I was surprised by the recasting of the Engineer presence in the Heavy BCT's, from a company in each of the two maneuver battalions, to just one company for the entire BCT (with markedly fewer "blades" than what I was used to, in the AOE designs / L-series TOE's - and admittedly in the 3rd ACR, we had a larger than usual Engineer company organic to the regiment, and sometimes a Combat Engineer Battalion attached).

In a light BCT, I think that you could get away with just one engineer company for the BCT, but in the heavy world, I think that you need one per maneuver battalion.

Admittedly, the total number of engineers didn't change by much (and seems woefully inadequate), but it has few Brads and fewer "farm implements", and no AVLB's from what I saw. I would think that engineers would be just as useful in COIN as they would be in high-intensity combat - so I am surprised that Engineer branch seems to be, if anything, shrinking. (Not all engineers are EOD (12E, IIRC) but at least an engineer can build things, and carry a weapon on patrol, as opposed to the seemingly bloated MI corps that, from what I have heard, is producing little additional intel, even with all of the extra personnel that we throw into that branch.)