USMC restructuring - a vindication of UK Strike?

[J. Tattersall]

Headlines of the USMC's 2030 plan have largely focused on it losing its MBTs.

https://news.usni.org/2020/03/23/new-ma ... ral-forces

But while very different in scale and starting point from the UK, its emphasis on being lighter/operational mobility, precision deep strike, advanced force etc. does seem to be conceptually very similar to both British Army modernisation (incl Strike brigades, information manoeuvre, more flexible C2, forward presence, unmanned capabilities etc.) and the RN/ RM's littoral strike concept/ Future Commando Force.

It will be interesting to compare US and UK land force plans for around 2030-35, e.g. will heavy armour close combat become a niche specialist capability?

[Lord Jim]

I believe that is going to be something to watch out for in the ongoing review, with its emphasis on out of the box thinking. The Army may have to sacrifice its heavy formations to get additional medium units and capabilities deemed more relevant in future. It can be argued that in a NATO context there are other nations better suited and more willing to fulfilling the "Heavy" role, and we would be better concentrating else where rather than trying to retain a token "Heavy" force in the grand scheme of things. So looking at joining up our high readiness "Light" formations with the planned new "Medium" formations may be the way forward in the eyes of some in Government, in particular the Cabinet Office.

[dmereifield]

I believe that is going to be something to watch out for in the ongoing review, with its emphasis on out of the box thinking. The Army may have to sacrifice its heavy formations to get additional medium units and capabilities deemed more relevant in future. It can be argued that in a NATO context there are other nations better suited and more willing to fulfilling the "Heavy" role, and we would be better concentrating else where rather than trying to retain a token "Heavy" force in the grand scheme of things. So looking at joining up our high readiness "Light" formations with the planned new "Medium" formations may be the way forward in the eyes of some in Government, in particular the Cabinet Office.

Cant see it happening anytime soon. The tanks are totemic, Boris and this Government aren't going to want all the bad publicity associated with that

[ArmChairCivvy]

What struck me in the new force structure is that there will be 3 bde+ equivalents for the customary global interventions/ early entry and the same number (here I am guessing about the intended manpower in each) for littoral warfare
- as everything in America is bigger, that probably does not translate to the dictionary '100 km zone' but rather enclosed parts of major oceans... the SCS would count as one, where the effort would amount to sea denial so as to leave the main, blue water forces to do the job, as defined in the doctrine "From Sea". Haven't seen any mentions of the Dept of Navy planning to revise that one

[abc123]

USMC restructuring - a vindication of UK Strike?

Nope. Just the same blunder in both countries. Fighting previous wars.

[Jake1992]

USMC restructuring - a vindication of UK Strike?

Nope. Just the same blunder in both countries. Fighting previous wars.

In what way and what sort of threat should they be setting up for going forward in you option ?

[mr.fred]

I believe that is going to be something to watch out for in the ongoing review, with its emphasis on out of the box thinking. The Army may have to sacrifice its heavy formations to get additional medium units and capabilities deemed more relevant in future.

If you sacrifice your heavy* units then the only thing you can guarantee about a future conflict is that you won’t be able to use them. You’ll be forced into doing whatever it is that actually needs doing with whatever you have focussed on. Given the propensity of Strike advocates to depend on the cooperation of the enemy for their concepts to work, it doesn’t fill me with confidence.

* true, relatively speaking, but a loaded term

[abc123]

I believe that is going to be something to watch out for in the ongoing review, with its emphasis on out of the box thinking. The Army may have to sacrifice its heavy formations to get additional medium units and capabilities deemed more relevant in future.

If you sacrifice your heavy* units then the only thing you can guarantee about a future conflict is that you won’t be able to use them. You’ll be forced into doing whatever it is that actually needs doing with whatever you have focussed on. Given the propensity of Strike advocates to depend on the cooperation of the enemy for their concepts to work, it doesn’t fill me with confidence.

* true, relatively speaking, but a loaded term

This.

[ArmChairCivvy]

* true, relatively speaking, but a loaded term

Talking about heavy units, well we don't have any

What we call 'heavy' bears a cunning similarity in their makeup to the German light divisions at the start of WW2; here's the 2nd, in way of an example:
- was designed to provide mobility and some armoured protection to its forces,
- was composed of the 6th and 7th Mechanized Cavalry Regiments,
- the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment, and
- the 66th Panzer Battalion.
These were supported by the 78th Artillery Regiment, the 58th Engineer Battalion and the 42nd Anti-tank Battalion

The campaign already showed that these were so not-heavy that they were immediately thereafter converted to actual heavy (Pz) divisions; the special case of the 5th re-emerged later as it was gobbled together in haste, to be sent into special circumstances

Verdict:
- lack sufficient infantry and supporting artillery to take or hold ground
- have too few armored vehicles to manoeuver effectively under direct (and other) fire, and
- are too large to be useful as recon formations
=> us going from our 3 to 2+2 will provide more flexibility in how to field our brigades, but for 'heavy' one would need to do a quick comparison with US heavy bdes (or what the newly reconstituted Russian divisions field, to be capable of manoeuvre warfare... that was what the Defence Committee 'ordered' in our most recent review; though just one such

[Tempest414]

The big thing there is the USMC may be thinking of lettings its MBT's go but the US Army is not the UK needs to keep MBT's and should have a base line of 250 in service

[ArmChairCivvy]

Quite.

USMC tanks are the original M1s and they have kept them much lighter than what the army currently has
... helps with getting them over the shoreline

Lots of upgrades. but different: leaning towards infantry support, not tank-to-tank 1st kill matches

[mr.fred]

Talking about heavy units, well we don't have any

If you’re going to dive headlong to semantics, perhaps.

‘Heavy’ is relative. Our armoured formations are heavy relative to strike, at least for the minority* of vehicles.
The use of the term “heavy” is used by the advocates of Strike as a pejorative. Implying slow, costly, cumbersome and ineffective compared to the agile, logistics-light “medium”. Medium is also taken to imply combat power approaching that of heavy formations with the logistics requirements of a light. In reality, it’s probably closer to being the reverse.

* The MBTs and SP artillery. But since the Strike brigade has no analogue for either you might end up comparing Boxer to Warrior as the mainstay of both formations, and Boxer is heavier.

[Lord Jim]

Ok so for the sake of it, how fast could we move a full Armoured Infantry Brigade to reinforce the Baltics if Russia did a come with what you have got offensive? A lot of thinking now is that at most the warning period would be a week? Are the Baltics undefendable and simple an Article 5 "Trip wire".

Russia's evolving doctrine seems to be based around a period of asymmetric operations followed by a very high intensity short offensive by units already in place, followed by digging in and moving back to asymmetric means. Having NATO Armoured formations in Poland might be of use but by any stretch of the imagination we will only get there after the party has ended.

So what about other scenarios. Well other nations have learned that you do not take on western forces head on unless you have the means to do so, and are far more prepared to play the long game. How relevant in such operations would our Armoured units be? Given finite resources, what is better, a properly organised equipped "Strike" Brigade, or our Armoured Infantry Brigade even after upgrades to Warrior and Challenger 2. Which is ore relevant to Britain's aim of being able to operate on the global stage as well as support NATO? Sure if the funding goes up we can have our cake and eat it, but as has been mentioned on here and also form other bodies, we are going to have to make some hard choices regarding defence. The Army is already hollowed out and simple re equipping it units as currently planned is going to do little to make it actually fit for any purpose than be good for the PR posters, if a major conflict beyond one involving COIN operations.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Labels are irrelevant (useful for discussion though, like on forums) and capability is what matters. So as for "Strike" in isolation, the verdict stands... which is not to say that they would not improve our force mix.

Questions, in the same order as the quoted bullet points

- lack sufficient infantry and supporting artillery to take or hold ground
- have too few armored vehicles to manoeuver effectively under direct (and other) fire, and
- are too large to be useful as recon formations
=> us going from our 3 to 2+2 will provide more flexibility in how to field our brigades

Once the agility has been taken advantage of, and we "have arrived", where does the infantry/ artillery come from; what is the opposite of taking and holding ground (except in desert warfare; more akin to naval warfare)?

While violently manouvering, what about the ability to do that under heavy direct fire?

Recce always needs to be done (and the formations doing it have to have enough fighting power not just to establish contact, but also to maintain it), but it has nowhere been said that our new brigades - that some want to be our sole contribution - are just a recce force.

[abc123]

I will just point one thing- maybe relevant here, maybe not, but: One of key Russian learned lessons from Syria is: "Tanks are still kings of the battlefield." Now, I'm not saying that the USMC should have as much of them like US Army has, but to abolish them totally? Sheer madness. Same thing with majority of other proposed changes.

https://www.armyrecognition.com/analysi ... n_war.html

https://www.armyrecognition.com/analysi ... art_2.html

[mr.fred]

Well other nations have learned that you do not take on western forces head on unless you have the means to do so, and are far more prepared to play the long game. How relevant in such operations would our Armoured units be?

But if the western forces do not have armoured units and hypothetical adversaries do, would they still play the long game? In the face of enemy armour, how relevant is a lightly protected, lightly armed force?

Ok so for the sake of it, how fast could we move a full Armoured Infantry Brigade to reinforce the Baltics if Russia did a come with what you have got offensive? A lot of thinking now is that at most the warning period would be a week? Are the Baltics undefendable and simple an Article 5 "Trip wire".

With or without logistics in place? By sea, probably about the same speed? Will a mech inf formation be able to do anything if they do arrive faster?

[Lord Jim]

But if the western forces do not have armoured units and hypothetical adversaries do, would they still play the long game? In the face of enemy armour, how relevant is a lightly protected, lightly armed force?

Within NATO there are already nations that have substantial armoured forces and are both updating and expanding them. "Medium" formations have proven very effective so far in recent conflicts. Within NATO the UK being able to deploy highly mobile formation with high level s of firepower quickly, and that can compliment the heavier units of our allies makes sense. But to be effective the current "Strike" concept is flawed both in its organisation and equipment make up and will require substantial investment to make it fit for purpose.

Scenarios like GW1 and GW2 are very unlikely in any future peer conflict. In Europe transportation by sea would only go so far with most having to be done by road. We are not going to send the Points into the Baltic or to northern Norway for example and I doubt there would be sufficient notice to try before things kicked off. If we did manage it by the opponent could dial things back below Article 5 and we have spent a fortune moving units only to have to bring them back. Would we be as keen to do the same again when things appear to be ramping up? Yes the same issue affects "Strike" but the costs are far less.

If we look to out of area then what the USMC is doing is even more relevant to how the British Army needs to reorganise. Here the Army not only needs to properly equip and organise "Strike", but also 16 Air Assault to make that formation also fit for purpose. But to do so means that we cannot afford to also properly re equip out Armoured Infantry formations, even if the powers that be decided that they shared equal priority with the former two.

Cancelling both the WCSP and CLIP and retaining the two Armoured Infantry Brigades until the two "Strike" stand to, then convert one to a third "Strike" Brigade which together with 16 Air Assault would make up a re configured 3rd (UK) Division) maybe the way forward. The sticking point is Ajax which unfortunately has little or no role in this either. How much it would cost us to cancel the £3.5Bn Ajax production contract I do not know but there would like be some savings.

The alternative is to cancel Boxer and retain all three armoured Infantry Brigades, properly re equipment with Warrior CSP, Challenger LIP, Ajax, new Artillery and support vehicles. Problem is this basically ties us to operations in the European theatre and take global operation off the table except for a weakened 3 Commando Brigade.

So we either do one or the other. If we stick to the current path we have few if any formations fit for purpose and their use would be borderline criminal as the troops would not be organised or equipped to fight or survive effectively.

Rant over.

[whitelancer]

The USMC is a small part of the Armed Forces of the USA, with a specific purpose, even though they have more manpower than the combined strength of all three UK services. While the changes that have been announced are interesting and worth examining, I cant see the particular relevance to the organisation of the British Army. If they get rid of their MBTs the US Army will still have thousands.
Tuning to a Medium Force the idea of course is to combine the advantages of a light force with those of a heavy force while minimising the disadvantages, basically combining high levels of firepower and protection while achieving high levels of mobility with minimum levels of logistic support. The question is do the Strike brigades achieve this with their current configuration, with Boxer and Ajax? Frankly no. Even with the changes suggested by Lord Jim or any others I can think of I just don't think they will achieve what they need to. To break it down, their firepower is totally inadequate without considerable investment, while protection levels are good are they good enough? Compared to a light armoured force are they that much better to make much of a difference. In COIN operations or against a poorly equipped opponent the answer is probably yes but against a near peer or peer opponent I have my doubts. Strategic mobility is no better than the Armoured Infantry Brigades, we are not going to be moving a Strike Brigade by air for instance. Operational mobility is a plus compared to a heavy force and a minus compared to a light one, at the tactical level its complicated, the size and weight of Ajax and Boxer are disadvantages though their level of protection is a plus when it comes to manoeuvring on the battlefield. As far as logistics are concerned I cant see it being much better than the AI brigade.
Frankly I don't think the Strike Brigade is the answer however it is configured or equipped.

[Lord Jim]

Whether you choose "Heavy", "Medium" or "Light" the key is what you intend to do with it. Whitelancer made many points but I disagree with his assertions that there would be little difference in the strategic mobility and logistics burden between "Heavy" and "Medium" formations. These are both linked and are inseparable, A "Strike" Brigade would have are far leaner support logistics tail compared to a heavy formation. For example you will need to transport a large number of HETs and METS with a "Heavy formation to move the formation assets from any port to near the front line, a "Strike formation can do so under its own power. Also wheeled platforms require far less maintenance than those that are tracked, there fore such a force would not need so many spares and vehicle to carry them or the additional personnel to carry out the work.

As t the combat value of a reconfigured "Strike" Brigade, I am not advocating that it would go head to head with a superior Armoured force by itself. In a NATO context, its ability to self deploy rapidly would allow the UK to dispatch farce to compliment the heavier formations of our allies. It ability to manoeuvre rapidly to exploit any weakness identified by ISTAR assets and avoid head to head slogging matches whilst using its considerable fire power to engage armour from the flanks, and also react to enemy penetration are roles well suited to a "Strike" formation.

In a global context, against non peer opposition such as the invasion of Iraq, all the benefit listed above are relevant, plus you would need less shipping to ship a "Strike" Brigade because of these. A "Strike" Brigade can conduct offensive operations and is far better suited to holding territory than and Armoured Infantry Brigade, especially considering how weak ours currently are in infantry. The Reconfigured , .Brigade would be capable of forming all arms combat groups down to platoon level if required, and these would be able to operate over a broad area, ideal for operations such as those under way in Mali.

The Argument that the USMC can do without MBTs because the US Army has hundreds is not relevant here. IF we want to operate on a global scale our ground forces need to have a good expeditionary capability, and be able to deploy rapidly, neither of which an AI Brigade can do. In reality both the Army and Royal Marines will need to operate on land far more like the USMC that the US Army in the expeditionary context.

But to do this will require, as I have repeatedly stated, serious investment and a major reorganisation of the British Army, with it giving away traditional capabilities to gain new and expand some existing ones. The current plans for the Army are half hearted if I am generous and still try to retain a bit of everything. The up coming review, if it decides on a global role for the UK must be willing to make bold decisions. If the USMC can do so, even giving up some fo its large amphibious shipping for smaller platforms then surely the MoD can have a hard look at what they actually need to meet out future role.

[ArmChairCivvy]

Strategic mobility is no better than the Armoured Infantry Brigades, we are not going to be moving a Strike Brigade by air for instance. Operational mobility is a plus compared to a heavy force and a minus compared to a light one, at the tactical level its complicated

I agree with LJ as per below: many good points but the conclusion hazy

Whitelancer made many points but I disagree with his assertions that there would be little difference in the strategic mobility and logistics burden between "Heavy" and "Medium" formations.

So to continue for the point made, what was missing is the intra-theatre advantage when comparing the "value in use" of the two types of formations... which is driving towards the original assertation that 2+2 is better than 3 of only one kind.

And then there is the additional point, well made below:

IF we want to operate on a global scale our ground forces need to have a good expeditionary capability, and be able to deploy rapidly, neither of which an AI Brigade can do.

[mr.fred]

IF we want to operate on a global scale our ground forces need to have a good expeditionary capability, and be able to deploy rapidly, neither of which an AI Brigade can do.

Neither can a strike brigade.

[Tempest414]

Strike brigades are all very good but they lack punch some of this can be over come by air support by AH-64's however they need to come and go from the battle field and what the AAC found in a EX last year is even with IFF it was hard to pick out enemy units on a fast moving battle field in the forests of Europe . for me we need to think about what is in the box and how to use it out of the box but we should not give up our MBT's

[Jake1992]

The problems I see with strike brigade at the moment are 2 fold.
1 - adding Ajax to give both the Reece and fire support elements defeats the whole point of strikes mobility.
2 - the variants of boxer being chosen currently do not cover everything that is needed.

If strike became solely wheeled based mainly around boxer with all the variants needed then they could become a very useful force, but what variants are needed to make this happen is a large list IMO from things like bridging to 120mm direct fire to brimstone over watch down to the standard Reece and IFVs.

If we could get the variants mentioned above in numbers would it be a good enough reason to strap the MBTs ?
I do believe in a UK context the MBTs should be kept but the only real way for this to happen and no half ass everything is more money.


Now only the USMC front with them looking to drop heavy armour and move to a more fast moving focused force what equipment are they looking at for this ?
Their new ACV being wheeled fits in with this more but the Strykers are starting to really show their age and limitations so are they looking at replacements here ?

[whitelancer]

Neither can a strike brigade

Thanks mr fred, In my clumsy way that was the point I was trying to make. As a Strick brigade can't realistically be moved and supplied by air, not by the RAF at least, that means going by sea just like the AI brigade. As the Strick Brigades have an extra major combat unit compared to the AI brigade I cant see the shipping requirement being massively different, perhaps an extra 1 or 2 Ro-Ro ships for the AI Brigade. I just don't think it makes that much of a difference. If the Strike Brigade was all wheeled and was based on a vehicle in the 20 to 25 ton range that would be different but that's not the plan.
So how is a Strike Brigade going to be deployed rapidly?
Oh and their also the problem of readiness. If the Strike brigades are held at the same readiness as the AI brigades are currently, (30 days NTM I believe for the lead Armoured Battle Group) they aint going to be going anywhere very quickly!

[Lord Jim]

Given I believe that the current "Strike" Brigade concept is fundamentally flawed I should have clearly stated that all my comments are based on the version of the Brigade I proposed in an different thread. Medium style formation only work if they combine mobility and firepower, something the Army has not got its head around. It seems to be looking at the Boxer mounted Infantry Battalions as more Motorised infantry rather than Mechanised, in which case we might as well keep them mounted in Mastiffs. We all agree that mixing Ajax and Boxer makes the Brigades totally unfit for purpose but the Army is desperate to find a role for is shiny new toys as it is buying too many and their original role is all but defunct in their eyes. I will do a piece in the "Future form of the Army", thread with what I believe a 2+2 organisation should look like though it will require substantial investment, but then again the Army is basically going to have to replace or modernising every AFV it has on the books.