... Guys, this is not me, this is Disqus algorithm which removes some posts with links to Spam folder. Here is the link to Bernhard's excellent piece at his blog MoA.
When I was in officer school, pre-1991, NATO was less dependent on
air-superiority than it is today. We also had some good air defense
systems. Our artillery was not superior to the Soviet one but was well
layered - from short, medium to long ranged systems - and would have
created very significant damages. We also had good pioneer equipment
that allowed for the crossing rivers and ditches as well as serious mine
fields. All this changed after the 1991 Gulf war in which U.S. air
superiority and tank fist destroyed the Iraqi defense forces. That war
was misconstrued as a big win when it in fact was simply the effect of a
by far superior professional force over a unmotivated conscript army
with old and often defunct weapons.
As an effect of the first Gulf war and later operations in Serbia,
Afghanistan and again in Iraq the believe in NATO air-land doctrine was
reinforced. Air superiority was the holy grail while the strong land
force capabilities atrophied. An emphasis on guerilla suppression and on
vehicles that could withstand simple improvised explosive devices
(IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan further unbalanced the force. It explains why the Ukrainian troops were miss-trained and
miss-equipped for a counter-offensive even when the opposing force was a
much harder to crack one than some goat herders from Helmand,
Afghanistan.
Absolutely correct! And this doctrine could have emerged only through the operational and technological wishful thinking and self-erected mythology. Again, the Army that worships Patton as "genius" tank commander is bound to be defeated, because it doesn't study the REAL WWII history, and has some issues with basic arithmetic, forget about operational calculus. Read the whole thing at MoA.
No comments:
Post a Comment