Over at Military.com, Christian Lowe reports that there’s some serious introspection from Army thinkers over the quality of long range combat gear. The battle, so to speak, is raging over a paper scribed by one of the Army’s “Jedi Knights” — a nickname for graduates of the prestigious School for Advanced Military Studies.
Ehrhart wrote that despite the fact that 50 percent of Army engagements in Afghanistan occur with the enemy attacking at 300 meters or beyond, the majority of Soldiers are trained to fire their M4 carbines accurately to 200 meters, and more than 80 percent of Joes in an infantry company are equipped with weapons that can’t touch the enemy beyond that range.
The enemy in Afghanistan, Ehrhart writes, “engages United States forces from high ground with medium and heavy weapons, often including mortars, knowing that we are restricted by our equipment limitations and the inability of our overburdened soldiers to maneuver at elevations exceeding 6000 feet.”
The weapon systems that can engage the enemy in Afghanistan effectively beyond 200 meters “represent 19 percent of the company’s firepower,” he adds. “This is unacceptable.”
As NATO forces start slowly to gain control of Afghanistan’s population centers, combat over mountainous terrain will sharply increase. Those who can control ranged engagements tend to win battles (a lesson that goes back centuries), so the importance of Erhart’s paper hasn’t been lost on Army strategists, most of whom are also keen students of history.
The real lesson here is that jack-of-all-trades kit like the M4 rifle are often decent at a range of tasks, but ultimately optimized for nothing.
Now, if only we could get the Air Force to achieve similar enlightenment with the F-35, slated to replace the F-16, F-117, and A-10 Warthog.
