Let me review, at his challenge, the ten themes Scales set forth about future war in 1999. Mind you, it speaks well of him to predict the future and then stand by them when the future approaches. As he notes, predictions about future war shouldn't be about getting the future right, it is about not getting it too wrong to win.
I'll do them one at a time in separate posts. This is the third post. Let me preface this effort with my warning from my 2002 Military Review article (starting on p. 28) about the projected FCS that was the primary weapons system envisioned by those planning efforts:
Barring successfully fielding exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.
The third theme from 1999 is:
3. Maneuver by Air at the Operational and Tactical Levels
Increasing the strategic speed of a force is of little value unless the momentum generated by global projection can be sustained by aerial maneuver at the operational and tactical levels.
I don't have much of a record on this issue. I briefly mentioned in that 2002 article tactical airlift for a future light armored fighting vehicle that would bridge the gap between leg infantry and heavy armor.
Mind you, I definitely didn't see how the strategic speed of the force could be achieved without sending light armor to slaughter. So I suspect that my view was that while tactical or maybe operational aerial maneuver could be useful, that a light armored vehicle for that purpose is a niche capability--as I recently stated in an article to advocate attaching heavy armor to our infantry type brigades today in "Look to Abrams Tanks to Support the Infantry," Army Magazine, April 2018 (pp. 42-45).
But I have long been worried about air defense systems. Since a deep Apache strike in the 2003 Iraq War major combat operations phase was shot up by the Iraqis I've worried about the safety of low-flying aircraft over the battlefield filled with air defenses. Although I heard about that mission after the 2002 article.
Today I can definitely say I'm not sure how we would airlift on the battlefield when faced with air defenses. Although as the above post addresses, perhaps drones will be able to find and suppress air defenses to pave the way for such missions. If that is possible there is a niche need for light armor that can be airlifted short distances.
Theme two is here.
