Motorization of Infantry units

>You can't just abandon them for a period of time and then just go back to them.

Why can't you? You know where they are, the enemy does not. You're not going very far away from the trucks because you needed to get where you are to begin with.

It's not like you're parking the trucks 15 miles from your objective and then hiking there. In most cases you are literally driving within several hundred meters of the enemy and disembarking right there.

When go to Wal-Mart, do you park in the parking lot or the next town over?

And there's no chance that any civilians or nearby insurgents might get near the trucks while the infantry are engaged in a firefight several hundred meters away?

Do you really not understand how far away a hundred meters is? It's not that far. You can see ten times that and cross that distance in a matter of seconds. It's not like the trucks are extremely far away.

We're not talking about one hundred meters, if you drive your trucks up 100 meters away from the enemy before dismounting you're fucked. We're talking several hundred meters, probably behind terrain or building cover unless you dismounted in plain view and effective firing range of the enemy, and the infantry are in the middle of a firefight, but somehow they're supposed to be watching their trucks at the same time? Plus if it's urban terrain it doesn't matter if it's only 20 feet over on the next street, there's literally nothing stopping civvies or insurgents from popping out of alleys or doorways and torching your vehicles.

Why don't we just have dedicated motor transport sections and platoons like literally every other military force on planet Earth?

Leave a detail. Its not like you need two guys from every truck to pull security, just a couple of fire teams to man of few of the guns and watch, and in companies with anywhere up to 150 people you can afford that.

What about for platoon level convoys?

Ok then leave 1 guy to guard the truck

How hard is this shit, faggot?

what is with this guy who's arguing that it's literally impossible to use trucks because an insurgent can yeet all your trucks in the blink of an eye because you are required to leave them unguarded?

is he mentally damaged or what? what causes this

I don’t know about other units, but in the airborne world, only one company in a battalion is mounted. And in the cav squadrons, there are two mounted scout troops.

So nobody here actually a mechanized infantryman?

Ok. Fine

For a US Army Delta company (weapons company)

Its 4 trucks per platoon, 3 maybe 4 platoons in the company. Driver and gunner never dismount and we trained around using the vehicles for bounding .

autism

>Motorization of Infantry units
Read Generation Kill. The mini series doesn't really tell the whole story, but it was a pretty good adaptation.
The Marines took a recon battalion, put them in a bunch of Humvee jalopies without any additional training, and told them to lead the way into Iraq during the 2003 invasion. I think it's pretty much incredible that almost all of them came home alive.

Is that one company the designated motorized company? Or does the battalion have the ability to swap out which company is gonna be rolling around in the trucks?

>implying anyone outside of /meg/ does this shit

>I think it's pretty much incredible that almost all of them came home alive
That might've had something to do with the fact that the Iraqi army was mass deserting and had zero will to actually fight us. Imagine that airport seizure scene, but instead of attacking it when it was abandoned by the Iraqis, the Iraqis decided to stay and fight the Marines there. Don't need to stretch the imagination too far to understand that that HBO show would've ended right about there if that actually happened.

Attached: Trombley_why.png (326x226, 115K)

Doctrine is different with different countries. Generally, for the US and the operations I've participated in. The driver and gunner stay in the trucks to provide mobile support by fire if necessary. This is also assuming you're talking about urban operations or COIN in rural environments like Afghanistan.

In a platoon of 4 vehicles, each capable of carrying 5 personnel you'll have 12 dismounts and 8 able to stay with the vehicles as drivers and gunners. A couple manned M240s and .50cals is usually enough to keep a few insurgents away, and the dismounts are usually humping it a few meters to the actual fight anyhow.

If you're reffering to force on force or near peer adversaries then things are a little different. Light armor vehicles would not be leading a charge through enemy lines or making a push to dismount personnel into combat. Does it happen/has it happened? Absolutely but, it's never the ideal situation. Light trucks are more for forward recon or movement of light troops forward to areas where they then set in place. (Doctrine and what actually happens can differ.)

Breaking enemy lines is the responsibility of medium mechanized and heavy armored units usually consisting of tanks and armored personnel carriers. When it comes to those types of units, they usually have several personnel designated to crew the vehicles and they wont generally leave them. The USMC operates that way with their AAVs; they have Marines that are not part of the dismounting unit that man and operate the AAVs for the Infantry they're transporting. The Army trains it's mechanized Infantry platoons to move with smaller dismount units because it is inherent that they give up some of them to crew their Bradleys IFVs, plus there isn't much room in the back of those fucking things.

>Don't need to stretch the imagination too far to understand that that HBO show would've ended right about there if that actually happened.
True. Another way of looking at that situation is that the entire Iraqi army was far more incompetent, foolish and broken than the US military's command structure.

Doesn't a platoon have 3x 9 man squads + a weapons squad with usually two MG teams with a squadleader? How is 4 vics enough to carry that many dudes?

It's always different depending on the kind of unit you're talking about. The way the US Army Light Infantry and Airborne Infantry units are setup, usually Delta company is the heavy weapons/motorized company. They are setup that way in case the LI unit runs into enemy with armored vehicles. Prior to GWOT, LI and Abn battalions only had 3 line companies with a motorized Anti-tank platoon in their HQ company. Everyone else was either air lifted or trucked to the engagement area and walked the rest of the way.

Trucks, to my knowledge, are actually still not MTOE'd to light and airborne units except for their delta companies. Any units using trucks in theater usually fall in on them as theater equipment.

It's not, because light infantry platoons are setup to conduct light operations, not motorized. In the US, motorized doctrine is kinda absorbed by our Stryker units.

USUALLY, a light infantry platoon will fall in on just enough trucks to move everyone around but, not to conduct operations. Some of the platoon will stay behind.

And they usually stay behind because the platoon or company will also have the responsibility of protecting their COP/FOB/OP/Firebase.

So, if I get this right. Light infantry deploying out to go do some shit as a motorized unit will set themselves up similar to how you would set up an air assault operation via designating groups as "chalks". Rather than actually having enough shit to transport the full platoon, you just split the platoon into "chalks" for a given mission?

Attached: this seems fine.jpg (3500x2338, 2.48M)

Whatever happened to the troop carrier variant?

Attached: Humvee Troop Carrier.jpg (655x492, 106K)

Correct.

If the entire platoon is actually needed, then they can usually barrow additional vehicles from within the company or, at battalion level, there is a transportation platoon available with larger utility vehicles to move the platoon. They aren't generally used to move them into combat though, just close enough to walk or from one FOB to another.

I'm sure they're still around for utility purposes but, I don't think there were many dudes excited to ride out on the back of one of those bad girls. If you're strapping sandbags and sand filled jerry cans to the side of your vehicle because it's inherently ineffective or more dangerous without them, then it's a safe bet that those setups are temporary or emergency. Those eventually evolved into our MATVs, RG33s, Caimans, Buffalos, and the rest of the zoo of armored trucks that came out over the course of the war.

This, we usually leave two guys to guard them. No big deal really,

You usually don’t drive trucks right up to the battlefield. You drive them between bases and outposts. They’ll sit in a motor pool and be guarded just like the base is. The infantry goes on patrol/to the fight on foot. Or you could have someone from the parent unit’s staff section drive the trucks, drop off the guys, and head back to base.

>Who guards the trucks when you leave them?
The driver NEVER leaves the truck outside the wire unless you are dug into a defensive position. At least that was our SOP.

Not even for a Chinese fire drill?

Im assuming this is some Afghanistan shit isnt it? Because that sounds like a bad tactic overall.

This thread reinforces my opinion that most Infantry BCT's should be converted into Stryker BCT's.
>MRAP level protection(with double v-hull) while still being functional offroad
>Dedicated crew
>enough supplies to act as a multi-day mobile patrol base
>full squad worth of dismounts
>can actually be used in support by fire roles and, if fire superiority is achieved, used for direct assaults
>pretty much the American BTR

Attached: Stryker ICV.jpg (800x634, 87K)

If you actually look at current BCT setups, that's how things actually are. There are way more Heavy and Stryker units than there are light/airborne units. 101st is the only Air Assault Division and they have their birds for movement/support. 82nd is the only Airborne Division and they have their Air Force lifts for transport. 10th Mountain is the only pure Light Infantry division and they get moved however possible.

1ID - Mechanized/Stryker
2ID - Armor/Stryker
3ID - Mechanized
4ID - Mechanized
25ID - Tranny divison with Stryker/Airborne/Light
1AD - Armor/Stryker
1CAV - Mechanized/Armor
2CR - Stryker
3CR - Stryker

And I believe the majority of National Guard brigades are either armored or stryker as well. Airborne/Air Assault/Light have a very specific niche to fill in the scheme of modern warfare so there isn't a high requirement for them.

I'm guessing you would typify the Marine Corps Infantry Divisions as light infantry, seeing as how they have very limited armor beyond AAV's and LAV's.

too bad strykers are giant hunks of shit that break for no goddamn reason. tru story: on a convoy to yakima we had a stryker that for some reason had fuel or something leaking into the exhaust and burning, sending a 2ft tall flame out the exhaust grate. mechanics said the flame was likely over 2000°F from a video we showed them. These trucks had been running as decent as we could expect them to, proper maintenance and everything, then the bitch just exploded.
at least they're comfy as fuck when its snowing outside and you've got the heater running while you sleep

>being shocked that old combat vehicles have a lot of wear and tear
My father drives a garbage truck, he recently received a new truck that replaced his old one, and by new. I mean brand new, straight from the factory new. He's driven it for about a few weeks and he's already logged on over 70,000 miles on it. I can't even imagine how many miles those Strykers have on them with years worth of non stop use. Shit just breaks homie. Embrace the suck.

Attached: humvee_mid_vroom.jpg (800x600, 117K)

Actually, they fall into a something of a medium mechanized infantry category. Since, by doctrine, the Marines are setup for combined arms ship to shore operations, I believe all their infantry formations are equipped with organic AAVs. So they are more related to the Army's Stryker units than they are to pure light infanry. To be completely fair though, they get used and abused just like light infantry does but, with the benefit of also having their organic AAVs. By that, I mean their infantry also gets to do a lot of light infantry style training like air assault operations. Most Army Stryker and Armor units don't really touch on that much unless they are losing their vehicles for a deployment to Afghanistan.

The Marines have their M1 Abrams battalions as well but, they get mobilized piecemeal style with their MEUs and MEFs instead of just large organic formations like the Army has.

> I believe all their infantry formations are equipped with organic AAV
I think Marine battalions designate each company to be one specific thing, so for the case of AAV's, only one company per battalion would actually have AAV's. The other two would have specialties such as being a "boat" company and an "Osprey" company, so pretty much light infantry once they are delivered by those vehicles.

Which part? Trucks are not APCs.

>Few weeks
>70,000
No, he hasn't.

let's say he drives 20 miles per hour on average
he does that for 8 hours a day, 5 day workweek
that's 20*5*8=800 miles per week
making 70,000 miles in 9 weeks is viable under these assumptions

Attached: big bren.jpg (960x1540, 245K)

>In a perfect world
>Men like me would not exist
>
>
>
>But this is not a perfect world

Attached: scared operator.jpg (287x300, 28K)

I know, but even having stationary FOBs and motorpools in a conventional war sounds like a shitty idea. Like, do you build new ones every time you advance or something?

Or is this only meant for guard units back home? Because then it makes a lot of sense.

This is actually a good thread. learned something new today. Thanks Jow Forums.

Maybe 7000 miles at best. But there's no way a garbage truck would average 20mph on a working route.

He drives a frontloader. Not commercial, so he's driving far every day.

Ironically this is exactly what mechanized infantry does with IFV's. You drive to a point where you want to spit out the dismounts, then circle the wagons in place or in a specified overwatch position. Each truck requires both a driver and a VC to direct him and man the truck's gun. Contrary to what people might think, mechanized infantry refers to heavier vehicles than the HMMV. Even light units will often use hummers. Mechanized infantry use heavier and more expensive armored vehicles. You're not going to leave shit like that around unmanned, outside the wire, ever.

Still, 800 miles/week =/= 70,000 miles in 9 weeks.

>mechanized infantry refers to heavier vehicles than the HMMV

>Mechanized
>Motorized

Wargame: Red Dragon actually had these "specialties" for armies, basically what you said - guys in trucks or guys in some type of armored vehicles.

Attached: 1446511927510.jpg (600x517, 166K)

Its really great when in some armies mechanized infantry refers to them being in any vehicle and there is no differentiation between APCs and trucks.

You were the faggot arguing that you can just abandon the vehicles, don't get pissy because you got proven wrong.

I was in a mechanized infantry back in the heyday of OEF. We had Strykers. To add to the confusion, everyone just calls them trucks anyway.

Not confusing at all.