Added 27-12-2024
In the modern world, most nations rely on imports and trade with other nations. The importance of these interactions is such that military action may be needed to ensure their security, even for the most defensively-orientated of nations.
Those who are quick to condemn such military action are seldom reluctant to enjoy the resultant benefits if such an operation is successful!
Military actions may need to be taken within a territory with which a nation does not share a border, and the initiation of such a response may be time critical.
As will be seen, the use of military force for such purposes poses considerable challenges. Many of the capabilities that are likely to be needed are very likely to be currently insufficient.
The most likely means of deploying an expeditionary force is by air.
Even when a marine or naval‑infantry detachment can be positioned nearby, the opening move is likely to be by air to ensure a greater likelihood of surprise.
How much of an air response is practical will depend heavily on the air transport assets that are available.
US Army rhetoric about wanting to be able to deploy a Stryker brigade in 96 hours and a division in 120 hours makes little allowance for the actual airlift capability available.
The US Air Force has approximately 200 C‑130s and 200 C‑17s. Not all of these aircraft will be available to move a brigade. Some will be undergoing maintenance or repairs, while others will be deployed in locations too far away to be available within the required time.
To carry the overweight Stryker vehicles, C‑130s need to operate with a reduced fuel load and neglect certain safety protocols. This limits airlift range to a few hundred miles, not much further than a Stryker can drive under its own power.
A Stryker brigade has around 300 Strykers and a similar number of medium and heavy trucks. The brigade also has 4,500 personnel and a significant tonnage of lighter vehicles, stores and other equipment.
Even in the unlikely event of a full compliment of C‑17s being available to move the Strykers and other heavy vehicles, and a similar force of C‑130s moving personnel and lighter loads, a brigade in 96 hours seems unrealistically optimistic!
Most nations do not have an airlift capability equal to that of the US Military. France, for example, has a force of 24 A400Ms and 14 C‑130s in service at the time of writing.
The initial stage of an airlifted expeditionary action is likely to require a lighter force.
In previous eras, a first world expeditionary force often enjoyed a considerable advantage in technology. Artillery, breech‑loading rifles and machine guns against spears and muskets often offset the locals' numerical advantage.
Such a significant technology gap may no longer be assumed.
Many developing nations have considerable fleets of tanks and military aircraft. While these may not be “state of the art”, they will have a lot of them, and may know how to use them effectively.
Given the defence cuts of the previous decades, it would be foolish to assume that some oil-rich countries have inferior equipment to that of certain first-world militaries!
Before considering the composition of the ground element of an expeditionary force, it should be asked what the force is actually expected to achieve?
If we look at some of the operations conducted in the last few decades, a common strategy is a direct move to gain control of a nation’s political centre and the nearest airport.
While special forces and/or airborne forces have often been tasked with this mission, parachuting has seldom been employed. More commonly, forces are often air‑landed at the airport, sometimes employing civilian aircraft for the initial landings.
If the operation is an intervention rather than just a raid, it may be assumed that the key areas and personnel of a capital city are to be kept under control while the strategic and political objectives of the operation are being achieved.
The expeditionary force will need to hold and control what it has gained, and the local military may try to remove them.
The mission of the expeditionary force then becomes a defensive one, with the added complications of operating in an urban environment that may be populated, and within a population that may be hostile.
An urban environment should negate some of an attacking force's advantages in armour and airpower. 
One would hope an enemy would be reluctant to shell and bomb their own city and population, but this cannot be taken for granted.
• Air defence capability must be given priority and exist at both a tactical and an operational tier.
• Tactical air defence will be needed for protection of key areas and assets. The cavalry element (qv), will require a mobile tactical air defence to permit it to remain mobile.
• Operational air defence will be needed to establish local air superiority over the held area.
• External assets such as air support from carriers or friendly territories may be available, but should not be assumed. The ground force must have its own air defence capability, rather than the token system currently fielded by some armies.
• The long stand-off range of many air-delivered weapons will mean that some systems will need to be capable against the attacking weapons rather than the attackers (C‑RAM, EW). Similarly, defensive capability against small UAVs will be needed.
The defensive nature of the operation will favour the ground force having a significant artillery contingent. This may exist in two tiers.
• The majority of defensive artillery are likely to be long-range/NLOS anti-tank guided weapons (although the term “anti-ground target missiles” (AGTM) may be more apt). These weapons also give a precision strike capability that may be preferable to conventional artillery in a populated urban environment.
A free-flight or simplified variant of the AGTM could be used to deliver bomblet or minelet payloads without needing a separate launching system.
Some of these guided weapon systems should be mounted on light tracked vehicles of the 8 to 10 tonne class. These small vehicles may easily negotiate city streets, even when rubble strewn. They may also be lifted as an underslung load by Chinook-type helicopters.
The same light tracked vehicle would be used for an SP 120mm mortar carrier. Each battalion of AGTM vehicles would include a battery of 120mm mortars. 
• The second tier of artillery support will be medium/heavy artillery responsible for interdiction and harassment fires and must have sufficient range to engage forces approaching the held area. This may be conventional tube artillery, although MBRLs will be useful for delivering bomblets.
Given finite airlift assets, the tube artillery will most likely be towed systems.
• The brunt of the urban defence is likely to rest upon the shoulders of the infantry and combat engineers.
• Infantry of the expeditionary force should be amply supplied with weapons suitable for tank-stalking. Engineers should have equipment suited to mobility denial and anti-tank operations in urban terrain.
Ample supplies of SLMs and other easily portable munitions will be needed.
• Given the firepower that may be brought to bear against the infantry and engineers, such forces will probably favour mobility over the more traditional “dig in and hold” defensive plan. What defensive positions that are used may readily be abandoned as becomes prudent.
• The primarily defensive mission of the infantry, air defence and artillery will be complimented by a “light armoured cavalry” element which will conduct reconnaissance and patrol operations around the main defensive area. 
• The ground cavalry will be a mobile combined arms force, but just one component of a larger screen which will include fixed and rotary wing aircraft, manned and unmanned systems and satellite surveillance.
• The cavalry element will investigate anything that requires ground‑level verification and cannot be approached by helicopter-mounted infantry.
• Since air‑insertion will only allow the cavalry to be provided with relatively lightly protected vehicles, it will avoid engaging enemy mechanized forces in direct combat. Instead, it will serve to direct friendly artillery and airpower against such targets. However, the cavalry force will be amply provided with anti‑tank weapons and air‑defence systems.
• The ground elements of an expeditionary force are unlikely to achieve the necessary levels of surprise and mobility if restricted to foot‑marching speed once landed.
• For the foreseeable future, the likely workhorse of an expeditionary force is likely to be the C‑130 or an equivalent aircraft. This imposes a finite upper limit on the mass of a vehicle or other equipment that may be landed with the lead elements of an expeditionary force.
• There is probably no single correct answer to this requirement.
What vehicles will be needed during the insertion and occupation phase of a mission may be different to that needed once a more defensive posture is needed.
• An air-landed force will need to move from its landing zone to its primary objectives before the element of surprise is lost or the enemy can organize an effective reaction. This may require fast‑moving vehicles such as motorbikes, buggies and jeeps. Alternately, civilian vehicles may be used for a covert approach.
• If opposition is probable, armoured vehicles may be used. At this early stage in an operation the enemy is unlikely to have many anti-armour systems issued within the target area, so relatively lightly armoured vehicles may be adequate.
• During a defensive phase, a variety of vehicles will be needed to support the anti‑tank, air‑defence and artillery systems already mentioned.
• While urban combat will primarily be dismounted, infantry and engineers will need a constant supply of SLMs and other supplies. An M113, or a variant of the light tracked artillery carrier described earlier, would be well suited to moving supplies forward, and tired or wounded personnel back.
• The light armoured cavalry element may encounter conditions of terrain, season or climate very different to those being experienced by their comrades within the city. Cavalry may be mounted on SUVs, modified M113s, or a mixture of these and other vehicles.
So far, I have made no mention of the tank component of an expeditionary force.
• Heavy‑lift assets capable of transporting in MBTs are likely to have more practical priorities.
It is unlikely enough MBTs can be lifted in to have a significant effect on the enemy's larger tank forces. Seventy tonnes of anti‑tank weapons, surface to air missiles and artillery shells can be put to much better use than a single tank.
• In Grozny, direct‑fire artillery and tanks, or more specifically, their guns, were put to good use defending long thoroughfares. The long time of flight of a guided missile meant it had little hope of engaging a target crossing a junction. A tank gun could dominate as far as the crew could see.
An expeditionary force might find a number of other uses for what would essentially be a self-propelled anti-tank gun.
• A light armoured gun system could be used as an assault gun for infantry support against urban targets not suited to attack with SLMs or the artillery AGTMs.
• A light armoured gun system could be used in the fire support section of the light armoured cavalry to help break contact.
The likelihood of rubble and other obstacles in urban areas suggest that a tracked platform would be the best option. An oversized, lightly armoured wheeled vehicle such as the Stryker M1128 mobile gun system is probably the worst option.
Another design restriction is that potential users will most probably want a conventional gun of at least 105mm to ensure an anti-MBT capability.
Several possible configurations suggest themselves, and more than one option might be selected.
◦ One possible configuration is a turreted conventional tank configuration, along the lines of the M10 Hellcat, XM-8 AGS and Sprut-SD.
While this option offers an all-around traverse, it is likely to be a high, lightly armoured vehicle. There is a long American military tradition of anything that looks like a tank being misused as a tank.
More high-tech approaches along the lines of the RDF/LT and related designs are likely to have the same problem.
The US Army may bend over backwards trying to avoid using the term “light tank”, but whatever alternate term you promote, there is a high probability of the a vehicle with a “tank gun” being used in a tank role.
To compound this problem, proven doctrine on how to use light tanks seems to be thin on the ground. Most accounts of effective combat use of light tanks seem to be in “extraordinary circumstances”.
What does seem to be clear from history is that using a light tank in a medium tank or MBT role seldom works.
◦ Historically, the most effective tank destroyer/assault gun designs have been turretless. This allowed the vehicle to be compact and well‑armoured without excessive mass.
A version of the Swedish S-tank, or possibly the British Archer, springs to mind.
Whether the S-tank configuration can be lightened to a C‑130 transportable level while still remaining a useful level of armour remains to be seen. Some design features of the RDF/LT could be applied.
By the Author of the Scrapboard : | |
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 | Attack, Avoid, Survive: Essential Principles of Self Defence Available in Handy A5 and US Trade Formats. |
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 | Crash Combat Fourth Edition Epub edition Fourth Edition. |
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