COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

In recent years, there has been a strong push among defense reformers to 'lighten up,' to reduce reliance on tanks and go with a more easily deployable "expeditionary" concept of light infantry, air-mobile armored personnel carriers, and attack helicopters and aircraft.

American leaders even went to war in Afghanistan with no significant armored formations that I'm aware of, and controversially, had the artillery left behind.

The New York Times runs an article today that calls these reforms into question.

As usual, though, a journalist with an inadequate command of military doctrine misses the boat.

It's simply amazing to me that the New York Times could run an article on urban light-heavy doctrine without once mentioning the singular red-letter event in recent military history for light-heavy thinkers: the experience of the Russian Army in Grozny.

Within the first month, the Russians lost 223 armored vehicles destroyed.

Initial Russian vehicle losses were due to a combination of inappropriate tactics, underestimation of the opposing force, and a lack of combat readiness. The Russians moved into Grozny without encircling it and sealing it off from reinforcements. They planned to take the city from the march without dismounting. Due to shortages in personnel, the Russian columns consisted of composite units and most personnel carriers traveled with few or no dismounts. These initial columns were decimated.


As the Russians regrouped, they brought in more infantry and began a systematic advance through the city, house by house and block by block. Russian armored vehicle losses dropped off with their change in tactics. Russian infantry moved in front with armored combat vehicles in support or in reserve.

A close reading of the New York Times article reveals that this is, indeed, how the U.S. Army operates. Indeed, it's how it's supposed to operate. When the Army goes to war, every infantry battalion gives up a company or two to complement a tank battalion. Conversly, every tank battalion gives up a company or two to provide heavy firepower to an infantry battalion. It's called "cross attachment."

It's not a matter of whether tanks or infantry are better in an urban environment. The question is how commanders can best utilize the two arms, in tandem, to complement and protect one another, to function as a combined arms team.

The Times doesn't mention this, but the Bradley Fighting Vehicle is, most commonly, an infantry carrier.

When the shit gets thick, or when the Bradleys enter close terrain, they drop the hatch and out comes a six-man squad of infantry. Oh, guess what...at the moment they dismount, they're light infantry. They're guys with M16's and SAWs. And they dismount to clear the alleys and rooftops on the flanks and rear of the Bradleys and tanks, and allow the Bradley 25mm and the M1A1 120mm guns to do their business forward, unmolested.

We've always known tanks can, in certain circumstances, operate in urban areas, when supported and protected by infantry and engineers. But we need to be careful not to get carried away. Circumstances in the next war may not be so favorable for armored vehicle crewmen. Here's why:

1.) The Mahdi militiamen, while in many cases possessed of great personal courage (narrowly defined as the willingness to take a bullet in a stupid attack), and are relatively incompetent, when it comes to articulating their force into coherent hunter-killer teams and coordinating their attacks in a decisive manner. The Fedayeen were able to do this, though, as were some elements in Fallujah. Some Al Qaeda types--presumeably trained by veterans of the war against the Russians in Afghanistan and Chechnya--are able to do this, as well. We cannot assume that the Mahdi militia will remain stupid. If the Mahdis continue the fight, the need for infantry to counter their tactics will increase.

2.) Iraq has few very tall buildings. Tank and Bradley guns can only elevate so far. The next battle may take place in even more built-up areas, and with buildings that can withstand main gun rounds. If, in the next battle, tanks are engaged from the tops of highrises, the distances will preclude CAS. Helicopters will be able to drive the enemy from the roofs and top floor or two. But in order to surround and clear a large building, you're still going to need the infantry.

If you don't clear the building with infantry, the insurgent will simply hide, and attack the huge logistical tail of fuel tankers and ammo trucks that must neccessarily follow tanks into battle.

3.) The insurgent in Iraq has few effective anti-armor tools at hand. The overwhelming majority of RPG's in Iraq are the old RPG-7 variety, which is rarely effective against the Abrams tank, and is frequently defeated with a series of effective countermeasures. The RPG 18 is an entirely different animal, and is an order of magnitude more lethal than the 7.

Further, the Milan anti-tank missile is now widely available on the market, and already in use in 41 countries. The Milan which has already proven extraordinarily effective against modern armor, when properly employed. What's more, the Milan is manufactured by the French, who have proven themselves singularly whorish about providing weapons technology to countries who use them against US and British forces. The insurgent does not appear, to my knowledge, to have equipped himself with any anti-tank weaponry beyond 1970's technology.

Again, we cannot assume that the next battle will be as armor friendly as this one has been, so far.

4.) The Iraqi insurgent boasts no significant engineering capability for countermobility operations. They have a few ingenious, Macgyver-like dweebs who can make an effective roadside bomb out of a dirtbike and a milk crate, and set it all off with a gravity switch made out of a water bottle, using potato spuds for batteries. But the capabilities are not yet systemic or reproducable.

What was amazing to me in Iraq--and is still amazing--is that the Iraqis didn't make more use of actual anti-tank mines. Apparently, artillery and mortar rounds are much easier to come by. But they're not nearly as effective as a well-placed mine. Artillery shells explode in every direction; land mines are directional, and deliver all their explosive force on the target above.

Yes, they used them...they seemed to be more common up north for some reason..but to hear of a land mine rather than an arty shell in the IED role was definitely the exception rather than the rule during my tenure there.

We did capture a few hundred land mines in weapons caches in and around Ramadi, but none were used against us, as far as I know. These caches were apparently kept by tribes and clans to use against other tribes and clans in an expected civil war, and not intended for use against Americans.

At any rate, we cannot assume that the next urban battlefield will not feature the use of antitank mines, competently employed. Again, the balance tips toward the greater need for infantry.

From the Times article:

Yet in Najaf, two battalions of the Army's tanks did what a lighter Marine battalion could not,

Well, it's good to have bragging rights over the USMC, sure. But two battalions can almost ALWAYS do what one battalion cannot.

inflicting huge casualties on Mr. Sadr's insurgents while taking almost none of their own.

Yeah, but which casualties? The tanks can only engage those who first chose to engage the Americans.

The 70-ton tanks and 25-ton Bradleys pushed to the gates of the Imam Ali shrine at the center of the old city. Meanwhile, the Marines spent most of the fight raiding buildings far from the old city. Even so, seven marines died, and at least 30 were seriously wounded, according to commanders here, while only two soldiers died and a handful were injured.

Moreover, we should also consider the nature of the objective. Nobody ever doubted that an armored column can quickly overrun Najaf, or any other town in Iraq. The US Army, if it wants to, can seize ground almost at will. What is not clear is this: Having seized the ground, can the US destroy the insurgents and win on the very ground it holds?

Armor can punch through to the decisive points. It can deliver local successes against those enemy who choose to reveal themselves by firing from a building. And in Iraq, Armor can usually destroy that building.

But you cannot win a decisive victory by eliminating only those who choose to engage you. Victory will be obtained when US forces are successful in engaging and destroying those who are desperate to remain hidden.

This is going to require good, human intelligence which cannot be gleaned from the TC's seat in a tank, and is going to require stealth, and is going to require light infantry bashing down a door in an apartment complex.

If the Marines are engaging in intelligence-driven raids--even far from the Old City--they may well be delivering the decisive blows against the Mahdi leadership and financial and logistical support structure. Those whom the Mahdi wishes to keep safe and sheltered will not be living at ground zero.

I say this not to belittle Armor. I hold an Armor and infantry MOS and spent a few years as a tank platoon leader and company XO myself. In certain circumstances, Armor is truly the Arm of Decision. But let's not get carried away with Najaf, and work in lessons that won't apply elsewhere.

Splash, out

Jason