Abstract: AS WORLD WAR II progressed, tens of thousands of tons of artillery munitions were fired on enemy positions in both the European and Pacific theaters of operation.1 The quintessential armored officer General George S. Patton depended upon his artillery to batter the Germans into submission before and during any maneuver his 3rd Army undertook. In fact, the spearhead of Patton's 3rd Army, the 4th Armored Division, would not maneuver unless continuous, or near continuous, artillery fires were placed on and around objectives. The hard lesson was simple: firepower provides freedom of maneuver in combat, and no air force or combat arm provides that firepower better than the artillery.2 This led General Patton to declare: I do not have to tell you who won the war. You know. The artillery did.3The cold, hard truth then, as now, is that rolling over and through opponents killed or incapacitated by cannon and rocket fires rather than by directly engaging them with rifles, machine guns, and tanks saves the lives of U.S. soldiers. Nor did World War II ground commanders hold themselves hostage to the weather and the Air Corps. The Air Corps could not be everywhere at once, and the weather affected its ability to put ordinance on target at the right time and place. Nothing has changed. Yet now, in over ten years of combat operations, these facts appear lost on many military leaders and politicians.The Modern Battlefield As fiscal realities today descend on the military, the services will scramble and fight to justify their existence, and the same historically unsupported ideas will be repackaged and foisted upon the political establishment as the be-all and end-all to defending our nation on the cheap. The AirSea Battle is currently in vogue (in the past, it was the AirLand Battle), and it will in turn be replaced by the next good idea from Pentagon and think-tank futurists until the harsh realities of ground combat impose themselves again.Despite contemporary and past experiences in war, the chorus sings the same old song-only now, it is to protect the sea lanes and project power through the air; before it was dominate the air, win the land battle. The assertion remains unchanged: airpower predominates in modern warfare. The presumption is that airpower is the clean, efficient way to win wars. Yet the historical record shows us that war is a brutal and wasteful affair in the mud that has never been decided in the air. The inconvenient truth for the proponents of airpower is that an airplane cannot even hold the ground it parks on, much less the terrain it flies over. With Asia rising, and in the processes rapidly developing land-based forces, the U.S. Army need not justify its future relevance. Yet, we approach another interwar period and its malaise. What should be evident to anyone with even the slightest grip on history and an understanding of the indispensable role of land forces in winning wars is lost on our policymakers. Many seem incapable of learning from history. Wars are won on the ground and in the will. The Army is the decisive force. The current chief of staffof the Army understands this clearly and has said so.4 But is anyone listening?Sadly, the infighting is not limited to protecting rice bowls within the joint force. The chief of staff's message appears to be falling on deaf ears within his own house. Nation building has taught the Army bad lessons and habits. Nowhere is this more evident than in the continual slide of the artillery into irrelevance. What was once considered by Carl von Clausewitz and Napoleon Bonaparte as the decisive and most destructive combat arm on the battlefield is now viewed as unresponsive and impractical, particularly in counterinsurgency operations (i.e. nation building), where many professional soldiers believe that winning the hearts and minds of the local population in the nation they are occupying is more important than destroying the enemy.5Lessons learned cherry picked from foreign military adventures in Malaysia, Indochina, Northern Ireland, the Mideast, and North Africa underpin U. …
Publication Year: 2013
Publication Date: 2013-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
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