Army plans to reach its 2040 timeframe of updating how it fights and wins ground campaigns need organizational changes to handle new weapons for new missions across the domains. Multi-Domain Operations is the term of art. Hoo boy. Don't we have other services for other domains?
The Army is looking at its organization:
The U.S Army plans to spend roughly the next two years finalizing key decisions on what its future formational design will look like in the 2040s, the service’s four-star general in charge of modernization and requirements said at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium last week. ...
"We have a lot of light formations in the Army," [Gen. James Rainey] said. "I believe that we need to increase the lethality and survivability of our light formations."
I just want the Army to decide between having light and heavy formations rather than trying to build units that are purportedly lethal, survivable, and strategically mobile:
But trying to make units too broadly capable with basic equipment that refuses to be one thing or another risks making them incapable of achieving any mission. This annoys me:
The Army’s Infantry Squad Vehicle has reached first unit equipped status after the service started fielding 59 vehicles to soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division this week.One, enjoy deploying them with the parachutists. Sure, mostly the unit will be airlifted. But still, this assumes the Air Force has plenty of airlift for everything the Army wants moved by air.
Two, why can't the Army make a damn decision about leg infantry or mechanized/motorized divisions? Pick one and stop dicking around with hybrid units with hermaphrodite weapons neither heavy nor light that will fail as leg infantry units and fail as motorized infantry.
I'm dumbfounded. The plan is to add light vehicles to a light airborne unit that the Air Force will never have sufficient lift to carry all at once when needed. So the unit will need to leave its vehicles behind. Or go by sea. So the Infantry Squad Vehicle is a waste if the idea is to airlift them. Which also makes me wonder why the Army thinks the Air Force will deliver light tanks. Why don't we just attach a battalion of tanks for that slow boat ride to the theater?
While we need to retain some light infantry, the best way to increase their lethality and survivability is to convert some of them to medium or heavy units.
And for God's sake, raising my discomfort to the higher level, I don't like twisting joint "purple" warfare into a gray diffused blob of Multi-Domain Operations. Can the Army instead focus on winning its domain before it starts helping other services win their domains? Great synergy can come from that notion.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
