SW Asia: how well protected are in-theater medical folks and their patients?

MRAPS are a problem. Too expensive to bring home, don't want the bad guys (which means local armies) to get them. Maybe we could outfit them as limos and sell them to third world dictators?

Or NYC cabbies?

Artificial reef off Dubai?
 
Veneficus said:
because the US doesn't know how to use cavalry.
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No, because the Humvee is designed as a general-purpose light utility vehicle. In a conventional WW3, those are useful again. For now, with IEDs along known roads the primary threat, the MRAP is a better (safer) answer, although it sacrifices mobility for protection.
 
Rocketmedic40 said:
No, because the Humvee is designed as a general-purpose light utility vehicle. In a conventional WW3, those are useful again. For now, with IEDs along known roads the primary threat, the MRAP is a better (safer) answer, although it sacrifices mobility for protection.
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I think you may be confusing strategy with tactics.

Cavalry throughout history has been demonstrated to have 2 uses.

1. A highly mobile force used to cover great distances to exploit waeknesses or use maneuverability to force your enemy to fight on the ground you choose.

2. Best described as "a spearhead" in WWII as a slightly less mobile, but sustainable heavy fighting force. (dating all the way back to "heavy calvary" in the middle ages.

As Mycrofft pointed out, it requires considerable logistics.
 
Veneficus said:
I think you may be confusing strategy with tactics.

Cavalry throughout history has been demonstrated to have 2 uses.

1. A highly mobile force used to cover great distances to exploit waeknesses or use maneuverability to force your enemy to fight on the ground you choose.

2. Best described as "a spearhead" in WWII as a slightly less mobile, but sustainable heavy fighting force. (dating all the way back to "heavy calvary" in the middle ages.

As Mycrofft pointed out, it requires considerable logistics.
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Cavalry has no connection with a specific series of vehicles, especially in a conventional war. Most Western mechanized-infantry formations are cavalry in all but name, regardless of their designations.

The MRAP would be a poor substitute for a Humvee as a scout truck.
 
MRAP would reconnoiter South Central Anywhere, USA, pretty well. Wouldn't fit through the local Wendy's drive through though.
 
Rocketmedic40 said:
Cavalry has no connection with a specific series of vehicles,
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That was my point.


Rocketmedic40 said:
Most Western mechanized-infantry formations are cavalry in all but name, regardless of their designations.
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This too.

I would argue it is how units are used.

If you look at air cav in vietnam, armored cav, or just about any motor or mechanized unit today (for ease, let us call them "light cavalry" similar to Hussiers, on horseback in medival times and fulfilling a similar role.)

they all attempt to use the mobility of cavalry, but do not function as cavalry in the sense of what I detailed above.

Which is probably why it doesn't work.

Rocketmedic40 said:
The MRAP would be a poor substitute for a Humvee as a scout truck.
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I would think so too.

Basically a bomb resistant box would alert an enemy to your presense long before you discover theirs on the modern field.

I think you said what I said in a different way.
 
mycrofft said:
MRAPS are a problem. Too expensive to bring home, don't want the bad guys (which means local armies) to get them. Maybe we could outfit them as limos and sell them to third world dictators?

Or NYC cabbies?

Artificial reef off Dubai?
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It is basically siege equipment.

Just blow it up where it is.

Besides, who cares if the enemy gets it, I doubt it will be very protective against air assets.

It would basically be a group sized coffin.
 
I really think it depends what series of MRAP you're talking about, and whether or not you can drive them out (to the north or through Pakistan). Shipping them home by sea is quite efficient -if- the US Government is able to secure those roads.

If they have to go out by air, it isn't as practical, and the protective technologies will be obsolete as compared to new production if faced by cutting-edge threats.

Mycrofft, although the MRAPs are decent on roads and stable surfaces, they are simply too big and too heavy to perform as well as dedicated scout trucks in most terrain. Even on Fort Bliss, there are plenty of areas MRAPs simply cannot effectively manuver in, and that's on stable, relatively flat sand. For a potential Central or South American counterinsurgency, the MRAP would be a fantastic truck. For conventional warfare against, say, the Chinese Army, the MRAP would be a liability in most front-line settings.
 
I think the economical and political solution is probably give some of them to Pakistan and Afghan governments as presents/mil aid, and use a portion as targets for A-10 proficiency training where they are.
 
Rocketmedic40 said:
For a potential Central or South American counterinsurgency, the MRAP would be a fantastic truck. For conventional warfare against, say, the Chinese Army, the MRAP would be a liability in most front-line settings.
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So, unless we're going to war in northern Mexico against the cartels, we probably don't need the MRAP, or so it sounds like. If anything, in a conventional war, you'd be better off with relatively unarmored vehicles behind the lines, that armor is useless assuming there still exists a "behind the lines" in future wars (as there once was in WW1 and WW2). If we're going to war against China, I'll take an Iowa class covered in Phalanx 1D and SeaRAM launchers :cool:
 
They don't use MRAP's offensively anyway. They're just rolling panic rooms for non-kinetic operations.
 
They don't use MRAP's offensively anyway. They're just rolling panic rooms for non-kinetic operations.
 
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