Run Silent, Fight Deep: Reimagining the Mechanized Force
The Armored Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) is the hard right hook of the US Army. But that right hook hasn’t been thrown in almost twenty years and hasn’t been thrown against a seemingly capable force in thirty years. Simply put, our mechanized forces are untested and have largely stagnated in development after years of light infantry fighting in the middle east. The ABCT is in need of a massive overhaul to combat the wide array of developing battlefield threats from Russia and China. The mechanized force remains behind the curve despite its expected return to relevance in the age of great power conflict. Below, I am proposing a series of drastic changes to maneuver battalion structure. While I don’t think these are the end-all, be-all to reform, I do think they would put the US Army in the right direction to win the next fight. I welcome the discussion that follows.
Death by a Thousand Drones
The present design for a combined arms battalion, whether rolling infantry or armor heavy, does not possess the tools to fight the cheap drone threat, nor can it do much on its own to fight under contested airspace. Waiting on higher to prioritize your mission for air cover via an air defense artillery (ADA) unit is simply unacceptable. Fortunately, the solution here is simple: make short-range air defense (SHORAD) organic to the maneuver battalion. A single Avenger section (basically a truck with anti-air missiles mounted) assigned to the battalion’s HQ company would dramatically increase the ability to survive and maneuver in a contested environment against Russia or China. We have the technology and personnel to make this happen, the only resistance is institutional, and I think most commanders would welcome this change to their formations.
While maneuver battalion organic SHORAD is a good start, to truly combat the cheap drone threat to our mechanized forces we must provide cheaper solutions all the way down to the platoon level. The Army expects smaller units to have to operate under ever-greater isolated conditions. If units are to be successful under those conditions, they must be able to carry the firepower and protection needed to remain “alone and unafraid” in an environment that requires rapid maneuver, command under degraded communications and navigation, and the ever-present threat of death from above. A platoon or even company simply cannot carry enough Stingers and Javelins to combat all of these threats while also engaging ground targets. Instead, we should focus on investing in and training soldiers up on electronic warfare capabilities.
Here, I propose the adoption of a new career path for infantry NCOs: the 11U MOS. These NCOs would attend an electronic warfare maneuver school that upon completion, would give them the 11U designation and provide them with all the skills needed to support and train EW operations and discipline within an infantry company. Signal master gunner course is a good place to start for training, but the maneuver force should have a separate school for 11Us. Located in the HQ platoon of each company, they would work closely with other enablers throughout the battalion. The 11U would be the EW equivalent of the master gunner: able to fix equipment, support EW training missions as a master gunner would support gunnery, and combine their combat arms knowledge with their EW training to help shape operational planning. As platoons acquire more EW equipment to jam or kill drones, the 11U’s expertise will be critical to implementation of new tactics and SOPs at every level of maneuver.
Attention in the TOC!
On the note of emissions-reduction, I propose to redesign the battalion tactical operations center (TOC) from the ground up. Simply trying to hide signatures of the current TOC design is not enough. A well-trained mechanized unit can jump TOC every 24 hours while sustaining operations but that will likely be too slow at the present speed of warfare. The current TOC design, an emissions-heavy collection of priority targets, are mass casualties waiting to happen. Instead of grouping the entire battalion staff at the center of multiple stagnant heat signatures and EM bursts that scream “fire for effect,” I propose units experiment with mobile-only TOCs that are skeleton crews relative to their current design. Keeping the staff section mobile but still close through mesh network communications will present challenges to the very concept of staff work but survivability should be the priority. Staff work is no good if no one is alive to get it done. Yes, this will mean commanders will have to give up some of their ability to micromanage subordinate units but that is a good thing. Real mission command, not data overload, will keep the force alive to fight another day.
Fear and Loathing in Transmissions
As the battalion TOC is overhauled, our transmission habits should be as well. The other services have either put in place or proposed various rules on how to manage electronic emissions during operations. The Marines have put out the best guide so far. See that here. I would recommend that every battalion establish emissions control (EMCON) SOPs that are drilled down to the individual level. A single smart phone or long radio burst can give away a unit’s position. Brevity is the key word here. No longer can we conduct rehearsals over commons, do constant check-ins, and use cool-guy radio speak to overexplain a situation. Brevity, brevity, brevity. In their guide, the Marines argue for cutting down on any words that aren’t absolutely necessary in order to reduce transmission time. All services should adopt these rules. In addition, I propose my own coding system for electronic transmissions.
Stark’s Spectrum Control Code:
Spectrum Green: CONUS, non-training environment. No real need for brevity, think convoys to and from the railyard. The biggest threat is lack of safety from poor communication.
Spectrum Yellow: Use brevity, OCONUS/non-wartime w/ interception possible. Here it is more likely that the enemy can collect and ID US forces. Korea and European rotations should always operate under these conditions.
Spectrum Red: Brevity, rigid communications windows, wartime with intercept likely. Forces are en route to the front or off the front lines entirely but still combat zone adjacent. Don’t be the one that brings a thermobaric artillery strike on your position because you wanted to conduct a company rehearsal over the net for the 15th time.
Spectrum Black: Lights out. Stay off the net. Brace for impact. Spectrum black used for operations when contact is imminent, but the enemy does not yet have positive ID on your location. Mission command and in-person rehearsals are critical to survival and success.
How a unit goes about organizing their spectrum transitions can be left to local SOP. I would recommend establishing rolling phase lines or color-coded transmission zones during in-person rehearsals. Or you can do as the Marines recommend: calling out the color code over the net while establishing communications windows and going completely silent after the call out. Color coding is easy, and easy protocols are more likely to be followed and understood. Keep it simple.
Bye, Bye Bradley
As the US and her enemies experiment with unmanned or minimally manned war machines, it is time to think about what a mechanized force with such vehicles would look like. The Bradley IFV is reaching, if it has not already reached, the end of its lifespan even with the new upgrades it’s currently undergoing. Its 25mm gun is too weak to fight off the ChiComs or Russians, its profile is too low for urban warfare, and it has no real protection against threats from the air. I understand the Bradley has a special place in some people’s hearts going back to the 1st Gulf War. But that’s just it, that war was 30 years ago and while the Abrams can still go pound for pound against modern armor, the Bradley is far behind what many of our allies and enemies possess or are developing in that class of vehicle. The Army is trying but largely failing to replace the Bradley, but I do not think the replacement concepts are radical enough. Instead of the old framework of an IFV with a bigger main gun with troop carrying capability, we should focus on the firepower of the main gun with just enough space in the back for an enabler or two to control and support an autonomous wingman program. Ideally, I’d like to see a 3 to 1 unmanned to manned system ratio built around a local mesh network for control but there is not nearly enough data to know if that is the proper control ratio or if that is even manageable with current technology. The troop carrier missions should be left to the Strykers, whose incorporation into the mechanized battalion will be met with skepticism but their firepower modularity (from anti-air to anti-tank) would provide better options to a unit given the wide array of threats they may face around the world. This is not a perfect solution; a tracked troop carrier can traverse difficult terrain better than a wheeled Stryker but holding onto the Bradley past its sell-by date or replacing it with a modern clone is not the answer either.
A Fan Favorite
Finally, I’d like to bring back long-range surveillance companies. The reliance on ISR sensors from above during the GWOT was comfortable, but simply not feasible in contested airspace against the PLA or Russian Army. Surveillance drones and satellites still have their place, but without a return to long-range ground surveillance units, they are a single-point failure for a commander’s view of the battlefield. For the armored brigade, I recommend bringing the LRS company into the fold in the brigade’s combined arms/infantry battalion. I know some will be upset that I’m not placing it with the cavalry squadron (or that I’m replacing the scouts in HHC), but my reasoning is thus: we expect units to be more isolated from higher echelons than they ever have been before. The more capabilities under the direct control of the battalion commander, rather than placing them on loan when brigade or division finds it convenient, the battalion commander retains operational flexibility. If each battalion has an LRS-capable company, the collection strain on the cavalry will be reduced while simultaneously raising the battlespace-awareness of each battalion beyond what a single platoon of cavalry scouts would be capable of collecting. Here I would recommend that the LRS company keep a light footprint and instead of being an additional mechanized company, they mount up in the Army’s new Infantry Squad Vehicle.
Conclusion
I would like to again state how controversial I understand many of these recommendations would be for the Army. Not simply because the military is inherently resistant to change, but because I’m trying to invent solutions for a fight we’ve only gotten glimpses of in Europe and Asia through third parties. I hope my proposals start a conversation, and if you take any of these recommendations seriously, invest in battalion organic SHORAD teams and create an EM emissions SOP. These are the easiest changes to make and will likely have the greatest immediate impact in operations. The others will likely take more than a decade to flesh out and accomplish. Also, not all of these changes should be limited to the mechanized force. EMCON procedures should be adopted throughout the entire US military at every echelon. We must be prepared to fight in isolated environments with little support for long periods of time. “Run silent, fight deep” is the name of the game when every domain is contested, the front lines are blurred, and the enemy can bring just as much firepower to bear as we can.
