Armored Cav: A Guided Tour of an Armored Cavalry Regiment

by Tom Clancy

  But there is a new factor to add to the debate, and it may be decisive in determining what kind of Army will be built in the next ten to twenty years. That force is high technology.

  Technology has always been a factor in deciding how to equip and organize armed forces. Ever since the first man chose to pick up a rock or stick to gain advantage over other men, there has been a race to find better rocks and sticks. And when these couldn’t be found, men designed and built new and improved rocks and sticks.

  Once upon a time, it took ten years or more to get a weapons system from the drawing board to the battlefield. No longer. Today, the bewildering pace of technological change makes it hard to decide what kind of rocks and sticks to build.

  What has suddenly changed is the availability of programmable digital systems. The revolutionary aspect of these digital weapons systems is that much of their performance is based upon lines of programming code. They have a built-in growth potential. Rewrite a few software modules, and change out some hardware packages on the data bus, and your old system becomes a new weapon with vastly improved capabilities. One only need look at the M1A2 Abrams and the AH-64D Longbow Apache to see the truth of this. But to make all this technology work, you need soldiers with the mental fitness and agility to adapt to constant change. You need cavalry troopers.

  It is said that an Army always prepares for the last war. Thanks to Saddam Hussein, today our Army has plenty of experience, equipment, and training for desert fighting. So, given the reality of Murphy’s Law, we can probably expect our next war to be in wooded mountains or urban jungles. Again: You need cavalry troopers.

  The personnel of the 2nd ACR-L and the 3rd ACR are going to be the vanguard of a new generation of cavalry troopers. They will be armed with an array of high-technology equipment that offers tactical options their predecessors in the Gulf War could only have read about in science fiction novels. Individual troopers will become a part of large-scale computer networks like the IVIS system. Stealth systems, like tanks and fighting vehicles made of composite plastics, will make their presence known in ways that we cannot imagine. The commander’s task will be to sort through a flood of data to find the nuggets of tactical opportunity that are presented. That is the challenge that the cavalry leaders of the 21st century are going to face.

  Some of the brightest people in America’s Army have been rethinking the “roles and missions” that this world will require of them over the next few decades. It will be a world where religious extremism and ethnic hatred have increasing access to weapons of mass destruction. It will be a world challenged by threats of ecological terrorism, bioengineered plagues, and widespread social and economic breakdown. And increasingly, all of America’s armed forces will be called on to take part in operations other than war. Some of these include:• Disaster relief and reconstruction (floods, earthquakes, fires, famines, etc.)

  • Counter-narcotics operations (intervention in drug-producing regions, and support of law enforcement on our own borders)

  • Peacekeeping and peace enforcement (under United Nations authority, or in our own cities)

  All of these operations require land and air mobility for rapid deployment, as well as massive firepower to deter armed thugs and maintain or restore order. If use of armed force becomes necessary, the ability to make quick decisions, improvise, and solve problems at the level of squad and platoon leadership will be vital. These are defining characteristics of the cavalry, and show why preserving it as an American military institution is so vital. As we have seen in Somalia, even a humanitarian relief mission can turn suddenly into an armed conflict. As we have seen in Bosnia, the lack of peacekeepers with overwhelming firepower and advanced technology can leave the most well-meaning intervention powerless to prevent genocide.

  A recurrent cycle in American history has been victory in war followed by such heedless and rapid disarmament that the next war has caught us unprepared. In the late 1940s, the army that helped crush Hitler’s Wehrmacht and was prepared to invade Japan against last-ditch kamikaze resistance was gutted in the mistaken belief that it would not ever again be needed. Only five years later, American troops (the ill-fated Task Force Smith1) were routed by the forces of a fourth-rate power—North Korea. Fortunately, we have always kept a few cavalry regiments on hand. Having met some of today’s cavalry troopers and seen what they can do, you may agree that our national investment in tomorrow’s troopers is a wise investment indeed. Armed forces are expensive. Superbly trained and equipped armed forces like the 3rd ACR are very expensive. But the only thing more costly to a nation is not having them when you need them.

  Glossary

  End Notes

  Introduction

  1 Purists will refer to the 3rd ACR as the 3rd U.S. Cavalry, probably harking back to the Civil War, when states raised regiments identified with their home jurisdictions (1st Michigan, etc.). Thus “U.S. Cavalry” denotes the Regular Army.

  2 Since deactivated.

  There and Back Again: An Interview with General Fred Franks

  1 Some people thought that was a bad idea, but a small group of visionaries kept the idea alive long enough to bring it to combat in 1965.

  2 The Division-86 study, initiated by General Donn Starry in 1978 and implemented during the 1980s, reorganized the Army’s “heavy” armored and mechanized infantry divisions. Armored divisions would have six tank and four infantry battalions, while mechanized divisions were to have five of each type. It strengthened battalions to four companies, instead of three. It added an attack helicopter brigade to each division, increased the size of the howitzer battery, and specified other changes to increase combat power.

  3 The Soviet 8th Guards Combined Arms Army consisted of three motor rifle divisions, one tank division, and supporting units of artillery, engineers, and attack helicopters. It was one of nine Soviet armies in forward offensive positions along the former border between East and West Germany.

  4 REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) was a major NATO exercise in Europe. This annual operation, a hallmark of the Cold War years, involved mass movements of personnel and equipment to Germany and other NATO nations. It was designed to help all NATO forces simulate how they would have to rapidly build up and reinforce their forces as a prelude to war with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. While some of the reinforcing units would bring their heavy equipment via ship, most of the units would obtain their equipment from pre-positioned stocks in Europe.

  5 Plans and Staff Officer.

  6 A division is commanded by a major general (two stars).

  7 A corps is typically commanded by a lieutenant general (three stars). VII Corps was located mainly in the West German state of Bavaria.

  8 Saddam’s Republican Guard consisted of eight divisions totaling about 100,000 men. These received the best available recruits, supplies, training, and equipment and were considered the most reliable element of the Iraqi Army. During the war, four Republican Guard divisions were virtually destroyed. Saddam kept the strongest and most loyal division in reserve around Baghdad, and it never saw action.

  9 GPS uses satellites and portable receivers. These tell you where you are with extreme accuracy.

  10 “Force-oriented” means that VII Corps’ goal was the destruction of enemy units themselves, not capture of a geographic objective.

  11 Army tactical radios typically have ranges of 8 to 35 km (5 to 22 miles). In flat terrain, relay stations or “repeaters” are usually positioned every 16 to 24 km (10 to 15 miles).

  12 As in football.

  13 Medina Ridge was the name American troops gave to a low rise, about 7 miles long, in the Iraqi desert north of Kuwait, where the First Armored Division’s Second (“Iron”) Brigade destroyed a brigade of the Iraqi Republican Guard’s Medina Division (sixty T-72 tanks and “dozens” of personnel carriers) in forty minutes on the afternoon of 27 February 1991.

  14 FM 100-5 (June 1993) defines a hasty attack as one launched “with the forces at hand and wit
h minimum preparation to destroy the enemy before he is able either to concentrate or establish a defense.” Such an attack “enhances agility at the risk of losing synchronization.” Hasty attack is contrasted with deliberate attack, which takes more time to prepare.

  15 FM 100-5 defines pursuit as “an offensive operation against a retreating enemy force.” Exploitation is the follow-up to a successful attack. “Exploitations and pursuits test the audacity of soldiers and leaders alike. Both of these operations risk disorganizing the attacker nearly as much as the defender.”

  16 Double envelopment is a simultaneous maneuver against both flanks of an enemy position. It was first used by Hannibal to crush the Roman army at Cannae in 216 BC, and has traditionally been regarded as the ultimate expression of generalship.

  Honing the Razor’s Edge

  1 A linear sheaf is a particular type of artillery impact pattern.

  A Cavalry Officer’s Life

  1 Captain McMaster’s troop used color code names. Red for 1st Platoon, White for 2nd Platoon, Blue for 3rd Platoon, Green for 4th Platoon, and Black for the Troop Command Element. Captain McMaster’s tank call sign was Black-66.

  Roles and Missions: The ACR in the Real World

  1 An extended-range version of the Soviet SCUD, the Nodong ballistic missile has a range of 1,000 km (620 miles) with a 1,000-kg (2,200-pound) warhead. With an accuracy (“Circular Error Probable”) of perhaps 500 meters (1,640 feet), it threatens all of South Korea and many of the cities in Japan, China, and Siberian Russia.

  2 Note that all times are given in terms of Seoul’s time zone, which is fourteen hours ahead of Washington, D.C., and nine hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which the U.S. Army likes to use for reference worldwide and for some obscure reason calls “Zulu” time. When it is 7:00 AM in Washington, it is 9:00 PM in Seoul, and 1200 Zulu.

  3 The U.S. Eighth Army includes all Army forces in Korea and Japan—totaling 25,000 troops in 1997. Eighth Army Headquarters in Korea is commanded by a four-star general who is also nominal Supreme Commander of all United Nations forces on the peninsula. In practice this means he coordinates planning, logistics, intelligence, and operations with the South Korean military command structure.

  4 Pacific Command (PACOM) in Honolulu, Hawaii, is commanded by a four-star Navy admiral and has operated control over virtually all U.S. forces in the Pacific region, including Eighth Army in Korea.

  5 Weighing 40,000 to 45,000 tons at full load, these huge, boxy cargo ships are loaded with military equipment, maintained on long-term lease in secure harbors near potential trouble spots, and operated by mixed Navy/contractor crews. A typical MPS can carry 522 standard 20-foot vans (350 ammunition drums, and thirty-two refrigerated) plus roll-on/roll-off parking space for 110 general supplies, thirty with fuel up to 1,400 HMMWV-sized vehicles and 1,500,000 gallons (5,764 cubic meters) of bulk fuel that can be off-loaded. The diesel-powered ships can make 17 knots/31.5kph. These should not be confused with the speedier SL-7 fast transports.

  6 The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment is normally assigned to the III Corps in Texas. Under the Robust Screen contingency plan described here, it would be transferred, with all of its attachments, to the operational control of the lieutenant general (three stars) commanding IX Corps in Korea.

  7 Manned by small civilian crews, they proved their worth in 1990 and 1991 during operation Desert Shield. Just seven of these ships carried 11% of all the U.S. cargo transported to the Persian Gulf (the other 89% came mostly by slower chartered transport ships, with only the most urgent cargo airlifted at great cost).

  8 1st MEF included three infantry brigades, squadrons of attack and transport helicopters, some light armor battalions, and an air wing with squadrons of F-18 Hornets and AV-8B Harriers.

  9 Time references are given in terms of Uganda local time, which is three hours ahead of GMT, and eight hours ahead of Washington.

  Tomorrow’s Troopers

  1 Task Force Smith was a detachment of the 1st Battalion of the 21st Infantry Regiment, reinforced with a field artillery battery. It was rushed to Korea shortly after the North Korean Army launched its invasion of the South on June 25, 1950. On July 5, lacking effective anti-tank weapons, the ill-trained and poorly led task force was overrun and destroyed near Osan. In American military history it has become a symbolic object lesson of how not to train, equip, and commit troops to battle.

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&n
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