1st ABCT brings improved readiness home from Korea
By C. Todd LopezMarch 3, 2017
1 / 4 Fort Hood, Texas-based Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, convoy through Dongducheon, South Korea, July 14, on their way to Camp Humphreys, as the beginning of the relocation of U.S. forces from near the North Korean border installations south of Seoul. (Photo Credit: Staff Sgt. Keith Anderson)
2 / 4 Crossing over a floating bridge April 6, Soldiers drive 68-ton M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and 27-ton M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, across the Imjin River. Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, crossed the bridge assembled by 74th Multi-Role Bridge Company 'RiverRats,' 62nd Engineer Battalion, 36th Engineer Brigade as part of a four-day, combined arms river crossing exercise. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Christopher Dennis)
3 / 4 Smoke rings launched by a South Korean army K200 Infantry Fighting Vehicle burst over a training ground where earlier this month South Korean and U.S. troops practiced working as a single force to assault an objective with ground troops supported by aircraft. The smoke helps hinder the enemy's view. The training ran July 30 through Aug. 4 at a training range near Pocheon and involved U.S. troops from Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, part of the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team. The brigade is on a nine-month rotational tour with the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division. Their Korean counterparts were from the 137th Mechanized Battalion, 16th Mechanized Brigade, 8th Infantry Division. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Christopher Dennis)
4 / 4 Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, guide the unloading of M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks from Korean railcars July 13 on US Army Garrison Humphreys. The effort to move 2nd Bn, 8th Cav. Reg., 1st ABCT, from Camp Stanley to USAG Humphreys required the assistance of Soldiers from four battalions, including the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st ABCT; the 91st Engineer Bn., 1st ABCT; and the 115th Brigade Support Bn., 1st ABCT (Photo Credit: Sgt. Christopher Dennis)
WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- After nine months as the second brigade to deploy to Korea as part of a rotational force, the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, out of Fort Hood, Texas, found they'd developed a stronger mindset regarding mission readiness -- something they brought home with them to Texas.
Col. John P. DiGiambattista served as the commander of 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team during its nine-month rotation into Korea last year, which lasted from February through the end of October.
The 1st ABCT, with about 4,200 Soldiers, was the second brigade to rotate into Korea to perform a mission focused on, among other things, supporting the Korean/American defense alliance, "making sure we are trained and ready, our equipment was ready to fight, and our Soldiers were prepared," DiGiambattista said.
"In the time I've been in the Army, it was one of the most complex missions I've had to deal with," DiGiambattista said. "Working from our mission to fight decisive action, or be prepared to fight tank-on-tank or infantry soldier-on-infantry soldier, but also, countering weapons of mass destruction as another task, and living and working right there in the Republic of Korea, living among the people.
The brigade's Bradleys had to share roads with civilian vehicles when the BCT went to train, DiGiambattista said. "So our Soldiers had to take some of the lessons we learned in recent conflicts about dealing with culture and people and apply those on our time in Korea."
IMPROVING READINESS
After they got home to Texas, he said, they brought that experience on the Korean Peninsula home with them -- improving their readiness stateside.
In Korea, the 1st ABCT focused on maintaining its equipment. "We had this 'fight tonight' mindset that really made sure that every night we went to sleep, I knew how many tanks could run and how many artillery pieces could fire," he said. His Soldiers also had that same situational awareness about their unit readiness, he said.
"We brought that back to Fort Hood, and we have been able to maintain our equipment at a higher level because of that experience in Korea," he said. "We are thinking in a different way about how do we make sure things stay working and stay functional."
Even more than equipment readiness, DiGiambattista said, Soldiers were professionally improved as well as a result of their deployment.
"We built squads, platoons, teams that were more proficient, just because of the amount of time they got to spend together and the number of exercises they were able to undertake," DiGiambattista said. "The end result is we developed professional depth, expertise in the formation, that as we come back and redeploy from Korea, we maintained in the brigade -- but also, those leaders that leave, those Soldiers that leave, have more experience."
The U.S. Army has been in Korea for more than 65 years now. The 2nd Infantry Division has been there for 50 years as a permanently stationed presence. But in 2015 its 1st BCT inactivated and the division ID began relying on a rotational BCT.
ROTATIONAL MODEL
The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division was the first unit to participate in the rotational model. It deployed to Korea in the summer of 2015 and served there for nine months.
In February 2016, they rotated out and were replaced by the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st ABCT, a sister unit, led by DiGiambattista.
When DiGiambattista's ABCT rotated out in October of last year, after having served its nine months, the unit was replaced by 1st ABCT, 1st Infantry Division. That ABCT has been in place now on the peninsula for about four months, and will be relieved this summer.
In advance of their Korea rotation, DiGiambattista's ABCT prepared with a rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California.
"In our normal train up, as we went to the National Training Center, we really focused on some skills the brigade would need, from Soldiers through myself, in Korea," he said. "Embedded in that, we did a counter-WMD event. The result of that was that the brigade had worked together to develop the skills, develop an ability to fight a counter-fire fight, and to coordinate our armored battalions together against an enemy."
Once in Korea, he said, his brigade conducted counter-WMD training, emergency readiness exercises, and focused also on development of power projection.
"One of the things we discovered in Korea: we hadn't put U.S. Army tanks on the Korean rail system in a long time," he said. "So on day No. 1, we had people out there with rulers measuring the tanks to make sure they were on those train cars properly. They weigh 70 tons. And it took us quite a while that day to work it out. But what we found is, the next day it moved much faster. And by the third day we were loading equipment, we moved just as fast as we do it anywhere else. And what that brought home to me is: if we don't practice deployment, if we don't practice moving our equipment through and around areas like Seoul or driving on the roads there, we don't perfect the skill."
Recognizing the threat of chemical weapons use from North Korea, DiGiambattista's brigade also practiced on its counter-WMD skills, as they had done at NTC.
"At the brigade level, once a week, we put on all of our equipment for a number of months while we were there," he said. "We also did exercises where we practiced being in that environment, practiced cleaning our vehicles, and then maintaining our chemical detection equipment -- all hazardous-material detection equipment."
NIGHT ALERTS
For some Soldiers, DiGiambattista said, there were also late nights -- surprise exercises to test their readiness to fight at a moment's notice.
"Sometimes we'd say get all of your equipment ready to alert + four hours," he said. "And that would be essentially making sure we could get our equipment on our vehicles."
One company, he said, got late-night orders as part of an emergency deployment readiness exercise.
"We called them at 2 in the morning," he said. "We said we want you to start walking at 0400 hours. You carry this much weight. You're going to go six miles. At the end you are going to shoot your weapons and we want to see how you qualify, how fast you can walk six miles."
He said the company was able to accomplish the six-mile walk faster than expected -- and that the Soldiers' weapons qualified at a higher rate than what was expected as well.
"To see those Soldiers out there, the company commander making a plan, planning routes, focused on it as a mission, and then able to meet the marks that we expected, was pretty neat," he said. "One of the other things we did was for our tank companies-- more focused on making sure all the systems worked -- we'd have them roll the tanks out about 5 kilometers, and then we would check their maintained status, again to make sure those things functioned, and then our Soldiers had the mentality -- understood what was required to respond if there was some kind of emergency."
The South Korean Army, DiGiambattista said, is highly trained and professional. He said just working with them was a benefit for his brigade.
"For some of our junior leaders who may have been recently deployed to other places, it was really eye-opening and refreshing to work with a professional force that was focused on their own security and driven by their needs," he said. "We did some phenomenal training with them."
Early on in their rotation, the brigade conducted a river crossing over the Imjin River, which crosses the demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea. The crossing gave the Americans an opportunity to learn from the Republic of Korea Army.
"For two days, we used U.S. boats and U.S. rafts to build that river crossing," he said. "But the last two days we had the [ROK Army] come in and we used their boats and their bridging equipment. It was a tremendous opportunity for us to understand how they approach the problem -- but also to put our tanks and Bradleys on their equipment on their bridge. And that built some tremendous trust and confidence."
That wasn't the only opportunity, he said, where American Soldiers were able to learn from their ROK counterparts.
"One of the ROK battalions in the [16th Mechanized Infantry Brigade] planned a week of training," he said. "They took one of our infantry companies and embedded it in their battalion training. That's the first time that we know of that happened: that instead of the U.S. leading training, the ROK Army led that training. And it was another great experience. They had some unique training facilities that we had access to because we were training with them, and really got to understand how they approach that fight. And those junior leaders learned a great deal."
Overall, DiGiambattista said, his brigade learned a lot in Korea -- and took a lot home.
"We called it 'moving to mastery,'" he said. "We got a lot more opportunities to exercise our craft. Whether that was working with the Korean army, the Korean local people, or local Korean government, practicing our decisive action missions, firing live weapons and training in Korea, or practicing even moving non-combatants out of the country. All of those things made us better at our job. And we built readiness, and sustained our proficiency while we were there."
Eighth Army ready to 'fight tonight' alongside Korean partners
By David VergunMay 31, 2017
1 / 3 Hide Caption – U.S. Soldiers and Marines wait on the Trident Pier in Pohang, South Korea, to offload tactical vehicles from a U.S. Army Landing Craft Utility 2020 ship during Operation Pacific Reach 2017, April 10. Service members from the Army, Navy and Marines came together to participate in the combined joint exercise that tested Logistics Over-the-Shore, inland waterway and Air Terminal Supply Point capabilities. (Photo Credit: Sgt. Quanesha Deloach) VIEW ORIGINAL
2 / 3 Hide Caption – Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal, commander, Eighth Army/chief of staff, Republic of Korea -- U.S. Combined Forces Command, speaks at The Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare-sponsored "Land Forces in the Pacific: Advancing Joint and Multi-National Integration," May 24, 2017, in Honolulu, Hawaii. (Photo Credit: David Vergun) VIEW ORIGINAL
3 / 3 Hide Caption – Eighth Army celebrates KATUSA Friendship Week 2017 with an Opening Ceremony at Yongsan Garrison, South Korea, April 17. During the ceremony, there were special performances from the Honor Guard and Special Force of the ROK. (Photo Credit: Pv2. Yang, Hyungyu) VIEW ORIGINAL
WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- Eighth Army is ready to fight tonight. It's also ready to fight tonight beside its Republic of Korea, or ROK brethren in a combined endeavor, said Lt. Gen. Thomas Vandal.
Vandal, commander, Eighth Army/chief of staff, Republic of Korea -- U.S. Combined Forces Command, spoke at the Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare-sponsored "Land Forces in the Pacific: Advancing Joint and Multi-National Integration," May 24.
COMBINED COMMANDS
The U.S.-ROK team is much more than just a combined training effort, Vandal said. Members of both armies are being integrated at the headquarters level.
Eighth Army's major subordinate command consists of the U.S. Army's only major combined fighting force, the 2nd Infantry Division/ROK-U.S. Combined Division, or RUCD, he said.
Vandal said he was in on the planning of that effort back in 2013, when he was the commander of 2nd Inf. Div., his previous assignment.
By 2015, the combined division was activated and today, "hand-picked, ROK officers, the best-of-the-best, are an integral part of the staff," he said. "Now, we're adding ROK staff non-commissioned officers as well."
Besides that integration, the combined division has built a close training relationship with the 8th ROK Inf. Div., a unit that they would fight alongside, should the "O plan" get executed, he said, meaning the wartime operations plan.
Other efforts to combine are also underway.
"Eighth Army is going to become a combined ground component command that will be established in 2018," Vandal said, noting that he will then become the deputy ground component commander, working for a ROK four-star.
While those integration efforts involve the headquarters staff, there is also an integration effort underway involving the Weapons of Mass Destruction Elimination Task Force, he said.
Here's how the WMD Elimination TF works, he said. As rotational brigade combat teams flow into theater, they will be operationally controlled by either the RUCD or by the 17th ROK Inf. Div. Elements from those BCTs will in turn form the WMD Elimination TF. This task force will be ROK-US integrated down to the battalion level and below, "providing the synergy of the best of both nations' armies."
The U.S. will provide the technology enablers and part of the maneuver forces for the WMD Elimination TF, he explained. The ROK contribution will be its maneuver forces, "particularly light infantry that are so beneficial to conducting these mission sets for WMD elimination."
LARGE-SCALE EXERCISES
"I would say our exercise [operations tempo] is the highest in the Army," Vandal said, "and the reason I say that is because we must be ready to fight tonight."
Two of the large exercises, he noted, are Key Resolve, held each March and Ulchi Freedom Guardian, or UFG, held each August. "They're probably the largest exercises in the U.S. Army."
Regarding UFG, it includes some 400,000 ROK government personnel all the way up to the cabinet level, plus the some 40,000 military participants, he said.
"It's a whole-of-government approach to their national security and they are all in," he said.
Besides those two exercises, there are numerous smaller ones, he added.
At a higher level than Eighth Army, Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, commander of United Nations Command, Combined Force Command and U.S. Forces Korea, is working to expand UN participation in exercises, Vandal said.
Of the 17 sending states which fought in the Korean War, "all participate and are committed to the UN Command," he said. "So we are looking at how to expand their participation in future exercises."
Last year during UFG, for example, the Canadians for the first time provided one of their divisions, he noted. If war were to break out, that division would be part of I Corps, but under the operational control of the 3rd ROK Army.
Vandal said that over the years, there's been an increase in units and sending state participation and that in the future, he expects there will be further increases.
MULTI-DOMAIN BATTLE
Multi-domain battle, or MDB, took up a large portion of LANPAC discussions.
The MDB concept encourages units to engage the enemy in all domains -- air, sea, land, cyber, space -- in the context of a joint, multinational combined effort, Brown explained.
"We are doing a lot of that already," Vandal said of MDB, providing three examples.
First, during this month's Warrior Strike, a counter-WMD exercise, the U.S. Army flew a WMD Elimination TF onto a ROK amphibious carrier. From there, the unit did an air assault onto a suspected WMD underground facility.
The exercise involved naval, ground and air components of the U.S. and ROK forces. "You can well imagine the complexity of doing something like that," he said, adding that the exercise was realistic and would be a top priority should a real situation unfold.
Second, there was a recent maritime counter special operations force exercise that integrated Apache helicopters from the 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade with the U.S. naval component from 7th Fleet, special forces and a ROK air component. That too was complex, he said.
Third, the ROK and U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps came together to test combined joint logistics over-the-shore, involving the use of rail, inland waterways and air terminal supply point capabilities. That exercise focused on sustaining the combined force, he said.
The exercise included bringing in a floating dock and establishing an expeditionary port so U.S. Army and Marine materiel could be brought in, he said.
"The piece that needs to be worked harder is the cyber and the space integration to make all five domains integrated. That's the way ahead," he added.
HUMPHREYS GETTING FAT
"Transformation of Eighth Army and arguably the transformation for the whole peninsula for U.S. Forces Korea is the most dramatic since 1953," the end of the fighting during the Korean War, Vandal said.
Not only are units combining, there is also a huge base consolidation going on, with the big recipient being U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys.
This consolidation isn't exactly new, he said. It's been going on for about 10 years and involves moving Soldiers, Army civilians, contractors and families from some 120 installations, most north of the Han River which runs through the capital of Seoul, and moving them into Camp Humphreys farther south.
Eighth Army and U.S. Forces Korea in Yongsan are included in that move, which costs $10.7 billion, 92 percent of which is being paid by the ROK government, he said.
"We've essentially tripled the size of Camp Humphreys," he said, and by 2020, the transfers should be complete with about 42,000 personnel on post.
Eighth Army is in the process of moving there now and its new should be stood up by July 13. U.S. Forces Korea and RUCD will be moved there by January 2018, he said.
Vandal called Camp Humphreys "the crown jewel of overseas assignments" for Soldiers and families, meaning good quality of life and excellent family housing and facilities like a post exchange and commissary. He added that it's "absolutely the best overseas installation I've seen and probably the largest."
A benefit of the move, he said, is force protection. With everyone in one place, it will be quicker to evacuate family members should the need occur.
Lastly, Vandal said that the expansion of Camp Humphreys is "a commitment to the alliance;" a fiscal commitment by the South Koreans and a military commitment by the U.S. to provide stability and security not just for Korea but for the entire region.
NURTURING THE ALLIANCE
For Soldiers of the Eighth Army, "the center of gravity in Korea is the alliance and each one of us has a responsibility, from private to general officer to help nurture that alliance," Vandal emphasized.
"We do it through combined training. We do it through relationship building. We do it through community interaction. So collectively, it helps us build a strong, healthy relationship," he continued.
That relationship is encapsulated in the Korean phrase that the U.S. Soldiers have adopted: "Kapshi Kapshida," he said, which means "Let's Go Together."
Lastly, Vandal spoke to his Soldiers: "You serve here with a sense of purpose. You see a threat. You look at it every single day. You are focused on that threat and because of that sense of purpose, you are very much focused on being ready to fight tonight, from the youngest private to every general officer."
The Union Cavalry Raid That Inspired James Mattis
Grierson's Raid became a template for Marine operations in Afghanistan
WIB historyWIB land August 10, 2017 Robert Beckhusen
Afghanistan21 Civil War5 James Mattis2
On April 17, 1863, a former music teacher with a fear of horses — he was kicked in the head by one as a child — set off with 1,700 Union soldiers, the scouts in Confederate uniforms, on a raid deep into Mississippi.
The raid by Col. Benjamin Grierson would amount to “the most spectacular cavalry adventure of the war,” American Civil War historian James McPherson later wrote.
More than 138 years later in October 2001, future defense secretary James Mattis was a brigadier general in command of Task Force 58, which comprised the 15th and 26th Marine Expeditionary Units along with the USS Bataan and Peleliu Amphibious Ready Groups.
Mattis was the first Marine commander of a U.S. Navy ARG — a shift in traditional American doctrine due to the particular nature of the mission.
Mattis was to invade southern Afghanistan, secure a forward operating base, seize the airfield at Kandahar and disrupt Taliban operations as U.S. special operations assisted the Northern Alliance’s push on Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat and elsewhere.
That the Marines would enter Afghanistan by air from the Arabian Sea — traveling across and over Pakistan along the way — was a shift from the way Marines traditionally fight by amphibious assaults onto enemy-held beaches, which would normally entail a Navy officer leading the operation.
An airmobile-capable Marine force working closely with ground forces in Afghanistan, and facing no threats from a coast, placed the Navy in a supporting role, and hence Mattis — not a naval officer — as the commander.
Mattis, perhaps the most famous U.S. military officer in recent decades and one of its most erudite, looked back at Grierson’s Raid as one model for Task Force 58’s mission, according to The Mattis Way of War: An Examination of Operational Art in Task Force 58 and 1st Marine Division by Marine Maj. Michael Valenti, a 2014 paper [.pdf] studying the general’s command style.
Other lessons Mattis drew on included British Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate’s raids into Japanese-occupied Burma during World War II. A curious anecdote is that Mattis intentionally relied on a lean staff — a lesson he took from a captured Iraqi major in the 1991-1992 Persian Gulf War, according to Valenti. The Iraqi army tended to favor small staffs.
Above — Marines with the 15th MEU in Southern Afghanistan on Nov. 25, 2001. At top — Grieron’s raiders enter Baton Rouge. Harper’s Weekly illustration
The Iraqi army had greater problems in 1991-1992, but small staffs can be a benefit to a commander who wants to act quickly with minimal bureaucratic meddling.
Mattis also understood that a small staff only works if subordinates are highly skilled — no slackers — and professional enough to be “entrusted with a wide degree of latitude in their planning and execution, and they possess the manpower and resources to plan effectively,” Valenti wrote.
Perhaps most importantly, Task Force 58 had clear, limited objectives, with the primary goal being to disrupt the Taliban in the south and keep it divided. Essentially, Mattis wanted to do to the Taliban what Grierson did to the Confederacy in Mississippi.
In practice, this meant airlifting several hundred Marines, setting up the U.S-led coalition’s first base in Afghanistan, Camp Rhino, and then raiding into Kandahar and seizing the city and its airfield — interdicting Taliban fighters when they presented themselves. Mattis’ “raid” was successful.
Grierson’s Raid, at right, supporting Grant at Vicksburg. Illustration via Wikimedia
Grierson’s Raid was quite different, but not radically so. In April 1863, the Union cavalry commander and his 1,700 men and horses raced into Mississippi as thousands of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s men slogged their way south alongside the western side of the Mississippi River toward the fortified, strategic city of Vicksburg.
The defending Confederate commander, Gen. John Pemberton, sent his cavalry and an infantry division to chase Grierson’s raiders but to no avail. For two weeks, the Union cavalry burned rail cars, freed slaves, tore up railroads and inflicted 600 Confederate casualties for 12 of their own.
By the time it was over, Grierson had linked up with Union forces in control of Baton Rouge, and Grant’s army had — with Pemberton distracted and his forces divided — successfully crossed the Mississippi. Grant later won several battles with the the disrupted Confederates, captured the state capital of Jackson and then laid siege to Vicksburg, which fell in July.
“The strategic consequences of Grierson’s foray were greater, perhaps, than those of any other cavalry raid of the war, for it played a vital role in Grant’s capture of Vicksburg,” McPherson wrote in Battle Cry of Freedom. Likewise, according to Valenti, “Grierson’s Raid influenced Mattis’s intent by giving him a mental model of what raid forces were capable of when inserted deep in the enemy rear.”
Both raids relied on relatively small numbers of troops to force the enemy into a dilemma. Uncharacteristically, Mattis even left behind his artillery — he relied on air support instead. But his goal was to move fast, efficiently and with a clearly-defined mission, like Grierson.
The U.S. Army’s New Doctrine Envisions a Big, Mechanized Land War
Ground combat branch adjusts to face Russia and China
WIB land October 6, 2017 Kris Osborn
The U.S. Army will release a new combat “FM 3.0 Operations” doctrine designed to better position the service for the prospect of large-scale, mechanized warfare against technologically advanced near-peer rivals — such as Russia or China — able to substantially challenge U.S. military technological superiority.
The new “Operations” doctrine, to be unveiled in a matter of days at the Association of the United States Army Annual Convention, is intended as a supplement or adjustment to the Army’s current “FM 3.0 Full Spectrum” Field Manual, a doctrine which first emerged more than several years ago.
Authors of the new doctrine explain that while many elements of the Army’s previous “Full Spectrum” doctrine are retained and updated, “FM 3.0 Full Spectrum” was written when the Russians had not attacked Ukraine, the Army was immersed in war in Afghanistan and the current tensions in the South China Sea had not yet emerged to the extent they do today, Col. Rich Creed, Combined Arms Director Ft. Leavenworth, told Scout Warrior.
“The Army needs to be prepared for large-scale combat operations against potential near-peer capabilities within a regional context,” Creed said. “The operational scenario is different now. We are retaining lessons and experiences from prior doctrine, but we need to address the tactics and procedures conducted by large-scale units to conduct land combat.”
“We update doctrine when the situation requires it.”
A soldier sits atop his Bradley fighting vehicle in South Korea. U.S. Army photo
Creed explained the new adjustments represent the natural evolution from the Army’s “Unified Land Operations” concept articulated in 2011-2012 as well as a Cold-War strategy known as “AirLand” battle designed to defend Western Europe using initial air attacks in tandem with conventional ground force assault.
“AirLand Battle was devised to address a specific threat large-scale land combat on the European continent — large forces and it was a bipolar world,” Creed said. “We live in a multi-polar world now. We may still be the lone superpower but there are other forces in the world that have improved significantly. We don’t have the luxury of focusing on one kind of threat or one kind of operation.”
AirLand Battle, not surprisingly, envisioned massive U.S. Army ground assaults across the Fulda Gap in Europe heavily supported by large-scale coordinated air power.
One senior U.S. Army official told Scout Warrior that the new “operations” doctrine was necessary given the extent to which potential adversaries have studied U.S. military techniques and technologies first used during Desert Storm in the early 1990s. “Desert Storm showed the world AirLand battle. We unleashed something they had envisioned or heard about. They have studied our military,” the senior official said.
Creed added that the new doctrine is indeed cognizant of both future and current threats to U.S. security, including North Korea, Iran, Russia and China.
While the emerging “operations” doctrine adaptation does recognize that insurgent and terrorist threats from groups of state and non-state actors will likely persist for decades into the future, the new manual focuses upon preparedness for a fast-developing high-tech combat environment against a major adversary.
Advanced adversaries with aircraft carriers, stealth aircraft, next-generation tanks, emerging hypersonic weapons, drones, long-range sensors and precision-targeting technology present the U.S. military with a need to adjust doctrine to properly respond to a fast-changing threat landscape.
U.S. Army soldiers wait for smoke before moving through a breach at Fort Irwin, California. U.S. Army photo
For instance, Russia and China both claim to be developing fifth-generation stealth fighters, electronic warfare and more evolved air defenses able to target aircraft on a wider range of frequencies at much farther distances. Long-range, precision-guided anti-ship missiles, such as the Chinese DF-21D, are able to target U.S. carriers at ranges up to 900 miles, presenting threat scenarios making it much harder for American warships to operate in certain areas and sufficiently project power.
When it comes to land combat, the new doctrine will accommodate the current recognition that the U.S. Army is no longer the only force to possess land-based, long-range precision weaponry.
While JDAMs and GPS-guided weapons fired from the air have existed since the Gulf War, land-based precision munitions such as the 155-millimeter GPS-guided Excalibur artillery round able to reach 30 kilometers emerged within the last 10 years. This weapon first entered service in 2007, however precision-guided land artillery is now something many potential adversaries now possess as well.
In addition, the Army’s Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System is a GPS-guided rocket with a range of up to 70 kilometers. The kind of long-range precision evidenced by GMLRS is yet another instance of U.S. weapons technology emerging in recent years that is now rivaled by similar weapons made by other nation-states. Drones, such as the Army’s Shadow or Gray Eagle, are also the kind of surveillance platforms many nations have tried to replicate, adding to a high-threat, high-tech global marketplace.
Given all this, the Army is now looking to harness new technologies for future platforms — all while emphasizing upgrades to major Army land war vehicles such as the Abrams tank, Stryker, Paladin and Bradley; for instance, many Army weapons developers explain that a series of high-tech upgrades to the Abrams tank make the platform superior to the emerging Russian T-14 Armata and the newest Chinese Type 99 main battle tanks.
The Army’s current doctrine, Field Manual 3.0, emphasizes what the service calls “full-spectrum” operations to include state and non-state threats. The manual addresses the importance of a “whole-of-government” approach aimed at counter-insurgency, combined arms and stability operations as well as anticipated future developments.
The existing doctrine is, among other things, grounded upon non-linear, asymmetrical warfare versus insurgents who deliberately blend in with civilian populations. And while incorporates a need to address modern threats such as “hybrid warfare,” much of the focus stops short of recognizing the extent to which other rival militaries are developing platforms and technologies comparable or superior to some U.S. weapons systems.
A U.S. Army tank crew member loads .50-caliber machine gun rounds. U.S. Army photo
Enemies such as Islamic State and state-sponsored groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah are equipped to fight with a blend of terrorist tactics and advanced weaponry such as sophisticated sensors, surveillance networks, and some precision munitions such as anti-tank guided missiles. This blended threat, requiring a mixture of both combined arms and counterinsurgency tactics, is the kind of scenario the Army has been preparing to confront.
The new manual also incorporates a fast-evolving Pentagon strategy referred to as “multi-domain” warfare. This focus includes accommodating the need to address fast-changing threats in the cyber, electronic warfare, precision weaponry, space, drones and C4ISR domains. Rapid developments in these areas underscores the importance of cross-domain connectivity and warfare, such as an ability of a sea-based F/A-18 Super Hornet to cue land-based artillery from tactically difficult distances.
“Space or cyber-enabled capabilities are not geographically bound but rather extend to an infinite amount of range. Commanders and staff need to be able to think about that when conducting operations,” Creed said.
Another example of multi-domain warfare includes the Army’s ongoing effort to test and prepare for maritime warfare scenarios such as using land-based rockets to attack and destroy enemy ships. The Army is currently working with the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office on upgrades to ATACM missile sensors to enable the weapon to successfully attack moving ships at sea.
This concept is especially important given that potential adversaries are becoming more adept at being able to disrupt U.S. military joint operations with jamming tactics, advanced sensors, cyber attacks and long-range precision weapons.
While naturally focused upon what would be needed in a massive, full-scale land war scenario — the new doctrine also explores contingencies, scenarios and strategies needed to assess circumstances short of armed combat, Creed explained.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...niger-desperately-called-for-help-sources-say
