Newsgroups: sci.military
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
Subject: Re: Deploying Divisions
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Date: Tue, 20 Nov 90 01:56:47 GMT
Approved: military@att.att.com
Message-ID: <1990Nov20.015647.24467@cbnews.att.com>
References: <1990Nov16.054727.24406@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Lines: 41



From: cga66@ihlpy.att.com (Patrick V Kauffold)
>From article <1990Nov16.054727.24406@cbnews.att.com>, by dxb105@csc.anu.oz.au:
> 
> From: dxb105@csc.anu.oz.au
> In article <1990Nov15.013229.1464@cbnews.att.com>, bcstec!shuksan!major@uunet.UU.NET (Mike Schmitt) writes:
>>    The weight and size of heavy divisions (4,700 vehicles, 100 helicoptors)
>>    means they must go by sea.  A Mech Inf Div requires 85,000 short tons
>>    and an Arm Div requires 90,000 short tons (deployment weight).
> 
> This was in reference to a desert shield type of scenario - a sudden decision
> to send a division to somewhere the US hadn't thought it needed to. How much
> could you trim off that if a lot of the gear was already in place (e.g. POMCUS
> in Western Europe) and all you needed to send was the grunts?

I think you have identified the crux of the problem, now becoming evident in
the deployment to SA.  The U.S. military was re-designed after Korea to fight
a war against the USSR in central Europe.  This was fine-tuned to the point
that, in order to keep Iraq from going farther than Kuwait, we have to send
damn near 50% of everything.  And once they are in place, we have to leave
them there in order to have a credible deterrent (with conventional forces).

The NATO deployment plan assumed away the need for sealift by building the
POMCUS sites, and requiring only airlift of the units from CONUS sans
equipment.  There were questions as to whether this was inded realistic;
before the collapse of the Soviet empire, NATO strategy was sometimes
characterized as "fight three days, then blow up the world".

IMHO, "rapid deployment" capability (of large forces) does not really exist.
In order to have a credible "rapid deployment", you must have either fully
equipped forces in place, or have bases worldwide with sufficient forces
"forward deployed" to get there "firstest with the mostest".  It hasn't
changed much since the days of Bedford Forrest.

In a roundabout way, I think the answer to the question above is that sending
troops without equipment can be done by airlift quickly, but is not a credible
deterrent unless you are fighting an enemy similarly unequipped.



