Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcello
The idea behind it was to have a force packing a heavy punch which could be deployed pretty much anywhere in a matter of hours/days, which dictated no heavy armor.
Even so I have my doubts about its feasibility even just from a logistical point of view.
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They already have such a force...the US Marines.
The problem is the only US Army "light" forces (Airborne, Rangers, Mountain) are too light and the Army TO&E doesn't give them enough inherent logistical assets to be self-sustaining for more then a few days.
Also, in general they're too specialized. Yes they're VERY good at what they do, but they're not really trained or equipped to handle tasks/combat outside the role they were created for.
I'm sure this will start some chicken-'n-egg arguments...but it's always been my thought that the US Army keeps trying to create brigade/division sized units for any contingency. And while those units are "ideal" for the role they were created to fill the US Army doesn't cross-train nearly as much as they "should".
The USMC tends to take a "building block" approach.
Determine the mission, use company sized building blocks to create a unit from batallion to division size to tackle it.
Sure, the unit won't, can't, be as well trained and equipped for any given task as a unit tailor made from square one for it would be. But the USMC puts a lot of emphasis on cross-training.
I wasn't a grunt myself, hell I'm female...but I've done everything from rubber boats at midnight to helo ops to mech infantry.