Comments
Where to start.
A stateside U.S. Army with expeditionary combined arms maneuver and wide area security aspirations is unlikely to be able to rely solely on sea deployment and prepositioning since it lacks a crystal ball and an unlimited tactical, operational, and strategic fuel supply. Solely IMHO, the Army needs a family of 50 ton, 1500hp GCV and variants like it needs a hole in the rather huge 300 gallon gas tank...a huge contrast from a Stryker's 60 gallon tank.
Nine-man squad carrier? Nothing new here. Uparmored dual-hull Stryker does it at half the GCV projected weight. It also was an FCS requirement years ago in a vehicle that was going to weigh only about 32 tons or less...not 50 tons + 20 tons more with added armor. Add more underbelly armor to a 32 ton vehicle and you still are nowhere near 50 tons. Then you can add 10 tons in theater to stay at 50 tons max...a sustainable GCV level while variants can be lighter.
There are 4 Bradleys per mech platoon and Army white papers describe 4 GCS per platoon as well. No savings there. Just more fuel consumed, as well as a common platform for other vehicles that will be equally heavy on roads/bridges, gas-guzzling, and impossible to deploy in numbers on anything but a ship. That means many months available to the enemy to complete their goals or plan ways to sink our ships or seize our ports.
Does anyone believe fossil fuels will be abundant and inexpensive in 20 years? A recent Army study reveals that for every 24 fuel convoys entering Afghanistan, one Soldier or Afghan/Pakistani dies. Will an excessively heavy GCV give future enemies a new asymmetric tool to defeat us by cutting off our fuel supplies? Are we shifting excessive combat risk to a segment of sustainers who cannot be protected equally?
In addition, if the aim is to share the COIN/FID/Stability/Civil Support missions with the entire Army to include HBCTs, a lighter vehicle...and/or the addition of organic M-ATV in the combined arms battalions might be required.
To concede a point, I have a feeling that talk of returning to a division-centric structure is related to adding MRAP/M-ATV and Advise and Assist capabilities to the division to distribute to BCTs as required. It seems to imply that a BCT from each division would be deployed at any given time per ARFORGEN.
That still seems to inadequately utilize thousands of M-ATV and MRAP that otherwise could make distributed operations more realistic for noncontiguous ops by providing more organic supply and troop lift at CAB level...and creating a CAB that uses less fuel to boot through a mix of both 3-4 GCV and 3-4 M-ATV per platoon.
Division-centric add-only-as-required may be a good plan. However all recent conflicts and realistic future threats will require stability and smaller scale armored offensive/defensive operations much more frequently than major theater conflict combined arms maneuver capability of Fulda Gap proportions. Wide area security requirement are inadequately addressed for extended duration by a HBCT with lots of 50 ton vehicles.
Such vehicles also contrast with ground-combat Marines willing to go lighter in major theater conflict, while seriously considering deployment and light logistics, and willing to risk trading away armor for expeditionary capability. The Army does show similar restraint in the light infantry and Stryker arena, but its heavy forces...the force most unique to the Army and quintessential for major theater conflict...may get there lastest with the leastest when the war is already over ala Georgia, Taiwan, Korea, Ukraine, Iran...you name it.
The worst part is that no evidence exists that Bradley-level armor was insufficient in any recent conflict or in Desert Storm. Point of fact, M113s led some Thunder Runs and saved a M1 tank crew that took a round in the engine. The Marines took both Kuwait and east Iraq without even Bradley-level armor. And Bradley armor has been augmented since OIF and still reaches nowhere near 50 tons...and two more dismounts does not explain the difference.
See that new GCV requirement documents will allow some trade-offs in three tiers. Let's hope that at least one team can create a 40 ton vehicle that meets Tier 1 requirements and can add 10 tons more as required to provide sufficient lethality and survivability, while retaining reasonable sustainability and deployability of two such GCVs per C-17 and three per C-5M...and one per allied A400M.
Why are we so quick to embrace lessons of a non-deploying, admittedly combined-arms-rusty Israel with very short logistics lines while evidence of air deployment and sustainment in northern Iraq and in Afghanistan goes unheeded? Why create a GCV that wastes USAF extraordinary airlift capabilities to facilitate deterrence and combined arms maneuver on an intertheater basis?
Just my personal opinion.