Recent pictures of webs of fiber-optic cables draped on tree limbs on the front lines in Ukraine—cables from expended one-way attack drones—are reminiscent of the mounds of expended artillery casings in World War I. Both images of the detritus of war, separated by more than a century, are stark reminders of the continuous effort by belligerents to gain an upper hand through technology, tactics, and attrition. In the near future, the US Army could be called upon to project combat power into an operational environment defined by the current array of threats with little notice. In such a scenario, every logistical action to move brigade combat teams into position would be under threat, with moves constrained by limited sea and air assets. Every modal move counts in order to deliver the most credible combat formation and critical logistics to the conflict area. And once these brigades arrive they will face a myriad of enemy threats including robotics, rockets, and missiles, all designed to cheaply counter the US brigade combat team construct. The United States cannot enter a war of attrition—certainly not on these terms. Formations need to be agile and efficient to fight and exploit success in the opening engagements of a war all while relying on limited logistical resources. For the Army, there is a solution: reorganizing some of its armored brigade combat teams into enhanced brigade combat teams.

The current Army brigade combat team (BCT) designs (infantry, armor, and Stryker) vary in their ability to rapidly deploy to a combat zone and then survive. Their strengths and weaknesses are not balanced within the formation, but normally require task organization and teaming to meet mission requirements. Infantry and Stryker brigade combat teams (IBCTs and SBCTs) both have significant numbers of infantry, and both lack organic armor support. The M10 Booker mobile protected firepower platform is an attempt to improve IBCT lethality. However, an M10 is not a tank and units equipped with them are not organic to IBCTs. The reverse is true for armored brigade combat teams (ABCTs): They present large signatures, require significant logistics, and need more infantry.

The Army’s transformation in contact initiative is attempting to address evolving threats. It aims to drive change in IBCT design, and that is evident in the light and medium brigade combat team concepts. However, these types of brigades remain purely light infantry, equipped with Infantry Squad Vehicles (ISVs). The Army needs to consider a more ambitious approach at enhancing combined arms capability within the BCT design. BCTs must be optimized to quickly deploy with the appropriate infantry and armor to provide credible deterrence and on-order combat operations. Future brigades must be able to disperse and survive while conditions are set by division and joint forces and then transition into decisive operations. To do this, they must be enhanced with drones, missiles, infantry, and the appropriate level of armor to deal a decisive blow. The Army needs an enhanced brigade combat team.

In a resource-constrained environment and with the US military focusing on deterring China, the ABCT is a prime formation for adaptation to meet current and future threats. The ABCT was designed as the premiere ground-combat element in the European theater, but lessons from the war in Ukraine have shown that the armor force must change to maintain relevance and survivability. The M1 Abrams main battle tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles provided to Ukraine have shown their individual effectiveness, but the once dominant mass of their formation and employment has shown a concerning weakness. ABCTs rely on protection from US airpower and limited enemy surveillance to operate under their doctrinal template. These conditions are no longer guaranteed. The armor force is not irrelevant, but the formation and tactics must adapt to survive.

Leveling the Playing Field

Two primary battlefield adaptions demand a relook on how ABCTs are task organized: robotics and antitank missiles. Although not new, the proliferation and evolving use of these systems have given dismounted infantry—and both state and nonstate actors that cannot field and maintain an armored force—a degree of parity with militaries like that of the United States that field advanced armored capability. The relatively low cost of missiles and drones will ensure their continued presence on the battlefield. These systems, paired with ever-improving sensors and software technology. will only increase overall lethality. Antitank missiles like the US-produced Javelin and the UK-made NLAW showed their effectiveness in the opening months of the Ukrainian war and continue to prove their lethality.

US-provided armored vehicles have fared better than their Russian counterparts, but there is little doubt that missiles will continue to evolve with a primary focus on US vehicle defeat. Infantry entrenched in restrictive terrain, from a reinforced tree line overwatching a field in Europe to a high-rise in a city like Taipei, can tie down an armor force with devasting effect. Antitank threats are not new, but when layered and complemented by drones (ground or air) they create a formidable threat to any mounted formation. A deliberate, combined arms approach is key to fight through these threats.

Small drones—including first-person view quadcopters and one-way attack drones—account for most of the battle damage in Ukraine. Their range has extended the depth and breadth of battlefield observation and attack capability. Drones operate as another form of maneuver that transcends both the air and ground domain. An ABCT cannot risk gathering in tactical assembly areas due to the threat from one-way attack drones or artillery cued by reconnaissance drones. Likewise, the logistics tail that an ABCT requires must disperse and hide to survive. Counter-UAS and antitank protection systems continue to evolve to defeat the threat, but can they compete with the mass and cheapness of the attacking systems? These limited and expensive protection platforms and any electronic signals they emit will likely be at the top of the enemy target list. Russia and Ukraine have both set and met impressive drone production goals of over a million systems a year. Simply overwhelming protection systems is feasible and cost effective.

Primed for Adaptation

The current ABCT is not task organized or equipped to optimally fight on the modern battlefield. Consider the cavalry squadron within the brigade, the range and tempo of which is extremely limited by its fuel requirements. Consisting of Abrams, Bradleys, and supporting fuelers, these formations would be overt targets as they conduct reconnaissance and security missions and subsequent resupply along the forward line of troops. How would attacking US ABCTs have fared during the approach march to Baghdad in 2003 if the Iraqis were equipped with today’s drones and antitank systems? The ABCT must change—and the EBCT is the natural progression.

A reorganization built around existing platforms (Abrams, Bradleys, Bookers, and ISVs), paired with emergent technologies and trained to leverage joint force and division kill webs, would be powerful. Utilizing existing platforms would ensure the Army does not have to divest in order to invest in evolving formations. The EBCT provides US decision-makers with a more flexible, deployable, and survivable force that can counter a wider array of enemy capabilities.

The EBCT is designed around the current four-battalion set. Starting with reconnaissance and security (R&S) tasks the EBCT would utilize an ISV-equipped squadron with two human-machine integration troops and two traditional scout troops. This squadron provides the brigade commander with an organic all-weather R&S capability. As an ISV-equipped formation, it can maintain tempo, disperse, sustain, and hide as required. A small R&S squadron could be transported on a few military cargo aircraft to expand a lodgment for the inbound brigade main body. Forward arrayed with a complement of air and ground robots, the formation could shape and sense as the rest of the brigade either prepares to deploy or remains obscured and concealed until conditions are set for offensive operations.

The two infantry battalions would be equipped with ISVs, Bradleys, Abrams, and Bookers to provide them with the right of amount of infantry and armor to fight in various forms of restrictive terrain. Like the R&S squadron, each infantry battalion would have robots to sense and vehicles to ensure it can rapidly disperse and mass based on conditions. The battalion’s armor company consists of a mix of Bradley, Abrams, and Booker vehicles that can reinforce attacking infantry, defend against armor, or go on the offensive when conditions are set. With only one mechanized company, the fuel requirement would be significantly less than the traditional combined arms battalion.

The heavy battalion would serve in the more traditional role of a combined arms battalion and maintain most of the armored vehicles. This battalion could be used for reinforcement, as a mobile strike force, or for exploitation when conditions are set. Due to its size and logistical requirements it must remain dispersed far behind the forward line of troops and mass and attack as the rest of the brigade sets conditions. It would also be equipped with one human-machine integration company to provide local situational awareness in the defense and scout ahead during the attack. Finally, the heavy battalion would have one mechanized infantry company to ensure it can fight in a true combined arms manner. This battalion would be the decisive force of the EBCT.

The subordinate battalions of an EBCT would have the same indirect fire capabilities that exist in the ABCT’s like battalions today—infantry battalions with towed 120-millimeter mortars and heavy battalions with M113 mortar carries. By getting the mix right—retaining certain key capabilities while reconfiguring the overall task organization to meet the challenges of today’s battlefield—these subordinate battalions would give the EBCT both capability and flexibility. Crucially, Army divisions arranged in EBCT sets would not have to task organize because the teams are already set for initial engagements.

Right-Sized Combat Power

Adjusting the task organization of ABCTs would acknowledge the reality of how much force can be deployed in a contested logistics scenario. It is unlikely that any peer or near-peer adversary would allow the United States to build combat power as it did in the Gulf War or Operation Iraqi Freedom. The next fight, even if combat is restricted to a single theater, will require global logistics reach and the uncontested deployment of multiple ABCTs over months is unrealistic. Designing BCTs that have a lighter organic combined arms capability and are more deployable will save time and lives during conflict. More than ever, a creditable combat formation that can win the first fight is the best way to maintain or reestablish deterrence. Additionally, a redesign reduces the overall sustainment tail and logistics requirements for opening movements. This also translates into potentially more space and available capability in the Army Prepositioned Stocks program. The EBCT would have fewer armored vehicles—roughly two-third less than an ABCT— but overall more combat potential when the advantages of more infantry, drones, and missiles and a dedicated R&S force are weighed. A smaller number of vehicles reduces strategic lift requirements during a time of crisis. Building and training an EBCT before crisis buys down the risk of building a combat team or task force across multiple brigades and divisions on the fly. Organic command teams that have trained together and understand the strengths and weaknesses of the formation will better leverage the organization’s combat potential. Finally, as the Army fields new armored vehicles in the future, these can replace the M1 and M2, continuing to reduce overall weight with modernization.

The physical mass and signature of an ABCT are a disadvantage in the current threat environment. Reducing the overall size but integrating new technology not only shrinks this disadvantage but enhances capability. Theoretically, fewer armored vehicles will reduce operating costs for the Army. Sheer mass will not be the key factor on the battlefield of tomorrow that it was expected to be on that of yesterday, at least not initially in an engagement. Instead it will be the lethality of an agile combined arms force leveraging, and contributing to, the convergence of capabilities from across the joint force. Using the Pacific theater as an example, the terrain does not allow for an ABCT to spread out to avoid threats. The EBCT concept overcomes that challenge.

The Army need not convert all ABCTs—and in fact should not. But it should convert enough to support the expansion of a joint force lodgment at the start of offensive operations. Pure ABCTs could be used for follow-on forces or task organized as later missions require, and can be deployed once the joint force and land component headquarters have set conditions for success.

Big Enough to Fail

As the Army takes a hard look at the evolving threats it can expect to encounter on the modern battlefield, it needs to consider reorganizing its infantry and armor capabilities into lighter yet more effective brigade formations. ABCTs especially must adapt to the future threat if they want to maintain relevance. Not all BCT structure needs to change and the Army does not need to field EBCTs exclusively, but enough combat power should be organized along these lines to support the opening engagements in a conflict. In their current configuration, ABCTs are simply too heavy to be in position to factor into the calculus of deterrence or early engagement. However, a formation like the EBCT would leverage technology and apply the right mix of combined arms to enhance deterrence credibility and, in the event of a war, survivability and lethality.

Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Suthoff recently served as the commander of 3-4 Cavalry. He currently serves in Colorado with his wife and five children.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the United States Military Academy, Department of the Army, or Department of Defense.

Image credit: Mark Schaeuer, US Army Yuma Proving Ground