{"id":67639,"date":"2006-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2006\/06\/09\/lirak-leur-montre-leurs-erreurs-ils-avaient-donc-raison\/"},"modified":"2006-06-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-09T00:00:00","slug":"lirak-leur-montre-leurs-erreurs-ils-avaient-donc-raison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2006\/06\/09\/lirak-leur-montre-leurs-erreurs-ils-avaient-donc-raison\/","title":{"rendered":"L’Irak leur montre leurs erreurs: ils avaient donc raison\u2026<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

L’Irak leur montre leurs erreurs: ils avaient donc raison<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tCe texte de Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., du National Journal<\/em>, publi\u00e9 le 24 avril 2006 sur le site Government Executive<\/a>, nous d\u00e9crit l’infanterie am\u00e9ricaine apr\u00e8s l’Irak, en train d’assimiler les le\u00e7ons de l’Irak. Car l’Irak est, pour l’arm\u00e9e US, r\u00e9volutionnaire ; \u00e0 guerre r\u00e9volutionnaire et peut-\u00eatre d\u00e9faite extraordinaire, enseignement r\u00e9volutionnaire. Comme il est dit dans le texte : \u00ab In the 1990s, the Army’s mantra was, The book says the book says,’ he recalled. Now it’s, What’s your experience in Iraq?’<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLa chose se passe \u00e0 Sand Hill Training Area, \u00e0 Fort Benning, en Georgie. En ce lieu, l’U.S. Army int\u00e8gre les enseignements qu’elle a recueillis en Irak. Le r\u00e9cit de Freedberg est peu ordinaire. Il montre que les Am\u00e9ricains int\u00e8grent des le\u00e7ons pour am\u00e9liorer leur comportement dans la guerre en Irak, mais surtout sans rien changer \u00e0 ce comportement. Les le\u00e7ons que les Am\u00e9ricains acceptent sont celles qui concernent leur propre monde, leur American Way of War<\/em>. Ce monde de la puissance militaire am\u00e9ricaine est plus que jamais marqu\u00e9 par des sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9s extraordinaires o\u00f9 le combattant, le soldat, est le dernier maillon d’une cha\u00eene extr\u00eamement longue, une structure extr\u00eamement puissante qui semble n’avoir qu’en appendice une force humaine de combat (\u00ab Out of 1.4 million military personnel on active duty, according to retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who was an Army War College commandant, at last count, there were 65,000 infantrymen in the Army and the Marine Corps, combined<\/em> \u00bb).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLe combattant lui-m\u00eame, baptis\u00e9 sans doute ironiquement (est-ce bien s\u00fbr?) Land Warrior<\/em>, est d\u00e9fini par des sp\u00e9cificit\u00e9s extraordinaires :<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• \u00ab A squad has to haul nine different kinds of batteries. All told, the average infantryman carries 65 to 90 pounds of equipment into combat.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• \u00ab The Army has developed more than 300 individual items that a soldier could potentially wear or carry (not counting heavy equipment). Many are incompatible.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• \u00ab The product of a difficult decade-long development process, Land Warrior incorporates not only body armor, radios, and night vision but also a tactical computer network all running off compatible batteries. If the soldiers like it, they will deploy with it to Iraq.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tUn morceau de choix du long rapport ci-dessous concerne la saga de ce qu’on n’ose plus appeler gilet pare-balles mais plut\u00f4t quelque chose comme armure individuelle. Le bidasse US est pass\u00e9 tranquillement d’un blindage individuel de 16 livres \u00e0 un blindage en c\u00e9ramique de 33 livres. Un GI’s c\u00e9ramiqu\u00e9 de 75 kilos tout nu doit donc faire, avec son blindage, 90 kilos, et il d\u00e9passe largement le quintal (autour de 120 kilos) tout \u00e9quip\u00e9. Tout cela, par une temp\u00e9rature moyenne de 110\u00b0 (Fahrenheit, pour rester entre people<\/em> civilis\u00e9s). L’homme est int\u00e9gr\u00e9 dans son \u00e9quipement mais est-il int\u00e9gr\u00e9 dans le milieu g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, l’environnement, l\u00e0 o\u00f9 se passe la guerre ? Nous aurions violemment tendance \u00e0 cultiver l’impression contraire : au plus il est int\u00e9gr\u00e9 dans un \u00e9quipement extraordinairement complexe et contraignant, au plus il se d\u00e9tache de son environnement.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCi-dessous, nous mettons cet extrait en exergue, pour attirer l’attention de notre lecteur sur les vertus de la civilisation postmoderne. D’une fa\u00e7on tr\u00e8s significative, cette civilisation postmoderniste en arrive, gr\u00e2ce \u00e0 sa chevauch\u00e9e technologique et sophistique dont on croirait parfois qu’elle se fait \u00e0 reculons, \u00e0 la comparaison du soldat postmoderne avec un chevalier m\u00e9di\u00e9val croulant sous son armure en cotte de mailles ; le progr\u00e8s serait donc que nous passions du chevalier m\u00e9di\u00e9val au condottiere<\/em> de la Renaissance, question souplesse.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab So while troops in Vietnam routinely ditched their sweltering flak jackets, troops in Iraq do not. Once, we ended up pushing 5 kilometers or so [on foot], north of Haditha, said Capt. Christopher Conner, who now teaches new Marine lieutenants at The Basic School in Quantico, Va. It was probably 110 degrees. Not one single time did one single marine break the seal on his flak jacket.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Army Capt. Eric Hillerson, an instructor at Fort Benning, agreed. We saw that it did work, he said. We didn’t go out the [base] gate without our helmets and vests on. It’s hot and heavy, but the protection is worth it.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Body armor has kept the G.I. death toll down in Iraq. But with the military issuing more add-on armor to cover the gaps where troops get wounded thighs, groin, shoulders, beneath the armpit where the flak jacket fastens the weight of the full kit has doubled, from 16 to 33 pounds.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t(…)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Equipment officials are racking their brains. The armor is one of those places where a hard choice had to be made, said Maj. Cashman, now the infantry capabilities officer for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico. We are at the technological limit for ceramic plates right now.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb At the Soldier Center in Natick, Mass., which serves both the Army and Marines, researchers are working on next-generation armor. Today’s ceramic-reinforced flak jacket fits snug and hot over the body, with its weight all on the shoulders, like medieval chainmail. Natick’s new armor is supported by a rigid frame that distributes the weight and leaves room for a cool, breathable fabric underneath, like a Renaissance cavalier’s suit of steel plate.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tLa question du sens est int\u00e9ressante. Un des observateurs, un v\u00e9t\u00e9ran du Marine Corps \u00e0 Falloujah, montre une certaine pr\u00e9occupation : tout cela ne risquerait-il pas de devenir finalement un peu, comment dire, contre-productif? \u00ab At what point do we stop piling on that weight? Is the armor going to slow you down enough that you’re easier to hit?<\/em> \u00bb Opportune interrogation en v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Sans doute sera-t-elle le sujet de quelques \u00e9tudes importantes au cur de la bureaucratie du Pentagone. Nous aurons des \u00e9claircissements d’ici quelques ann\u00e9es.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAutre observation int\u00e9ressante de l’auteur de l’article, qui nous signale que nous ne sommes plus tr\u00e8s loin du terminus d’Absurdie : \u00ab For the first time in 400 years, since the perfection of the musket, the technology of protecting the infantryman had caught up, almost, to the technology of killing him.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tTout cela est singulier. Nous nous trouvons dans une \u00e9poque qui a port\u00e9 au plus haut niveau de la conception strat\u00e9gique l’option de l’attaque pr\u00e9ventive et pr\u00e9-emptive, c’est-\u00e0-dire une conception compl\u00e8tement offensive en substance, on dirait hyper-offensive pour le meilleur et pour le pire, impliquant la quasi-impossibilit\u00e9<\/strong> de l’id\u00e9e de d\u00e9fensive. En m\u00eame temps, nous avons conduit au degr\u00e9 le plus sophistiqu\u00e9 possible, au m\u00e9pris de toute conception offensive qui implique l’int\u00e9gration dans l’environnement \u00e0 conqu\u00e9rir, l’int\u00e9gration la plus d\u00e9fensive possible du soldat, jusqu’\u00e0 le refermer dans un monde totalement \u00e9tranger au r\u00e9el, jusqu’\u00e0 en faire un cavalier en armure du XIV\u00e8me ou du XVI\u00e8me si\u00e8cle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tPour le reste, le lecteur tirera ses conclusions de ce monde \u00e9trange o\u00f9 les effets des plus grandes erreurs sont per\u00e7us dans le sens d’une incitation \u00e0 avancer encore plus dans le sens des dispositions qui ont abouti \u00e0 ces erreurs. La r\u00e9f\u00e9rence \u00e0 notre texte sur l’horreur technologique, en rubrique Analyse<\/a> nous semble bienvenue.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Infantry transformed by new tools, training <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tBy Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., National Journal, 24 April, 2006<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Army drill sergeant rebuked a group of recruits who had fired their rifles too hastily in a mock ambush. \u00a0\u00bbYou know we’ve got civilians on the battlefield,\u00a0\u00bb said 1st Sgt. Dennis Williams. \u00a0\u00bbJust because your buddy fires, doesn’t mean you fire.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tYou’ve got to be aware of exactly what you’re shooting at, Williams told the soldiers. Be aware of what you’re not shooting at, too; don’t focus on the first target that pops up and forget your flank. \u00a0\u00bbEverybody wants to kill that same guy, but those guys over there,\u00a0\u00bb he said gesturing to the side, \u00a0\u00bbwould’ve wiped us all out!\u00a0\u00bb Be aware even when the battle is won and you’re searching the prisoners for weapons, insignia, family photos, Williams said. \u00a0\u00bbYou’ve got to be checking everything. Every piece of information you find is important.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWilliams wasn’t shouting. He did not even raise his voice. He just shook his head and said, exasperated, \u00a0\u00bbYou all are in week 11.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe two dozen recruits sitting on the concrete floor knew exactly how serious their situation was. Today’s ambushers were pop-up paper targets, the prisoners were mannequins, the road unmined. But soon the targets, bystanders, and bombs would be live. In less than a month, these recruits would graduate from their 14-week course at Fort Benning’s Infantry Training Brigade and join regular units headed, sooner or later, to Iraq. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tStaff Sgt. Robert Col\u00f3n, another instructor at Benning and, like Williams, a veteran of Iraq, tells his recruits that they have to get it right, because the unpredictability of warfare in Iraq might suddenly put them in the lead. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbOver there, I’ve had privates save my life. I’ve saved my privates’ lives. It’s just the way it goes,\u00a0\u00bb Col\u00f3n said. \u00a0\u00bbGet rid of the whole ‘I’m just a private’ mentality, because it just doesn’t protect you from bullets,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00a0\u00bbIn the battle of Falluja, we lost our battalion sergeant major, our Alpha Company commander. At any given time, a private’s going to have to step up to be a leader.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWar is driving change across the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and nowhere more so than in the oldest military specialty of all, the often-neglected foot soldiers of the infantry. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhile air forces evolved from biplanes to stealth bombers, and navies from gun turrets to cruise missiles, the \u00a0\u00bbpoor bloody infantry\u00a0\u00bb stayed mostly the same from the First World War to the Persian Gulf War: helmets, grenades, rifles, a few light machine guns, and leather boots. The decades added awkward flak vests that could sometimes stop shrapnel, but not bullets. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tToday, however, the soldiers at Fort Benning are visibly different from their predecessors of just three years ago. They wear Kevlar jackets reinforced with rigid breast and back plates, 16 pounds per man, the first mass-produced bulletproof armor in history and all but unknown in the U.S. military before the invasion of Iraq. The soldiers carry rifles with sophisticated optical sights, tools that, before the insurgency, were reserved for snipers and commandos.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t They practice treating casualties with a new first-aid kit tourniquet, gloves, and an Israeli-developed pressure dressing that was derived from last year’s battlefield lessons. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAnd these are just the tools, the visible surfaces of far more fundamental changes in how human beings are being taught to fight. \u00a0\u00bbWhen I went through basic training, it was about four hours of ‘here’s a pressure dressing,’ \u00a0\u00bb recalled Sgt. 1st Class Michael Clay, a Benning instructor who first fought Iraqis in 1991. \u00a0\u00bbNow we have two days dedicated to that alone.\u00a0\u00bb And trainers reinforce the first-aid skills, working casualty drills into other exercises, to make sure soldiers know how to quickly and efficiently treat a wounded comrade. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThose exercises are more demanding than they used to be. Privates practice leading squads and teams of fellow recruits normally an experienced sergeant’s job and under close supervision, they devise and execute their own plans for practice missions. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThey move swiftly from sterile shooting ranges to live-fire drills like the one Sgt. Williams took his recruits through, a jolting truck ride down dirt roads, with targets popping up on either side. It was a simulated ambush of a simulated convoy to which the recruits responded with bursts of real bullets, fired first from their lurching, moving vehicles and then as they leapt out to counterattack on foot. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbI didn’t do half of this,\u00a0\u00bb said Lt. Col. Ricardo Mitchell after he and the recruits finished the exercise. Mitchell did his basic training in the peacetime Army of the 1980s. Today, as commander of one of Benning’s training battalions, he said, \u00a0\u00bbWe are teaching things to privates comparable to what, five or six years ago, we were asking lieutenants to do.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSoldier as System<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tA revolution is under way in the American infantry. After 9\/11, \u00a0\u00bbthe box opened up,\u00a0\u00bb said Staff Sgt. Timothy Howell, a Benning instructor. In the 1990s, the Army’s mantra was,\u00a0\u00bb ‘The book says the book says,’ \u00a0\u00bb he recalled. \u00a0\u00bbNow it’s, ‘What’s your experience in Iraq?’ \u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSurvey teams went to Baghdad shortly after the city fell in 2003 to get feedback from troops on their equipment. \u00a0\u00bbI’m still amazed at all the changes that have been made body armor, knee pads, helmet chin straps, even these boots,\u00a0\u00bb Howell said, \u00a0\u00bbbecause a soldier said, ‘This would be better,’ and somebody listened. Now the Army is actually listening.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe institutional Army still struggles, however, to treat foot soldiers with the same focused seriousness that it treats tanks. \u00a0\u00bbIt’s difficult because it requires us to make changes in how we fund items,\u00a0\u00bb said Col. Robert Radcliffe, director of Combat Developments at Fort Benning’s Infantry Center. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tA tank is designed, tested, and fielded as a package: \u00a0\u00bbIt’s got a weapon, it’s got communications, it’s got armor. But we’ve never treated a soldier as a system,\u00a0\u00bb Radcliffe said. \u00a0\u00bbWe’ve got a rifle that’s got its own funding line and a radio that’s got its own funding line. As we develop equipment, we give it to the soldier, never paying much attention to how these pieces of equipment interact.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Army has developed more than 300 individual items that a soldier could potentially wear or carry (not counting heavy equipment). Many are incompatible. Until a 2004 redesign, the standard helmet snagged on the back plate of the new body armor when a soldier looked up sharply. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFort Benning now teaches recruits a new way to hold their rifles because the rigid chest plate restricts their arm movement. The standard night-vision sight can unbalance the helmet so much that it makes some soldiers’ heads bob. A squad has to haul nine different kinds of batteries. All told, the average infantryman carries 65 to 90 pounds of equipment into combat. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThis summer, the Army will issue the first set of gear designed as an integrated ensemble, called \u00a0\u00bbLand Warrior,\u00a0\u00bb on a trial basis to more than 400 troops at Fort Lewis, Wash. The product of a difficult decade-long development process, Land Warrior incorporates not only body armor, radios, and night vision but also a tactical computer network all running off compatible batteries. If the soldiers like it, they will deploy with it to Iraq. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBut new technology and training can help only so much. Human flesh remains terribly fragile. In an era of stealth jets, cruise missiles, and satellite-guided bombs, the world’s high-tech superpower still depends on infantrymen willing to walk into harm’s way. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhy Infantry, Anyway?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tOut of 1.4 million military personnel on active duty, according to retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who was an Army War College commandant, \u00a0\u00bbat last count, there were 65,000 infantrymen in the Army and the Marine Corps, combined. They wouldn’t fill [Washington’s] FedEx stadium! With the exception of Kosovo\u00a0\u00bb a campaign waged entirely by air strikes \u00a0\u00bbin every war this nation has fought, we have run out of infantry. What we’ve had was airpower and artillery that was able, to some degree, to make up for the deficiencies of the infantry with firepower. So what have our enemies done lately? They’ve found ways to avoid firepower.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe insurgency began in Iraq when the ragtag guerrillas of the Saddam Fedayeen survived a U.S. onslaught that destroyed Saddam Hussein’s best-armored tanks. Bombarding the cities where the Fedayeen holed up would have caused horrific civilian casualties without necessarily defeating the Fedayeen, as history shows. Unrestricted firepower flattened countless buildings in World War II, such as the hilltop monastery of Monte Cassino, but the defending infantry didn’t just survive, the soldiers turned the rubble into fortresses from which only other infantry units could dig them out. Nor are today’s smart weapons the whole answer: Saddam evaded missile strikes only to be hauled out of his spider hole by a foot soldier. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tM1 tanks and M2 armored transports built for the plains of Cold War Europe have proven to be effective city fighters, spearheading assaults into Baghdad and Falluja. But someone still has to walk alongside to keep insurgents from sneaking up in the juggernauts’ blind spots. And no tank or spy plane can search the inside of a house. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSo in Iraq, technically trained troops such as artillerymen and engineers often park their heavy equipment and pull double duty as infantrymen. And with no demarcated front line in Iraq, mechanics and supply clerks and other rear-area troops end up defending their base areas and convoys. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbIt didn’t matter what your military specialty was,\u00a0\u00bb said Staff Sgt. Howell. \u00a0\u00bbIf you were a truck driver, you were a truck driver as long as you were behind the wheel, but as soon as that truck stopped, you were an 11-Bravo\u00a0\u00bb the Army code for combat infantry. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHowell is a drill sergeant in Fort Benning’s Basic Combat Training Brigade, which is intended to give every new private core combat skills. \u00a0\u00bbWe’ve got a radiology technician,\u00a0\u00bb Howell said, gesturing at one of his recruits. \u00a0\u00bbHe’s still digging holes and doing the battle drills.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tJust like the future full-time infantrymen in the more intensive Infantry Training Brigade, the future support troops in the Basic Combat Training Brigade carry their rifles all day and take turns guarding them at night, Howell said, \u00a0\u00bbjust like they will in Iraq.\u00a0\u00bb And like all military personnel who venture off base in Iraq, they wear full body armor. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWhen I came into the Army,\u00a0\u00bb Howell said, \u00a0\u00bbwe had these big, clunky flak vests. You knew they weren’t going to stop anything.\u00a0\u00bb He rounded on one of his recruits who was wearing, like all the others, 16 pounds of Kevlar and ceramic in the unseasonable Georgia heat: \u00a0\u00bbYou love that body armor!\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbUh yes, sir!\u00a0\u00bb replied the private. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbAre you lying, soldier?\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbA little bit, sir.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tHowell and the other drill sergeants chuckled knowingly. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Armor Dilemma<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn early 2003, the Army and Marines began fielding thousands of sets of \u00a0\u00bbsmall-arms protective inserts,\u00a0\u00bb a bulletproof ceramic plate that slips into the standard flak jacket. \u00a0\u00bbThe first time I had the SAPI plates was when they were issued in Kuwait\u00a0\u00bb just before the invasion of Iraq, recalled Marine Corps Maj. Patrick Cashman. \u00a0\u00bbWe knew that pocket was in the vest for something: Maps? Toilet paper?\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFor the first time in 400 years, since the perfection of the musket, the technology of protecting the infantryman had caught up, almost, to the technology of killing him. World War II troops wore no armor except a steel \u00a0\u00bbpot\u00a0\u00bb helmet. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe Vietnam era produced flak jackets that could stop some shrapnel, but not bullets. But with SAPI, said Arthur Durante, a developer of infantry manuals at Fort Benning, \u00a0\u00bbI’ve got photographs of guys holding the flattened bullet that hit them in the chest: It knocked them down, but they got up and shot the guy that shot them.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSo while troops in Vietnam routinely ditched their sweltering flak jackets, troops in Iraq do not. \u00a0\u00bbOnce, we ended up pushing 5 kilometers or so [on foot], north of Haditha,\u00a0\u00bb said Capt. Christopher Conner, who now teaches new Marine lieutenants at The Basic School in Quantico, Va. \u00a0\u00bbIt was probably 110 degrees. Not one single time did one single marine break the seal on his flak jacket.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tArmy Capt. Eric Hillerson, an instructor at Fort Benning, agreed. \u00a0\u00bbWe saw that it did work,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00a0\u00bbWe didn’t go out the [base] gate without our helmets and vests on. It’s hot and heavy, but the protection is worth it.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBody armor has kept the G.I. death toll down in Iraq. But with the military issuing more add-on armor to cover the gaps where troops get wounded thighs, groin, shoulders, beneath the armpit where the flak jacket fastens the weight of the full kit has doubled, from 16 to 33 pounds. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbThe newer SAPI plates, if they’re optional, a lot of guys won’t wear them, because there’s so much weight,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Brett Clark, a Marine Corps veteran of Falluja now on loan to Fort Benning as an instructor in the Army infantry captain’s course. \u00a0\u00bbAt what point do we stop piling on that weight? Is the armor going to slow you down enough that you’re easier to hit?\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tEquipment officials are racking their brains. \u00a0\u00bbThe armor is one of those places where a hard choice had to be made,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Cashman, now the infantry capabilities officer for the Marine Corps Combat Development Command at Quantico. \u00a0\u00bbWe are at the technological limit for ceramic plates right now.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAt the Soldier Center in Natick, Mass., which serves both the Army and Marines, researchers are working on next-generation armor. Today’s ceramic-reinforced flak jacket fits snug and hot over the body, with its weight all on the shoulders, like medieval chainmail. Natick’s new armor is supported by a rigid frame that distributes the weight and leaves room for a cool, breathable fabric underneath, like a Renaissance cavalier’s suit of steel plate. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tDesigners are transforming today’s optional add-ons that cover the shoulders, neck, and thighs into a working ensemble. Researchers are building electronic items, issued today as separate gear, into the helmet and the body armor, whose frame picks up radio signals like an antenna. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWe’re putting that prototype together,\u00a0\u00bb said Natick Director Philip Brandler, \u00a0\u00bband we’ll be out in the field next year to evaluate it.\u00a0\u00bb In three years, he added, experimental polymers now in the lab could provide current levels of protection for half the weight or could furnish more protection at the current weight. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWe have a very responsive enemy,\u00a0\u00bb Brandler said, \u00a0\u00bband as we provide certain levels of protection, they up the threat.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNo amount of armor can make a man into a walking tank. The infantryman’s first line of defense is his eyes, his ears, and his own quick thinking which intense training, and select technology, can sharpen. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tPrecision-Guided Humans<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhen he went through basic training just 10 years ago, recalled Staff Sgt. Howell, the drill sergeants’ mantra was, \u00a0\u00bbPut your head down and walk!\u00a0\u00bb Now an Iraq veteran and drill sergeant himself, Howell said, \u00a0\u00bbthe No. 1 thing I stress for these soldiers is, you have to look around. You have to know what’s normal. That way you can know what’s abnormal. So if you come down the road one day and there’s no kids playing where there used to be kids, you get that feeling in your stomach and tell someone, before the attack.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tToday, \u00a0\u00bbKnow the normal\u00a0\u00bb is the infantryman’s mantra. \u00a0\u00bbHe needs to look for the absence of the normal, as opposed to the presence of the abnormal,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Clark, the Marine officer, unconsciously echoing the Army sergeant. \u00a0\u00bbChildren on the street trash on the street the slightest change. He is himself an intelligence-gathering device.\u00a0\u00bb Instructors at Benning now often leave soda cans, sandbags, or other objects out of place in the barracks to test how quickly the recruits notice. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhile awareness begins with training, technology can augment it. Some of the American infantryman’s most powerful tools are the least obvious. Look past their bulky body armor to their handheld radios and headsets, the scopes on their rifles, and the ungainly black attachments on their helmets \u00a0\u00bbnight- optical devices,\u00a0\u00bb a little revolution in themselves. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWe had ‘starlight scopes’ in Vietnam,\u00a0\u00bb recalled retired Maj. Gen. Waldo Freeman, \u00a0\u00bbbut they were so maintenance-intensive that a typical company\u00a0\u00bb 50 to 135 men, depending on casualties \u00a0\u00bbwould have maybe three that worked.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe foot-long, telescope-like devices were too bulky to use on the move, in any case, he said: \u00a0\u00bbWhen we actually had to move after dark, you’d walk all night and get maybe 3 kilometers.\u00a0\u00bb So while Vietnamese light infantry, like the Chinese in Korea and the Japanese in the Pacific, would slip through U.S. defenses to launch bold night attacks, the Americans would hunker down and wait for daylight to restore their firepower and mobility. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tToday, it is U.S. troops who run convoys and launch attacks under cover of darkness. \u00a0\u00bbWe did the majority of our missions in limited visibility,\u00a0\u00bb said Capt. Scott Thomas, an Iraq veteran now teaching young officers at Fort Benning. \u00a0\u00bbWe had the ability to see at night when the enemy couldn’t.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tMaj. Pete Farnum, now an instructor at the Marine Corps School of Infantry at Camp Pendleton, Calif., echoed Thomas. \u00a0\u00bbWe went into Falluja at night and got a foothold in the city almost without a shot being fired,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00a0\u00bbThen when the sun came up, all hell broke lose. But night was pretty quiet: The enemy knew we had the optics, so they’d go to sleep and the next morning pick up their rocket-propelled grenades.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe difference, however, is not just technology, emphasized Lt. Col. Chris Carolan of Quantico’s experimental Marine Corps Warfighting Lab. \u00a0\u00bbThere was a concerted effort after Vietnam to get us better at fighting at night,\u00a0\u00bb he said. \u00a0\u00bbYou have to know how to operate at night without the aid of night-vision devices before you can slap ’em on. That’s training.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWe Know Who We Kill\u00a0\u00bb<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWell-trained troops can \u00a0\u00bbout-see\u00a0\u00bb the enemy by day as well. Soldiers and marines still carry an updated version of the M-16 rifle introduced in Vietnam but the military has actually suspended work on a replacement weapon, the XM-8, to devote funds to what it considers the real revolution: adding gun sights to existing rifles. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAfter a cease-fire cut short that first assault on Falluja in April 2004, Maj. Farnum recalled, \u00a0\u00bbone of the first things that the insurgents requested was that the Marine Corps pull out all the snipers from Falluja. They thought we had snipers everywhere. But it was regular marines, trained in combat marksmanship, with the advanced combat optics.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbThat’s not a new technology,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Cashman of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command. \u00a0\u00bbWe didn’t invent the telescopic sight.\u00a0\u00bb But after a trial fielding of a thousand ACOGs Advanced Combat Optic Gunsights to Iraq in 2004, he said, \u00a0\u00bbword got back: These were war-winners, and we’ve given [them] to every single Marine infantryman.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tUnlike the Marine Corps, the Army restricts the telescopic sights to one designated marksman in each squad. Regular soldiers including an ever-larger majority of recruits at Fort Benning instead get a \u00a0\u00bbclose combat optic,\u00a0\u00bb a sighting device that has no magnification but is suitable for short-range street fights. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbFive years ago,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Glenn Dean, chief of small arms for the Directorate of Combat Developments at Fort Benning, \u00a0\u00bbwe were an ‘iron sight’ army,\u00a0\u00bb trained to aim just like every rifleman since the 19th century: Squint and shoot, carefully aligning the post at the front of the barrel with the notch at the back (the \u00a0\u00bbiron sights\u00a0\u00bb). <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tToday’s optics let troops throw their rifles to their shoulders, both eyes open, for a quick, accurate shot on a fleeting target. Combat battalions which used to have no optical sights, except for those carried by their snipers, now give them to every soldier. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe new gun sights are not just tools for better shooting: They are also tools for knowing when not to shoot. \u00a0\u00bbThe big thing we stressed is, don’t fire back unless you have positive identification,\u00a0\u00bb said one Marine officer. His commander in Iraq would answer complaints about civilian casualties by letting Iraqis look through his telescopic sight: \u00a0\u00bbEvery marine has one of these,\u00a0\u00bb the commander would say. \u00a0\u00bbWe know who we kill.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBut better gun sights make no difference to troops who are too scared or enraged to use them. Especially in the first year of the insurgency, too many American patrols and convoys responded to roadside bombs or snipers by laying down \u00a0\u00bbsuppressive fire\u00a0\u00bb in all directions what cynical veterans call the \u00a0\u00bbdeath blossom.\u00a0\u00bb And in crowded cities, even a well-aimed shot can kill a civilian or a comrade. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbWhen you train, you shoot a target, and you don’t ever really think about what’s behind that target,\u00a0\u00bb said drill sergeant Col\u00f3n. \u00a0\u00bbBut bullets actually go through things. They go through houses, and they go through people. That was a hard lesson learned in the first couple of weeks in Iraq, and that’s one of the things I emphasize heavily now that I never used to emphasize before.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAt Fort Benning, Army recruits routinely train with targets depicting men, women, and children and are scored not just on their hits but also on what they do not shoot. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbIf you’re going to knock at 90 houses and enter without any type of enemy action, you can’t expect that the 91st house isn’t going to be the one,\u00a0\u00bb said Staff Sgt. Brad Watson, an Iraq veteran and Fort Benning drill sergeant, as recruits rushed past him, rifles and optics ready, into a mock village. \u00a0\u00bbAnd it’s hard to tell infantry soldiers when not to flip on that switch, because they have to go in with a certain amount of aggression. You have to train them on identifying targets, and it’s got to be constant. It’s got to start at that individual soldier.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBut it can’t stop there. Commanders also need a new awareness of civilians. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tInformation Warriors<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tFor decades, if military doctrine mentioned civilians at all, it treated them as just one more obstacle on the battlefield. Infantry in Iraq have learned to watch the mood of local civilians or their absence as the best clue of an impending ambush. And commanders have learned to make better use of both civilian informants and their own foot patrols’ firsthand observations. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAs a young officer in Fort Benning’s infantry captain’s course in 2000, recalled Maj. Desmond Bailey, who is now back as an instructor, \u00a0\u00bbI don’t think we ever discussed civilian considerations.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIn the 1990s, said Lt. Col. Steven Russell, who commanded Bailey in Iraq and now heads the captain’s school, civilians were mentioned in Army training only in the context of a peacekeeping mission that would follow a conflict. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tWhen training for actual combat, Bailey said, \u00a0\u00bbwe just wished the civilians away.\u00a0\u00bb But as a commander in Iraq, Capt. Thomas said, \u00a0\u00bbThat was the steepest learning curve: Not having the ability to wish the civilians away and focus on a uniformed enemy. You may spend part of the day on patrol, getting in a direct-fire engagement, but four hours later, you’re meeting with a local sheik.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbI tried to ignore them,\u00a0\u00bb Bailey admitted. \u00a0\u00bbWe were driving through their crops because [insurgents] were ambushing us on the roads. But if you keep ticking them off, they aren’t going to give you the information that you need. Until I actually started interacting with the populace, I didn’t get that information. And we would not have ended up with Saddam\u00a0\u00bb whose spider hole was found in the area that Russell’s troops patrolled around Tikrit \u00a0\u00bbif we had not utilized the local population.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNo spy plane or satellite can talk to local leaders or sense the local mood as it walks down the street. But technology can speed the flow of human intelligence from one human to the next. On one raid, Thomas recalled, he sent each of his squads to hit a different house and discovered that the \u00a0\u00bbhigh-value target\u00a0\u00bb they were looking for was in none of them. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tAn Iraqi told Thomas the target’s real location: about 20 minutes away from Thomas, but just a few doors down from one of his scattered squads. \u00a0\u00bbThis guy was getting ready to run,\u00a0\u00bb Thomas said. So he called his nearest sergeant on the radio and that sergeant’s squad was able to hit the house four or five minutes later. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThis seems like no big deal until you realize that, until recently, Thomas’s sergeant would not have had a radio: The bulky sets were limited to vehicles or to one overburdened operator in a platoon of 40 men. \u00a0\u00bbWhen I was a platoon leader, we didn’t have squad radios,\u00a0\u00bb recalled Lt. Col. Russell. \u00a0\u00bbWe would see them on occasion, but they were very short range and unreliable. I had to get where I could do hand and arm signals.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tToday, compact electronics and a military chastened by sergeants buying Motorola walkie-talkies out of their own salaries allow each squad of six to 13 troops to carry at least one radio. Personal radios and even hands-free headsets are proliferating. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBefore the storming of Falluja, recalled Maj. Clark, \u00a0\u00bbI told my gunnery sergeant we needed to get more radios. We had radios down to the team leader level\u00a0\u00bb: one for every four men, the smallest \u00a0\u00bbassault element\u00a0\u00bb that typically makes the first entry into a house while the rest of the squad provides covering fire and reinforcements. Over gunfire and through stone walls, Clark said, \u00a0\u00bbyou wouldn’t otherwise be able to hear [to coordinate]. Having additional radios saved lives.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tBoth the Marines and the Army have experimented with sophisticated information technology for foot soldiers. The trial fielding of the Land Warrior kits to soldiers at Fort Lewis this summer will include not only radio headsets but electronic eyepieces that show troops their own location and that of friendly units on a computer map, updated via a wireless network a capability previously limited to vehicles. The Natick Soldier Center’s next-generation \u00a0\u00bbFuture Force Warrior\u00a0\u00bb will add more sensor displays and sharing of targeting data over the network. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThese technologies, however, will require additional hours of training. Retired Army Col. Richard Sinnreich, a frequent participant in Army experiments, said, \u00a0\u00bbIt requires a whole different type of training to make the infantryman comfortable using that technology without distracting him. The more we digitize, the more infantry have to become proficient at a whole set of skills besides aiming a rifle and digging a foxhole.\u00a0\u00bb <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tTechnology plus training can make infantrymen more effective. Technology without training can get them killed. The situations that soldiers face on the streets of Iraq, or elsewhere, and the tools they use are getting more complex. But the emerging revolution in American infantry is not making the role of the infantry any less demanding. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00a0\u00bbThe vast responsibility that is pushed down to the lower levels, the combat power that is pushed down to the lower levels, the larger areas of operation, as well as the technology, requires better trained, tactically savvy, intelligent leaders,\u00a0\u00bb said Maj. Clark, looking at his young officer-students a few yards away. \u00a0\u00bbIntelligent grunts: That’s almost a contradiction. But it’s definitely a thinking man’s game.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t[Notre recommandation est que ce texte doit \u00eatre lu avec la mention classique \u00e0 l’esprit, Disclaimer: In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only..]<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

L’Irak leur montre leurs erreurs: ils avaient donc raison Ce texte de Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., du National Journal, publi\u00e9 le 24 avril 2006 sur le site Government Executive, nous d\u00e9crit l’infanterie am\u00e9ricaine apr\u00e8s l’Irak, en train d’assimiler les le\u00e7ons de l’Irak. Car l’Irak est, pour l’arm\u00e9e US, r\u00e9volutionnaire ; \u00e0 guerre r\u00e9volutionnaire et peut-\u00eatre… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3289,5488,857,3519,2671],"class_list":["post-67639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-notes-de-lectures","tag-army","tag-freedberg","tag-irak","tag-technologie","tag-us"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}