Saw an article when I opened my browser from some Defense Website about the Army going back to training Divisions to act as such at the NTC. Discussed a 1AD 2 week rotation there and lots of lessons learned when you try and exercise the whole unit at one time. It's about time.

The Army went to the Brigade mentality about 20 years ago with the idea that you can deploy a Brigade Combat Team easier and quicker. Maybe so but a more conventional fight against Russia or China is not going to be a Brigade action. Glad to see it but 20 years of breeding out Division level thinking will take some time to re-aquire. I spent my last 10 years in various billets in the DISCOM, 49AD, TxARNG. That unit does not exist anymore, neither the Division nor a DISCOM. I have wondered what type of staff replaced it because the logistical requirements, both actual and planning, never goes away. I would think that a Bde S4 kinda thinks stuff just shows up. The ones I served with back in the day certainly did. I would hope that active duty officers today have a more rounded logistical appreciation. Back in my day a DISCOM staff was about 35 officers, both commissioned and warrant. Lots of institutional knowledge to work with. MUCH more intense and with more moving pieces than a Division G4 shop.

I would welcome other comments from folks with more recent experience. I would go back and serve tomorrow but I don't think Uncle Sam wants my 72 year old self back.

WBBQ74 said:

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Saw an article when I opened my browser from some Defense Website about the Army going back to training Divisions to act as such at the NTC. Discussed a 1AD 2 week rotation there and lots of lessons learned when you try and exercise the whole unit at one time. It's about time.

The Army went to the Brigade mentality about 20 years ago with the idea that you can deploy a Brigade Combat Team easier and quicker. Maybe so but a more conventional fight against Russia or China is not going to be a Brigade action. Glad to see it but 20 years of breeding out Division level thinking will take some time to re-aquire. I spent my last 10 years in various billets in the DISCOM, 49AD, TxARNG. That unit does not exist anymore, neither the Division nor a DISCOM. I have wondered what type of staff replaced it because the logistical requirements, both actual and planning, never goes away. I would think that a Bde S4 kinda thinks stuff just shows up. The ones I served with back in the day certainly did. I would hope that active duty officers today have a more rounded logistical appreciation. Back in my day a DISCOM staff was about 35 officers, both commissioned and warrant. Lots of institutional knowledge to work with. MUCH more intense and with more moving pieces than a Division G4 shop.

I would welcome other comments from folks with more recent experience. I would go back and serve tomorrow but I don't think Uncle Sam wants my 72 year old self back.

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It will be Ok. The Division Commander will be advised by G-Staff chiefs who are senior officers and have tons of experience in their branches. The institutional knowledge exists.

FSB/ASBs were renamed and incorporated into the Brigade Combat Team. The old MSB and HHC DISCOM was renamed into a Sustainment Brigade or something like that. I would be interested in seeing the staff makeup for these new organizations because the needs do not go away, just the names/makeups of the units doing it. As I stated previously, my experience both active and reserve was that a Division G4 staff would be overwhelmed with what the old DISCOM staff used to do in planning and managing logistical support for a 16K person Division and all those units.

Any recent loggie staff types out there?

I was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division HQ (G-5 plans) from 2008-2011. The division HQs and their staffs never went away. What went away were most of the O-6 level, non-maneuver command HQs. DIVARTY and DIVENG disappeared, with their subordinate units put under the direct command of the BCTs. DISCOM became the smaller sustainment brigade, with the FSBs likewise put directly under the BCTs.

The DIVARTY HQ made a comeback some years back, as a "force fires HQ" or some such. But the FA battalions still belonged to the BCTs. And as far as I've heard, the division as a whole is still down one FA Bn (the GS bn) from the old organization.

I don't really know enough about how DIVENG was organized to know what difference any changes might make there.

Across the board we are getting better at planning and fighting large scale combat operations vs couter-insurgency that filled our ruck sack for 20 years. That said, we have been moving towards this since 2012 when we started to conduct 'decisive action training environment' rotations at the CTCs. At some point, we started to note that the unit of action for LSCO is the DIV. In COIN, a BN or BDE could conduct a lot of operations with marginal assistance from their DIV-level HQs...in current operations (vs future operations)....but in LSCO, brigades NEED coordination in fires, airspace, multi-domain assets, etc...that can't be coordinated or prioritized at a brigade level.

In 2020, 1st Infantry Division send the DIV HQs to NTC along with the aviation brigade and (I think) sustainment BDE. Up to that point, aviation presence at NTC was a small task force. There have been other DIV HQs at the CTCs, so over the course of 4 years, the level of complexity and rigor DIV HQs, maneuver BDEs, and enablers see has increased. This is good for us all.

What is old becomes new again.

Fly Army 97 said:

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Across the board we are getting better at planning and fighting large scale combat operations vs couter-insurgency that filled our ruck sack for 20 years. That said, we have been moving towards this since 2012 when we started to conduct 'decisive action training environment' rotations at the CTCs. At some point, we started to note that the unit of action for LSCO is the DIV. In COIN, a BN or BDE could conduct a lot of operations with marginal assistance from their DIV-level HQs...in current operations (vs future operations)....but in LSCO, brigades NEED coordination in fires, airspace, multi-domain assets, etc...that can't be coordinated or prioritized at a brigade level.

In 2020, 1st Infantry Division send the DIV HQs to NTC along with the aviation brigade and (I think) sustainment BDE. Up to that point, aviation presence at NTC was a small task force. There have been other DIV HQs at the CTCs, so over the course of 4 years, the level of complexity and rigor DIV HQs, maneuver BDEs, and enablers see has increased. This is good for us all.

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Now do Corps level.

No, I'm not kidding. I remember division and corps level Warfighter exercises (1AD, 1ID, and V Corps) when I was a LT in Germany in the late 90s. There are a whole lot of assets - especially things like artillery and engineers, but lots of sustainment as well - that live at corps level. All those separate brigades with the oddball patches? Corps level assets. Cav regiments? Corps assets.

Oh, and bring back the corps LRS units while you're at it. Drones and satellites are useful, but nothing beats the Mark I Eyeball on the ground.

I don't quite grasp how the new multi-domain task forces fit in all this reorg.

MDTF

Army aviation is also going back to the future.

TAILORED

Smeghead4761 said:

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Oh, and bring back the corps LRS units while you're at it. Drones and satellites are useful, but nothing beats the Mark I Eyeball on the ground.

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Drones with thermals are proving otherwise in Ukraine right now. SF used to own the night. I'm not sure that's the case anymore. They are the hunted as much as they are doing the hunting.

Smeghead4761 said:

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Fly Army 97 said:

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Across the board we are getting better at planning and fighting large scale combat operations vs couter-insurgency that filled our ruck sack for 20 years. That said, we have been moving towards this since 2012 when we started to conduct 'decisive action training environment' rotations at the CTCs. At some point, we started to note that the unit of action for LSCO is the DIV. In COIN, a BN or BDE could conduct a lot of operations with marginal assistance from their DIV-level HQs...in current operations (vs future operations)....but in LSCO, brigades NEED coordination in fires, airspace, multi-domain assets, etc...that can't be coordinated or prioritized at a brigade level.

In 2020, 1st Infantry Division send the DIV HQs to NTC along with the aviation brigade and (I think) sustainment BDE. Up to that point, aviation presence at NTC was a small task force. There have been other DIV HQs at the CTCs, so over the course of 4 years, the level of complexity and rigor DIV HQs, maneuver BDEs, and enablers see has increased. This is good for us all.

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Now do Corps level.

No, I'm not kidding. I remember division and corps level Warfighter exercises (1AD, 1ID, and V Corps) when I was a LT in Germany in the late 90s. There are a whole lot of assets - especially things like artillery and engineers, but lots of sustainment as well - that live at corps level. All those separate brigades with the oddball patches? Corps level assets. Cav regiments? Corps assets.

Oh, and bring back the corps LRS units while you're at it. Drones and satellites are useful, but nothing beats the Mark I Eyeball on the ground.

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Each US Army WFX is a Corps WFX fighting multiple divisions. If you are interested, look up Austere Challenge '24. This was a combatant command WFX that involved CC to Division/BDE HQs. As we scale up, it just becomes challenging getting that many units out in the dirt, as you know. As for LRS, that is an interesting conversation....https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/January-February-2017/ART-011/.

The division and corps WFXs I remember back in the late 90s didn't have any actual troops on the ground. Everything brigade and below was done in simulation. Division and corps HQs would set up in the field (giant clusters of 5-ton expando-vans, which would be insanely vulnerable on today's battlefield) and the rest would be played out on computers.

I was in the battalion 3 shop for one division (1AD) WFX, and IIRC, we sent the commander, S3, an NCO, and a couple of enlisted guys to be pucksters. That was it. The rest of the battalion was back in Baumholder doing normal stuff, with the Bn XO in charge. (That XO actually just retired a couple of years ago, as the SOCCOM CG.)

So to run those types of WFXs, you don't really need to put troops in the field.

2I participated in 4 each Division Warfighters as a member of the TxARNG; 1992, 1995, 1998, 2002, as best I can remember. A couple at Fort Leavenworth and a couple at Fort Hood. I was in various positions in DISCOM for the last 3 (DMMC GSO, FSB Cdr, DISCOM XO). First one I was just a MAJ in the Division G3 shop.

From what I could tell/see, CPX type exercises like these were decent training tools for Tactical Commanders (O6 and above), G3s, G4s, some Bde G3s, and that was about it. Logistical play was anywhere from abysmal to acceptable. The 1995 one was full of logistical fairydust stuff. FA had unlimited rounds, Division attack was predicated on putting a COSCOM POL Bn out in Indian country to somehow pull off a ROM for an entire BCT. Controllers killed that off early in the game. The training value for G4, S4, and DISCOM types was low. The last one I did was better. Our RA evaluators told us that we (DISCOM) did better than most RA DISCOMs that they had seen and better than any other ARNG DISCOMs. Still was hard for the logistical guys to work with 'real' constraints. It was a serious challenge to train my guys on how to interact with a COSCOM because in that era we NEVER had any contact with 13th COSCOM at Fort Hood, even when we reached out.

This was ~25 years ago but somethings don't change much. Bringing back a real fleshed out Corps and getting enough key actors doctrinally trained will take about 10 years. If we have the time.

Shaping our military for near-peer battle when the near-peer's doctrine includes not fighting us directly.

Sounds like we are not preparing for our last war, but for WWII.

We never did figure out how to win a counterinsurgency.

As foreign as Space Force is to me, it's probably our only real strategic innovation in decades.

InfantryAg said:

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Shaping our military for near-peer battle when the near-peer's doctrine includes not fighting us directly.

Sounds like we are not preparing for our last war, but for WWII.

We never did figure out how to win a counterinsurgency.

As foreign as Space Force is to me, it's probably our only real strategic innovation in decades.

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Don't forget cyber commands. Gray area / below-the-level-of-war is taught, practiced in our PME and WFX. How we see electronic warfare, cyber, space, and the rest of the spectrum / information is night and day from what it used to be. Targeting boards are not your daddy's targeting boards anymore. I'd argue we are not preparing for the last war...but time will tell.

That sounds encouraging and I hope you're right.

My perception of higher was inflexible and lacking in vision and adaptability. All this talk of reorganizing around divisions seems to echo that. Who are we going to fight in a sustained conventional war?

I sorta lumped cyber in with Space Force mostly because my last exposure was an emphasis on recruiting other MOS's into cyber, because there was a vast shortage.

IMO, unless the Army finds ways to compete with the private sector, they should start building a Department of the Army civilian force to compete with our adversaries. A force where they can get some talent, from people who would otherwise not meet active duty qualification (or have no desire), but have valuable skill sets. If I can get the best cyber force, and they are not going to be forward deployed, I don't need them to know how to fight.

AgLA06 said:

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Smeghead4761 said:

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Oh, and bring back the corps LRS units while you're at it. Drones and satellites are useful, but nothing beats the Mark I Eyeball on the ground.

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Drones with thermals are proving otherwise in Ukraine right now. SF used to own the night. I'm not sure that's the case anymore. They are the hunted as much as they are doing the hunting.

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I was in USASOC for a while. Delta/Rangers own the night with their mission set. SF obviously does but their bread and butter is unconventional warfare and helping the local population deconstruct oppressive regimes.

Like someone mentioned earlier, GWOT pulled many different army units away from their true mission set.

Aggie Therapist said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Smeghead4761 said:

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Oh, and bring back the corps LRS units while you're at it. Drones and satellites are useful, but nothing beats the Mark I Eyeball on the ground.

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Drones with thermals are proving otherwise in Ukraine right now. SF used to own the night. I'm not sure that's the case anymore. They are the hunted as much as they are doing the hunting.

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I was in USASOC for a while. Delta/Rangers own the night with their mission set. SF obviously does but their bread and butter is unconventional warfare and helping the local population deconstruct oppressive regimes.

Like someone mentioned earlier, GWOT pulled many different army units away from their true mission set.

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That was against insurgents without access to much in the way of modern tech. Against a peer or near-peer adversary (think Chicoms or Russia) that won't be the case. At least some of the enemy's ground troops will have personal night vision, and probably all of their combat vehicles will have it in some form.

Speaking specifically to the problem of thermal equipped drones, I think the main issue for LRS or any other sort of deep penetration infantry operation is getting across and a certain distance beyond the FLOT, which is where most such drones are going to be operating. I think once you get a certain distance beyond the FLOT, the problem of drones would be much reduced, as long as you stay away from things like MSRs where they might be using drones to patrol.

But getting there might be a problem. Ukraine has shown that air ops near the FLOT are extremely dangerous, even for fast movers. Parachute or rotary wing insertion might not be a feasible option, which leaves trying to cross the FLOT on foot (and also greatly limits how deep behind the lines you can get. Troops on foot can only carry so much food and batteries.)

InfantryAg said:

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My perception of higher was inflexible and lacking in vision and adaptability. All this talk of reorganizing around divisions seems to echo that. Who are we going to fight in a sustained conventional war?

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The GWOT BCT headquarters was as large and cumbersome as a 1990s division HQ. Brigade staffs exploded, and every time a capability (read: staff section) was added "for the deployment" it came back home and stayed forever - S9 sections, deputy commanders, S2X groups in the intel dork section, enormous special troops battalions, etc. As a consequence, the maneuver battalion staffs also became absurdly large to "interface with the brigade." Div staffs didn't shrink (even when they were directed to cut by 25% during sequestration, lololol) but BN and BCT staffs grew too much too.

I don't know if going back to a division centered force is correct, but being BCT centered didn't really streamline any decisions.

Good point. The bloated Brigade staff certainly wasn't the answer and that was never fixed.

I'm afraid that regardless of what conflict happens next, big army is going to be in reaction mode, rather than being proactive now.

Hopefully cyber will become successful, because I've never hear anything encouraging about our infrastructure being secure or modern enough. That seems way more likely than directly fighting the chinese or russian armies.

I'm jaded because we just watched the US lose wars because of our own ineptitude. And I mean the military leadership trying to make their square peg fit in the round hole.

Anyone who hasn't witnessed warfighting in the last three years is dated, and above-BDE training isn't as publicized as BDE and below. As many of you know, we've been conducting 'decisive action' rotations at the CTCs since 2012. 10-12 years later, that LSCO fight/mentality/training has transitioned to the DIVs/Corps.

Along that time, infrastructure and integration has grown....take Space Force for example. It has component commands now. Is it all perfect? Maybe not, but large scale change takes time. I'd offer nobody in the DoD is preparing for the last war. Anyone in PME over the last 20 years already had that beat into their heads over time. Those leaders are now the GO/FOs charged to modernize the services.

For the Army the proof is in the pudding....Multi-Domain Task Forces. Security Force Assistance Brigades. Bringing back DIV CAV (hopefully). Expanding our long range fires to compete in depth. Mid range capability w/ hypersonic weapons as well. Establishing a 2-start ARTY command for the theater. Mind you, we still have the infantryman and tanker who need to own the land.

I appreciate your input, it is encouraging.

I understand I have a myopic point of view. The leadership for 20 years (70 years?) was just so cemented in their mindset, hopefully the current and forthcoming leaders learnt from that.

Certainly didn't mean to imply anyone here is dated...just that the amount of information coming from folks as of late could be misleading. As close as two years ago, I didn't truly get what was taking place at Corps and above in terms of space, EW, information operations, etc.

We still have a long way's to go, but if I were an incoming LT, space/cyber, EW would be good areas to joint into given the growth and requirement to compete in 2030-2040 timeframe. We will always need tankers and infantrymen, but the abilty to shape the environment for them to even cross the FLOT has changed fundamentally. Time will tell if we get this right.

The issue with EW is that the Army folded the branch into Cyber some years ago. Which means anyone wanting the job needs a STEM degree and we all know how that goes.

I can speak to DIVENG (well the Mech not light), similar to DISCOM and DIVARTY the 3 x Battalions were assigned to the DIVENG commander (USR and such), but for all intents and purposes attached to their habitual BCTs, this structure has not come back to the modern Army and closest thing is a MEB (Maneuver Enhancement Brigade) which I think only exists in the Guard or Reserves (so feasible on paper but not really for a Corps level exercise