FCD,
As an aside, there was a lot of force transition following World War II. The army took decades to decide how to structure itself, and still goes through the drill every few years.
The big antitank guns of the war dropped out very quickly and were replaced by recoilless rifles, and later, guided missiles. Every infantryman could carry an antitank rocket. A decade of so later, helicopters gave the army a third dimension to combat.
The air force went through variation after variation of combat aircraft. IIRC, the "fighters" of today can carry a bomb load like that of a B-17, and they are physically huge compared to WWII fighters.
The Corps just reorganized itself after decades of being prepared for heavy conventional combat.
And the navy, yeah, somehow "frigates" became the new fair haired child of the fleet; the terms "destroyer escort" and "cruiser" (both light and heavy) somehow became obsolete. Also note almost no warships today carry significant armor plate. My take on that is the navy considers them expendable ... not good for the crews.
We caught Germany's disease after the war -- "size queen fixation".
As an aside, there was a lot of force transition following World War II. The army took decades to decide how to structure itself, and still goes through the drill every few years.
The big antitank guns of the war dropped out very quickly and were replaced by recoilless rifles, and later, guided missiles. Every infantryman could carry an antitank rocket. A decade of so later, helicopters gave the army a third dimension to combat.
The air force went through variation after variation of combat aircraft. IIRC, the "fighters" of today can carry a bomb load like that of a B-17, and they are physically huge compared to WWII fighters.
The Corps just reorganized itself after decades of being prepared for heavy conventional combat.
And the navy, yeah, somehow "frigates" became the new fair haired child of the fleet; the terms "destroyer escort" and "cruiser" (both light and heavy) somehow became obsolete. Also note almost no warships today carry significant armor plate. My take on that is the navy considers them expendable ... not good for the crews.
We caught Germany's disease after the war -- "size queen fixation".
Fire In The Hole