Военный, квадратный, здоровенный.

[bauris]

Из Америки бают, что Майка Флинна, о котором все сказано до нас, в трамповской администрации сменил генерал Герберт Макмастер. Из майского материала Defence One под интригующим заголовком How the Pentagon is Preparing for a Tank War With Russia можно узнать не только о внешнеполитических его взглядах (довольно закономерных для человека, служившего танкистом в USAREUR в зоне ответственности CENTAG в последние годы Варшавского договора, и сегодня видящего возвращение старого врага), но и о профессиональных:

When Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster briefs, it’s like Gen. Patton giving a TED talk — a domineering physical presence with bristling intellectual intensity.

These days, the charismatic director of the Army’s Capabilities Integration Center is knee-deep in a project called The Russia New Generation Warfare study, an analysis of how Russia is re-inventing land warfare in the mud of Eastern Ukraine. Speaking recently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., McMaster said that the two-year-old conflict had revealed that the Russians have superior artillery firepower, better combat vehicles, and have learned sophisticated use of UAVs for tactical effect. Should U.S. forces find themselves in a land war with Russia, he said, they would be in for a rude, cold awakening.

“We spend a long time talking about winning long-range missile duels,” said McMaster. But long-range missiles only get you through the front door. The question then becomes what will you do when you get there.
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“Increasingly, close combat overmatch is an area we’ve neglected, because we’ve taken it for granted.” So how do you restore overmatch? The recipe that’s emerging from the battlefield of Ukraine, says McMaster, is more artillery and better artillery, a mix of old and new.

“When an Army fires unit arrives somewhere, it should be able to do surface-to-air, surface-to-surface, and shore-to-ship capabilities. We are developing that now and there are some really promising capabilities,” he said.

While the full report has not been made public, “a lot of this is available open source” said McMaster, “in the work that Phil Karber has done, for example.” Karber, the president of the Potomac Foundation, went on a fact-finding mission to Ukraine last year, and returned with the conclusion that the United States had long overemphasized precision artillery on the battlefield at the expense of mass fires... “In a 3-minute period…a Russian fire strike wiped out two mechanized battalions [with] a combination of top-attack munitions and thermobaric warheads,” said Karber.

The problems aren’t just with rockets and shells, McMaster said. Even American combat vehicles have lost their edge.

“The Bradley [Fighting Vehicle] is great,” he said, but “what we see now is that our enemies have caught up to us. They’ve invested in combat vehicles. They’ve invested in advanced protective systems and active protective systems. We’ve got to get back ahead on combat vehicle development.”

The past has a funny way of re-inventing itself, says McMaster.

“I never had to look up in my whole career and say, ‘Is it friendly or enemy?’ because of the U.S. Air Force. We have to do that now,” said McMaster. “Our Air Force gave us an unprecedented period of air supremacy…that changed the dynamics of ground combat. Now, you can’t bank on that.”

Pro-Russian forces use as many as 16 types of UAVs for targeting. Russian forces are known to have “a 90-kilometer [Multiple Launch Rocket System] round, that goes out, parachute comes up, a UAV pops out, wings unfold, and they fly it around, it can strike a mobile target” said Karber, who said he wasn’t sure it had yet been used in Ukraine.
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All of these technologies could shape the future battlefield, but none of them are silver bullets, nor do they, in McMaster’s view, offset the importance of human beings in gaining territory, holding territory, and changing facts on the ground to align with mission objectives.

Итак, есть некоторые основания ожидать, что Макмастер в паре с Мэттисом встряхнут слегка выпавшее из реальности американское военное строительство, увлекшееся контринсургентскими, информационными, бесконтактными, словом, безвоенными войнами, слишком уверенное в своем превосходстве и реально забывшее о грубой силе. Ставка на выпуск противопартизанских легкозащищенных броневичков, распродажа все еще мощной тяжелой техники с хранения кому попало, постоянные переносы новых программ по замене устаревающих танков, БМП и САУ с постоянными же крахами этих программ в итоге, принцип "все лучшее Флоту и ВВС" - возможно, прекратятся.

Кстати, обращаем внимание на идущие жирным шрифтом цитаты Макмастера и Карбера - как видно, некоторые способны признать свои упущения и сильные стороны потенциального противника. Зубатову, если он вдруг читает эти строки, большой привет.