Armored Cav

279 Pages·2003·1.11 MB·English

by  Clancy Tom

Armored Cav
Tom Clancy

This book is dedicated to the troopers of the 11th Armored
CavalryRegiment.Once again it is time to say thanks to all the people who really
madethis book a work to be proud of. At the start is my partner andresearcher,
John D. Gresham. Once again, he has literally traveledfrom coast to coast to
assemble the wealth of material and experiencesthat are being presented for your
enjoyment and enlightenment. His is ahuge job with some deeply difficult tasks
associated with it, and mybest thanks go to him for his continued dedication and
friendship. Also,the entire team has again benefited from the wise counsel and
advice ofseries editor Professor Martin H. Greenberg. Laura Alpher is to
becomplimented again for her marvelous drawings which have added so muchto
the quality of the final book. This young lady is a major talent, sokeep your eyes
out for her work in the future. Tony Koltz, MikeMarkowitz, and Chris Carlson
also need to be recognized for theirresearch and editorial support that was both
critical and timely. Aspecial note of appreciation goes to Greg Stewart for his
finephotographic advice.Thanks also to Cindi Woodrum, Diana Patin,
andRoselind Greenberg for their patience and support in backing the rest ofus up
as we went along digging out the bits and pieces of our littlestory.One thing that
makes a book both fun and exciting to work on is supportfrom on high, and this
book was blessed with Army support that was, in aword, unbelievable. It is
difficult to say thanks enough to the U.S.Army Chief of Staff, General Gordon
Sullivan, U.S.A. This gentlemansoldier, who looks like a kindly pet shop owner,
is the driving forcebehind the technical revolutions that are currently being
implemented inthe Army. The Army and the country are blessed to have his
leadershipat this critical time in the history of our army. Also deservingspecial
thanks is General Fred Franks, U.S.A., for his time andpatience, as well as his
friendship to all the members of our team.Thanks also to General Barry
McCaffrey, U.S.A., and his wife, Jillforsharing a special evening at their home
with us. Down at Fort Hood,Texas, our appreciation goes out to my old friend,
Lieutenant GeneralPete Taylor, U.S.A., and his replacement, Lieutenant General
“Butch”Funk, U.S.A. Out at the National Training Center at Fort
Irwin,California, there was Brigadier General Bob Coffey, U.S.A., who tooktime
out of his busy schedule to show us the world’s finest groundwarfare trai’ni’ng
center. Thanks also to Brigadier General HaroldWilson, U.S.A., Ph.D., the chief
historian for the U.S. Army.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Finally, there were three extraordinary young officers: Captains H. R.McMaster
and Joseph Sartiano, and Ist Lieutenant Dan Miller, who sharedtheir own Gulf
War experiences with us. I think you will be as amazedas we were when you
read them.Another group that was vital to our efforts, less well known but
equallyimportant, were the members of the various U.S. Army public
affairsoffices (PAOS) and protocol organizations that handled our
numerousrequests for visits and information. Tops on our list was Major
RickThomas of the Pentagon PAO. Rick and his team helped grant
virtuallyevery wish for information and access that we had, and made the
wholesecurity review process a pleasure. Over in General Sullivan’s
office,Lieutenant Colonel Robert Coffey, U.S.A., helped lay out the
Army’smodernization plans. Out at Fort Irwin, California, Captains
FranklinChildress and Len Tokar made our visit both memorable and livable in
theincredible heat of September, 1993. Down at Fort Polk, Louisiana,Lieutenant
Colonel Mike Trahan, U.S.A., as well as Dan Nance and DaveBingham helped
get the light cavalry story across to us. Down at TRADOCHeadquarters, Colonel
George Stinnett and Ray Harper worked miracles tosupport our efforts. Down at
Fort Bliss, Texas, we had the honor ofmeeting as fine a group of warriors as you
can imagine in the troopersof the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Our first
thanks go to theregimental commander, Colonel Robert Young, U.S.A. This
lifelongcavalry trooper, who doubles as a peacekeeper and relief worker, is aman
of amazing contrasts. Our thanks for sharing time out of theregiment’s training
schedule to school us on the ways of the 3rd’stroopers. In addition, the
regimental staff deserves some mentionhere. Command Sergeant Major Dennis
E. Webster and the regimentalexecutive officer, Lieutenant Colonel Luke
Barnett, U.S.A., did a finejob of coordinating our visits to the regiment. And the
regimental PAOsCaptain Andy Vliet and 2nd Lieutenant Nichole Whitehead
were fantasticin their tolerance and patience. We also want to recognize
theassistance of the regiment’s various squadron commanders:
LieutenantColonels Norman Greczyn, Karl J. Gunzelman, Gratton Sealock,
andThomas M. Hill. And of course, there were the extraordinary efforts
ofLieutenant Colonel Toby W. Martinez, the commander of the regiment’s1st
(Tiger) Squadron. Toby is one of the best cavalry officers in theArmy today. He
tolerated having us there to watch his victories, hisdefeats, and his learning
experiences. God bless, Toby.Many thanks are due to our various industrial
partners, without whom allthe information on the various weapons and systems
would never havehappened. At the armor manufacturers there was Carl Oskoian
of GeneralDynamics, Ken Julian and Judy Mclivanie of BMY, as well as
BillHighlander and Madeleine Orr-Geiser of FMC. Among those at thehelicopter
builders were Russ Rumney at Bell, Jim Kagdis atBoeing-Sikorsky, Ken Jensen
builders were Russ Rumney at Bell, Jim Kagdis atBoeing-Sikorsky, Ken Jensen
at McDonnell Douglas, and finally, Bill
Tuttle and Foster Morgan of Sikorsky. The folks at the truckcontractors were a
wealth of data, with Walt Garlow and Lynn Jones atOshkosh Truck, as well as
the incomparable Craig MacNab at AM General,as standouts. We made many
friends at the various missile, armament,and system manufacturers including:
Natalie Riley at BEI, Russ Logan atBeretta USA, Cynthia Pulham at Boeing, Art
Dalton and Brian Berger atColt, Clementine Cacciacarro and Cheryl Wiencek at
Hughes, Robert Clowerat IDA, Tommy Wilson at Loral, Jody Wilson-Eudy at
Motorola, Ed Alber atOlin, Jim Walker at Rockwell, Peter Jones of Tenebrex,
and last, butcertainly not least, Ed Rodemsky and Barbara Thomas of Trimble,
whospent so much time and capital to educate us on the subtleties of theGPS
system. Thanks to you all. Once again, our thanks for all of ourhelp up in New
York. To Robert Gottlieb at William Morris, thanks againfor a great opportunity.
And at Berkley Books, our appreciation goesout to our editor, John Talbot, as
well as to Jacky Sach, Patty Benford,and David Shanks. To our friends like Ed
Burba and Donn Starry, thanksagain for your contributions and wisdom. To all
the guys who took usfor rides, thanks for teaching the heathens how things really
work. Forour families and friends, we once again thank you for having
enduredlate dinners, broken promises, and missed holidays; please know that
welove you always. And lastly, to the diminutive tank sergeant known as”Big
Daddy,” we say “…Thanks for going armor!“F YOU AIN’T CAV, YOU
AIN’T…” Frequently displayed in conspicuousplaces, that trenchant soldier
slogan reflects the cavalry trooper’sperilception of himself and his outfit. This
splendid book is aboutthose soldiers. Specifically it is about armored cavalry and
about onearmored cavalry regiment, the 3rd (known as the “Brave Rifles”), soon
tobe the last such organization on the active rolls of the U.S. Army-anarmy
which in the not-too-distant past boasted five such activeregiments, and among
whose most effective unit performances in theVietnam War were those of an
armored cavalry regiment, the Ith (known as”The Blaclchorse”). An army whose
deployed armored cavalry regiments,the 2nd (“Toujours Prdt”) and the 3rd, were
among the most effective inthe Gulf War, and in which there is a rich tradition of
outstandingcavalry units and famous senior leaders who served as younger
officersin those units. In this book Tom Clancy describes better than anyoneyet
why cavalry is what it is-why it is different-and why the nation islikely to need
more, not fewer, cavalry regiments as we probetentatively toward the 21st
century.Like all military units, modern armored cavalry is a unique
combinationof soldiers and equipment-but most of all, it’s the soldiers who
areimportant. A persistent lesson of battle is that, however good theequipment,
areimportant. A persistent lesson of battle is that, however good theequipment,
what wins an engagement is the combination of the courage ofthe soldiers, the
excellence of the leadership, and the effectiveness ofthe training-individual and
small-unit training in employment of theequipment according to well-thought-
out and frequently practiced tactics
and operational schemes. So it all goes together-tac- tics, equipment,training,
and organization. All that is what this book is about: aspecial organization, its
equipment, its soldiers, its leaders, and howit fights. It’s not just in cavalry units
that all that goes together,for it does so in many units. But several characteristics
of cavalrymake that organization perhaps “di more fferent “than
otherorganizations. What are those characteristics?First are the traditional
cavalry missions-reconnaissance and security.In other words you have to find an
enemy force in order to inform ahigher command; then you may have to take
action to prevent that enemyforce from interfering with friendly force battle
plans. These historiccavalry missions demand great operational mobility, tactical
agility,superb command and control, and a special ability to operate
effectivelyover vast distances. Additionally, they require the ability
toconcentrate quickly to meet a threat or to take advantage of anopportunity. In
sum, they require an ever-present need to seize theinitiative. The history of battle
teaches the importance of seizing theinitiative. For whoever takes the initiative
usually wins-regardless ofwho may outnumber or be outnumbered, or who
attacks or defends. Cavalrymissions require units organized and trained to take
the initiative, allthe time, from the very beginning, every time out.Second,
cavalry organization is quite different. The need for mobilityand agility, and for
economy of force over vast distances, has causedmodern cavalry to be organized
around combinedarms teams at the lowestlevels of command. Postwar armored
cavalry units from the platoon levelup consisted of a built-in mixture of scouts,
infantry, tanks, andmortars for indirect fire support. Thus, an armored cavalry
secondlieutenant commands a full spectrum of combinedarms capabilities in
hisown little piece of the Army. With several such platoons, the cavalrytroop
commander can use the platoons as is, or he can group tanks,infantry, mortars,
and scouts from all platoons in a combinedarms teamat the troop level. In
squadrons of armored cavalry regiments, a tankcompany and a self-propelled
artillery battery give squadron commandersyet a stronger combinedarms team.
With three cavalry squadrons, an aircavalry squadron of scout and attack
helicopters, combat engineer andchemical companies, and a combat support
squadron providing organiclogistics support, the regimental commander has a
truly imposingindependent combinedarms force. An armored division several
times thesize of such a regiment would be required to provide an
times thesize of such a regiment would be required to provide an
equalcapability. As we shall see in Tom Clancy’s account, with the advent
ofmore complex weapons systems, levels at which combined arms are
groupedhave moved up from platoon to troop. But the result is the same-
fromtheir first day of duty cavalry leaders think combinedarms warfare. Andthat
is a major reason why they are different, for battle experienceteaches that the
most difficult task to learn is the art-and it is anart-of knowing instinctively how
to employ combined arms. Cavalry
leaders are forced to do just that every day of their lives.In Tom Clancy’s book
we meet two Persian Gulf War cavalry leaders whoare masters of that art-one an
armored corps commander, the other acavalry troop commander. We learn that
the corps commander, GeneralFred Franks, was once himself a cavalry platoon
leader, later a squadroncommander, and still later commander of a regiment, the
11th. Thecavalry troop commander, Captain H. R. McMaster, Jr., began his
owncareer as a second lieutenant in a cavalry unit. Fach, at his ownlevel, is a
master of the art of combinedarms warfare.The outstanding battle record of
armored cavalry in the Gulf War is animportant part of Tom Clancy’s account,
especially in the interviewswith General Franks and Captain McMaster. It is well
to remember theequally outstanding battle performance of armored cavalry in
the VietnamWar, for there it was originally perceived that the nature of the
war,the enemy, terrain, and climate would make it impossible to employ
an.1,armored units. Consequently, infantry divisions initially deployed
toVietnam without organic tank battalions and armored cavalry squadrons.But
after some experience, the infantry commanders already in-countrysent home for
those units. With some misgivings, a regiment of cavalry,the 11th, was deployed
to Southeast Asia. The misgivings provedunfounded. The 11th did very well.
Other units were sent, and theyalso performed well. Later, a special task force
sent to evaluate theperformance of armored units in Vietnam concluded they
were the mosteffective, certainly the most cost-effective, of the war. And when
thewar ended, cavalry units were among the last to redeploy home@ theysimply
represented more combat power for the least investment inmanpower that could
be had.As a result of this experience, it was quite clear that cavalry was aforce
ready-made for the lessthan-all-out wars that became the norm atthe end of the
Cold War and during the years that followed. Changes toorganization and
equipment suggested by cavalry commanders were thebasis for postVietnam
cavalry reforms, and for the success of splendidregiments like the 3rd that were
so effective in the 1991 Persian GulfWar.Now our once-familiar world has
changed. The traditional threat of morethan five decades’ standing has come
asunder. And no one can reasonablysay what will eventuate. A Russia there will
asunder. And no one can reasonablysay what will eventuate. A Russia there will
be, but what kind? Andwhat may be its relationship(s) with the other former
Soviet republics?Four of those republics are now proud owners of thermonuclear
weaponsand the means to deliver them inter-or intra-theater.
Meanwhile,militarization of conflict in the Third World continues apace.
Indeedit is at a new juncture, with the advent of ballistic missiles and thedrive by
rogue dictators in resource-critical regions to develop oracquire weapons of mass
destruction. Economic interdependence, an
inescapable fact of our “modern” world, makes all nations, especiallydeveloped
nations, vulnerable to mischief by Third World miscreants. Atthe same time,
domestic economic uncertainty and national priorities nowaimed at medical,
educational, urban, and environmental dilemmas make itdifficult to garner
support for military forces to counter these new andunfamiliar threats. The
United States historically follows successfulmilitary ventures by destroying the
very strength that providedvictory-only to find it necessary to rebuild on short
order with thearrival of new and previously unforeseen threats. The first battles
ofthe next war thus find us paying the tragic price for our unpreparednessin the
commodity we can least afford to expend-the lives of soldiers,marines, airmen,
and sailors. Now we are at it once more. Thesituation of this last decade of the
20th century is reminiscent of thethirty years following the American Civil War,
when shadowed remnants ofa once-proud army were completely overcommitted
in campaigns to tame theAmerican West and its Indians. Now, the “wild
savages” of the AmericanWest have been replaced by religious fundamentalists
and other types of”hostiles.” Though they are geographically far away, their
weapons putthem relatively closer than those now all-but-forgotten
frontier”badmen.” Yet the drive to disarm continues. The American Congress
isfrequently blamed for this state of affairs, and not withoutjustification. For the
Congress, for better or for worse, has todetermine the size of the armed forces in
budget terms-numbers ofpeople, of bases, and of kinds of equipment. On the
other hand,structure-the numbers of divisions, air wings, carrier task forcesis
aresponsibility of the services: Army, Navy, Air Force. And that iswhere the
services have an opportunity to exercise creativity andinitiative. The Army after
the Civil War, driven to draconian measuresby Congressional restrictions on
manpower, all but abandoned largerformations-divisions, corps, armies.
Operations during those grim, leanyears were in the hands of some very capable,
if understrength,regiments of infantry, artillery, and cavalry. It is a paradigm that
wewould do well to study; Tom Clancy’s superb book is a good place
tobegin.Donn Starry, General, U.S. Army, Retired, 41st Colonel of
theBlackhorse, and Honorary Colonel of the RegimentWhen did mobile warfare
start? That’s hard to say-but probably not longafter somebody realized it was
start? That’s hard to say-but probably not longafter somebody realized it was
possible to use a horse to move things orpeople. And it was definitely going
strong on the steppes of CentralAsia by the third millennium BC. Recent
excavations by Russianarchaeologists of Bronze Age grave sites on the Kazalch
steppes (datedaround 2200 to 1800 BC) have unearthed the earliest known
remains ofchariots. These were invented as hightech platforms from
whichwarriors could shoot arrows or hurl javelins. And yet it’s quitepossible that
mobile warfare goes farther back than that. Bones fromeven earlier sites in the
Ukraine suggest that the long love affair
between humans and horses may have started more than six thousand yearsago.
Archaeologists debate the issue, but horses may have been riddenbareback long
before they were harnessed to wheeled vehicles. What ifthe first use of the horse
in battle was for reconnaissance? Sittingastride a horse you can see farther than
you can while standing on yourown two feet. And the horse has four legs, which
has advantages, too.More fleet of foot than a man though only for short
distances, and onlyif properly treated-the horse can give his rider the ability to
locatethe enemy, approach him, count his numbers, perhaps harass him a
little,and then escape unhurt to report to the chieftain. And so from
timeimmemorial, these two missions have been the main missions of thecavalry:
to locate the enemy, and to sting him.Cavalry has rarely been a decisive arm by
itself. For one thing, thesize of the horse gave cavalry troopers lower combat
density than theinfantry. The breadth of a horse’s chest and the space needed to
avoidcrushing a rider’s legs against his neighbor’s mount meant that two orthree
infantrymen occupied the same frontage as a single horse andrider. Two or three
spears, swords, or bows in the hands of footsoldiers confronted each warrior on
horseback. Less appreciated is ahorse’s unwillingness to plunge headlong into a
barrier it cannot seethrough. Though a horse might not be the smartest living
thing onearth, only men will knowingly hurl away their lives. Third, a horse
isnot a machine. To operate and perform properly, it needs food, water,and rest.
Denied those things, it dies; and all the spare parts in anArmy inventory can’t fix
that. And so it was a rule of the AmericanWest that on any long-distance trip of
more than five days, an infantrycompany could outmarch a cavalry troop. A
horse afforded a trooper arelatively high dash-speed, but only over fairly short
distances. A mansitting on a horse also made an easy target, especially after
thedevelopment of firearms. And yet, despite these drawbacks, the
horseremained important in war for three millennia. More precisely,
thehorseman performed several crucial missions: find the enemy; prevent
theenemy from finding you; collect information on the enemy before yourmain
force collides with his; harass his flanks and communications;pursue him in
force collides with his; harass his flanks and communications;pursue him in
defeat; screen your own forces when you are forced towithdraw.Today the horse
is used mainly for parades and ceremonies, but themissions it once performed
remain as vital as ever. Though today’scavalry “companies” are called “troops,”
and the “battalions” are called”squadrons,” the troop ers (otherwise called
“soldiers”-traditions dodie hard, especially when John Ford made so many great
movies about theglorious horse-soldiers) ride to battle not on Front Royal
remounts, butmostly within sophisticated fighting vehicles.Always the Army’s
proud arm, the socially prominent arm, the “pretty”arm-and for all those reasons
despised by the infantry-the United States
Cavalry’ is not-and never was-just fashionable. It grows and changes.And so in
the 1950s and ’60s it mutated into a shock-arm. In those days,the 11th Armored
Cavalry Regiment (ACR)L was tasked with covering theFulda Gap, an historic
invasion route into western Germany. The job ofthe 11th ACR was to slow
down, break up, and generally obstruct theadvance of an armored formation as
large as the Soviet Third Shock Army(about twelve times its size). That job
demanded a new kind of unit,different from one designed for reconnaissance.
Consequently thearmored cavalry regiment evolved into something like an
unusually robustbrigade, or even a mini-division-a superbly balanced combat
formation,containing a little bit of everything the Army has, under the command
ofa full colonel. In due course, the ACR became a plum assignment,
wheresuccessful stewardship was the passage to greater things. In fact, thetop
ranks of the U.S. Army are packed with men who have served in,
andcommanded, the three ACRs that operated during the Cold War.This growth
process, whose purpose was simply to give the unitdesignated to be the first
target for the Red Army a modest chance atsurvival, ended up producing a
military organization with unusualrelevance for the world that is now emerging
after the fall ofCommunism. Relatively small in size, the ACR is heavy on
“teeth” andshort on “tail”-a weighted fist with deceptive agility on thebattlefield.
It has global mobility, and the greatest concentration offirepower of any land
combat force yet created. As we will see, themarriage of weapons and mobility,
added to the coming revolution inbattlefield-information technology, will
transform the ACR yet againinto a form that will make it the most important
land component in theU.S. military’s continuing mission of keeping the peace-
and punishingthose who violate it.And that will continue to be the legacy of
those who stir to the soundof “Boots and Saddles.“Ever since the first warrior
padded himself with leather to ward off theblows of a rival’s weapon, there has
been an endless struggle betweenthose who fashion armor to protect soldiers and
those who build weaponsto penetrate and destroy it. Later, when man began to
those who build weaponsto penetrate and destroy it. Later, when man began to
forge metal intoplates, he beat it into improved armor for his breast and head,
tobetter ward off enemy spears and arrows. A well-armored warrior couldclose
with his enemies, survive their attacks, and then destroy themwith his own
weapons. When sharp iron is flying around a battlefield,armor protection can be
the difference between life and death, victoryand defeat.The knights of France
fell to the archers of King Edward Ill of Englandat the Battle of Crdcy ( 1346)
because the armor a horse and rider couldbear did not stop the arrows fired by
longbows. The first British tankswere impervious to the machinegun bullets
fired by German soldiers
during the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. The world of the armored warrioris an
ever-shifting balance between armor and firepower. The way thesetwo elements
interact, as well as the skill of the operators, determineshow well any armored
fighting vehicle will do in combat. Let’s take aquick look at the state of the art in
the complex science of armoredwarfare.Armor-The Hard ShellArmor is the
tank’s reason for being, not mobility or a big tin,although both are desirable and
will compete with armor in a tank’sdesign. Armor is designed to keep the crew,
and the weapons capable ofinflicting punishment upon an enemy, safe.Tanks
were born in World War I out of the desperation of trench warfare.In September
of 1914, after the Battle of the Marne, the defeated GermanArmy fell back and
dug into a system of trenches and defensive positionsso strong that the Allies
could not dislodge them. In the years thatfollowed, machine guns and artillery
inflicted hideous losses on bothsides; the war bogged down into a stalemate. The
addition of severalhundreds of miles of barbed wire created a deadly zone
between theopposing armies (called “no-man’s-land”) where infantry and
thenow-outdated horse cavalry (they just didn’t know it yet) were moweddown
by the tens of thousands. Allied commanders demanded more and moreartillery
to beat down the German troops and destroy their barbed wireand
entrenchments. That didn’t work. The only result was to turn agood portion of
northern France and Belgium into terrain resembling abarren
moonscape.Something new was needed. Something that could crawl right up to
themachine-gun nests and destroy them, without being destroyed first.
Thesolution was a combination of steel plate (from naval ship armor), theinternal
combustion engine, caterpillar tracks (from early agriculturaltractors), and
machine guns or light cannon. Enter the tank. Becausethey were originally called
“land ships,” many terms in the tankvocabulary-turret, hull, hatch, deck,
periscope-are naval metaphors, butnot the name “tank” itself. That comes from a
British cover story: Theyconcealed their construction from the Germans by
calling them storagetanks or boilers. During World War I the typical Allied tank