Back in the Cold War days, we depended heavily on predeployment of heavy weapons to get around the logistics problems. The plan was to put a bunch of weapons near the expected battle areas then airlift in the troops when needed. Of course, this was based on the assumption that the stockpiles wouldn't be nuked or heavily contaiminated with chemical or biological weapons. Details, details.

Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall back in 1989 and early in 1990, some pundits were saying armored divisions were too big and too heavy to be useful anymore. They foresaw a series of small conflicts where Light Infantry would be the way to go. Their case was strengthened by Operation Just Cause (Panama) in December 1989. However, Saddam invaded Kuwait in September 1990 and we spent months building up an armored force to liberate the country. The ground war was a classic armored action.

Over the course of the 1990s, we deployed troops to many countries. In several cases, we were unwilling or unable to deploy armored forces with those troops. A single M-1 tank weighs almost 70 tons. A C-5 or C-17 transport plane can carry ONE M-1 tank, perhaps with some support equipment and a crew. That's an expensive and time-consuming way to deploy armored forces, especially considering how few of those big transport planes we have in the inventory. The other alternative is to transport them on ships - assuming you have the time. Ships can carry a big load of tanks but they're slow.

If you can't deploy a weapon to where it's needed, it's useless. The Crusader weighs 40 tons and it's support vehicle weighs another 33 tons. A C-5/C-17 might be able to carry one of each, if the thing will fit in a C-17. The inability to move the weapon rapidly to the battle area means it really isn't going to do much good.

The Army is working to deploy lighter armored vehicles that still pack a big punch. Several of the test articles sport the same 105mm cannon that was on the first version of the M-1. These weapons weigh about half of an M-1 so it'd be easier to transport them. Several of them even have tires instead of tracks, making them easier to transport from the airfield to the FEBA. Sounds like a good idea to me.