Fuchs: What would a true Combined Arms formation look like? If you were organizing the U.S. Army HBCT, IBCT and SBCT what would they look like in both armor and infantry?
Fuchs: What would a true Combined Arms formation look like? If you were organizing the U.S. Army HBCT, IBCT and SBCT what would they look like in both armor and infantry?
I) No size fits it all
II) Not every formation needs to be combined arms, some can be meant as attachments or to get attachments.
III) I'd spend ~20% of everything on reconnaissance, cavalry, skirmish troops that are not bound to any formation, but answer to a Corps.
These skirmishers are the key to my idea of a corps structure and operational art. The decision is in the skirmishing, all else is either about delaying or about mopping up quickly broken forces.
IV) No divisions.
V) Heavy brigades would be meant to go into very unfair, advantageous battles mostly. Routine tasks would include almost no LOS combat.
VI) Expert and reserve infantry formations would be separate; expert infantry would be similar to the best marines, ranger and Jäger units while reserve infantry would offer the cheap, quick training, quantity element.
The heavy brigades structure would be about 2-3 rather large combined arms (mortars instead of arty) battlegroups (~ Kampfgruppe) and one support group (providing support in a large radius to the battlegroups, skirmishers and other forces + additional infantry bn on APCs).
The area support function of the support group is rather unorthodox while the battlegroups (or Kampfgruppen) would look like something from the 40's or 50's (1st Heeresstruktur, ~58-62).
Reserve infantry battlegroups and heavy skirmisher companies could work together with a heavy brigade in order to add certain capabilities and tricks.
This does certainly sound like a patchwork of strange stuff. I didn't mention all the reasoning in it, just the superficialities.
It makes a lot of sense in a 40+ pages draft (that's meant to be published as a 200 pp. book, not online).
In short: I('d) develop a corps concept, not a brigade concept.
There's a 3-day conference or 50,000 word SAMS paper right there for anyone with stones to tackle it!Originally Posted by Fuchs
I can agree with the "~20% of everything on reconnaissance." Cavalry to me means horses. It just never translates to AFVs, MBTs or Helicopters in any sensible way I can see.
How many Formatoins/Brigades in a Fuchs Corps?
Is the Fuchs Corp really a very flat Divison?
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Development of the Bradley
When I attended OCS at Fort Benning in 1977-78 the Vu-Graph slides of the future "Infantry Fighting Vehicle" the instructors showed us looked just like what the Bradley later turned out to be. Later in 1982 at Camp Roberts, California (where my dad had trained in WW II) a team from the Bradley manufacturer, FMC Corporation, would fire the automatic gun on a Bradley into the impact area all day long Monday through Friday. They must have been doing some sort of Mean Rounds Between Failure testing--that's the only plausible explanation I can think of for the amount of ammo they were expending. Some of my forward observers had to ask the FMC guys to stop driving their tracked vehicles so fast past our bivouac area because they were raising huge clouds of dust that settled all over the campsite. A year later I took a tour of the FMC factory in San Jose and asked why the M548 cargo carrier was so unreliable. The answer I got was that it must be Army maintenance because they were perfect when they left the factory!
Last edited by Pete; 06-06-2010 at 06:29 AM.
pm
If I were organizing the US Army, I would retain the 3 tier system, but rebalance. Overall, I prefer big BCTs, when going modular, we should have used the assets of the old Force XXI division to produce 2 very large, very capable BCTs, instead of 4 minimally capable BCTs.
IBCTs: initial/immediate is 8 only (reduction from 20ish), all on ABN status and active duty; in addition to severely restricted terrain, the other are that truly "light" formations excel in is rapid deployment/forced entry; second step is get the third maneuver battalion back, if necessary trading the current recon SQDN down to a separate troop; sequentially, add a fourth maneuver battalion and convert the WPNS Cos to rifle companies, retaining a single TOW company in the BCT, preferably on something light and armored (Wiesal maybe, something in that class anyway) instead of HMMWV.
SBCTs: I like this organization, convert most BCTs to this model (29 of 45 active BCTs, 1/2 to 2/3s of the ARNG); retain identical organizations, while producing variety by modifying the vehicle systems used, M2s or even M113s, maybe a more modern ICV replacement; M1, M8 AGS or something like Centauro for an MGS replacement; not sure about the RV, but we could probably find some variant that shares parts in the modified organizations; organizationally, the AT CO should go into the infantry BNs (maybe as a platoon in HHC), and a fourth CO added to each BN; an STB to C2 all the current separate COs; some other minor organizational changes (HUMINT consolidation, probably need increased EN capability with sappers in the maneuver battalions and bridging in the STB, etc); the key is that all of these middle-weight BCTs are organized identically, just differing equipment
HBCTs: again, reduction from 17-20 (whatever we are at now) to 8 active, converting the rest to SBCTs (ARNG is 1/3 - 1/2 HBCT, remaining SBCT); logic on this reduction is that we executed OIF 1 with the equivalent of 4 HBCTs from 3ID, 8 allows us to maintain that capability- if we need more, we can activate the ARNG and accelerate the active forces in the ARFORGEN cycle; ultimately, build a third CAB, and return the sapper/gap crossing to the CABs with bridging/roadbuilding/construction engineers in the STB;
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