Army Paper Prompts Look at Combat Gear

[formerBrat]

This was posted on Military.com and I plan to read it, because it seems an interesting read (the paper that is) however I'm sure it will mean more to you experts than it will to me. So I figured I'd post it if y'all aren't familiar with the paper.

Here is the link to the Military.com article references the paper and below is the link to the paper.

http://www.military.com/news/article/army-paper-prompts-look-at-combat-gear.html

http://www.scribd.com/full/27765477?access_key=key-25o3hl0i8xdi4f5zo2tb

Army Paper Prompts Look at Combat Gear
March 03, 2010
Military.com|by Christian Lowe


An obscure graduate school paper by an Army major that took the service to task over poorly training and equipping Soldiers for the fight in Afghanistan is causing quite a stir amid key service officials.

Special Operations Command has been picking the paper's conclusions apart with a fine-tooth comb. It is now required reading for Army weapons experts, and the service's top gear buyer has read it cover-to-cover.

But the paper's conclusions are causing some heartburn.

"I've read it. It's a very good paper. But he did take things out of context in a couple of places," said Col. Doug Tamilio, program manager for Soldier weapons. "He makes some conclusions that aren't substantiated with the documents he's got."

In a monograph titled "Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half Kilometer," Maj. Thomas Ehrhart, an infantry officer attending the elite Army School for Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, wrote that the Army undertrained and underequipped its front-line units to battle insurgent forces over long ranges in mountainous terrain..............

 

[Frisco]

Modern Warriors combat load report

This is an Army report written in 2003 after 6 months of observation of the 82nd doing dismounted operations in Afghanistan. Contains a pretty objective view, average pack weights and what was in them, Which ends up saying basically the same thing that MAJ. Ehrhart said only seven years earlier. 80 pages of telling the Army that soldiers are overburdened with what is considered mission essential equipment. Nothing will change until the Army figures out a way to make the gear lighter, because they damn sure aren't going to let them loose anything except comfort items.