Army Secretary’s Weapon’s Wish-list
High Mobility Artillery Rocket System exercise in Kuwait. (SGT Bill Boecker)
The military’s shift in emphasis to peer to peer threats like Russia and China continues. The Army Secretary is proposing some investment shift from platforms needed to do counter insurgency. With the U.S. reducing its footprint in the wake of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, the leadership is looking towards strategic threats.
China and Russia would be the two main candidates in this area. The Chinese are staking claims to disputed territories in the South China Sea. Not satisfied with just a ship presence, they’ve built infrastructure and manned these islands. So far, we’ve been willing to continue our freedom of navigation and flight operations in areas the Chinese claim to be theirs… But is open to everybody per international law.
What if, to borrow a term constantly used during warning calls in the area, miscalculation does happen? One need would be able to punch through anti air defenses and to match enemy artillery.
The Army Secretary is looking at investing in both, and more. From Defense One:
Defense One
Army Secretary Mark Esper said he wants to shift some money away from vehicles and aircraft more suited for conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and into “what I need to penetrate Russian or Chinese air defenses.”
Among the new weapons and technologies he said are critical: long-range artillery, attack and reconnaissance aircraft, air and missile defenses, and command-and-control networks. Esper said the artillery — known as Long-Range Precision Fires — could be used “to hold at bay Chinese ships.”
Army officials recently briefed Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, who oversees all U.S. military personnel in the Asia-Pacific region. This comes as the Army plans to rotate thousands of soldiers on expeditionary deployments throughout the Pacific — an expansive region often associated with Navy and Air Force military operations.
This change was inevitable. The wars in the middle east are winding down, as was expected over the past few years. The immediate operational emphasis is shifting to training, advising, and assisting friendly nation forces. This would hopefully enhance their fight against terrorism, as well as make them strong enough secure their own nation.
The medium and long term emphasis is returning to the Maritime and littorals. The more common examples of this involves our interaction with the Chinese military in international Asian waters and with the Russian military in international waters near Russia.
This favors a shift towards the Air Force, Navy, and the Marines. The Army is pointing to the Army’s strategic values in the areas of this shift.
You can read more here.
Category: Army
Not familiar with the above post so later on, I’ll read the comments and learn about what we should do.
Yeah Baby!!! Mobile Rail guns that fire “Volkswagen” sized rounds at thousands of miles per hour! Mech Infantry that are really Mechs (small 10-20 ft in size, but pack armor and weaponry that outpaces a Bradley…instead of one vehicle with eight troops in the back it is ten troops running around in powered armor and 50mm (yes mm not cal) chain guns, some maybe with a mobile artillery piece maybe or at least a medium to large mortar. Add a small UAS for reconnaissance that can be launched and retrieved and you are one mobile, dispersed fighting force that has a hell of a lot of firepower!
I don’t think Mechs are practical.
Too big a target, limited ammo carrying capacity, high energy requirements.
I think the direction military research is going is optionally manned vehicles, and eventually fully AI controlled, very small combat vehicles.
The drive is for unmanned, smart, and miniaturized.
Drone Swarms! 1000 drones with 30 round magazines each (and then dived at targets to explode when the batteries go dry) can do incredible carnage. I assume…
Although we should probably start with securing our nations networks so they can’t steal as much of our IP first. Otherwise, all those drones are coming back at us.
The Army calls this Multi Domain Operations- the domains being air, land, sea, space, and cyber (and subsurface for both land and sea)
The concept is to use a multi domain brigade, with offensive and defensive capability in all domains, to seize key terrain and islands, denying their use to the enemy and threatening their freedom of movement in all domains and ensuring our access to the same.
This is why the cyber and space ops in the Army are getting increased emphasis.
Excellent. About time we start focusing on the real threat, China.
Quit playing Mr. Nice guy and policeman to the world. The Russkies are still pissed cause we rebuilt Germany, siding with the Europeans (who, by the way, have forgotten that we saved their asses twice in the 20th Century) and the Chi-Coms are still pissed cause we made nice with the Japs after all of the atrocities the Japanese did to China. Both countries have their eye on world domination and will continue to threaten world security to help bleed our Treasury for troops, machines, and money needed to keep the US Military on the cutting edge of being able to not only fight a war on two fronts, but to fight wars on continents thousands of miles away.
How many new toys could the Armed Services have if we were not pissing away billions on illegal immigrants, foreign aid, and welfare for deadbeats that only want to be part of the “free shit army?” We’ve let them violate the Monroe Doctrine idea all over the world while we never wanted any more real estate than was needed to bury our dead. Do we even have enough useable ordnance to fight a protracted real war, and how quickly can we replace losses of men and machines when the balloon does go up?
Pacifying your enemies never works. Pray for Peace but stay prepared for war. Carter starting gutting the military and the Russkies got frisky. China fought us to a stalemate in Korea and watched as the US politicians lost the war in SEA. Bush I screwed up by not finishing what The Bear was winning in Desert Storm and Bush II went back for DS II for egotistical reasons. We have been bogged down in the ME for way yonder too long and have lost sight of who the real enemy is.
Put America FIRST! Rant over….For now.
Maybe we could put a requirement on all of the illegal immigrants. You want entry into our country? You either do it the correct way, or you join our Military and Protect us from everyone else!
The first year would of course be spent getting indoctrinated to what it means to be an American. Having your background checked, learning to speak English, How not to Offend Anyone, How not to Rape anyone…all those annual requirements. Then of course they could go to Basic and AIT.
Pacifying the enemy works. You pound the everloving snot out of them until they are begging for peace, and mean it sincerely.
Oh, wait. Did some idiot redefine “Pacifying” in some warped-reverse Progressive way?
^This^ Bomb ’em into rubble, then bomb the rubble.
In 1933, Dad was a part of the Coast Artillery. Never understood why that concept was not continued into the age of rockets. Blame 1948 Key West, and the Air Force convinced everyone it could defend the homeland.
Now all we have is THAAD