On this day 25 years ago (Commentary Thread)

[Homer]

Originally Posted by chico20854

I agree, looking at the situation at this point in the war, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The month of combat in East Germany wasn't sufficient to deplete the European war reserve stock of vehicles, and there are six division sets worth of equipment coming over from Europe (the complement of the divisions that fell in on POMCUS sets), without any change in TOE other than, as you pointed out, the aircraft.

Yep- the light cav TOE jumped out because the material is easy to train on (19Ds train on the HMMWV, .50 cal and Mk19 at OSUT and a monkey can use a TOW once it’s collimated), probably in production, and easy to move. But, re-equipping out of the full heavy ACR set (less RAS) that was left in CONUS by 3d ACR and shipped forward or dipping into some of the kit being shipped forward from the heavy division garrisons may make sense. Unless combat losses were higher than forecast, or subs/raiders got some of them. Maybe there is a plan to rapidly NET and re-equip some of the guard units coming over, even though cannon doesn’t support this (36th ID still runs M113s and M60s in the US combat vehicle guide- OBE perhaps?).

I could see a second refit of the 278th after combat attrition of the light vehicles in Poland. As history has shown, the 1025/1026/966/988 have limited survivability against most threats. Maybe the re-equipment with V series, peacekeepers, etc came after regeneration following losses early in the 97 campaign? Plus, I can’t see the USAF giving up airfield security and EOD vehicles as they are trying to protect airbases from SOF, UW, and UXO threats. There weren’t that many of them either.