A NEW CONCEPT IN WARFARE

The Return of Light Dragoons

By Salvador M. Zuniga

It's hard to imagine a country or group of countries allying themselves together and defeating us in a tank to tank, conventional fight. The title of this paper by no means indicates a high tech nuclear, biological, and chemical war ending with our defeat (let's face it, what would the victors have after something like that). The war would be small, start off probably like a Support and Stability Operation (SASO) or a nation rebuilding, with a neighboring country having interests in the SASO supported country. One, OPFOR would have the time to adjust their organization, retrain, and reequip to deal with the U.S. threat. Two, they would have the time to gather the intelligence to create countermeasures to our new technologies in battlefield communications and digital information sharing systems. Our troops, busy with attempt peace enforcement and support operations would lose their combat training skills and be off their war-readiness for a return to conventional warfare. Three, the American public would not allow casualties on a peace enforcement mission which, turns into an offensive operation against another country, or allow another Somalia or Vietnam. These are all factors in how the OPFOR would be able to achieve a victory and send us home defeated. How could a force defeat the best equipped army in the world, an army with FORCE XXI technology, with the new IBCTs, and the communications technology allowing commanders to see the battlefield? How would this force that we would lose against be organized, equipped, and how would they overcome our superior technology? They would have to spend millions like we did right? No the answer to that is no, most of the technology required already exists.

OPFOR ORGANIZATION

The basic organization would be the Infantry battalion. Three companies of light infantry with a strength of 110 men. One heavy weapons company, a recon and intelligence gathering platoon, a 120mm-mortar battery, and a headquarters and support company. A combined strength of just over 500 men. Yes, they expect to win against our M1A2 with light infantry! That is because their main tank-killing weapon at the platoon level is a "fire and forget" man-portable ATGM like the Javelin, a Chinese variation, or the Russian AT-15 Khrizantema. Even the Panzerfaust or RPG can cause serious damage (Iraqi Freedom). The Javelin can kill at 3000 meters with either top attack mode or direct attack mode, day or night.

Highly Mobile Tank Killer.

The Russian military has found that their SA-18 shoulder fired SAM can be used as an effective ATGM because of the missile?s flight profile, high speed, and high angle of attack. The AT-15 has a range of 6 km and is close to our Javelin. So a non-US ATGM like the Javelin will be on the market really soon or is already in the case of the Chinese and Russians (AT-15).

At the platoon level, troops will have two of these ATGMs per squad; the command launch unit (CLU) will also act as thermal sights for the squad, and all of the troops in the squad will carry 1 reload. The squad will have one squad automatic weapon either belt or magazine fed, and two grenadiers in addition to the five assault rifles with rifle launched or M203 type launchers

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The units will move around the battlefield in 3X3 wheeled vehicles little larger that the ATV used by hunters to traverse long distances, amphibious, small with a very easy to conceal thermal signature (with the use of thermal blankets) and requiring little maintenance, they will serve as the primary means of moving troops and material. These vehicles would also have trailers that could carry up to 1800 pounds of gear to maintain the unit. Makeup of the platoons would be 3 trailers per platoon and one trailer per company headquarters.

A heavy support vehicle in the weapons platoon.

These vehicles would be the prime movers for the Battalion, the unit itself would not require a large support element, these vehicles float, are airborne and airmobile, move through restricted terrain, and carry firepower that could be dismounted and emplaced into prepared positions for defense or ambush.

No Bridging Assets required.

Each platoon would have 3 squads with two ATGM launchers per squad with 3 squads per platoon and 3 platoons per company.That is a total of 18 launchers per company with three companies, that is 54 launchers, not including the Heavy Weapons Company which provides 3 platoons with 6 launchers a piece. The Heavy Weapons Company does not have the Infantry assigned to it, the AT platoons consists of 12 man platoons, two men per launcher and 6 reloads.

AT Company on the Move.

INDIRECT FIRE SUPPORT AND ADA SUPPORT

The two 81mm mortars will organic to the companies, and two man portable SAMs (SA-18, British StarStreak or Javelin, Stinger) will provide Air Defense Support for the companies. The enemy will be overly aware of our helicopter assets, and UAVs, and it will be important to take defensive measures against the Air threat. Concealment will be through the use of thermal blankets/radar absorbing camouflage netting, making the battalion very hard to spot. The recon and intelligence gathering platoon uses the 3 3X3 vehicles and 3 six man teams to set up forward observation posts. The 120mm-mortar battery assigned to the Battalion will be able to fire the standard range of ammunition, and will be able to fire the smart ammo like the British MERLIN round. The Russians have this capability and this is no doubt that it is on the open market, the KESTREL. This system is very similar to the Copperhead in the sense that it is terminally guided by either laser designation or by an internal guidance system. The smart round would be guided to targets like tanks to immobilize, to destroy M1068 or Styker command vehicles, support and maintenance vehicles. One round, one vehicle, one kill, the mortars will be mounted on the 3X3 mules and use on the market GPS, counter-battery against these will be extremely difficult because of the small signature and high mobility with shoot and scoot, technology. This system should be regarded as a poor man's Paladin.

One Round, One Hit, One high value target destroyed.

Communications will be through the use of cell phones; digital cameras, email and weather proofed laptops, which through the use of off the shelf software will give the OPFOR BN CDR the ability to communicate with his BN and higher. The digital cameras will allow the BN CDR to see what his troops are seeing, have intelligence and make decisions. Combined with on board GPS and a range finder, the laptops can give the position of the soldiers spotting the enemy and give the position of the enemy for indirect fires. The Battalion Commander will be able to send that information to the regimental Cdr., receive instructions, and pass Intelligence back and forth.

HOW WILL IT START

They will attack US bases and patrols (causing us to concentrate on Force Protection), start vehicle ambushes and then ambushing reaction patrols, then they will strike directly at US bases and logistical nodes in the area, the intel on the bases has been collected over the months of having locals working on the US bases. Conventional OPFOR units will start the invasion and the second echelon of this retail force will invest the occupied areas. Severely restricted terrain (to include Urban areas) in the first echelon will be immediately seized by the retail BNs. The conventional OPFOR ground forces will either pull back after being forced by either military force or through negotiations. The OPFOR chain of command would rather pull back the conventional forces through negotiations saving precious armor and resources after causing US casualties in the invasion.

The conventional attacks will continue by the means of the retail OPFOR force. This is not an unconventional fight by no means, negotiations were just an act of buying time for the OPFOR to get its main effort in their respective areas of operation. Negotiations would be a stalling act and the operations on the ground would be causing casualties on the US side. What would we be doing? The Air Force and Navy would be bombing the invader's country aiming at NBC factories, command and control nodes, infrastructure, which the enemy has no intention of ever using, military manufactories that are not supporting the main effort, command and control facilities that are empty because operations have been moved to civilian populated areas. The main effort needs small arms ammo, food, and more ATGMs, that is it! Due to the time spent on the reorganization and retrain of the OPFOR army, these were all stockpiled and well cached. Even now in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq, we are still locating weapon cache sites. On the ground our forces would be looking for targets that are hard to find and that are cheap when compared to the weapons used to destroy them. We would be forced to take armor where it is not designed to go and support it with an ever-decreasing amount of infantry (example, redlegs and tankers doing dismounted patrols in Iraq) and forced to fight with smaller force packages (example, 3ID vs Iraq). We would be on the enemy?s ground and be forced to engage at close range (300 meters), too close for artillery and air, fratricide would go up, press coverage would be sure to get that story home on the nightly news (which isn?t just on at night). Public opinion and the need to avoid another Vietnam would cause public support to wane and we would be pulled out through a negotiated cease-fire or through a withdrawal.

There is the victory that the OPFOR wants. To be sure they would have taken casualties but they have the support of their country, nationalism and religon can motivate anybody (the Germans in WW II taking on Russia, Iranians vsIraq). They would have kicked the best military in the world in the teeth and succeeded without losing billions of dollars in equipment and without using weapons of mass destruction.

COULD WE ADOPT A RETAIL FORCE OF OUR OWN?

The answer is yes, the force would be cheaper to stand up due to the fact that the technology exists already. The force would be highly strategically mobile and retain its tactical mobility once on the ground. The Idea of using M113 GAVINs and an armored gun system are great but the US Army has already gone down the LAV road and will definitely not go back on that decision until something goes wrong in combat. Not only that, the LAV requires too much precious AirLift which the Air Force has little. Heavy Forces need at a minimum 1 month to get to the theater, Airborne Units now are too light to fight and MANUEVER once on the ground. While this retail force could jump, air assault, or be flown in after Special Operations or Rangers have seized an air field. The Javelin exists and is combat proven. This retail force could be stood using the Light Divisions existing already. A two manuever brigade division like the 10th Mountain or even an enhanced National Guard Brigade could be organized into this retail force.