The United States has proposed a military reform plan with the goal of completing the full reorganization of the military by 2035, and at the same time, they have also established a mid-term military reform goal for 2028. And now it's 2024, and there are only four years left before the so-called medium-term goal is completed. What has become of the US Army today?
The current focus of U.S. military reform is on changes in military strength, especially in the Army, which is preparing to change the original small composite brigade establishment back to a large-scale divisional level.
One thing to say is that the world police do not study how to catch terrorists, but how to conduct large-scale corps operations, which is as outrageous as a chef who does not look at the recipe and looks at the art of war. Originally, the Americans themselves thought so, and when Rumsfeld was still the US Secretary of Defense, although he was working hard to promote this plan, many of the projects were still deleted because they were too expensive, too cost-effective, and useless in fighting terrorists, and some of them even had quite mature prototypes and could already enter the mass production stage. For example, the "Crusader" self-propelled guns, Comanche helicopters, and CG-21 cruisers are called "Rumsfeld's useless toys."
However, with the progress of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russia's small-scale composite brigade assault tactics have suffered greatly in Ukraine, which has forced the Americans to re-emphasize the actual combat effectiveness of large-scale division-sized armies.
At present, the United States has a total of 31 brigade-level combat teams, including 11 armored brigades, 7 Stryker brigades, and 13 infantry brigades. These reforms will form five new divisional formations
The main role of the JFE division is to project combat forces to the combat zone through tactics, strategic transport aircraft, and helicopters, and forcibly intersperse troops, focusing on tactical maneuverability and the ability to cross complex terrain. This unit is a reproduction of the Airborne Reconnaissance/Airborne Assault/Airborne Armored Forces formed during the Cold War in the United States.
And then there are the standard light divisions. This force formation is more or less a land version of the JFE, with the addition of more light tank brigades and the abolition of the army aviation brigade. This unit will be a superior replacement for the U.S. Light Infantry Division, and will be positioned as a second-line force and reserve force within the U.S. military. It has the characteristics of high strategic mobility and easy deployment.
The third type is the standard heavy division. It consists mainly of Stryker brigades and armored brigades. The United States used to use the Stryker Brigade as a highly mobile strategic deployment force. But Russia has proven that such lightweight combat brigades are inferior to traditional tank units in combat effectiveness. So the Americans combined the Stryker brigade with the armored brigade and replaced the mechanized infantry divisions of the past.
The fourth type is the Penetration Division, also known as the Breakthrough Division, which is the most important component of the current round of Army reform in the United States, the unit is a new concept born in the context of the United States Army's great power competition with China and Russia, mainly composed of armored brigades, heavy armored brigades, and a large number of engineering units composed of pure tank troops, which can be understood as the heavy tank division in the past, or the tank division, it can be seen from the name that this is the strongest attack spearhead prepared by the US military, and its main force will be the most advanced tank of the US Army in the future may be M1A2 The SEPv3 and M1A2 SEPv4 tanks may also be OMT unmanned tanks being studied in the United States.
For the United States, the meaning of the existence of this formation is to defeat the Russian Army, or the Chinese Army, on a frontal battlefield.
In addition, the United States retains one division of the pure Airborne Forces, the 82nd Airborne Division. The division, which is currently the best strategically deployed division in the United States, will be equipped with an airborne tank brigade. At present, it is the only military of the US military that can achieve rapid global deployment.
In addition to the adjustment of the overall strength of the army, the US Army has recently made some detailed adjustments
For example, "all-domain joint command and control" uses artificial intelligence and other advanced information processing methods to establish an efficient command network, strengthen the ties between the major branches of the US military, and enhance the battlefield control capability of the US military.
In addition, the U.S. military has now strengthened the Boatbridge unit for the Army. Although the outside world has been saying that the Zhouqiao unit is more suitable for the US military to conduct large-scale operations on the European plains with a network of rivers, this argument can also be established if the battlefield is placed in the south of the continent, where the river network is dense. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the purpose of the Americans in forming a large-scale boat-bridge force to cooperate with the army's operations was to capture the southern part of the mainland.
As for whether the US military reform will be effective in the future, I think it will not be possible, because in order to save money and enhance the military's frontal combat capability, the US military has laid off a large number of personnel in positions related to soft power, such as intelligence analysis, psychological warfare, and logistics. And there was a massive downsizing of these auxiliary forces. As the saying goes, the troops and horses have not moved, the grain and grass go first, and even the logistics units have been dismantled, and I do not think that the United States has the most important condition for conducting large-scale operations, the army's logistical capability.
Therefore, I believe that this reform of the US Army is destined to be a reform that ends in nothing.