The Army we have vs. the Army we want to have.

With all the talk about not enough armor for the HUMVEE's and the lethality of the IED's against our vehicles, I think that maybe the DoD should examine what we currently use against what would be the best equipment for us to have.

It is very easy for myself, or any of us to play armchair general and debate the merits of the vehicles used by our armed forces. The HUMVEE has become a household word for most Americans, and more and more people are learning about the Stryker, M1-A2, and Bradley Fighting Vehicle due to the coverage from Iraq. It is primarily the Stryker and HUMVEE that I would like to examine,

"The C-130 is the Methuselah of the military aircraft world, having been in production since the mid 50's."

Yes, but the only connection between nowadays produced C-130J-30 and those built 50 years ago is that they have a little similar shape.

" It is a great airplane, but the world has changed in the past fifty years and airplanes have gotten a lot bigger. Would it have not been a better plan to use C-17 or C-5 Galaxy's..."

Sure, but it would cost a little more.

"The issue with the HUMVEE is that it was never designed to be an armored personnel carrier. "

This is true.

You've hit the crux of one of the may arguments about transformation--the requirement for armor versus rapid deployment and ease of repositioning. Armor is heavy & requires either sealift or lots of heavy lift aircraft with appropriate airfields & infrastruture at both ends.

The Rumsfeld concept of transformation was to capitalize on the U.S. advantage in high technology. Armor was not important as our intell capability would give us such an edge in situational awareness that we could destroy enemy forces with precision munitions at ranges in excess of enemy capabilities. This model of "transformation" was actully based on the idea of a conventional enemy whose equipment, facilites, and tactics lent themselves to detection through technological means.

In fact, based on this model, Secretary Rumsfeld was pushing for a 20% reduction in the Army (10 divisions down to 8) shortly after he came into office. The idea was that we didn't need much ground combat capability, just a few ground "spotters" to help round out our technical capability to acquire targets for our naval and air forces to hit. The green beret elements fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan were the supposed exemplar of this model.

The early Rumsfeld model of transformation was actually based on an old model of warfare and therefore did not fit the realities on the gorund in Afghanistan and Iraq. When the enemy operates in dispersed, small units intermixed with the civilian population and using guerilla style techniques and tactics, close and unexpected engagements are the rule--that means armor for protection and lots of well trained ground troops to hunt down and eliminate the enemy in detail. While large amounts of ground troops equipped with both personal armor and moving in armored vehicles is not transformational, it is effective. And effectiveness is what we need.

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