Upgrading the Armored Forces

Does the Army see the tank as a fading system?

The urge to declare tanks obsolete without even really looking at how they can evolve to provide mobile protected firepower is strong. Transformation is trying to replace that capability in infantry formations. I don’t think the Army can get light but survivable forces even if technology gives them access to firepower.

First Cavalry Division (armored) is now focused on its role in Transformation in Contact effort to adapt heavy forces for lessons from the Winter War of 2022:

Soldiers with the division will help the Army determine how to reorganize an Armored Brigade Combat Team to fight with new equipment, farther-reaching sensors and increased firepower — with the division at its back.

The division again has a combat role rather than an administrative role with a nifty shoulder patch, as it had functioned during the War on Terror combat operations:

Brigades traditionally had infantry and armor with mortars for fire support and limited organic assets. They relied on the parent division for logistics, major fire support, engineers, and other assets attached to the brigade for specific missions.

Army reorganization begun in 2003 but under discussion since the 1990s spread out the combat and support assets held by the division to the brigades, making them mini-divisions. They were called brigade combat teams to distinguish them. The divisions remained for largely administrative duties. And for historical continuity. The BCTs worked really well for rotating troops by unit--which by maintaining unit cohesion kept our Army intact despite cries the Iraq War was "breaking" the Army.

Army divisions are returning as a command echelon rather than an administrative element[.]

That initial article describes the effort thus far:

The effort was announced in 2023 and began with three infantry brigades: the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; and the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.

Over the course of the next year, the three brigades added sensors, drones and a host of other enabling technologies, while also reconfiguring the makeup of various brigade elements to streamline communications and ramp up the infantry brigades’ capabilities.

Much of Army transformation seems to be at the expense of heavy armored formations. The Army simultaneously seems to recognize that the infantry needs help, trying to make them “medium” brigades. It seems like the Army wants “agile” infantry able to flit across rough terrain without heavy stuff.

Yet light infantry is being given infantry squad vehicles to make them medium brigades, making them unable to be used as leg infantry but without the power to be used as mobile units. Make a choice!

As I noted about light tanks when questioning the viability of light leg-mobile infantry being developed in this transformation:

Any armored vehicle ties infantry to roads and a bigger logistics tail. Light tanks are just Future Burned-Out Hulks. Perhaps cheapness should be high priority. If so, be prepared to lose lots of them.

If not, just give infantry brigades some heavy tanks when needed, as I argued years ago in Army magazine.

I'm not sure what a future tank needs to look like. I took a stab at figuring out the parameters of this question in Military Review (see pages 28-33) back when the Future Combat System was a gleam in that generation's transformationist eyes. But if we want mobile, protected firepower to avoid static attrition, what's your alternative to some kind of a tank?

NOTE: I made the image with Bing.