The Army has brigade combat teams (BCTs) now. They are self-contained combined arms units with logistics capabilities to act on their own. But now that peer enemies are a threat in large-scale conventional warfare, the need for divisions to orchestrate larger battles and campaigns is seen as a necessity again.
Brigades traditionally had infantry and armor with mortars for fire support and limited organic assets. They relied on the parent division for logistics, major fire support, engineers, and other assets attached to the brigade for specific missions.
Army reorganization begun in 2003 but under discussion since the 1990s spread out the combat and support assets held by the division to the brigades, making them mini-divisions. They were called brigade combat teams to distinguish them. The divisions remained for largely administrative duties. And for historical continuity. The BCTs worked really well for rotating troops by unit--which by maintaining unit cohesion kept our Army intact despite cries the Iraq War was "breaking" the Army.
Army divisions are returning as a command echelon rather than an administrative element:
Between 2003 and 2004, as brigades were standardized or made "modular," assets that had existed mostly at divisions since their creation -- a signals battalion; military intelligence battalion; artillery brigade; and a brigade full of support and logistics, so-called "enabler" units -- were sent to brigades in company- or battalion-sized elements. ...
Some worry that bringing the units back from the brigade to division level risks losing lethality at the point where it is most needed on the battlefield -- that it will be adding potentially redundant layers of bureaucracy that will slow decision-making, decrease flexibility, degrade unit flexibility and trust, and reduce interoperability.
The brigade combat teams worked great in counterinsurgencies (COIN). I think the division with mere "brigades" that will get necessary augmentation for specific missions is again needed.
Critics are worried about losing combat assets to the division level. I concede that twenty years open up the question of what assets a brigade should have in-house. Just restoring the organization of 2001 is not appropriate.
But pulling back assets that the division commander with a broader horizon to see the bigger picture can deploy as needed is a good idea. Trying to pull assets from BCTs to add to another BCT that needs it to survive or to exploit opportunities will take too long. Better to have them at the division.
Brigades will be weaker. But the ability to reinforce units who need more power and to coordinate multiple combat brigades into one fight will increase with controlling divisions. I think brigades need the division for a fight that exceeds their more limited horizons that worked fine for COIN.
Heck, maybe our infantry divisions can get separate tank battalions to dole out as needed to its brigades, which I advocated in Army magazine.
Although it will take a while to get the division staff back in shape because that "muscle memory" is long gone.
Them wild-eyed boys that had been away are back in town. Maybe my pre-9/11 thoughts in Military Review on organizing the Army's brigades could be useful.
This is a version housed on this blog I corrected for editing that garbled the text when my charts were removed for publication. I also deleted the links to old links that go to a now-corrupted site, as long as I'm linking the post (never go to those old Geocities site variants!).
Also, I'm embarrassed that I didn't notice I spelled Macgregor's name wrong in the notes until just now. Yikes. This is why I rarely read my articles after publication. No good can come of it!
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
