Does the Infantry have a future?

[Hawkmoon]

When the U.S. was planning to invade Iraq, the then head of the Joint Chiefs told the administration that we needed 300,000 pairs of boots on the ground to secure the country after an invasion. Donald Rumsfeld, in his infinite wisdom, replaced said Chief and decided that 100,000 was enough.

Guess who was wrong?

100k was enough to defeat the Iraqi military and take the real estate.  Way more than 300k would be needed to civilize the place after the conquest.  As we found out.

Are you agreeing with me or disputing me?

It's axiomatic that it takes a lot more effort to try to bring something under control after everything has gone down the tube than it would have taken to prevent the flush from the git-go. If it would realistically have taken 300,000 warm bodies to "preserve the peace" immediately following a (hopefully) successful invasion, it should be no surprise that after not "preserving the peace" properly we simply don't have enough manpower to rescue the situation after the fact.

[Tallpine]

I agree with you in theory some wars can be one without BOG.

You just have to define what you mean by "winning" 

We could bash the hell out of someplace without raising a sweat, and then tell them to behave or we will do it again.

[birdman]

One of the legacies of the Cold War is for better or worse this country is unwilling to commit the kind of genocide that winning a war without BOG would take.  If we were to refight WWII now, with ICBM's, I don't think we would nuke the home islands.  We'd invade instead.

I agree with you in theory some wars can be one without BOG.  There are still times that are strategic goals involve not completely destroying the place and we need something a little more surgical than an Illudium Q-36 space modulator.  That need, along with our nations aversion to committing to a war for real, mean the infantry is safe for a while.  I just hope we get power armor soon.

Speaking of power armor...I was part of the kick-off team for the DARPA exoskeleton project (one of my inputs was I wanted to use an M230 30mm chain gun as an infantry weapon).

Since then, and having worked on a few parts of it, I can tell you this...if you -really- wanted to, you could build a power armor suit somewhere between Ironman (minus the flying, but that form factor) and a more traditional sci-fi system (I.e. 2.5-3m tall, about a metric ton or two) right now, and have it be pretty decent, but it would cost about $10-20M each for the latter, and $150M for the former.

[dogmush]

Did you read John Ringo's Posleen war books?  Call me when I can have ACS with a grav gun. 


(Actually, what DARPA's playing with is cool.  Infantry in about 75 years will be pretty dang tough.)

[birdman]

Did you read John Ringo's Posleen war books?  Call me when I can have ACS with a grav gun. 


(Actually, what DARPA's playing with is cool.  Infantry in about 75 years will be pretty dang tough.)

In the battle between armor and projectile, projectile will always win.  Even with power armor, infantry of the future will only be usable in close range engagements with limited LOS and a concern for collateral damage.

[Scout26]

We still needed 350,000 troops to occupy Japan after the surrender in Tokyo Bay.  While we didn't "kick in the door", we still invaded and took over running the country for 5 about years.

[Scout26]

Did you read John Ringo's Posleen war books?  Call me when I can have ACS with a grav gun. 

Reading Gust Front now.