Army Transformation describes the future-concept of the United States Army's plan of modernization. Transformation is a generalized term for the integration of new concepts, organizations, and technology within the armed forces of the United States.
US Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker has testified before Congress on the importance and sweep of Army transformation. In December 2006 he said, "Following 9/11, our Army began its most significant reorganization since World War II to ensure that the formations of all components are fully manned, equipped, and trained."
"The Army is steadfast in its determination to transform the total force from a Cold War structured organization into one best prepared to operate across the full spectrum of conflict. This effort includes modernization, modular conversion, rebalancing our forces across the active and reserve components, and a force generation model that provides for continuous operations."[1]
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Grow the Army is a transformation and re-stationing initiative of the United States Army announced in 2007 and scheduled to be completed by fiscal year 2013. The initiative is designed to grow the army by almost 75,000 soldiers, while realigning a large portion of the force in Europe to the continental United States in compliance with the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure suggestions.
This would grow the force from 42 Brigade Combat Teams and 75 modular support brigades in 2007 to 45 Brigade Combat Teams and 83 modular support brigades by 2013.
One of the major initiatives of the modernization plan involves migrating the Army from a division-centric force designed to fight one or two potential major-theatre wars toward a modular, brigade-centric force that is expeditionary in nature and deployed continuously in different parts of the world. To help with the force structure changes, an additional 30,000 soldiers were authorized under emergency authority. As of 2005, a permanent end-strength change is not expected because General Schoomaker fears funding will be cut in future years, forcing the Army to dip into its procurement and readiness accounts to pay for the added personnel. (Personnel represent 60% of the defense budget and every extra 10,000 soldiers cost, in total, US$1.4 billion annually.)
Before Schoomaker's tenure, the Army was organized around large, mostly mechanized divisions of around 15,000 soldiers each. Under his plan, the 3,000-to-4,000-soldier combat brigade is becoming the primary building-block unit of the Army. The Army describes this realignment as, in effect, organizing its brigades closer to the way it fights.
In 2004, the United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), which commands almost all of the active Army and Army Reserve forces based in the Continental United States, was charged by the Department of the Army with supervising the modular transformation of its subordinate force structure. In March, 2004, FORSCOM awarded a contract to Anteon Corporation (now part of General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc.) to provide Modularity Coordination Cells (MCC) to each transforming corps, division and brigade combat team within FORSCOM. Each MCC was tailored to the unique requirements of its supported unit, but all contained a tightly-integrated team of functional area specialists who provided direct, ground-level support to the unit. The full network of MCCs was coordinated and managed by the Anteon office in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Army will move from 33 brigade combat teams in 2003 to 43 brigade combat teams within the Regular Army under this expansion program. There will also be 75 modular support brigades, for a total of 118 Regular Army modular brigades. In addition the previously un-designated training brigades such as the Infantry Training Brigade at Fort Benning will assume the lineage & honors of formerly active Regular Army combat brigades.
Within the Army National Guard, there will be 28 brigade combat teams and 78 support brigades. Primary management methodology developed through the efforts of the Army National Guard Force Management Division.
Within the Army Reserve, the objective is 59 support brigades.
71 brigade combat teams and 212 support brigades
Modular combat brigades will be self-contained combined arms formations. They will be standardized formations across the active and reserve components, meaning an armor brigade at Fort Hood will be the same as one at Fort Stewart. Before, different armored units had slightly different designs.
Reconnaissance plays a large role in the new organizational designs. The Army feels acquisition of the target was the weak link in the chain of finding, fixing, closing with, and destroying the enemy. They feel the Army has sufficient lethal platforms to take out the enemy. Thus, it increased the number of reconnaissance units in each brigade. The brigades also depend on joint fires from the Air Force and Navy to accomplish their mission. As a result, the amount of field artillery has been reduced in the brigade design.
The three types of combat brigades will be Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (HBCTs), Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs include light, air assault and airborne units), and Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCTs). The organization of brigades will change, with the armored cavalry regiment serving as a model in some ways:
Heavy brigades, or HBCTs in the new design, will include around 3,700 soldiers. Since the brigade will have more organic units, the command structure will include a Deputy Commander (in lieu of the traditional Executive Officer) and a larger staff capable of working with civil-affairs, special operations, psychological operations, air defense, and aviation units. The brigade design will include:
Infantry brigades, or IBCTs in the new design will comprise around 3,300 soldiers. Its design includes:
Stryker Brigades or SBCTs will comprise 3,900 soldiers, making it the largest of the three combat brigades. It was designed prior to Gen. Schoomaker's arrival and thus, unlike the other brigades, it includes three—not two—maneuver battalions in addition to a reconnaissance squadron. Its design includes:
Similar modularity will exist for support units which fall into five types: Aviation, Fires (artillery), Battlefield Surveillance (intelligence), Maneuver Enhancement (engineers, signal, military police, chemical, and rear-area support), and Sustainment (logistics, medical, transportation, maintenance, etc.). In the past, artillery, combat support, and logistics support only resided at the division level and brigades were assigned those units only on a temporary basis when brigades transformed into "brigade combat teams" for particular deployments.
Aviation brigades will be multi-functional, offering a combination of attack helicopters (i.e., Apache), reconnaissance helicopters (i.e., Kiowa), medium-lift helicopters (i.e. Blackhawks), heavy-lift helicopters (i.e. Chinooks), and MEDEVAC capability. Aviation will not be organic to combat brigades. It will continue to reside at the division-level due to resource constraints.
Heavy divisions (of which there are six) will have 48 Apaches, 38 Blackhawks, 12 Chinooks, and 12 Medevac helicopters in their aviation brigade. These will be divided into two aviation attack battalions, an assault lift battalion, a general aviation support battalion. An aviation support battalion will help with logistics. Light divisions will have aviation brigades with 60 armed reconnaissance helicopters and no Apaches, with the remaining structure the same. The remaining divisions will have aviation brigades with 30 armed reconnaissance helicopters and 24 Apaches, with the remaining structure the same. The helicopters to fill out these large, combined-arms division-level aviation brigades comes from aviation units that used to reside at the corps-level.
Fires brigades will offer not just traditional artillery fires (Paladin, Howitzer, MLRS, HIMARS) but information operations and non-lethal effects capabilities.
Air Defense: The Army will no longer provide an organic air defense artillery (ADA) battalion to its divisions. Nine of the ten AC divisional ADA battalions and two of the eight ARNG divisional ADA battalions will deactivate. The remaining AC divisional ADA battalion along with six ARNG divisional ADA battalions will be pooled at the UEy to provide on-call AMD protection. The pool of Army AMD resources will address operational requirements in a tailorable and timely manner without stripping assigned AMD capability from other missions.
Sustainment brigades provide division-level logistics support and above.
Battlefield Surveillance brigades will offer additional UAVs and long-term surveillance detachments.
Maneuver Enhancement Brigades will command units such as chemical, military police, and civil affairs units. These formations will be designed to be joint so that they under operate with coalition or joint forces such as the Marine Corps.
Division commands will command and control these combat and support brigades. Divisions will operate as plug-and-play headquarters commands (similar to corps) instead of fixed formations with permanently assigned units. Any combination of brigades may be assigned to divisions for a particular mission up to a maximum of four combat brigades. For instance, the 3rd Infantry Division headquarters could be assigned two armor brigades and two infantry brigades based on the expected requirements of a given mission. On its next deployment, the same division may have one Stryker brigade and two armor brigades assigned to it. The same modus operandi holds true for support units. The goal of reorganization with regard to logistics is to streamline the logistics command structure so that combat service support can fulfill its support mission more efficiently.
The division headquarters itself has also been redesigned as a modular unit that can be assigned an array of units and serve in many different operational environments. The new term for this headquarters is the UEx (or Unit of Employment, X). The headquarters is designed to be able to operate as part of a joint force, command joint forces with augmentation, and command at the operational level of warfare (not just the tactical level). It will include organic security personnel and signal capability plus liaison elements.
When not deployed, the division will have responsibility for the training and readiness of a certain number of modular brigades units. For instance, the 3rd Infantry Division headquarters module based at Fort Stewart, GA is responsible for the readiness of its four combat brigades and other units of the division, assuming they have not been deployed separately under a different division.
The re-designed headquarters module comprises around 1,000 soldiers including over 200 officers. It includes:
Divisions will continue to be commanded by major generals, unless coalition requirements require otherwise. Regional army commands (e.g. 3rd Army, 7th Army, 8th Army) will remain in use in the future but with changes to the organization of their headquarters designed to make the commands more integrated and relevant in the structure of the reorganized Army.
Under Schoomaker, Combat Training Centers (CTCs) will emphasize the contemporary operating environment (such as an urban, ethnically-sensitive city in Iraq) and stress units according to the unit mission and the commanders' assessments, collaborating often to support holistic collective training programs, rather than by exception as was formerly the case.
Schoomaker's plan is to resource units based on the mission they are expected to accomplish (major combat versus SASO, or Stability and Support Operations), regardless of component (active or reserve). Instead of using snapshot readiness reports, the Army will now rate units based on the mission they are expected to perform given their position across the three force pools, and more heavily weight the commanders' assessments.
The force generation system that General Schoomaker is advocating is based on the concept that the U.S. Army will be deployed continuously and serve as an expeditionary force to fight a protracted campaign against terrorism and stand ready for other potential contingencies across the full-spectrum of operations (from humanitarian and stability operations to major combat operations against a conventional foe).
Under ideal circumstances, Army units will have a minimum "dwell time," a minimum duration of which it will remain at home station before deployment. Active-duty units will be prepared to deploy once every three years. Army Reserve units will be prepared to deploy once every five years. National Guard units will be prepared to deploy once every six years. A total of 71 combat brigades will form the Army's rotation basis, 42 from the active component with the balance from the reserves.
Thus, around 15 active-duty combat brigades will be available for deployment each year under this force-generation plan. An additional 4 or 5 brigades will be available for deployment from the reserve component. The plan is designed to provide more stability to soldiers and their families. Within the system, a surge capability does exist so that about an additional 18 brigades can be deployed in addition to the 19 or 20 scheduled brigades.
From General Dan McNeil, former Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) Commander: Within the Army Forces Generation (ARFORGEN) model, brigade combat teams (BCTs) move through a series of three force pools; they enter the model at its inception, the reset force pool, upon completion of a deployment cycle. There they reequip and reman while executing all individual predeployment training requirements, attaining readiness as quickly as possible. Reset or "R" day, recommended by FORSCOM and approved by Headquarters, Department of the Army, will be marked by BCT changes of command, preceded or followed closely by other key leadership transitions. While in the reset pool, formations will be remanned, reaching 100% of mission required strength by the end of the phase, while also reorganizing and fielding new equipment, if appropriate. In addition, it is there that units will be confirmed against future missions, either as deployment expeditionary forces (DBFs-BCTs trained for known operational requirements), ready expeditionary forces (REFs-BCTs that form the pool of available forces for short-notice missions) or contingency expeditionary forces (CEFs-BCTs earmarked for contingency operations).
Based on their commanders' assessments, units move to the ready force pool, from which they can deploy should they be needed, and in which the unit training focus is at the higher collective levels. Units enter the available force pool when there is approximately one year left in the cycle, after validating their collective mission-essential task list proficiency (either core or theater-specific tasks) via battle-staff and dirt-mission rehearsal exercises. The available phase is the only phase with a specified time limit: one year. Not unlike the division-ready brigades of past decades, these formations deploy to fulfill specific requirements or stand ready to fulfill no-notice deployments within 30-days notice.
The goal is to generate forces 12–18 months in advance of combatant commanders' requirements and to begin preparing every unit for its future mission as early as possible in order to increase its overall proficiency.
Personnel management will also be reorganized as part of the Army transformation. Previously, personnel was managed on an individual basis in which soldiers were rotated without regard for the effect on unit cohesion. This system required unpopular measures such as "stop loss" and "stop move" in order to maintain force levels. In contrast, the new personnel system will operate on a unit basis to the maximum extent possible, with the goal of allowing teams to remain together longer and enabling families to establish ties within their communities.
Division Totals
Combat Brigades: 46 (Structure, once latest round of reorganizations are complete)
Active-duty Support Brigades (with reserve-component numbers in parenthesis: ARNG/USAR)
The Secretary of the Army approved implementing ARFORGEN, a transformational force generation model, in 2006. 2010 Army Posture Statement, Addendum F, Army Force Generation (ARFORGEN)[2]
ARFORGEN model concept development began in the summer of 2004 and received its final approval from the Army’s senior leadership in early 2006. Signal Magazine, U.S. Army Reforges Training and Readiness, Henry S. Kenyon, June 2006[3]