[Raellus]

It seems that sometimes the US Army has a very short-term institutional memory. It often seems to focus on just the most recent experience, and use that almost exclusively to anticipate future needs/contingencies. Desert Storm may have proved instructive in many ways, but the Iraqis were not the Soviets, and the previous large-scale conflict, which necessitated next to no AAA requirement (being as enemy aircraft posed no realistic threat to US and Allied ground forces), still showed the use of AAA on the modern battlefield. There were numerous instances in the Vietnam War when US Army AAA still came in handy. For example, during the fighting for Hue in 1968, US Army M42 Duster 40mm SPAGs provided much needed direct fire support, and proved quite useful in MOUT.

I reckon that the US Army also probably doesn't look very hard at other nations' experiences when assessing its own current and near future needs. For example, it seems to have ignored the Russian's successful use of ZU-23-4 Shilkas in the ground-support role in Chechnya- again, a conflict where enemy aircraft posed no threat to the Russians- especially in MOUT.

Even if one doesn't expect enemy aircraft to be a major threat on future battlefields, it seems really myopic to eliminate a weapon system that can be used against that threat (just in case), and in a very useful secondary capacity (direct fire infantry support), from US Army TOEs.

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