The Army plan, in part, will:
Reorganize infantry and armor brigade combat teams (BCTs) to restore the third maneuver battalion and increase engineer and fires capability.
And:
Reduce active component BCTs from 45 modular to 33 reorganized BCTs.
We'll have more brigades than we had before 9/11, if memory serves me. But we should have them at or closer to full strength unlike the pre-9/11 situation where we had undermanned brigades.
Remember, we got rid of a lot of support units geared to Cold War practices to free up troops to create more brigades (while also making the brigades smaller). Then we added more troops to create more brigades. At one point, I'm pretty sure we were heading toward 48 Army brigades, in two stages (reorganization under existing caps and then new troops).
I think we went from 32 to 42 brigades with the reorganization method, and then planned to go to 48 with the second method--but only added 3 when victory in Iraq ended the need to bolster the rotation base. My memory is a bit hazy on the specifics, but the big picture is good. Anyway, we will have 33 brigades by 2017.
I had gotten behind the 2-battalion brigades, although I wanted a recon battalion capable of being a maneuver element, too, like our old cavalry units, instead of the glorified forward observers that they seemed to be.
But now we are going back to three-battalion brigades. While adding engineers and artillery, it seems. So the brigades will be bigger than the current ones are. I assume the brigades will continue to be self-contained units rather than being dependent on division assets as the brigades of a decade ago were.
Indeed, Stryker brigades will get an assist in this regard, too. This article adds some details:
"Specifically, we'll go from a 2x8-gun fires battalion to a 3x6. So two additional guns, one additional battery to support the three maneuver battalions. And then in order to do that, some of the echelon-above-brigade structure in terms of engineers will have to be reorganized to provide that additional engineering capability to the BCT."
Stryker brigades, Murray said, currently have three maneuver battalions, but no brigade support troops battalion. Those brigades will get a brigade engineer battalion.
That is, we're going from 2 8-gun batteries to 3 6-gun batteries in each artillery ("fires") battalion. When I first heard of the idea of the additional maneuver battalion, I assumed that artillery support would increase to allow each maneuver battalion to have a battery in support. But it isn't to be a 50% increase in tubes to match a 50% increase in maneuver battalions.
My question is whether the battalions will revert to three line (or maneuver) companies from the 4 they have now (except for Stryker brigades which retained the triangular organization in battalions and companies)? But if the maneuver companies are going from 8 in 2 battalions to 9 maneuver companies in 3 battalions, the more modest increase in artillery support is more understandable. But I don't know.
The article gives the balance of 33 brigades as "12 armored BCTs, 14 infantry BCTs, and seven Stryker BCTs."
Also, the Army expects to lose another brigade after 2017, so I guess we get down to pre-9/11, after all.
And how many National Guard brigades will there be? Still 28 from the last reorganization?
More reorganization will throw the Army into some flux again. But at least it is not being done while waging a significant ground campaign.
I'm disturbed that we are losing our rotation base, but the Army says this method will save 13 maneuver battalions that would have had to go in order to preserve more brigades. So there you go.
UPDATE: Those "infantry" brigde combat teams would include paratroopers, airmobile infantry, and motorized infantry, I assume. And we'd also have our Ranger regiment, of course. But that isn't a maneuver brigade, really. Or it shouldn't be thought of that way. It is good light infantry. It may be the least elite of the special forces guys, but sometimes relative quantity has a quality all its own.
