Rumsfeld kills "Crusader"

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by David Floyd
Should the US ever fight two wars at once is a better question, IMO.

Kim (il Sung?) : I hear the US is now at war with Iraq.

Adviser: This would be very good time to attack South Korea, no?

Kim: No that would be unfair. Attack when US has is its military tied up half a world away? Better to wait till they are done.


Whether you agree with US policy on Iraq, Korea, or elsewhere, the rationale of a 2 regional war capability is that potential adversaries of the US are not stupid, and would likely take advantage of a situation like the above.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Re: Rumsfeld kills "Crusader"

Originally posted by Lonestar

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53762-2002May8.html

For those too lazy to read the link...

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has opt to kill the "Crusader" self-propelled Howitzer. The argument against it being (1) too heavy and (2) bombs now work just as well as artillary.


Of course, that's pure crap. This means the Army(and, to lesser degree, the marines.), is grabbed by the balls, artillarywise. As it now stands, the frickin' French are now far ahead of us, artillary techwise. ( The Current US Self-propelled Howitzer, the Paladin, is a 1979 upgrade to a 1959 design).

.

Fortunately we're most unlikely to go to war against the French. Which potential ADVERSARY has artillery superior to the Paladin??
Iraq? Iran? N. Korea? China? Given that artillery is only one component of a combined arms battlefield, (along with armor, missiles, tactical air power, etc) and that resources are limited (lets not start on that one) it does not appear unreasonable to look for economies in this area.

Iraq is likely to be over well before this system comes on line. The most likely scenario for a war with China (a Chinese invasion of Taiwan) would be dominated by air and naval power. It is hard to see why we should be focusing resources on heavy land combat.

and on MC being the "expeditionary corps" - what about the airborne and mountain divisions of the army. look at current campaign in Afganistan - MC in first, as cutting edge, then replacement by LIGHT elements of US Army. While Army and MC still have distinct roles, i think view is that Army still needs great mobility. No more planning based on the Fulda gap.

LOTM

[TCO]

The Army has a different mentality. I went and did an exercise at kelly Barracks. I asked what unit was the base for. It was for the something soemthing number "support" group. I mean a whole firggen base for support group. I tried to figure out what support meant and the b est I could find out was that it was postal clerks. See it is a HUGE deal to get the mail to soldiers.

Friggen A. We never got any mail on the submarine.

[- Groucho -]

Seems there is a bit of a fight brewing over Crusader. A new spending bill was approved today that includes funding for Crusader ...

Both versions contain $475 million for the Army to continue developing the $11 billion Crusader cannon. But the House went further and included nonbinding language telling the Pentagon not to kill it before producing a study on the alternatives.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who had long championed the program, announced Wednesday that he wants to dump the new gun in favor of more futuristic technologies like precision-guided bombing.

For the whole article, click here.

[David Floyd]

Kim (il Sung?) : I hear the US is now at war with Iraq.

Adviser: This would be very good time to attack South Korea, no?

Kim: No that would be unfair. Attack when US has is its military tied up half a world away? Better to wait till they are done.

Why the hell should we fight North Korea, or Iraq for that matter?

[Felch]

Because we can kick their asses, Dave.

[Ned]

I am not military and therefore I may be way out of my depth here, but I don't really see a overwhelming need for mobile artillery that can only fire trajectory shells, which I presume is the case with the Crusader. For offensive operations it seems to me that precision guided weapons are critical. On defense, it would seem that cluster weapons would be the preferred choice. Both of these are best delivered by air power. Not so?

The Crusader also seems to be so physically large that it would be hard to move to a battlefield without using ships, ports and connecting roads. If this is right, the Crusader would be of little use in a "rapid reaction" environment.

For those of you may know, did artillery play any decisive role in Desert Storm?

Ned

[Lonestar]

Re: Re: Rumsfeld kills "Crusader"

Originally posted by lord of the mark


Fortunately we're most unlikely to go to war against the French. Which potential ADVERSARY has artillery superior to the Paladin??
Iraq? Iran? N. Korea? China? Given that artillery is only one component of a combined arms battlefield, (along with armor, missiles, tactical air power, etc) and that resources are limited (lets not start on that one) it does not appear unreasonable to look for economies in this area.


Iraq is likely to be over well before this system comes on line. The most likely scenario for a war with China (a Chinese invasion of Taiwan) would be dominated by air and naval power. It is hard to see why we should be focusing resources on heavy land combat.

Just Be Prepared...

Seriously, we need artillary, specifically fast, rapid-fire artillary, becuase, in the event we have soldiers on the ground and it's cloudy out, said soldiers are screwed. (no all weather planes)

Many Russian self-propelled artillary pieces are superior to the Paladin, and many large, 3rd Armies have said artillary pieces.

and on MC being the "expeditionary corps" - what about the airborne and mountain divisions of the army. look at current campaign in Afganistan - MC in first, as cutting edge, then replacement by LIGHT elements of US Army. While Army and MC still have distinct roles, i think view is that Army still needs great mobility. No more planning based on the Fulda gap.

LOTM

Thought I mentioned those light Infantry units.......didn't I?

[Tingkai]

Seems to me you got these choices:

A) Spend money on the Challenger, but not on Star Wars (AMD);
B) Spend money on Star Wars, but not on the Challenger;
C) Raise taxes and spend money on both; and
D) Don't spend money on either and cut taxes.

So which are you going to pick?

I'd go for D. The Paladin will still get the job done. Yes, there might be Russian S-P artillery that can fire slightly faster, but does it really matter. I don't think so. The Paladin can still hit hard, when it is used.

When was the last time the Paladin was used? Did it have some type of massive failing? Was there any indication that it was obsolete?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ned
I am not military and therefore I may be way out of my depth here, but I don't really see a overwhelming need for mobile artillery that can only fire trajectory shells, which I presume is the case with the Crusader. For offensive operations it seems to me that precision guided weapons are critical. On defense, it would seem that cluster weapons would be the preferred choice. Both of these are best delivered by air power. Not so?

The Crusader also seems to be so physically large that it would be hard to move to a battlefield without using ships, ports and connecting roads. If this is right, the Crusader would be of little use in a "rapid reaction" environment.

For those of you may know, did artillery play any decisive role in Desert Storm?

Ned

Nothing can deliver more tonnage on the target more quickly or cheaply than artillery. It's pretty accurate as well. The limitations of artillery are that you have to have a line of supply on the ground to within 40 KM of the target, and artillery generally requires some other ground forces to provide security and target data. This is why we aren't using much artillery in Afghanistan, we don't want to commit to a large ground presence such that we could deliver artillery to the vast regions where we are fighting. So we are using airmobile troops and airpower to back them. If you wanted to create a maximal firepower situation however, artillery would be the bedrock. IIRC, 70% of battlefield casualties in WWII were caused by artillery.

Two of these new vehicles will fit into one of our C-17s or C-5s, so they are potentially airmobile. As for Desert Storm, we pounded the crap out of everything in range of our artillery, with our aircraft beating the stuffing out of the rest.

[Lonestar]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Seems to me you got these choices:

A) Spend money on the Challenger, but not on Star Wars (AMD);
B) Spend money on Star Wars, but not on the Challenger;
C) Raise taxes and spend money on both; and
D) Don't spend money on either and cut taxes.

So which are you going to pick?

I'd go for D. The Paladin will still get the job done. Yes, there might be Russian S-P artillery that can fire slightly faster, but does it really matter. I don't think so. The Paladin can still hit hard, when it is used.

When was the last time the Paladin was used? Did it have some type of massive failing? Was there any indication that it was obsolete?

I choose "E", kill Amtrak, use it to pay for both.


Anywho, during the Gulf War it was a big deal that the Paladin's couldn't keep pace with the Coalition's advance, there was a worry that the Iraqis could have chewed up the coalition if there wasn't any artillary support availible. (In fact, lots of people point out that the reason why Iraqi tanks were so ineffective was because they used Iraqi-made ammo. Course, Artillary is way the hell more useful on Infantry than tanks...)

[joseph1944]

Maybe something will happen. The Sen. Democ. are asking why he cut it. Some of them are talking about keeping it in the budget.

[TCO]

It's pork barrel politics...

[reds4ever]

Re: Rumsfeld kills "Crusader"

Originally posted by Lonestar

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53762-2002May8.html

For those too lazy to read the link...

i wish more people would do this!

[faded glory]

no offense. But crusader is ****. Its way to freakin big and costs way to much. the Paladin's and MLRS are just fine for the next 50 years.

Not to mention we can deliver such a payload via cruise missile at 1/100 of the cost!

Whats wrong with the paladin? Nothing. Am I afraid the Russians or icelanders might get ahead? no...artillery is basic and supposed to be demoralizing. Not pinpoint. If its pinpoint, good. But its purpose is to saturate an area so bad, it makes the advancing troops jobs so much easier.

The best use of artillery was in Grozny recently. The Russians leveled the whole damn city with rolling barrages and had troops following the barrages. Go Russia!