Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!bu.edu!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: jepullia@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (John Pulliam)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: U.S. Army Division TO&Es (LONG)
Message-ID: <1990Nov6.044319.1254@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 6 Nov 90 04:43:19 GMT
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From: jepullia@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (John Pulliam)
In article <1990Nov4.210449.4182@cbnews.att.com> geoffm@EBay.Sun.COM (Geoff Miller) writes:
>
>(1)  What exactly is "mechanized infantry?"  Is it the same as standard
>     infantry, except for the fact that that the troops get to ride to 
>     the battle in armored personnel carriers?  Or are there tanks and/or
>     artillery that are integral with the infantry unit?

First, I'm a combat engineer, not an infantryman, so I suppose I
should wait to see if a grunt 8-) answers this; but I won't.  8-)

Couple of concepts mixed together in this question: first, the US and
most other modern armies fight their battles using what _we_ call
"combined arms teams."  That means that you will usually not see
infantry, or armor, or even army aviation units fighting alone.
Rather (as shown in the TO&Es of the heavy divisions), you fight with
a mix of infantry, armor, artillery, aviation, engineers, etc. on the
battlefield together.  There are times when you will see infantry
without armor (very restrictive terrain) or armor without infantry
(very fluid battle, table-top terrain, little use of obstacles, etc.),
but you will still find each type of maneuver unit (IN or AR)
supported by the other branches.  Armor units are integral to all Mech
Infantry divisions (in fact, there's just about as much of one as the
other).  It is the Light Infantry divisions which have no
assigned/integral armor units.  This answers the doctrinal and
organizational side of your question.

Second, there is more -- tactically -- to Mech Infantry than just
"Light Infantry in a metal taxicab."  The carrier has armament of its
own, which "beefs up" the firepower considerably over what the
infantry squad would have organic otherwise.  In addition, an infantry
squad _can_ fight from inside the Bradley (there are four or six
firing ports in the sides for squad members to fire their M16s/SAWs
out of, although I understand doing so is a real pain in the behind
(cramped quarters, limited visibility).  Nevertheless, when push comes
to shove, you usually see the infantry dismounting and fighting on the
ground.  I am not a fan of Mech personally (prefer the light side 8-),
but as you can see, the Mech Infantry has a lot of flexibility that
neither Light Inf or Armor have.

>(2)  I've noticed that the U.S. has "mechanized infantry" divisions and the
>     USSR has "motorized rifle" divisions.  Are these simply different names
>     for the same thing, or are there substantial differences between the
>     two?

There are all kinds of differences (weapons and equipment, tactics and
doctrine, personnel strengths, on and on), but I think I understand
your question to be, "is there some _reason_ the names are different?"
And the answer to that is (historians, correct me if I'm wrong here),
no.  The Soviets could very easily have named their units mech
infantry instead of motorized rifle, or it could have been translated
less literally to be the same, or _we_ could have called our units
motorized rifles instead of mech infantry, I suppose.  8-)  Both ride
to battle in APCs, both dismount and/or fight mounted as the situation
requires, both are a combination of squads of soldiers and fighting
machines.  In the US, "motorized" has come to mean any unit which
fights out of unarmored or lightly-armored (usually wheeled) vehicles
(like trucks, dune buggies, etc.).  That isn't true of the Soviet
army's terminology, so don't let our choice of words confuse you.

John Pulliam