daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
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MCG said:The problem with brining back AAP is that it would immediately suffer from the same thing as its predecessors - "We haven't fought against tanks since Korea"itis.
Back when Bosnia was the big show and Afghanistan seeming to be a one roto wonder, I listened to the CLS comment on the huge number of PYs being consumed in AAPs when only two dets were ever operationally deployed. In his eyes at the time, this was a huge area of fat to cut in order to create other Army priorities. … and of course, “anti-armour” is a very niche capability when you know you will never fight an enemy with armour … rly:
Of course, a “Hy DFS Pl” with LAV TUA could have done wonders to help TF 1-06 and 3-06 in smashing grapehuts prior to the arrival of tanks in Afghanistan.
We do need AAP, but it needs to come with a name that will prevent them from too closely associating it with the Soviet tank hordes we are not going to fight while instead recognizing its multi-role utility. Hopefully, this better name will also prevent those other guys from equipping it with hypervelocity KE missiles that would reduce the Pl’s utility to anti-armour only.
When we operated a MILAN platoon, we linked it in with the ISTAR plan as the MIRA was an awesome surveillance device. The thing didn't need the electric dart attached to be effective for us in situations other than WW3.
Each Coy would usually get two firing posts. Folks would have a look through the sights prior to various ops as part of their recce activity, and prior to departing the friendly FEBA/SF base, and we would have comms with the operator so we had coordinated overwatch. GPMGs (SF) from the MG Pl were usually colocated with MILAN (shred the soft bits that tumble out of the smouldering clankity clanks, eh wot?) so you had a nice little direct fire support package there, out to about 2 kms, if required as well.
And because Sp Coy usually sent the same guys to support the same Coys, we developed a good working realtionship that panned out well on operations etc.