Wargaming the New Army

(Part 2)

Michael K. Robel, LTC, AR, USAR

© 1999

 

 

Introduction

 

The Army is in the process of further refining its structure in the wake of the end of the Cold War and it triumph in Desert Storm.  Today its leaders see the need to quickly deploy a lethal force to a theatre in order to protect US interests abroad.  No one disputes that, if there is sufficient time, the current heavy force can do the job, but it is unlikely that a future enemy will wait six months to achieve his objectives while we deploy the army into theatre.

 

The army’s current rapid deployment force, the 82nd Airborne Division, while strategically mobile, is practically immobile on the ground, basically limited to the speed of a dismounted infantrymen, and much less lethal than an armor force of comparable size.  During the Gulf War, they called themselves “Speed Bumps” for all the good they would do defending against a mechanized assault across the desert sands of Saudi Arabia.

 

The nation’s other rapid deployment force, the US Marines, also have great strategic mobility, are much more mobile and lethal than the light infantry, primarily due to the air component of an MEU or MEB, and the innate support of its own Amphibious Assault Group, plus escorting surface action or carrier battle group.  However, when compared to an army heavy brigade, the MEB is still rather light.  Hence, during the Gulf War, the Army’s 2nd Brigade/2nd Armored Division was attached to the I MEF.

 

To address this gap, the Army’s chief of staff has directed that the Army develop and fill in the very near future a medium brigade, giving it a lethality and mobility in between that of the light infantry and the heavy force.  It will be formed at FT Lewis using the brigades that are stationed there from the 2nd and 25th Infantry Divisions.

 

While organization and equipment are still in flux, the brigade will be generally similar to current separate brigades in structure as shown in Figure 1.  It will have three motorized infantry battalions; carried in a “medium weight infantry fighting vehicle” which is someone’s new word for the Light Armored Vehicle the Marines use in their Light Armored Infantry Battalions.  Armed with the same 25mm gun that the Bradley fighting vehicle uses, it is a lethal, fairly well protected platform that can be carried beneath some helicopters and fit on a C-130.  It comes in many different versions as well, including an Anti-tank Vehicle, Air Defense Vehicle, Mortar, command and control, logistics, and recovery variants to name only a few.

 

Figure 1 The Proposed Medium Weight Infantry Brigade

 

This brigades likely mission would be the initial reinforcement of Army Airborne forces (capable of arriving in theatre within 48 hours or Marine Forces (5 to 7 days, depending on where their ships are located) and before the arrival of any Army prepositioned forces (around 14 days).  It would provide substantial combat power to these lighter forces, though it is not intended to slug it out with Main Battle Tank equipped forces.

 

Offensive Scenario Development

 

In order to evaluate the effectiveness of this organization, we used TACOPS 3.0.  TACOPS is one of the best commercial simulations around for modeling the modern military at the brigade level and below.

 

Two organizations were tested for this article, the standard M2/M1 Battalion Task Force (Figure 2) and the Medium Weight Infantry Battalion (Figure 3) in offensive and defensive scenarios.  The OPFOR in both cases was a BTR-80 based.  For the offensive scenarios, the enemy was a motorized rifle company reinforced with a T-80 tank platoon while the defenders battled a BTR-80 motorized rifle regiment.  The mission of the US force was to attack this company in a deliberate attack.

 

Figure 2 Medium Infantry Battalion

 

Figure 3 Mechanized Infantry Task Force

 

 

 

 

Figure 4 and 5 shows how these organizations compare with each other in terms of combat power.  The M2/M1 TF was selected as the base line, with a score of 100%.  The medium weight battalion has a much higher lethality value, due to:

 

·        Four platoon companies (3 Infantry, 1 Assault Gun)

·        More Javelins (45 versus 18 - 21)

·        More mortars (10 versus 4)

·        The AT Platoon (4 LAV-AT)

 

Significantly, had the Mech TF retained its current 4 company task organization, it would have had a significantly higher lethality level then the Medium Infantry Battalion.

 

Figure 4 Offensive Strength

 

 

 

 

Figure 5 Offensive Lethality

 

The attack was conducted as shown in Figure 6.  The main attack, with two companies, is in the south, while the northern force conducts a supporting attack to seize a support by fire position while the lead company in the south seizes OBJ 1.  The trailing southern company passes through it and takes OBJ 2, and the process is repeated for OBJ 3.  Once OBJ 3 is seized, either the northern company can seize OBJ 4 or the company on OBJ 3 can do so.

 

 

 

Figure 6 Plan of Attack

 

In both cases, the US force successfully attacked and destroyed the enemy unit in less than an hour.  Over the course of the test, losses varied considerably primarily because we had to learn how to fight the medium battalion as compared to the heavy task force.  Figure 4 and 5 above shows typical end strength of each unit as compared to its start strength.  They both lost about 10% of their strength, leaving them in pretty good shape for the next mission.

 

The conventional M2/M1 TF reduced the enemy strength much more quickly initially, but needed a little longer to dig the OPFOR out of their holes.  While the Medium Battalion took longer to wear the enemy down, because of their greater infantry strength, they cleared the objective more quickly.  Both battalions finished at about the same percent strength (87 for the medium versus 93 for the Mech) but Medium Battalion had more combat power left at the end of the mission.  Nevertheless, both units could have been assigned another mission.

 

Defensive Scenario Development

 

To evaluate the defensive strength of the organization, the M2/M1 battalion Task Force was compared to the Medium Weight Infantry Battalion as they each defended against the deliberate attack of a BTR equipped motorized infantry Brigade.  The US defensive plan is shown in Figure 7.

 

 

Figure 7 Motorized Battalion Defensive Plan

 

Again, the general pattern of the two scenarios was about the same.  The US force won in about an hour.  However, the results might be a bit deceptive.  The medium battalion seems to have done much better than the mech battalion, ending at 59% strength versus 48% strength.  (Figure 8 & 9)  This is due to the fact that I shifted the northern tank team just as the Regimental AT battery uncovered in the woods (shown by the black ellipse).  Up to that point, the tank platoon circled in blue had killed almost all of the first echelon battalion in the north and was doing a good job chewing up the second echelon, as shown in Figure 10.  It just goes to show that the Regimental AT battery can ruin your day.

Figure 8

 

Figure 9

 

While the enemy penetrated the mech defense further than the medium version, at no time was the US sector in danger of being penetrated through the rear boundary.  Critical to success of the medium battalion was the use of its 10 mortars to smoke the enemy and separate his echelons so the enemy could be dealt with in penny-packets instead of all at once.  Because of the long-range fires of the M1’s, this was not quite so necessary with the Mech TF.

 

While the first echelon was destroyed pretty handily, neither organization was well suited to deal with the follow on attack by the BMP and Tank Regiment of the OPFOR division.

 

 

 

Figure 10 MECH TF Defense

Figure 11 End State (MECH TF)

 

 

Lessons Learned

 

As expected, principles for a lightly armored wheeled force are the same as for a heavier tracked force, but their employment is different.  Lessons learned included: