feedmegin posted:

Shanks Mare

feedmegin posted:

Dragoons (og definition). Lightly armed infantry with a means faster than Shanks Mare to get to vital places on the battlefield quickly and then defend them on foot.

bewbies posted:

what's the best historical analogue to modern paratroopers

bewbies posted:

what's the best historical analogue to modern paratroopers

Cessna posted:

A small group sent in an extremely risky attack that will probably take extremely high casualties but might get an advantageous position that subverts an enemy's plans? How about a "Forlorn Hope?"

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

It doesn't meet the specialized training, equipment, or doctrine requirements, though. I think that part is the funny part about paras.

TK-42-1 posted:

What about recon and force recon units? I assume everything they would be designed to do is supplanted by long loiter time UAVs and other remote assets.

Tulip posted:

FastestGunAlive posted:

Reconnaissance is a fundamental task any infantry unit could be called upon to perform; no amount of overhead assets is going to change that. Even with the existence of ground based remote collection assets, like sensors and cameras, that have existed for years there will still be a desire for ground reconnaissance, to include deep in the battle space

Mustang posted:

It is definitely not a fundamental task, reconnaissance is performed by dedicated reconnaissance units with their own training pipelines and schooling. However, I do agree with your overall point that there will always be a need for soldiers on the ground conducting reconnaissance.

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

Dragoons were used as doctrinally intended, though. I think the distinction with modern paratroopers is that they really never get used in combat drops. It would be like if dragoons never actually rode their horses.

Pre-WWI French cuirassiers, maybe? Expensive equipment, nominally elite, with a vestigial specialization that wasn't useful, employed exactly the same way as all other cavalry in the end. However, I don't think they were trained all that differently from other French cavalry.

Alchenar posted:

High readiness, high mobility light infantry absolutely have a place in a military that wants to be able to react globally to a crisis within days, but if they had a place in modern high intensity conventional warfare then you would have seen some use of them in either Iraq war.

FrangibleCover posted:

The US did a brigade strength drop into Northern Iraq in 2003. Minimal resistance, all objectives achieved. Doesn't really prove anything except that they had a load of spare aircraft.

What I'd actually argue about is the utility of Airborne forces as a high readiness, high mobility force. Desert Shield dropped an airborne division into the Saudi Desert to square off against the Iraqi tanks. The bluff worked, but if the Iraqis had just gone hell for leather they could have minced the Airborne with their armoured battlegroups. The strategic mobility of these forces is high but their tactical mobility is Remain In Place and their firepower turns it into Die In Place against any competent opponent.

FrangibleCover posted:

The US did a brigade strength drop into Northern Iraq in 2003. Minimal resistance, all objectives achieved. Doesn't really prove anything except that they had a load of spare aircraft.

What I'd actually argue about is the utility of Airborne forces as a high readiness, high mobility force. Desert Shield dropped an airborne division into the Saudi Desert to square off against the Iraqi tanks. The bluff worked, but if the Iraqis had just gone hell for leather they could have minced the Airborne with their armoured battlegroups. The strategic mobility of these forces is high but their tactical mobility is Remain In Place and their firepower turns it into Die In Place against any competent opponent.

Alchenar posted:

The ability to suddenly be somewhere and then work out tomorrow what your sustained lines of supply are creates enormous freedom of action in a crisis that you just don't get outside of the Tier 1 and 2 military powers.

PeterCat posted:

It only works against third world countries that don't have any air defense though.

But that point you got such over match why bother?

Trin Tragula posted:

Stephen Badsey has this gimmick where he likens the intended role of WWI-era cavalry to very, very short-range paratroopers; you drop into the enemy's rear somewhere inconvenient, get off the parachute horse, dig in, and then hold on for dear life until the cavalry infantry turns up to reinforce and push the enemy back from your strong-point. It's a long way from a one-to-one comparison, but there's enough to it to make it worth more than making people laugh at the saloon bar.

Alchenar posted:

Because you want to be there in 24 hours from now, not in the 8 weeks it's going to take to get a heavy brigade onto ships from wherever it is stationed, sail it to wherever you need to go, and now you actually have to fight to establish a SPOD because you gave enough notice that even a third world country can prepare to put on a best possible fight, oh and also you have to bring the large and expensive logistical baggage you need in order to get the thing to actually do anything. Speed matters.

Mustang posted:

It is definitely not a fundamental task, reconnaissance is performed by dedicated reconnaissance units with their own training pipelines and schooling. However, I do agree with your overall point that there will always be a need for soldiers on the ground conducting reconnaissance.

More likely is a reconnaissance unit being given an infantry mission, something they're not organized or trained to do. There's obviously some cross over in skills but each type of unit is obviously better at performing tasks they're actually organized and trained to perform.

Just to be clear, I'm talking about conventional military reconnaissance.

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Not sure if there great results for light infantry forces deployed 8 weeks ahead of resupply or reinforcement. Not really sure what kind of objective requires a whole airborne unit to land somewhere but not any other part of an army

Mustang posted:

"Go take that hill"

"Bring me more ammo"

"tell me what's over there"

Sounds simple when reduced down to one sentence but none the less each has numerous manuals telling you how to do it and soldiers that train specifically in those tasks.

Not to mention the unique equipment each unit is fielded with to help them perform those tasks. Just with the recon example, the infantry lack the fancy long range optics that are fielded in large numbers across reconnaissance formations.

FastestGunAlive posted:

a simple recon patrol by an infantry squad

Alchenar posted:

Because you want to be there in 24 hours from now, not in the 8 weeks it's going to take to get a heavy brigade onto ships from wherever it is stationed, sail it to wherever you need to go, and now you actually have to fight to establish a SPOD because you gave enough notice that even a third world country can prepare to put on a best possible fight, oh and also you have to bring the large and expensive logistical baggage you need in order to get the thing to actually do anything. Speed matters.

Polyakov posted:

The initial precursor to Desert Storm. The 82nd arrived in the KSA within 48 hours of kuwait getting invaded.

This served several quite useful purposes.

1: It steadied Saudi Arabia and had the good optice for them and for the mission as a whole of the US turning up in significant force.
2: It put a significant block on the table for Saddam deciding to gently caress around and find out, you can convince yourself that the US wont go to war if there are no troops there, or a few hundred, but when there are multiple thousands there you have to know if you fight them you are going to war.
3: It let certain logistical and local communications and relations issues be encountered on a smaller scale and start to be resolved before the heavy forces started arriving and a snarl up would cost much more time.

Everyone knew that the Iraqis could roll over them if they wanted to, but that wasnt really their point.

To take a non US centric example, mountain fighting in the Himalayas between China and India are excellent places where having light infantry that can be supplied by air and are good at it is very suited to the terrain.

FastestGunAlive posted:

From the marine corps perspective I disagree and the training&readiness manual directly speaks to the expectation that line infantry regiments and below be prepared to conduct reconnaissance, for reasons that include to inform their own commander and higher commanders.

I agree that specialized reconnaissance units are more better at doing it but an infantry battalion has a platoon of scout snipers specifically trained in this, it’s not until you get to the division level that the marine corps has light armored reconnaissance and reconnaissance battalions. A platoon of scout snipers isn’t going to always cut it so the line companies need to be prepared to also conduct recon.

I would hope a battalion commander would not lead with his face going into an attack and would instead conduct reconnaissance before hand. This could include his organic assets, like small uas, scout snipers, and/or a simple recon patrol by an infantry squad, in addition to assets from higher such as better uas, signals intelligence, and reporting from reconnaissance units.

Arquinsiel posted:

As was pointed out:

is in fact a fundamental task of ye olde PBI.

Mustang posted:

In a peer or near peer threat, a simple recon patrol by ye olde infantry squad is absolutely not going to cut it. Most skirmishing by modern reconnaissance units is happening outside of the range of small arms weapons and involves long range optics and indirect fire.

Slim Jim Pickens posted:

Of all places in the worlds, a high-altitude plateau filled with escarpments seems like one of the worst to conduct a paradrop operation

Big Dick Cheney posted:

Any recommendations for books about Horatio Nelson? Just listened to the Age of Napoleon episodes about him and would like to learn more.

Gaius Marius posted:

Helicopters won't operate at too high of altitudes though. I guess you could use them in the lower parts of the himalayas. Or just don't fight a war on a mountain

Stairmaster posted:

what if the mountains supply the water for over 3 billion people.

FrangibleCover posted:

The US did a brigade strength drop into Northern Iraq in 2003. Minimal resistance, all objectives achieved. Doesn't really prove anything except that they had a load of spare aircraft.

What I'd actually argue about is the utility of Airborne forces as a high readiness, high mobility force. Desert Shield dropped an airborne division into the Saudi Desert to square off against the Iraqi tanks. The bluff worked, but if the Iraqis had just gone hell for leather they could have minced the Airborne with their armoured battlegroups. The strategic mobility of these forces is high but their tactical mobility is Remain In Place and their firepower turns it into Die In Place against any competent opponent.