Perhaps you‘ve spent too many weekends training with the current Canadian Army school of thought - where artillery doesn‘t exist, and pepperpotting over the prairie in 500 metre long frontal attacks is the norm. I would suggest to you that some reading on how things were/are done "for real" might open your eyes to how firepower was distributed/dished out in a typical WW II/Korean War era battalion attack or defensive fireplan.
Yep, you got me. I‘m just a moronic toon jackass who can‘t twrap his fragile little mind around any concept larger than the level of a ****in‘ section attack.
Fortunately enough fo me, I‘m not half the mouth-breathing simpleton you take me for. In a perfect world, me and the boys would be hitting the battlefield after a massive TOT arty barrage, with black hats in tow to do the tank/bunker hunting and engineers to blow up obstacles arriving around the same time we air assault onto the objective. Then we would have both vertical envelopment CAS and a FOO on hand to give us a lifeline if the kimchi got deeper than we could swim in. Accordinging to the tactics of a section attack in the method I was taught, we would actually be arriving in LAVs, with a 25mm cannon, section level coax C6, and smoke launchers all raining **** onto the trench/bunker/building whilst we pepper pot up using the principles of fire and movement. During the reorg we‘d have MSE Ops hauling ammo and water up to us to resup before we stepped off to do it again. What the **** , so long as I‘m dreaming, I‘ll even assume we might have a relief company coming in to give us a chance to rest and recharge and get our cas evac‘d out by choppers. Spread the workload a bit so everyone gets a chance to close with and kill the Hun/Osamama bin Lubbin‘.
Too bad that the level at which the ideal and reality meet is, at most, the platoon (perhaps company) level. Our "armoured support" is basically recce jeeps conducting route recce for our ML-o-copters; our engineer support.... well I think an engineer drove us back up top post- endex one time. I hear there are arty callsigns somewhere in our brigade, but I‘ve never heard them fire, let alone seen the tubes. **** , I‘ve ridden in a Griffon, but have never so much as seen a LAV except the ones I eye****ed in 1RCR‘s lager in Pet.
So, yes I am a lowly unwashed militia mutt, but I do have a handle on how a combined arms approach works in theory. However, if we ever get sent to battle in the current state of the Mo, I want it made **** sure that I have the best available service rifles, MGs, GLs, rocket launchers, and small bore mortar, along with as much ammo and water and med supplies (with perhaps some valid first aid training thrown in) as I can possibly carry with me, because while I know I can reasonably trust that buddy to the left and buddy to the right will be there when we walk into the fire, I can‘t be stack-of-Bibles certain there will be other arms there who know how to properly fight beside/support the infantry.
Just so none of the RegF pers get their knickers twisted, yes I know us toons are nowhere good enough to play alongside the professionals without six months of workup training. But knowing there is a critical mass of "people who matter" out there who give little enough of a **** to do their voodoo to make PRes combined arms exs a flesh and blood reality kills whatever little faith I have in the whole thing whenever someone does something to spark some small bit of hope for the future.
Mr. Dorosh, I do find it funny that you first include a description of the Enfields as being little more useful as a weapon than a pitchfork, then go on to sing its praises later on. Now, granted, my tiny militia infantryman‘s brain may not grasp the subtly of what you‘re trying to say, but that strikes me as a dichotomy.
Ghost: been there done that with the MILES gear. That‘s why my take is that the Res INF arm should focus on being as proficient as possible given our constaraints in long range recce skills, fighting patrols, raiding/ambushing, and FIBUA as possible. Those are areas that are more focused on true light infantry; make no mistake, we are light infantry, no matter what the paperwork in NDHQ says... we have a better chance of conducting an air assault than a mech op, at least in my neck o‘ the woods.
But that may simply be the smug opinion of someone with no real understanding of the issues at hand who thus has nothing signifigant to say.