What Makes An Army Great? Part 2
This is the second installment on how the United States armed forces became the dominant military force in the world – not just quantitatively, but qualitatively. A couple weeks ago I wrote about the importance of physical muscle in a military force, Now it’s time to talk about hardware.
The mix of weaponry the United States fielded in the 1990s was not only superior to that of any other force on the planet, but in many cases in a class by itself. It’s worth spending a moment and exploring why.
Vietnam left the armed forces substantially weakened in several respects, not least among them being their sense of mission. The mission remained unchanged for the strategic nuclear deterrent forces of the Air Force and Navy, but the tactical and conventional forces faced some serious soul searching. What sorts of war were they likely to be called on to fight. One thing was clear: a major counter-insurgency effort was not very likely; there was simply no political support for another Vietnam-style war.
That left, almost by default, a conventional confrontation in Europe. The armed forces, for the first time in almost a decade, began investing brainpower then money, in how to win a large-scale conventional war without resorting to nuclear weapons. That decision inevitably led to an evaluation of current weapon systems and some identification of the qualities needed in the next generation of weapons. The weapon systems procured in that period – which ended up being the ones used in war in the 1990s and 2000s – were outstanding and cost effective.
M1 Abrams
The main battle tank in service at that time was the M60 – an good tank by any standards, but it was the product of thirty years or progressive modification and improvement of the World War II-era M26 Pershing, and the basic design had, by the late 1970s, been tweaked about as much as was possible. Its replacement, the M1 Abrams, was one of those incredibly rare technological artifacts – a revolutionary design made from off-the-shelf components.
The gun and fire control system (originally) were the same as in the M-60, although the tank was built to also accept the larger 120mm gun then under development – once it was thoroughly debugged. The chobham-style armor had not been deployed on a tank before, but had been under joint US/UK development for some time and was well beyond the experimental stage. The suspension was designed for unusually high speed, but the basic design was conventional and the components proven. The multi-fuel turbine power plant was the riskiest part of the design and had some teething problems, but worked out in the end. The thermal sights – which would give the tank enormous tactical capabilities in night and smoke – were also off-the-shelf. The first production version of M1s had a fire control and thermal vision system slightly less advanced than that on the last variant of the M60.
The design philosophy of the M-1 Abrams was unique. Tank design has traditionally been a trade-off between firepower, protection, and mobility. The designers of the Abrams threw the whole notion of trade-off out the window; the Abrams would be the fastest, best-protected, and most lethal tank in the world. It was, and a quarter-century later it still is, because it was designed with ease of improvement in mind.
The first upgrade was an improved armor and firepower package, called the Improved Performance (IP) M1. The next was the M1A1, which replaced the 105mm gun with the new 120mm smoothbore. On the eve of the 191 Gulf War units were still receiving the next version – the M1A1HA (Heavy Armor) which replaced the conventional chobham armor blocks with new ones incorporating a depleted uranium mesh for greater protection against conventional rounds. Most M1s shipped to Saudi Arabia during the Desert Shield build-up were not HA versions, but all which attacked into Kuwait and southern Iraq a few weeks later were. Converting M1A1 tanks to M1A1HA consisted simply of cutting off the front armor cover, removing the old ceramic armor blocks, replacing them with new blocks, and re-welding the surface plate. It was a quick and easy conversion and every tank in Saudi Arbia was modified in the field before the ground campaign began – a testamony to foresight.
M2 Bradley
The US left Vietnam with a workmanlike armored personnel carrier (APC) in the M113, and with power plant improvements it continues in use today. What the US did not have was an infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), capable both of carrying infantry forward and also fighting other light armored vehicles on its own. In any case the M113 did not have sufficient mobility to keep up with the M1 Abrams, and so a new vehicle was necessary.
The M2 Bradley was designed as the partner to the M1 Abrams. It was criticized as too expensive, too heavily armed, not sufficiently armored – you name it. Some of the criticisms, particularly of its protection, had merit, but like the Abrams the basic M2 design was easy to upgrade. The original M2, without upgrades, was the best protected IFV in the world, but it’s since become clear that IFV in general could use better armor. The current version of the Bradley, with it distinctive add-on side armor panels, goes even further.
The 25mm chain gun system was designed to engage infantry and hard targets such as bunkers and light AFVs. It was provided with depleted uranium armor piercing ammunition to increase its performance against armor, and it really did. In the First Gulf War M2 Bradley scouts on several occasions ended up in close combat with Iraqi main battle tanks and discovered, to their surprise and relief, that the 25mm was a pretty good tank killer.
M270 MLRS
Indirect fire has relied on single tube systems for a long time. The Soviets pioneered target saturation with multiple rocket launch systems in World War II and continued to refine the art through the second half of the twentieth century. The US embraced the concept fairly late, but produced a great weapon system when it did. The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) can saturate a target with sub-munitions, but does not sacrifice accuracy to get volume. The individual high-payload rockets are very accurate, which makes this a great counter-battery weapon. As with the other systems, it was designed to be upgraded, and the First Gulf War saw the first deployment of the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) which is a much larger, long-range missile for hitting deep targets, but is fired from the same launch system as the MLRS.
AH-64 Apache Attack Helicopter
Okay. Only sort of a land system, but the Army flies them so they count as far as I’m, concerned. The US Army pioneered air-mobile warfare in Vietnam, but helicopter vulnerability was always a challenge. It still is, but the AH-64 was designed from the ground up as a survivable battle helicopter. It is “resistant” to rounds up to 23mm (a caliber significant in that it was the main forward deployed mobile air defense system fielded by the Soviets). Resistant does not mean invulnerable, but it’s an improvement over most attack helicopters.
The AGM-114 Hellfire missile system can hit targets at ranges of up to 8,000 meters, well beyond the range of most forward-deployed light air defense systems. It is laser-homing, and very accurate. Right after the First Gulf War I watched gun camera footage from an AH-64 battalion shooting up a column of the Iraqi Republican Guard’s Hammurabi Division with Hellfire missiles. It was both sobering and, after a while, disturbing: watching another tank or IFV blow up every three to five seconds, like clockwork, like an assembly line – or a disassembly line.
The new mast-mounted sight on the Longbow variant of the Apache is even more survivable. The sight includes a laser target designator, and the aircraft can remain behind a terrain feature, such as a rise or building, with only the sight on top of the rotor shaft exposed. At six to eight kilometers, the small mast-mounted sight is effectively invisible.
The Future
The enormous effectiveness of the US Army in the 1990s and 2000s was due in part to some very good procurement decisions made in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It’s not easy to keep catching lightning in a bottle. The procurement decisions made in the next twenty years, in retrospect, seem less inspired.
The Army has come very late to the notion of mine-resistant vehicles. Mines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) have become one of the principal casualty-producing threats the Army faces. Its basic utility vehicle, the HMMWV (Hummer), is a flat-bottomed (death-inviting in a mine environment) and all but unprotected road hazard which screams for immediate replacement, and yet there is nothing even in the pipeline, let alone approaching deployment.
The Army knew for years that the evolving mission required a wheeled lightly armored fighting vehicle capable of mounting a variety of weapon systems. Despite this, it had enormous – and inexplicable – difficulty in fielding an acceptable system. It finally has the Stryker, a design based on the Swiss MOWAG Piranha, which has been around since the 1970s. Why did it take so much blood, sweat, toil, and tears to get this into the inventory? Don’t get me started. And of course the Stryker is flat-bottomed, but there is at least a semi-active suspension variant with “v” bottom in development.
The Army needs a renewed round of inspired thinking about procurement if it is going to retain its combat edge into the mid-twenty-first century. “Inspired” procurement doesn’t always mean more; most of the time it means smart.
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