Ranger's focus on bringing everyone home by killing all the enemy first. Doesn't always work out, but it sure as hell increases survivability more than trying to turtle up without indiscriminate artillery fire.
I'm going to need to see some citations to support that statement, it doesn't jibe with what I saw on my seven deployments.
I do. In addition to Vietnam, Rumsfeld's stupid ass tightly controlled the activation of RC units. In part because he didn't believe a lot of troops were necessary for the Iraq invasion and in part because the activation of RC troops around Christmas 2002 would cause problems. Real or not, the political spector of activating RC soldiers is a concern in Washington.
I specifically omitted the Air Guard because they are probably the world's largest, most expensive individual augmentee program. I'm sure some squadrons deploy as a unit, but most parcel out their airmen on a volunteer status and the AD is left to backfill those positions which the AG cannot/ will not man.
You proved my point though I wasn't totally clear or correct. A handful of Guard units being sent to S. Vietnam can fly under the radar. Activating brigades changes the political dynamic. When you look at the number of forces deployed to S. Vietnam compared to the RC forces left in the states and those activated vs. those who weren't...the numbers aren't even close.
And yes, Air Guard units were involved early on...but not the entire unit. I know quite a few "units" which deployed, but they were more of a task force or ad hoc scenario than an entire squadron, group, or wing. Some of that is the nature of the AG mission, we can't expect the Air Defense Sectors to pack up and deploy (though some of their support slices have). I'm speaking mainly for the rest of the Air Guard: ATC and ACS squadrons, Combat Comm, even the -130 squadrons. You can't send all of your security forces because then you have to move airmen from other bases to cover the one left behind. So, some units can't deploy as a whole, and others simply don't. 180-day deployments and AG airmen are dividing that up into 30 days here, 90 days, 60 days...whatever. While that's the system, that's why I made the comment I did: they are mostly individual augmentees.
Guard units used in Vietnam:
http://www.ngef.org/index.asp?bid=48
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_State's_National_Guard_units_served_during_the_Vietnam_War
From the first link:
That's not the way the Guard was designed. Whether we agree with it or not, the Guard isn't designed to form a pool of individual replacements.
Of course, then you have units like FL's 53rd Infantry BDE which had to strip qualified 11B's from other units (even secondary MOS') to meet required manning levels for at least one of its deployments.
No disrespect, but I would like to read any stats or supporting documentation that support your claim "that NG units were less effective or capable compared to their AD counterparts". As that opinion doesn't hold much water in my experience, not only on the deployment side but also on the training and unit validation side.
I have some unit specific info/data I will share next time I am on a PC vs my phone.
Are you going to tell me with a straight face after seven deployments that you did not see a large number of AD COC's state their mission as, or act as if their mission was "to bring everyone home"?
Reed
Not as direct as training time vs training time. Guard does have some strengths over AD. Unit cohesion, maturity, real world skills (especially the medics) and even on training, your average grunt has been in what 2 years? Your average Guard grunt has been in longer. There are clear weaknesses as well. On a whole, the physical fitness level of the NG is atrocious, technical skills take much longer to develop since we don't have new high tech equipment in peacetime, and there is a severe reduction in yearly training time. BUT, and I know you are old enough to remember this sir, peace time Army training in the conventional forces was not that intense. I spent a much greater time doing post beautification, change of command ceremonies, motor pool, mandatory paperwork, etc, then I ever did training and most of the training was still "hip pocket" training. And this was in an airborne unit, I can only imagine what day to day life in a conventional non-combat arms unit must have been like.It should be intuitive though that all things being equal, an organization that does something full-time is going to be innately better that someone that does it part-time. If Guard units are just as effective as AD units in an apples-to-apples comparison, why do we even bother with AD in the first place? Why not an all-volunteer, all-part-time force? The answer is because there IS a difference. A big one. Again, I'm not bashing the Guard, they do their part and are an important component of the team. But IMO anyone who thinks any size part-time Guard fivision is as capable as their direct counterpart on AD is deluding themselves. Again, this doesn't mean they're "not capable," just "less capable."
So you supported SOF units. Hardly a fair comparison for Guard units.Officers with that degree of risk aversion typically didn't make it into the types of units I supported during the wars, so no, I didn't see it. Ever.
PA ANG is the only COMMANDO SOLO unit around. AFSOC has sent AD folks to augment them.
Maybe the Guard needs to deploy as a Bde or lower TF.
So performing repeated and consistent training and testing isn't a gauge of unit readiness? Gee, wish I had known that so we could have blown off K22 every year and just drank beer insteadNot as direct as training time vs training time.
How so? Unit cohesion for a group of people that meet once a month and 2 weeks in the summer?Guard does have some strengths over AD. Unit cohesion, maturity, real world skills (especially the medics) and even on training, your average grunt has been in what 2 years? Your average Guard grunt has been in longer.
Maturity when they recruit from the same stock as the regular army?maturity
real world skills (especially the medics)
even on training, your average grunt has been in what 2 years? Your average Guard grunt has been in longer.
Reed, I'm going to start using your argument like a skeet range.
(1)How so? Unit cohesion for a group of people that meet once a month and 2 weeks in the summer?
(2) Maturity when they recruit from the same stock as the regular army?
(3) Real world skills when recruiting from the same civilian stock and it's some college kid? Not every NG medic (in fact very few in my experience) are actually even medics outside of the NG. Even if they're paramedics, they still have their scope they can work as with that unit and probably won't have the resources they do on an ambulance... and ACLS serves very little purpose in combat when penetrating or blast trauma are the flavor of the day.
(4) A Infantryman that's actually been training for 2 years versus an "infantryman" who's been training for 2 months (Because that's how much patrolling time you'll have with a weekend and 2 weeks in the summer)? Really? You want to go there? This is SPC SAW Gunner versus fresh out of OSUT PV1 FUCKIDUNNO. Reading a manual does not an expert make, you need time in the fucking woods ESPECIALLY for infantrymen. Considering (and having seen the NG on training weekends and having NG friends) that the NG gets all the same paperwork, details, and other bullshit.... 2 years versus 2 months is a whole fucking PLANET of actually having trained and tested.
As a last shot: If national guard is so well trained and capable as you say...
(5) Why was there a 1 year spoolup time of non-stop training and qualifications, etc, in order to deploy them... when the regular army just rolled the fuck out.
I rest my case.
The regular Army as a whole did not just roll the fuck out.Reed, I'm going to start using your argument like a skeet range.
PULL!
So performing repeated and consistent training and testing isn't a gauge of unit readiness? Gee, wish I had known that so we could have blown off K22 every year and just drank beer instead
PULL!
How so? Unit cohesion for a group of people that meet once a month and 2 weeks in the summer?
PULL!
Maturity when they recruit from the same stock as the regular army?
PULL!
Real world skills when recruiting from the same civilian stock and it's some college kid? Not every NG medic (in fact very few in my experience) are actually even medics outside of the NG. Even if they're paramedics, they still have their scope they can work as with that unit and probably won't have the resources they do on an ambulance... and ACLS serves very little purpose in combat when penetrating or blast trauma are the flavor of the day.
PULL!
A Infantryman that's actually been training for 2 years versus an "infantryman" who's been training for 2 months (Because that's how much patrolling time you'll have with a weekend and 2 weeks in the summer)? Really? You want to go there? This is SPC SAW Gunner versus fresh out of OSUT PV1 FUCKIDUNNO. Reading a manual does not an expert make, you need time in the fucking woods ESPECIALLY for infantrymen. Considering (and having seen the NG on training weekends and having NG friends) that the NG gets all the same paperwork, details, and other bullshit.... 2 years versus 2 months is a whole fucking PLANET of actually having trained and tested.
As a last shot: If national guard is so well trained and capable as you say...
Why was there a 1 year spoolup time of non-stop training and qualifications, etc, in order to deploy them... when the regular army just rolled the fuck out.
I rest my case.
Maturity when they recruit from the same stock as the regular army?
Real world skills when recruiting from the same civilian stock and it's some college kid? Not every NG medic (in fact very few in my experience) are actually even medics outside of the NG. Even if they're paramedics, they still have their scope they can work as with that unit and probably won't have the resources they do on an ambulance... and ACLS serves very little purpose in combat when penetrating or blast trauma are the flavor of the day.
THAT is proof enough, everything else is simply addendums and asterisks as to why NG's behind the 8 ball.
...
So you supported SOF units. Hardly a fair comparison for Guard units.
Reed
As much smack as we talk about the Guard, their numbers, success rate and casualty rate was equal or better then the active duty units during this early period, much to my surprise.