1. Regardless of the problem of attracting recruits to an expeditionary Army, the proposal has other flaws I think. Our current mission distribution across the components is wrong. Combat maneuver forces in the Guard do not really match the Guard’s primary use in CONUS—they do restoration/enforcement of civil order and disaster relief/recovery missions for their governors. Having combat forces in the Guard only makes sense if we expect the governor of New York might want to invade Vermont and want to allow that to happen. Rather than having the USAR provide the “tail” units to round out a maneuver force, we should put the additional heavy maneuver units there and have the ARNG get the additional CS/CSS force structure. It makes more sense for governors to have MPs, transportation units, and construction engineers at their disposal than for them to have a rifle battalion or an Armored Cav Regiment.
2. I propose that we adopt a solution similar to that of the British Cardwell Reforms, which instituted a 2-battalion regiment. One battalion remained in the UK at the recruiting base while the other was deployed to the colonies. I would not keep the Territorial Army concept that “fleshed out” the Army to a larger combat force in times of great national crisis (like WWI). This approach is what has landed us in our current predicament.
a. I propose an AC/RC mixed maneuver unit organized as a regiment or brigade (I will call it a Bde from here on in). This Bde would have a heavy battalion (like the old British Grenadier companies in the 18th C English regiment) that would be based in CONUS or OCONUS—METT-TC dependant. The Bde would also have 3 light Battalions, one in CONUS and the other two deployed to Combatant Commander AORs or at home station, depending on current world situation. Battalions would rotate on a fixed schedule—every year, two years, whatever works best in a given situation—commanders (could be that the Bde Cdr or, more likely, theater commanders/CJCS/SECDEF/POTUS) get to make that call.
b. Whether the battalions are “component mixed” or “component pure” is an open question. I propose that the heavy Bn be a mixed AC/RC unit, probably pure at the company/troop level, but the platoon could also be the lowest level of component purity. My rationale is that I would not want to limit soldiers’ options to being either just a light fighter or just a heavy fighter based on the soldiers’ decision about what component they have chosen to join.
c. Rotating units fall should in on pre-positioned sets of equipment owned by the Bde, equipment that the departing Battalion has been using and maintaining. On a first time deployment, the Battalion brings the equipment. We might want to continue to use Army Prepositioned Stock (APS) systems, but I would argue against that notion. By having a Bde own the equipment, I think much of the accountability issues that occur at RIP/TOA would go away. Additionally, a deploying battalion should fall in on a set of equipment exactly like what they train on in CONUS because the Bde commander has that level of control over the equipment in the entire Bde.
d. As needed, commanders and/or FORGEN staff can apply tailoring. Need a heavy Bn TF? Take assets from the heavy bn and attach it to a deploying light Bn. Same thing applies at the company team level. Tailoring up is also possible. Need a heavy Bde?—pull the heavy Bn from several “composite brigades.” Nothing new here—just a reemphasis of Army doctrine on tailoring that has been around for decades.
e. The Army already uses dual component organizations at the company level (or did a few years ago when I was planning chem-bio equipment fielding). Some Army Chem-Bio Recon Companies are AC/RC split at the platoon level.
3. Problems
a. The only significant problem that I see with a composite Bde that rotates bns is with the C2 HQs at the deployed location. A wide range of means could accomplish this. For example, we could try rotating the various Bde HQs from CONUS; we could also try creating a unique group of Bde HQs specially designed for C2 of deployed units; or we could fatten up the Div HQ enough to allow them to create Bde level CPs to manage the expeditionary forces.
b. A less serious problem would be determining the components of the various commanders and staff officers across each brigade. I doubt we could keep each Bn staff either pure AC or pure RC and have adequate career progression opportunities for each component. I also do not think it would be desirable to do so from the standpoint of junior officer mentoring and training; I would want a lot of cross-component interaction among my leaders and staffs.
4. I think my proposal is really little more than a force structure realignment that takes the BCT (AKA unit of action) transformation to its logical conclusion.