The Army is getting ready to move out on its plan to cut force structure and reconfigure some units, a year after the changes were first announced.
Army Training and Doctrine Command is due to provide feedback to top leadership in March that will help inform the Army’s new force design, the Army chief of staff said Wednesday at an Association of the U.S. Army event outside Washington, D.C..
“Everybody says, ‘Hey, it takes three years to do a force design update,’ “ Gen. Randy George told the audience. “And, you know, we all got together at the four-star conference … last October, and said, ‘OK, you’ve got six months.’ “
Expected changes include beefed up air-and-missile defense units and the deactivation of some formations, such as cavalry squadrons—units that made more sense in the close-combat days of counterinsurgency but are no longer in high demand.
The new force design will be heavily influenced by the Army’s ongoing Transformation in Contact project, which has sent units into the field with updated training scenarios and allowed them to work closely with industry to come up with solutions on the fly. Ukraine’s use of drones, for example, has inspired the Army to work them into U.S. doctrine.
Those lessons will inform how the Army’s brigade combat teams operate going forward.
“There are only lessons observed until you change how you train and operate,” he said. “These units are changing how they train and operate.”
George is headed to Germany next week to see the Army’s third TiC brigade in action, he said. Through mid-February, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division is participating in Exercise Combined Resolve.
This latest iteration of transformation in contact is slightly different, he said, with a strike company inside each battalion, which includes scouts, armed drones, mortars, counter-drone systems and electronic warfare teams.
Previously, TiC units had tested multifunctional reconnaissance companies, which use sensors and drones to detect enemy activity, then call in strikes.
Beyond new concepts for units, George said, the Army is looking to straightforwardly lighten soldiers’ workload.
Long, drawn-out equipment layouts, where everything is catalogued and assessed, are getting an update, he said.
“But we’re not maintaining equipment … that we don’t need,” he said.
Light BCTs in particular will see this change, because he said they have taken on too many vehicles and thus, too much of a maintenance burden on the soldier.
“So you’ll see some of that when you see some of the force design update,” he said.
