The U.S. Army in the Pacific--no really

This is the last of the sugar-coated Vietnam propaganda for the day. It does have some useful observations.

Sky Soldiers in Vietnam, 173rd AB, part 1.

Sky Soldiers in Vietnam, 173rd AB, part 2. (also an Aussie and NZ mention)

Sky Soldiers in Vietnam, 173rd AB, part 3.

Some of that so sweet it hurts your teeth? The propaganda isn't all that different from today. Sky Soldiers serving in Vietnam received 13 Medals of Honor, 32 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1,736 Silver Stars and more than 6,000 Purple Hearts. The 173rd incurred 1,533 deaths and around 6,000 wounded for the whole war.

This post and several previous ones, look at the idea of what use is the U.S. Army in the Pacific? I would say one constant would be counter insurgency. Who knows what scale?

I would state the following improvements to the Army need to be done (not all-inclusive):

Fire any general that goes before Congress and tells them he only has two combat-ready brigades in the whole of the U.S. Army. As Patton said, "There are more tired division commanders than tired divisions". The priority should be on soldier basics as one never knows if they will travel by boat, MRAP, or AFV but they have to be trained in the core basics.

All combat units.

Delete the current Airborne units.

Grow two more Ranger Regiments for a total of three. Rangers can do a lot of things. And, they will be needed. For example: LRRPs ("Lerps") Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols as one of their many skill-sets in rough country: patrol, gather information, setup ambushes. As they are airborne qualified, that takes care of the previous problem when those skills are needed. Where division-level WWII-like para-drops have no purpose today.

Retire the M-1 tank. We need a tank in the 40-ton class (diesel of course) and one in the 30-ton class, that snorkel and ford well. Along with being simple to maintain.

Retire the Stryker and Brad. Strykers will be useful on various target ranges.

Take the thousands of M-113s we have in storage and perform various modifications.

Replace all Army helicopters over time, where only salty-capable variants (i.e. compatible with Navy/USMC ops) are the norm.

From this we can see that there is plenty of work for industry to do.

And for the Army once that is all done, practice boat operations. And don't worry, there is still plenty of work for the USMC to do.

So, how important is a Pacific Pivot to the U.S.? Well we do have to defend Japan and S. Korea. Non-negotiable.

For everything else? It better be really important.

Consider that the U.S. lost over 58,000 dead and suffered over 300,000 wounded in Vietnam.

With that, we do have to maintain a well trained and properly equipped fighting force.

For the Pacific, the U.S. Army still has a lot of work to do.