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Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

author:By the end of the rope

This article was originally published in the December 2004 issue of Ordnance magazine. This reprint has been re-improved and edited, supplemented and sorted out by the secondary content, so as to share with the same friends. Personally, I think that "Weapons" magazine is a professional and objective military magazine, and it is recommended to continue to subscribe to enrich their military knowledge. Reprinting some of the older articles on them is mainly to let readers examine the things and opinions of the past from another and more unique perspective.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Although the victory in the Iraq War intoxicated the U.S. Army, it was also xiao He; Defeat is also Xiao He. U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's new thinking has created an army that is mobile and capable of attack, but at the expense of some protection. In the fierce confrontation, the mechanical power and strike force can make the enemy too late to fight back, to a certain extent, to make up for the lack of protection, but when entering the low-intensity conflict of maintaining law and order after the war, the US casualties have increased sharply. Some immediately blamed it on the army's lightness. So, is the lightness of Rach really more than worth the loss?

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Great War Insider

The reason why Lashi strongly advocates the establishment of a "light force" is that global operations make mobility and flexibility of overwhelming value, and the leap in strike efficiency brought about by network-centered warfare has made the US military conditional to attack instead of defend; coupled with the changes in the us army's combat targets, the "rogue state" army equipped with medium and low technology is not enough to pose a substantial threat to the US military, so the US Army should actively promote lightness.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

In fact, at present, lightweighting is just beginning. Until the end of the Iraq War, the U.S. Army transformation plan has not been fully realized, the ultimate goal of the Army's lightness, the Future Combat System (FCS), has not yet been developed, and only the transitional "Stryk" brigade combat team (SBCT) in the Army's transformation plan has been tested. However, thanks to the increasingly perfect multi-service joint strike system and the great power of network-centered warfare, the initially lightweight army still played a more effective combat role than before in the entire war.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

The wheeled vehicles of the Lightweight Army are the object of strong doubt by some experts in the United States, but in fact, this is completely the Army's antiquated heavy armor thinking. Although the combat effectiveness assessment of the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle has not been fully published, and as a test equipment, it may even expose many flaws, but at least from the statistics of the US Army's combat losses, the armored vehicle has not seen significant losses. Some people say that there is no real armored force ground confrontation in this war, but this just shows that in the "American war", the main force of the enemy's anti-armor is no longer its own armored force. Isn't the fact that the armored units of the Iraqi army have been beaten by air-ground integrated joint operations and have no ability to fight back, which is not one of the prerequisites for the transformation of the army and one of the effects it wants to achieve?

Skirmish layman

However, in the post-war period of maintaining order, in the face of the Anti-American forces in Iraq, which were mainly guerrilla warfare, the light-laced US Army immediately lost its troops. The number of casualties in the first month exceeded the number of casualties during the war. This dilemma gives opponents ample reason to reject Rach's Army transformation plan. Interestingly, in some of last year's bitter battles, it seems that not so many people have questioned the lightness of the U.S. Army, and now faced with much weaker guerrillas, there is a lot of opposition.

Take a look at the description of Shane Aguero, platoon commander of the 2nd Cavalry Battalion of the 5th Cavalry Regiment, of Newsweek: a patrol he was on was driving 4 Humvees and escorting 3 Iraqi vehicles. Returning from an escort mission and driving to the slums of sadr city, a group of Shiite militants suddenly appeared in front of the convoy. Without saying a word, they raised their guns and shot at the convoy. The street suddenly became a "300-meter ambush area". The first Hummer took a sharp turn on the sidewalk, the tires burst, the machine gunner Sergeant Eddie Chan was shot and killed on the spot, and another soldier was also hit, bleeding in the mouth. Soon, 2 more Humvee cars in the convoy were damaged and unable to move forward.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Aguero ordered the driver of the second vehicle to start the vehicle and move on, but the engine could not be started. Aguero had no choice but to lead his soldiers to unload the sensitive equipment on the malfunctioning vehicle and destroy the radio system on the vehicle (to ensure that the communication code would not fall into the hands of the enemy). At this point, another group of Shiite militants began a second round of attacks on them. The bullet entered the right rear door of the car, but fortunately none of the 3 people in the car were hit, but the fuel tank was cut by the bullet. The third Hummer could not continue driving either. The driver of the vehicle later recalled that "although we could drive further 50 meters forward we could drive out of the enemy ambush area, the vehicle could not be launched at all". Fortunately, an M2A1 Bradley infantry fighting vehicle arrived, finally rescued them and quickly drove away from the death zone.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?
Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?
Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

RPG rocket launchers seized by the U.S. military

The ambushes that Aguero experienced were just one microcosm of the many ambush battles. Judging from the various ambushes suffered by the US military in Iraq, a serious problem is the lack of effective armor protection equipment (such as the M1A2 "Abrams" tank, the "Bradley" infantry fighting vehicle and other heavy vehicles, and some personal armor equipment) when carrying out the mission. To this end, in April of this year (2004), the United States paid a terrible price on the battlefield in Iraq: 115 soldiers died and another 879 were wounded, 560 of them seriously. This number of casualties greatly exceeds the number of casualties last spring during the massive U.S.-British coalition offensive against Iraq.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Light is too much

Overly optimistic about the situation, many of the U.S. forces rotating to Iraq did not bring enough armored weapons to Iraq. These forces included the U.S. Army's First Cavalry Division, which was responsible for the defense of Sadr City, which brought only 1/6 of tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to Iraq, and the Marine Corps' First Expeditionary Force, which was responsible for the defense of Fallujah and Ramadi, while the latter paid a terrible price for similar reasons (45 dead, more than 300 wounded). A year ago, the U.S. military put about 400 main battle tanks in Iraq, and the main battle tanks currently stationed in Iraq may be less than the size of a brigade, about 70.

A specific analysis of the casualty figures revealed that many of the U.S. casualties were avoidable. By mid-April of this year (2004rh), the total death toll of coalition forces was 789 (686 of whom were Americans), 142 had died as a result of explosions by mines or improvised explosive devices, and 48 had been killed by rocket attacks. Almost all of the dead soldiers died in unprotected vehicles. With stronger armor protection, at least 1/4 of the fallen soldiers would have survived.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Although the U.S. military has put a large number of armored "Humvees" into Iraq, as Brigadier General Mark Hettening, deputy commander of the First Panzer Division, said in an interview: "The Humvee is just a new type of jeep, and its design use is not at all the mission currently in Iraq." Another officer, Timothy Meredith, who had just been sent to Iraq, said his battalion had undergone months of tank piloting training before heading to Iraq, and now they could only use Humvees. Before there were enough protective devices, the US soldiers in Iraq began to load various alternatives they could find (such as empty fuel tanks, empty ammunition tanks, etc.) on their "Humvees", which was also considered to be "better than nothing".

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Subsequently, at the request of the Marines who had besieged Fallujah and the commander of the First Infantry Division, which controlled Saddam's hometown of Tikrit and other areas, the U.S. military began to send heavy armored forces such as M1A2 main battle tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles to Iraq. In addition, 28 M1A2 main battle tanks airlifted from the German base have arrived at the First Infantry Division.

Light argument

It should be said that the equipment used by the US military in the post-war operations in Iraq is indeed too light on the enemy. Just a few months ago, the military decided that the rotational forces sent to Iraq in the first half of this year did not need to carry too many heavy weapons, because their main role was "peacekeeping"; Soldiers who stayed in the heavy armor of the tank could not "communicate" with the local population. But in fighting in Places like Fallujah and Najaf, U.S. Military Hummer multi-purpose vehicles were frequently destroyed by guerrilla rockets and homemade mines. The burning vehicles on television became a symbol of the inability of the U.S. military to cope with the situation.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

A legend that has been born for 60 years: the Russian-made RPG-7 rocket launcher

Faced with a dilemma, the initial response of the US military was to send more armored enhanced "Humvees". The existing 9,000 Hummer vehicles are being urgently modified with bulletproof glass and armored doors, which are said to be able to withstand shell fragments and 7.62 mm ordinary bullets. The 1,000 armor-enhanced Humvee vehicles, which Congress has allocated $239 million in its fiscal year 2004 budget, further improved protection against small arms, mines and grenades, but would not be delivered until the summer of 2005.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

The "Hummer" Jeep Mou in the picture is armor-enhanced, but the number is still too small to meet the needs of the US military in Iraq.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Armor-enhanced Hummer

It should be noted, however, that the view of negating transformation and lightening steals a different subject. The army's lightness never intended to use the Humvee as the main force. The reason why the US troops stationed in Iraq use a large number of "Humvee" vehicles is because the US military believes that after the war, it will mainly face the task of maintaining law and order, or that it will seriously underestimate the resistance of anti-US forces in Iraq. When the small anti-US forces that "disturb public order" used heavy infantry weapons such as rocket launchers, the US military naturally suffered a lot.

It is true that the existing protective power of the "Stryk" wheeled armored vehicle that truly embodies the army's light thinking is not very strong, but at least it is not necessary to worry about resisting machine gun bullets, and the only worry is the anti-tank rocket with a certain armor-breaking ability. To this end, the U.S. military adopted a stopgap measure that appeared during the Vietnam War - installing a blinded steel bar grille outside the hull of the armored vehicle, in order to make the rocket detonate in advance, so that it was unable to penetrate the main armor of the hull.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Such measures also have serious shortcomings. The hull of the "Stryk" armored vehicle could only be barely loaded into the cargo compartment of the C-130 tactical transport aircraft (at present, individual external components need to be dismantled before installation), and after the external grille armor is installed, it is impossible to airlift with the C-130, and the ability to airlift with the C-130 is already a basic indicator of the US Army's future mobility in the theater of operations. If the external armor needs to be disassembled and assembled once before and after installation, then no matter how short the time is, it will obviously affect the efficiency of air transport.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules transport aircraft

But Stryker is by no means vulnerable. Since the development of the entire "Stryk" armored car family has not yet been completed, only some models have been put into Iraq, and they are not finally configured. At present, the car has begun to add new ceramic armor to the 12.7 mm thick body steel armor, which is twice the thickness of the contract and has omnidirectional protection. Its level of protection has increased from 14.5 mm machine gun shells to 40 mm rockets that can withstand RPG-7 rockets used in large quantities in the Third World ( including Iraqi anti-American forces ) , and the roof can withstand air blast fragments of 152 mm artillery high explosives. Therefore, the threat that appeared in the later stage of Iraq, the "Hummer" can not resist, does not mean that the light army can not resist. What's more, the firepower superiority of the U.S. Army's transformation has not yet been fully realized.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

This is a different story if it is further assumed that Iraqi anti-American forces possess more advanced anti-tank weapons, such as the Russian AT-14 anti-tank missile rumoured during the war. It is said that at the end of March 2003. The U.S. Third Air infantry division had 2 M1 tanks and 1 M2 infantry fighting vehicle hit by the missile in southern Iraq. This semi-active laser-guided third-generation heavy anti-tank missile has a maximum range of 5.5 kilometers and can penetrate 1200 mm of rolled homogeneous armor. Given the current activity of the international arms market, even if the US military does not encounter such weapons in Iraq, it is not impossible for the lightweight US Army to meet such weapons in other battlefields.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

Russian-made AT-14 "Trojan" anti-tank missile

Misconceptions

Any point of view if the premise is ignored. will fall into a strange circle. At this point, it is necessary to reflect on it: if we start from the performance indicators under ideal conditions, the performance of current anti-armor weapons generally exceeds the existing armor protection technology. According to this reasoning, armored vehicles cannot go to the battlefield if they cannot be invincible. In fact, it is not necessary, lightness is not the only way out of the Army's transformation, the core element of the U.S. Army's transformation is to maintain the level of heavy troops in firepower, and to obtain an overall overwhelming advantage through network-centered warfare.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

In the Iraq War, the "thick-skinned" M1A1 main battle tank was more than enough to cope with RPG rockets, but the number was too small to be used in key operations.

A weapon capable of penetrating all armor would be greatly reduced without the right platform and without the right opportunity to fire. By extension, the current individual Russian weapons and equipment are often attracted by single-system, single-platform or unilateral performance, but it has to be admitted that the Russian-style equipment system as a whole is still fragile, because it is inferior in system and efficiency.

Moreover, when the whole is in a state of peace, being ambushed by a small group of armed forces mixed with ordinary people in complex terrain such as cities is originally a military problem under special conditions, and it should belong more to the scope of special operations and even police operations. Any armored vehicle, whether it has the characteristics of lightness or not, can not guarantee that it will never be injured by a close ambush, which is the so-called "dark arrow is difficult to defend".

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

It is said that the American soldiers who are suffering in the "Hummer" car are nostalgic for the M1A2 main battle tank that is "as stable as Tarzan". Another similar example is the use of the Merkava main battle tank by the Israel Defense Forces to counter the heavy weapons threat of infantry in low-intensity clashes, and with good results. But the Israeli military only needs to fight in one area, and the US military cannot ship enough M1A2 to anywhere in the world at any time, which is one of the most fundamental differences.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

In addition, even the Future Combat System (FCS) is bound to suffer a lot of battlefield losses, but this loss is already within the cost. In particular, the most typical unmanned feature of the FCS will further reduce the most unbearable combat losses of the US military - casualties, thus occupying a more favorable position in the future battlefield. As for whether the unmanned or partially unmanned FCS can be competent for the extremely complex task of maintaining law and order, it is difficult to imagine at present. From this point of view, as long as the territory of another Country is effectively occupied, the "people's war" has the power to make it more than worth the loss. But on the other hand, if the enemy only intervenes and does not occupy, then in the high-intensity conflict of the frontal battlefield, the enemy's lightweight army's leap in combat effectiveness must arouse our great attention.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

The U.S. Army Stryker Wheeled Combat Vehicle Column is advancing.

In short, lightweighting will not come without cost, but if you deny the army's lightweight transformation idea because you see that jeeps are inferior to bazookas, it is obviously because of choking. Therefore, if we judge the success or failure of the development of the US military too simplistically, it is not conducive to soberly grasping the opponent.

Humvees lose to rocket launchers – has the U.S. Army's lightening been frustrated?

An alternative to the U.S. Army Hummer, the Oshkosh L-ATV tactical military vehicle

[Note] It is necessary to remind that many domestic media have translated "Rocket-propelled Grenade" as "rocket-propelled grenade", which is really a snake. In fact, this extremely popular weapon in third world countries is the "rocket Jane" that our army is familiar with. It can indeed be considered a kind of "grenade" with "rocket propulsion", but the Continental Army language has been conventional for many years. As for the "rocket-propelled grenade", it is even more wrong with the bull's head.

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