The Army is shrinking, after expanding to win in Iraq:
The Army plans to cut eight of its 45 active-duty brigade combat teams as it shrinks the force from 562,000 soldiers to 490,000 by fiscal 2017.
As many as five more BCTs could be eliminated if Army leaders decide to add a third maneuver battalion to its remaining airborne, infantry and armored BCTs. The Stryker brigades already each have three maneuver battalions.
At 490,000, the Army will still be (if memory serves me) 10,000 stronger than before 9/11. Of course, then our force structure of 32 brigades was undermanned by about 40,000 slots, I think. The brigades were 3-battalion triangular units then. Will 490,000 be enough for 37 smaller (on average) brigades.
Only our 6 active and 1 National Guard Stryker brigades have three maneuver (or "line") battalions now. The rest have two maneuver battalions, but with 4 companies each rather than 3 in the triangular structure. (I've never seen anything that says how many companies a Stryker battalion has--I assume 3, but I don't actually know).
I think the two-battalion brigades should remain rather than lose 5 more brigades to go back to 3 battalions. Although I'd bulk up the recon element to make it a fighting recon element rather than just a light force that seems to function more like forward observers with really good observation capabilities. Nice for COIN but for high intensity conventional, I don't like them. I want more brigades for rotation purposes, which is why we reorganize to go from 32 to 38 in the first place.
I commented on this debate going in here and here.
The BCTs would operate like World War II German infantry regiments or our armored division combat teams. German regiments with only 2 battalions fought well even in the slaughterhouse of the Eastern Front as long as they had artillery support intact. Our combat teams had a tank and mechanized battalion paired for a good combined arms match. A 1:1 ratio seemed to work out best. Our Heavy BCTs would have two battalions each capable of fielding two groups of 1 tank and 1 mechanized company each. That sounds pretty flexible.
And the last decade of experience and advances show we can provide these units with fire support.
If we find we need a third maneuver battalion, we can add an Army National Guard battalion pretty easily to the active BCT. Army National Guard brigades will take time to train up to active standards, but battalions can train up much more quickly.
Remember, in the future we will have to fight a war with the Army we have and not the Army we wish we had. Do your wishing now.
