This theory won’t fly

[Administrator]

I take issue with retired Maj. Gen. Scales’ article, “The shape of brigades to come” [October]. Scales claims that Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and Northern Iraq, and the Stryker’s deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) somehow serve to “validate” retired Brig. Gen. Huba Wass de Czega’s aero-mechanized theories. This is an absurd assertion and bad history, at best. While air delivery of small teams of Special Forces and light infantry were the hallmark of both campaigns, in neither instance were large-scale mechanized forces involved. The performance of Stryker brigades in Iraq is certainly laudable; however, the “aero” part of the aero-mechanized maneuver theory was missing. Scales should weigh the evidence before making such outlandish statements as, “The challenge of future warfare on land cannot be met without building modular, FCS [Future Combat Systems]-equipped forces aero-mechanized brigades that will form the aerial blitzkrieg of the future.”

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/01/1302885

[Cole]

MAJ Klein said: "I take issue with retired Maj. Gen. Scales’ article, “The shape of brigades to come”……S.F. and light infantry were the hallmark of both campaigns, in neither instance were large-scale mechanized forces involved. The performance of Stryker bdes in Iraq is certainly laudable; however, the “aero” part of the aero-mech maneuver theory was missing. Scales should weigh the evidence before making such outlandish statements as, “The challenge of future warfare on land cannot be met without building modular, FCS-equipped forces aero-mech bdes that will form the aerial blitzkrieg of the future.”
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Even if air deployments to Afghanistan and Northern Iraq involved light infantry, special forces, and light Marine units, that does not mean future planners would be so limited in options. The 62 C-17 sorties that airlifted 173rd Airborne Brigade and a very small current armor contingent into Bashur, could in the future, include more armor in the form of both Strykers and FCS Manned Ground Vehicles.
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The Joint Operational War Plans Division of the Pentagon must have believed that airlifting 17 C-17s of paratroopers was survivable on the first of its 5 nights of air deployments. In the future, FCS/Stryker armor and airborne/light infantry platoons could sit side-by-side on C-17s to rapidly airlift both kinds of forces. The Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) which lifts the equivalent of 16 C-17s at about the same cost as a single C-17, also opens the option of joint closure into a port using combined JHSV and C-17s.
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MAJ Klein said: "Several Rand Corp. studies have concluded that there are serious issues of survivability against any enemy possessing even a modicum of air defense. Recently, in the Army’s own war game, Unified Quest 05, one FCS-equipped bde required 300 sorties per day over four days to complete a vertical envelopment with a loss of 10 aircraft (...). Could we really afford such losses in reality? Does one bde over four days represent “aerial blitzkrieg”? In the same war game, vertical envelopment in a low-altitude air-defense environment represented “high-risk operations” averaging 15 percent to 25 percent loss of airframes. These cheap, low-tech, easy to hide and non-emitting air defenses and small arms are precisely the types of threats the 11th AHR encountered in their aborted deep attack during OIF."
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I don't recall losing a single C-17 or C-130 that airlanded in Bashur or Afghanistan due to enemy fire. Marine V-22 also are available for more troublesome entries after joint forces and ELINT/ECM capabilities perform JSEAD minutes before entry. C-17s and C-130 are being equipped with Large Aircraft IR Countermeasure systems to thwart whatever few IR MANPAD missiles survive, and overhead F-35s with excellent optics should identify and silence any ground fire.
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Is loss of 10 of 1200 aircraft unacceptable? Perhaps, but given that the USAF once lost about 1 out of 4 servicemen in WWII, and currently loses about 1 in 40 in OIF/OEF, I believe sufficient patriot Airmen and Soldiers would risk 1 in 120 losses to achieve the worthy goal of safeguarding closure of fellow Airmen and Soldiers.
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You didn't mention what kind of air sorties were involved. By my count, a full FCS brigade would require fewer than 250 C-17 Sorties to close on an airhead…not 1200. And you guys in J-7 would certainly make a point of identifying which brigade elements were not essential to deploy. More rapid closure coupled with close support JSEAD could ensures that the enemy lacked time to reinforce and counterattack, until sufficient ground force was available to handle any such contingency. Counterattacking adversaries, who were previously hidden, once moving would expose themselves to ISR assets, thus simplifying both air and ground defensive acquisition and fires from standoff.
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But beyond rapid closure and JSEAD, against more capable threats such as in notional studies, history shows that the DoD and State Department can find allied nations and allied armed territories within an adversary nation. that are willing to accept and assist aerial and sea deployment. The rapid nature of such deployment by C-17 and JHSV will close substantial force to deter any thought an adjacent adversary might have to invade its neighbor. Protected ports become secure sites for sea deployment of heavier modular brigades and FCS logistical forces. Protected airheads offer alternate avenues of approach and divide adversary attention between multiple areas of concern.
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MAJ Klein said: Another blow to the theory of aero-mechanized warfare is cost. At roughly $180 million each, the C-17 aircraft is too expensive and valuable as a strategic asset to be used in such operations. C-130s are similarly expensive, roughly $80 million to $85 million. Neither of these aircraft meets the requirements for vertical or supershort take-off and landing on austere surfaces as the Army’s FCS Concept requires. The cost of a new aircraft program requiring a multifaceted R&D component is potentially very large. The reality over the next fiscal decade is that the Army cannot afford such a program, nor should the other services be expected to foot the bill.
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A V-22 is $70 million yet the DoD was convinced that its sorties can be secured by other airpower. Again, it comes down to where you land and how much JSEAD and air dominance you can provide. Our allies will soon field the A400M capable of carrying FCS vehicles. We should consider purchasing some of our own, rather than continuing to poor money into a C-130J with too small a cabin and too light a payload.
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Beyond that, the Marines are also financing expensive CH-53K aircraft with substantial lift that could assist Army airlift of other FCS equipment (not armor) and assist aerial resupply. But the Army and Joint force also needs a Joint Heavy Lift Rotorcraft (JHLR) capability to carry 30 tons. Aside from providing capability to airlift FCS armor, such a rotorcraft would excel at providing logistics support for offensive FCS ground movements. Such aircraft could theoretically lift up to 8.500 gallons of fuel or 60,000 lbs of internal and external load ammunition to link up with ground logistics vehicles well to the rear of forward FCS elements during their ground offensive. Two JHLR carrying 8,500 gallons of fuel would be required to support a tank-heavy battalion task force, with 30 Abrams and 14 Bradleys burning 17,800 gallons per fill-up. A single JHLR with 8,500 gallons would fully support filling up an FCS task force with 30 MCS with hybrid electric drives and 120 mm guns capable of firing 8+ km medium range munitions, and 16 ICVs holding more Infantry than the Bradley.
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MAJ Klein said: And even if we could afford such a program, would we really put these expensive systems in harm’s way against cheap systems available even to Third World nations? In light of these revelations, the Army needs to re-examine its Future Force Concept in which FCS-equipped forces will simply “leap over” enemy defenses.
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It doesn't need to leap over them. It leaps around them! That was on problem with the 11th AHR raid in OIF. The attack regiment was forced to take routes over occupied territory due to lack of fuel and ground control measures. Two days later, the 101st Airborne (AA) Division had much greater success by learning lessons from the previous raid and taking less risky routes with solid plans to suppress threats that were encountered.
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Army aviators have been in harms ways for over 6 years and their losses to "cheap systems available to Third World Nations" have been low considering the numbers of hours flown. Marines fly large vulnerable V-22s at 8,000' to evade many threats, but they would no doubt prove highly survivable at lower altitudes against suppressed future radar air defenses, once freed from initial concerns about new aircraft in the public/Congressional eye. Studies always inflate air defense threats and discount the ingenuity of aviators and JSEAD spe******ts to find a way to survive and suppress. Recall that only 1 aircraft was actually downed in the 11th AHR raid and no pilot lives were lost en route. We will know better next time, just as the 101st knew better two days later.

[Cole]

MAJ Klein said: The Army seems to be on track with its current modularity. What will make FCS-equipped and modernized ground forces potent are netted command and control, a reduced logistics footprint and the ability to call on joint fires and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. The Army should also examine cost-effective ways of improving our airborne forces, such as GPS-guided parafoil technology and enhancing protection mobility through robotics, active protection systems, compact transportation and deployable alternatives such as the Armored Security Vehicle.
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Why do we always believe airborne forces can survive on C-130s flown at altitude but FCS forces aboard C-130/A400m/C-17s will not survive at equivalent altitudes. Both scenarios require extensive JSEAD and well thought out operational plans. That's your job in the J-7 shop. Heavy forces can survive being airlifted as well, as long as caution is exercised where and how you airland them. A Joint Heavy Lift Rotorcraft would create near-infinite options for LZs, located far enough from the threat to survive, yet close enough to move by ground to key centers of gravity….under the same airpower protection that suppresses enemy air defenses in the first place.
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MAJ Klein said: While the Army cannot afford to pursue the red herring of aero-mechanized warfare on a large scale, it should develop a limited capability to follow up airborne airfield seizure with company- and battalion-sized elements of Stryker and FCS. However, as Stryker’s employment in Iraq indicates, speed over land, and not via air, is and will remain the key to long-range autonomous operational maneuver.
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We agree completely that the smaller element intratheater air deployments make more sense. A full brigade will probably never see much intratheater air movement except perhaps during strategic air deployment close enough to facilitate ground movement that concerns the threat. Bashur was 250 miles from Baghdad. That's more than close enough, and conceivably one fuel load for FCS vehicles with Joint Heavy Lift Rotorcraft able to resupply a battalion task force as required.
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Intratheater movement of a FCS/Stryker battalions or companies will allow options never before enjoyed with anything other than light forces. Extensive air assaults in Viet Nam, OIF, and OEF have shown that air assaults work. Air assaults involving armor would simply add a new dimension.
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Once FCS is fielded, planners will have the vision to properly deploy these systems by air and sea, and then employ them effectively along multiple ground avenues of approach to serve as a magnet for threat forces that move toward them. The FCS force has the survivable armor and active protection to thwart that enemy counterattack and direct multiple joint fires to destroy any enemy identified as being close enough to endanger FCS elements.

[Cheap Jeep]

Originally Posted by Administrator

I take issue with retired Maj. Gen. Scales’ article, “The shape of brigades to come” [October]. Scales claims that Special Forces operations in Afghanistan and Northern Iraq, and the Stryker’s deployment in Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) somehow serve to “validate” retired Brig. Gen. Huba Wass de Czega’s aero-mechanized theories. This is an absurd assertion and bad history, at best. While air delivery of small teams of Special Forces and light infantry were the hallmark of both campaigns, in neither instance were large-scale mechanized forces involved. The performance of Stryker brigades in Iraq is certainly laudable; however, the “aero” part of the aero-mechanized maneuver theory was missing. Scales should weigh the evidence before making such outlandish statements as, “The challenge of future warfare on land cannot be met without building modular, FCS [Future Combat Systems]-equipped forces aero-mechanized brigades that will form the aerial blitzkrieg of the future.”

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/01/1302885

How many Abrams did they initially put down from the 1/63rd 'Euro Readiness Force' at Bashur? Five?

Please.

We win in places like 73 Easting and suddenly we are unbeatable rather than just lucky enough to catch the enemy with their pants down.

OTOH, you go TO the enemy, where he nominally should expect an Entebbe type airdrop/airland combined force attack _because that's what an APOD is all about_ and he may put a lot more lead in your shorts than you can handle.

Thus the reality of early/forced entry must be put to a couple of key point questions before you even consider pushing for an Air Mech replacement capability for 'Airborne' (as attrition soak light infantry for OOTW):

1. Is the sieze-the-airport mission any more viable than the sieze-the-harbor one? If sending a largely immobile boot force to a given point to capture it and then begin taking main force elements in is unachievable because it forces the geographic proximity constraints of the types of enemy that can meet them, the the whole notion of 'fools rush in' is off kilter.

2. How many places _other than airfields_ can a highway-landed C-17 force effect early entry ops into? We're talking ground pressures and approach speeds for runway length here because thanks to hostile airflow and poor nose high roll stabilization problems the C-17 _cannot_ airdrop nor fly a LAPES profile for anything over 42,000lbs. Last I heard, when you factored in realistic (5,000 not 3,000ft) runway numbers, the GLIII couldn't beat the C-5 for truly heavy/outsize equipment lift and was nowhere's near the C-130 for airfield flexibility. If you don't want to go to an airfield and you can't put down a heavier-than-dropped airland commitment, then suddenly, not just the effectiveness of your insertion but the kinds of missions it can do are utterly different (no 20 ton class vehicles) than expected for the original operational tasking commitment.

3. So what does it do? If you are running a LIC or other post-combat operations 'peacekeeping' mission set, you don't need to put people into the theater within a 96hr interval. You certainly don't need to go in armored as 'Aero Mech' heads would suggest. OTOH, if you aren't interested in replaying Overlord as an excuse to spend a decade and a trillion dollars fighting a war you will ultimately walk away losers from; then perhaps the deployment of ground forces needs to be reconsidered. None of the out-West shenanigans in any way assisted the main force ops going to Baghdad, they didn't even distract or preoccupy enemy forces in the region because frankly, there just weren't that many. The same has been consistently true of airborne ops throughout history where the LGOP confusion effect has offset numeric force and mobility deficiences ONLY to the extent that said force (Market Garden) didn't objectivize themselves to a static target killing field. As soon as surprise is lost and/or effective armored response becomes available, LOOK OUT, the enemy will either fade on you or roll you up with attrition. But if AIRPOWER is the real victory-vector in modern warfare, then the mission changes as the ground component can effectively act as both bait goat and hostaging agency for things like infrastructure attacks that do not obliterate targets like bombs do. Chase an early entry force with tanks and you just give the flyboys an extended MTI target signature. Cover an attack on hydro-electric facilities with Netfires and a 'hand on the switch' deactivation rather than destructive capability and suddenly a 200,000 dollar missile saves you the cost of watching pilots drop weapons on generator halls, costing billions of dollars. The difference being one of 'if the Commando force cannot take the power plant, the Netfires can still kill it, from 40nm away...' Can a tank do that? Will a dictator notice when his capital's lights go out? Will it be cheaper to NOT have to rebuild every life-support infrastructure you would otherwise have blown up?

Only if you revision what ground forces can do as decoys and nuissance forces in a much more limited, tech-based, way does the premise of AeroMech become viable as a replacement for heavy conventional forces on a ton:mile and day:nm deployment dependent as much as total decision-to-action cycle of deliberate intervention.

If we'd had 90 aircraft pretasked to put several kampfgruppe style mini taskforce elements on the ground as the CIA aerostats told us Saddam was crossing the thin red line, we might not have had to fight Desert Storm. And that, in light of all the waste and failures that have derived from it, can only be seen as a victory.


Jeep

[Cole]

Jeep: How many Abrams did they initially put down from the 1/63rd 'Euro Readiness Force' at Bashur? Five?

Please.
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Reply: Which is the entire reason we need the FCS mounted combat system. Instead of 5 M1, you would have had 15 MCS on the ground capable of firing 120mm mid range munitions and using less fuel per mile with all 3 vehicles than the single Abrams.
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Jeep: We win in places like 73 Easting and suddenly we are unbeatable rather than just lucky enough to catch the enemy with their pants down.
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Reply: We were lucky because in the sandstorm and against cold targets there was minimal thermal signature. FCS manned ground vehicles will not rely on heat signatures, nor on blind movement to contact/meeting engagement in the absence of solid intelligence. Even without external intelligence cueing (unlikely) the sensors of the collective FCS force provide unparalleled detection of enemy vehicle targets, long before the enemy knows we are there in silent electric drive attack mode.
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Jeep: OTOH, you go TO the enemy, where he nominally should expect an Entebbe type airdrop/airland combined force attack _because that's what an APOD is all about_ and he may put a lot more lead in your shorts than you can handle.
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Reply: Nobody suggests an airland operation as a forcible entry. In nearly any imaginable scenario, there is either an adjacent friendly neighboring nation (concerned that they are the next aggression victim) that offers an airfield near the threat border. Or there are obscure locations in the threat nation that can be secured by traditional light forces to safeguard airlanding as in the near-Irbil operation.

In the latter case if realistically we only can airland 12 or so C-17s a night (at one site) and 10 of them are available for armor, would you rather insert a combination of:

10 FCS “medium tanks” (using a total of 3 gallons per mile)
14 Infantry carriers (with 9-man dismount squad)
4 NLOS-cannons
2 C2V
10 NLOS-Launch System “Netfires” 15-missile (150 total) container launch units

or just the current:

5 M1A2 (your “please” example using a total of 10 gallons per mile)
6 M2A3 (with 6-man dismount squad)
3 M109A6
1 C2V

or the inadequate:

30 Strykers with slat armor and 105mm guns, no artillery, and only .50 cal armor protection
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Jeep: Thus the reality of early/forced entry must be put to a couple of key point questions before you even consider pushing for an Air Mech replacement capability for 'Airborne' (as attrition soak light infantry for OOTW):

1. Is the seize-the-airport mission any more viable than the seize-the-harbor one? If sending a largely immobile boot force to a given point to capture it and then begin taking main force elements in is unachievable because it forces the geographic proximity constraints of the types of enemy that can meet them, then the whole notion of 'fools rush in' is off kilter.
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Reply: Again, you rush in to the neighboring nation, not the one where heavy combat is occurring. The whole point is to secure friendly airheads and ports. That safeguards arrival of heavier force sea and air deployment, and secures airpower bases where fighters and attack helicopters can base to provide further deterrent. The alternative of slow-no-or-light security of those ports/airheads may mean a later forcible entry IS required because the threat realizes your intentions and attacks the airheads and ports that light forces alone are securing on a wing and a prayer.
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Jeep: 2. How many places _other than airfields_ can a highway-landed C-17 force effect early entry ops into? We're talking ground pressures and approach speeds for runway length here because thanks to hostile airflow and poor nose high roll stabilization problems the C-17 _cannot_ airdrop nor fly a LAPES profile for anything over 42,000lbs. Last I heard, when you factored in realistic (5,000 not 3,000ft) runway numbers, the GLIII couldn't beat the C-5 for truly heavy/outsize equipment lift and was nowhere's near the C-130 for airfield flexibility. If you don't want to go to an airfield and you can't put down a heavier-than-dropped airland commitment, then suddenly, not just the effectiveness of your insertion but the kinds of missions it can do are utterly different (no 20 ton class vehicles) than expected for the original operational tasking commitment.
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Reply: Who says you must use only C-17? Bring in lighter equipment with C-130J and C-27s. Bring in the C-5M after the airfield is fully secured. The faster substantial combat power is on the ground, the less likely the Market Garden scenario becomes a possibility. Even better, you don’t do it all to one unhappy highway, dry lake bed, or austere airfield with lots of flights threatening MOG and runways. You land fewer aircraft at multiple airfields to provide multiple defensive AOs and future axis of advance into bad guy territory.
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Jeep: 3. So what does it do? If you are running a LIC or other post-combat operations 'peacekeeping' mission set, you don't need to put people into the theater within a 96hr interval. You certainly don't need to go in armored as 'Aero Mech' heads would suggest. OTOH, if you aren't interested in replaying Overlord as an excuse to spend a decade and a trillion dollars fighting a war you will ultimately walk away losers from; then perhaps the deployment of ground forces needs to be reconsidered. None of the out-West shenanigans in any way assisted the main force ops going to Baghdad. They didn't even distract or preoccupy enemy forces in the region because frankly, there just weren't that many.
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Reply: And yet if a force capable of offensive operations could have been put on the ground, even if only battalion-sized, it would have posed a threat and a magnet to enemy forces. If Hussein had wanted to retreat or attack north, he would have met both airpower and credible ground force. LTC Marcone’s men took out 3 brigades at Objective Peach with one tank-heavy battalion. Methinks an FCS combined arms battalion could have worked similar wonders.

[Cole]

Jeep: The same has been consistently true of airborne ops throughout history where the LGOP confusion effect has offset numeric force and mobility deficiencies ONLY to the extent that said force (Market Garden) didn't objectivize themselves to a static target killing field. As soon as surprise is lost and/or effective armored response becomes available, LOOK OUT, the enemy will either fade on you or roll you up with attrition.
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Reply: I won’t argue with you. Our past/current reliance on unsubstantial airborne and light Marine capabilities will come back to haunt us one day should we forego current plans to field FCS and a credible air-deployable deterrent.
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Jeep continues: But if AIRPOWER is the real victory-vector in modern warfare, then the mission changes as the ground component can effectively act as both bait goat and hostaging agency for things like infrastructure attacks that do not obliterate targets like bombs do. Chase an early entry force with tanks and you just give the flyboys an extended MTI target signature. Cover an attack on hydro-electric facilities with Netfires and a 'hand on the switch' deactivation rather than destructive capability and suddenly a 200,000 dollar missile saves you the cost of watching pilots drop weapons on generator halls, costing billions of dollars. The difference being one of 'if the Commando force cannot take the power plant, the Netfires can still kill it, from 40nm away...' Can a tank do that? Will a dictator notice when his capital's lights go out? Will it be cheaper to NOT have to rebuild every life-support infrastructure you would otherwise have blown up?
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Reply: I remain confused. Are you arguing FOR or against a credible air-deployed armored ground deterrent. How will airpower protect our light infantry and Marines from getting bombarded by distant rockets and TBMs from across the border and from local sympathizers with rockets/mortars/IEDs? Who will position and protect NLOS-LS “netfires” missile CLUs? Light force trucks with MRAP protection? Air Force foxholes at 20,000’? Actually, a NLOS-cannon could take out a key node of the hydro-electric facility at any time from quite a distance as could a mounted combat system mid-range munition. Plus the artillery and protected NLOS-LS could conduct counterbattery fire against the bad guys launching stuff at parked F-35s, while protecting Patriots so that TBMs are thwarted as well.
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Jeep: Only if you revision what ground forces can do as decoys and nuisance forces in a much more limited, tech-based, way does the premise of AeroMech become viable as a replacement for heavy conventional forces on a ton:mile and day:nm deployment dependent as much as total decision-to-action cycle of deliberate intervention.
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Reply: Seems as though the primary nuisance for Saddam Hussein in both 1991 and 2003 was bombing, and the no-fly zone in the interim. Only when ground forces showed up in Baghdad was that campaign complete…with a new campaign beginning to secure-hold-build (guess we will know next time).

And as you mention, far fewer ground guys would be threatened and money spent in the rebuilding phase if more infrastructure still stood unbombed.
How much did the Marshall Plan cost rebuilding a bombed out Germany? I call that an unintended and unnecessary “effect.” I’m thinking the “tactical pause” en route to Baghdad would have been shorter or nonexistent and day:nm greater had the force been equipped with FCS forces that were not running out of fuel, and had a greater idea where bad guys were. I’m speculating that the ton:mile ratio would have been smaller because there would have been fewer tons to begin with. I’m wondering if a battalion-sized FCS assault from the north WOULD have been a distraction to the Republican Guard.

And who says FCS is a replacement for all heavy forces? Envision if the attack on Baghdad had been a V Corps attack with a combined arms force tailoring of heavy battalion, FCS battalions, and Stryker battalions securing the logistics trains. Less fuel used overall. Better all-around protected vehicles except Abrams…and better sensors to preclude the round-bouncing-off-armor method of finding the enemy. Next time we would have multiple UAS instead of one Hunter (Predators all looking for TBM). Just because you may want the point-of-the-spear to have lots of road-hugging armor does not mean the trailing elements need to waste similar quantities of fuel. Want flank security. Put FCS battalions on flanks and heavy forces leading the way. Use FCS battalions to cross bridges and marshy routes that Abrams would crush or get bogged down in. The idea of FCS is to buy the time needed to get large numbers of heavy BCTs into theater. That takes months…not the days/week the enemy may allow us.
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Jeep: If we'd had 90 aircraft pretasked to put several kampfgruppe style mini taskforce elements on the ground as the CIA aerostats told us Saddam was crossing the thin red line, we might not have had to fight Desert Storm. And that, in light of all the waste and failures that have derived from it, can only be seen as a victory.
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Reply: Ah, but wouldn’t you rather have multiple battalion-sized kampfgruppes dispersed along the international border than multiple company ones? That’s the difference in deployment and logistical supportability that FCS buys you. In the initial defense and “bait” action you describe, the airfield and local host nation trucks become your logistics trains. Airpower and armor become the killers should the threat take the “bait.”

But if the bait is solely light Army and Marine forces, then you can expect sufficient disgruntled Islamic elements in nearby cities to launch attacks and plant IEDs from the safety of urban neighborhoods and adjacent forests and mountains where airpower either cannot target (ROE) or find the threat. How much airlanding and aircraft parking will occur with mortars and rockets landing on the runway or TBM and distant artillery/rockets inbound? If you thought a huge mobile TBM launcher was hard to find, imagine trying to find a truck hiding in the trees that pops out long enough to launch 122mm rockets before retreating to safety from fast movers at 20,000'.

At some point when all heavy and FCS forces do arrive by sea and air, they fall in on FCS units and the two fight as one, taking the attack across the border to the enemy under the cover of airpower to drive the enemy from cover and urban areas. It is this interdependency of deployment and attack that will ensure the Air Force, Army, Marines, and Navy will win future wars. The alternative is unacceptable risk, intolerable delays in responding credibly, and potential threat fait accompli before we can react ala Russia vs Georgia last August, or China vs. Taiwan/Japan in years to come.