Fiddle's Green

[dragoon500ly]

Was websearching and came across a fansite; one of the postings was a modified US OOB for Twilight 2000. In this OOB, the writer had several units activated; now some of them I can understand, like reactivating the 4th Armored Division and sending it to the Persian Gulf; reactivating ACRs like the 10th and 14th and sending one to Europe and one to the Persian Gulf. Okay, gives some badly needed firepower for the XVIII Airborne and I Amphibious Corps....

But it was his reactivation of the 11th, 13th and 17th Airborne Divisions that raised an eyebrow. I know I'm going to start a major flame war, but this is my opinion; the age of throwing airborne divisions into major operations via transport aircraft ended with World War Two. Nowdays, the "Airborne" portion simply means that the division has strategic mobility via the Air Force. I feel that Desert Storm simply confirmed that while it is very easy to transport several thousand paratroopers to a distant theater, their ability to project power is limited to how far they can march in a day. This is the major drawback of the light divisions and the reason why the US Army is moving to the medium division format. Light Divisions are to light to project power and Heavy Divisions tie up too much strategic sealift in sending them to the area of operations.

Now, by no means am I slamming the Light fighters, I have the deepest respect for them, I am simply questioning their ability to project power. Tactically, they have a range of about 30 miles, they do not have the ability to transport enough supplies to sustain operations without the assignment of transportation companies. They truely are a case of "too little tail, not enough teeth."

Now I have strapped on my flame-proof longjohns, put on my SCBA....FLAME AWAY!