Force capability to allow for rapid shifting in a very rugged AO.
Op Apollo: No denying that Air-Assaults into the Pashtun mountains to battle it out with insurgents and terrorists required a Light Force "Bergan Soldiers". The other task of securing the base at Khandahar was ably aided by "ponyed up" Light Force soldiers in Humvees and an attached Recce Squadron.
Op Athena: Like UNPROFOR, this is a dangerous PSO that requires boots on the ground, like UNPROFOR it can, and has been, sustained by both capabilites. PSO is a mission, not a capability.
If we wished to dedicate forces to the Invasion of Iraq, a Cavalry Force as presented here would be extremely useful - it could have been added to the USMC as an additional LAR battalion or it could have served with a US Army or British Formation in the LAR function. A light force added to this could have grouped up with US forces that dropped into Northern Iraq and linked up with the Kurds.
If we are going to move out of the ISAF PSO mission to either a PRT or with OEF in Khanadar, the Light Forces would be suited to the dispersed and non-contiguous tasks that would be required. Again, to quote Mr Eyre (who did wonders in reinforcing my outlook),
"High-density populations with a multitude of actors (joint, interagency, and multinational) all present challenges. Extrapolating here a bit, this definition points light forces (in my opinion) towards our greatest contemporary challenge â “ counter-insurgency â “ a task that has historically fallen to light forces."
You are right, the definition of capability is important. Basically, we can look at capability in terms of what it can accomplish in a View 1 Conflict (War). Operations in View 2 Conflicts (OOTW) really don't need any force kicking around for it - all that is required is well-trained soldiers which in Canada is one of the things we've been lucky to retain. So, we should hone in on View 1 capabilites knowing that we can "gear down" if required, but still be ready to enter a warfightin situation. There are a wide variety of capabilities that could be required in a View 1 conflict - for example:
- Air Assault
- Mountain Ops (Alpinejager - sorry, had to find a spot for the Germans somewhere
)
- Jungle Ops
- Armoured Heavy Battle
- Stand-Off Deep Battle
- Mechanized/Cavalry Combined Arms
- Counter-Insurgency
- Littoral Warfare
- Direct Action/Raiding/Combat Patrolling
You get the point. Since we can't, like the Americans or the British, hope to give each unit its own specialization, we must pick a few of these and work on them. Perhaps my term of "Niche Capabilities" is a bit misleading - when I look over these and look on my proposal, we will in essence be retaining the "spirit" of the generalist approach that Canada has always maintained as our Light Forces and our Cav Forces will still have to focus on a variety of roles and tasks in their respective fields as they cannot afford to specify tasks like "Airborne" or "Mountain" and maintain reasonable readiness and sustainability. So yes, the Light Soldier will still be a bit of a generalist
in the spectrum of Light Force tasks, but he will in no ways be a pure "Raider" as you're assuming. For example, the ideal requirements of an all-arms Light Force were layed out earlier:
every light soldier should be qualified Basic Mountain Ops, Basic Urban Ops (course forthcoming), and, depending what we do with the para capability, Basic Para qualified. As available and necessary, jungle ops should be included. As well, reflexive shooting, familiarity with airmobile ops, HUMINT gathering, and a mastery of patrolling are all a must.
Likewise, our Cavalry will specialize in winning the ISTAR battle, mounted patrolling, gunnery, heavy weapons, screening and flanking larger formations, DFS to Light Forces in a multi-capability envioronment, rapid reaction, and scout infiltration.
Capabilities cannot be "general purpose" and decided from the ground up. Especially when restricted by resources, we must look down from the top and decide where we can best employ our forces in View 1 type conflicts (anything will do for View 2 policing). I've claimed that the two most likely forms of View 1 conflicts that we should prepare for are
"Son of Iraq" and
"Step-Child of Chechnya". The Cavalry capability fits comfortably in the first one and the Bergan-carrying Light capability fits nicely in the second. Both of these Force Capabilites suit Canada's needs as they are Light, Flexible, well suited to the tasks they will adopt, tactically and strategically mobile and expeditionary in nature.
Sure, there is much that we will be unable to do on our own (Air Assault, Littoral Warfare, Deep Battle, Armoured Heavy Battle), but within the coalition environment that we tend to gravitate towards, I'm sure we'll find a spot for our "niched capabilities".
Whew, that was alot. I guess I really want to underline the fact that finding "Niche Capability" for our combined arms teams, as opposed to trying to whip up a "one size, fits all" lowest common denominator force, is the way to go. There is alot of opposition to the idea of "Niche Roling", whether it be towards "Peacekeeping" or "Special Operations - and opposing this can be a very valid complaint. However, it is clear that we must adopt
some form of specialization if we want to remain relevent in the highly demanding environment of non-contiguous, come-as-you-are wars that demands the services of a fully professional force. The spectrum of capabilites, missions, and requirements in View I conflicts is vast and Canada can simply not afford to cover all the bases. We can try, meaning mediocrity in the end (like trying to do a Combat Team attack with a Light, wheeled vehicle and no tanks) but I feel we'll be better off to pick a few and put our eggs in those more effective baskets.