Friday, September 21, 2018

Does Nobody Want to Fight and Win America's Ground Wars?

Army Multi-Domain Operations seems dangerously too much like the Army becoming added firepower and reconnaissance for the Navy.

Is this what we are really going to do with the Army?

“Winning in competition is not accomplished by winning battles, but through executing integrated operations and campaigning. Operations are more encompassing, bringing together varied tactical actions,” [TRADOC Commander General Steven] Townsend writes.

As part of the Army’s pursuit of these strategic aims, the Army and Navy have been operating together in the Pacific over the course of this past year. The services have been collaborating to fire Army artillery from Navy ships, send targeting data to land weapons from Navy sensors and use coastal land rockets to destroy enemy ships at sea, service leaders said.

“The Army is looking at shooting artillery off of Navy ships. Innovation is taking existing things and modifying them to do something new,” Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, Director, Program Analysis and Evaluation, G-8, told Warrior Maven in an interview earlier this year.

When winning battles--and campaigns--isn't part of the Army's basic mission in the Pacific, why bother having an Army there?

Just field Army anti-aircraft and field artillery brigades and allocate the combat brigades to places they are needed and will be used.

And if the Navy wants additional artillery on their ships, don't put Army assets designed for use on land on the ships--put navy guns or missiles in shipping containers and put those on Navy ship decks.

I miss the days when each service focused on its own domain and the synergy of that jointness was the real multi-domain operation.

What we have now is the sea domain (Navy) dragooning the land domain (Army) into the sea fight.

This will be just swell.