Yet if the US Army went to war tomorrow, it would lack the equipment, doctrine and experience to launch an attack across a defended river, according to one Army engineer.
"The Army has not conducted such an operation since World War II," wrote Maj. Aditya Iyer, an Army engineer, in an essay for the Association of the United States Army.
"The current wet-gap crossing doctrine, organization, materiel and leadership are ineffective for division-level wet-gap crossing operations independent from the corps," Iyer warned.
"In contrast, the Ukrainian forces had accurate intelligence that showed the Russian troops massing along the river," Iyer said.
Related storiesIndeed, the Army was unprepared for river crossings at the start of World War II.
Persons:
—, Aditya Iyer, Iyer, Napoleon, Kevin Larson, Michael Peck
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Service, US Army, Army, Association of, United States Army, Business, 74th Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade, Union Army, US 36th Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry, Company, 92nd Engineer Battalion, US, Defense, Foreign Policy, Rutgers Univ, Twitter, LinkedIn
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Ukrainian, Russian, Fredericksburg, Italy, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Forbes