The Army is rediscovering heavy armor:
As it did in the 1970s following the Vietnam War, the Army is emerging from a long counterinsurgency campaign and is renewing its emphasis on mechanized warfare through changes in its doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel and facilities (DOTMLPF). The latest version of Field Manual 3-0: Operations has filled in some doctrinal gaps that opened in the time since we stopped maneuvering brigades, divisions and corps, and has set the stage for Multi-Domain Operations.
I have long worried that the Army was wrongly concluding that heavy armor was obsolete and that big tanks are just ponderous dinosaurs in a world of small furry mammals (go to page 28).
And as long as the Army is rediscovering heavy armor, keep those tanks in mind when thinking about how to reinforce our lighter infantry brigades to survive combat with enemy heavy forces.
There is a bonus shout out to the armored cavalry regiment. You're preaching to the choir here at The Dignified Rant, general. And he mentions the lack of pure tank battalions in the Army as hobbling the development of tank warfare leadership.
From the Army's point of view, I think, Multi-Domain Operations is really just AirLand Battle (which linked the Air Force with the Army to hold the Fulda Gap in the Cold War) updated to all-service "purple" operations to make sure fire support is a black box as far as the grunt calling in fire from the pointy end of the stick is concerned. That soldier doesn't care if the the needed support--needed now!--comes from a mortar a mile back, a ship at sea, a plane high or low over the battlefield, or an orbiting armed satellite. All those assets are supposed to support the Army rather than go off on their own independent missions to the exclusion of all else.
I worry that from the Navy's point of view that Multi-Domain means the Army will become a naval auxiliary with anti-ship missiles and air defense assets protecting the Navy.
If that attitude has time to set, it won't be long before heavy armor is just a mobile pillbox for coastal defense.
