As a result of the heavy commitments to counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2003 to 2011, our Army's force structure shifted to more infantry brigades.
That shift has been reversed. One effort to heavy up applies to those infantry brigades:
One of the service’s priority acquisition programs is Mobile Protected Firepower. This is essentially a light tank weighing 25 to 30 tons, a number of which will be added to the Infantry Brigade Combat Teams.
Light tanks won't be enough unless our potential enemies are sporting enough to only use light tanks against our light tank-supported infantry.
Remember, American Sherman tanks weighed in at a little more than 30 tons in their basic model and proved wholly inadequate as our main battle tank one-on-one against German tanks of 1944. How much worse will a 30-ton light tank be tomorrow against modern tanks?
Those infantry brigades should get tank or heavy combined arms supplements, as I argued in Army Magazine earlier in the year.
