View Single Post
  #2  
Old 01-23-2010, 06:38 PM
Abbott Shaull Abbott Shaull is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Somewhere in the Eastern U.P. on the edge of Civilization.
Posts: 1,086
Default

One of the things about the 9th ID (HTTD) was it was attempt to make division that had more staying power than the 82nd, 101st, and other Light Infantry Divisions of the Army. While it didn't require the transportation need that a Mechanized/Armored Divisions required. In fact, if you look GDW ideas of the Light Infantry Division, and what they actually were organized as.

Each Light Infantry Division had round out brigade in real life, while the GDW decided that one Brigade would be based off the Motorized concept with two Light Motorized Battalion and the Lt Armored Battalion.

As for the FAVs, LAV-25, and LAV-75. All were tested along with HMMWVs as viable vehicles. The FAVs were used in recon role in the Light Infantry units in which in RL they used HMMWV's, in some case the Divisional Cavalry in some of the Armored/Mechanized/Cavalry Divisions had switch from using M3 to HMMWVs due to the smaller height.

There were FAVs found in the military during the Persian Gulf War, but they were three man vehicle not two man, and were used by Special Operation units. They were basically souped up power tubular frame dune buggies that many people were building for personal use. Since 2003 a new vehicle has been used that built for Special Operation units, some were supposed to be tried out with units of the 18th Airborne Corps. With that said, having an entire Battalions of units equipped with these vehicles wouldn't make sense. Still like this vehicles for the scout role since, they remind of another small light recon vehicle that was pressed into so many other roles.

The LAV-75 never was really accepted. The LAV-25 was accepted by the Marine Corps but rejected by the US Army. Somewhere along the line after having some very bad experience on certain peacekeeping mission in an African country. The idea of having vehicle that became the Stryker would be useful, but it still took several more years to pick a vehicle to use.

Then the Light Motorized Infantry Battalion. Yeah this never really made much sense to me since it would take so many to get the number of ground pounders to where you needed them. I do see them being used in conjecture with Strykers, IFVs, and APCs on the limited basis. Not too much of a stretch for Company Commander, Battalion Commander or Brigade Commander to loan units extra HMMWV to transport extra dismounts, yet not degrade a Company overall effective mission. Say use them to replace the fourth vehicle in the Platoon, or if losses had been high enough in Battalion, each Platoon would be down to 2 tracks/Strykers and some HMMWVs for the rest of the Platoon. Then again you may see entire Companies or Platoons with HMMWVs. Once the balloon went up, commanders would try anything to keep units mobile. Actually to have a unit of Infantry larger than Platoon size with exclusively with HMMWV is dangerous to the unit, same with have more than one Platoon, just better of converted a company to Light Infantry and use smaller number of deuce and half to move the unit.

I find it at one point ironic that many of the things that the US Army had tried back in the early 80s until the early 90s with the 9th Infantry Division as a test bed unit and rejected. Now many of the concepts are part of life in the army, and the only Light Infantry units left are the 10th Mountain, 82nd Airborne, and 101st Air Assault Divisions and two separate Airborne Brigades.
Reply With Quote