Case Study in Army 

Transformation: 

Creating Modular Forces 

Case Studies in National Security Transformation 

Number 14 

Richard L. Kugler 

April 2008 

Sponsored by the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense 

Forces Transformation and Resources 

 Prepared by the Center for Technology and National Security Policy 
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official 

policy or position of the National Defense University, the Department of Defense, or the 

U.S. Government. All information and sources for this paper were drawn from 

unclassified materials. 

Dr. Richard L. Kugler was a Distinguished Research Professor at the Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy (CTNSP), National Defense University. His 

specialty is U.S. defense strategy, global security affairs, and NATO. He advises senior 

echelons of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, and the interagency 

community. He is the author of multiple books, journal articles, and official studies on 

U.S. defense strategy and programs as well as NATO and global security affairs. Dr. 

Kugler has his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

ii
Introduction 

U.S. defense transformation is noted for its emphasis on acquiring modern information 

networks and other advanced technologies, but less so for creating new force structures 

and weapon platforms. The dramatic exception to this pattern is the U.S. Army 

transformation plan, forged in 2003–2004 and currently being implemented. This plan is 

imposing major changes on how Army forces are structured and also intends to acquire 

an entirely new set of weapon systems over the coming years. The centerpiece of this 

ambitious plan for restructuring is creation of the “modular brigade combat team” (BCT), 

which is being applied to all combat brigades in the active Army and the reserve 

component forces, and to new brigades that are being added to the force structure. Unlike 

old combat brigades, which were embedded in divisions and drew upon them for 

essential support, the new BCTs are to be entirely self-contained with combat and support 

units, and thus deployable on their own and usable as separate formations on the 

battlefield. Accompanying these BCTs are parallel, modular-creating changes to the 

Army command and control structure as well as its combat support and combat service 

support (CS/CSS) assets, and its aviation assets. The effect is to spread the concept of 

modularity across virtually the entire Army force structure. 

The overall purpose of this sweeping conversion to modular forces is to make the Army 

more flexible, agile, and rapidly deployable for expeditionary missions and better able to 

carry out modern doctrines and force operations for the Information Age. Thus far, the 

Army has expressed satisfaction with the progress that has been made since 2004, along 

with determination to continue this plan to its completion. When the effort is finished and 

new, lightweight, networked weapon platforms and other vehicles—called Future 

Combat Systems (FCS)—have been acquired, the future Army will be quite different 

from the force posture that existed when transformation began. Hopefully, an active 

Army composed of 43–48 modular brigades and armed with networked FCS weapons 

and associated assets will be able both to conduct major combat operations and to 

perform the sustained stabilization and reconstruction (S&R) missions of the sort that 

have been taking place in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

This case study analyzes the Army’s modular plan as well as its overall approach to 

transformation, including key rationales, goals, and main features. It begins by describing 

the pre-transformation Army force structure that was inherited from the Cold War and its 

aftermath. It then assesses how the Department of Defense (DOD) transformation 

philosophy and recent experiences in expeditionary operations—especially Iraq and 

Afghanistan—provide a strategic framework for determining how the Army has 

approached changes to its force structure. Then, it briefly describes the Army’s original 

transformation roadmap, which ruled during 2001–2002. Next, it portrays the main 

features of the current Army transformation roadmap that was adopted in 2003–2004. 

Then, it analyzes the BCT concept, as well as other modular formations being created by 

the Army—including their attractive features, their tradeoffs, and criticisms that have 

been levied at them. Next, it assesses the Army’s plan to create networked FCS weapons 

and other assets. Finally, it concludes with observations about future prospects and 

challenges facing Army transformation. 

1
The Historical Legacy: World War II, the Cold War, and the 1990s

The Army force structure that existed in 2001, when transformation accelerated, reflected 

several decades of experience that took place during World War II, the Cold War, and the 

post-Cold War decade of the 1990s. Coverage of this history is important here because it 

helps illuminate the magnitude and complexity of the task confronting the Army as it 

pursued transformation, and it serves as a benchmark for illuminating how far the Army 

plan departed from the status quo. The key point is that from 1940 through 2001, the 

Army successfully confronted numerous challenges in building large, multifaceted forces 

capable of performing the shifting strategic missions at hand. The Army that existed in 

2001 reflected this positive historical legacy, and was not broken or dysfunctional in 

some fundamental sense. But its large and cumbersome structure did require important 

changes in order to be able to carry out new expeditionary missions with greater speed 

and agility. The challenge facing the Army was to make these changes in ways acquiring 

the necessary capabilities, but without throwing out the baby with the bathwater. 

World War II 

During World War II, the Army principally was assigned the demanding mission of 

liberating Western Europe from Nazi rule. During the campaign of 1944–1945, the Army 

deployed a huge force of three million soldiers and 61 divisions to empower its offensive 

drive, along with British and other allied forces, from Normandy to the Rhine River and 

into Germany. The manner in which Army forces were structured played a major role in 

determining how their theater-wide campaign plan was carried out. Essentially Army 

combat forces were organized into large field armies of 3–5 corps apiece. Each corps was 

equipped with 3–5 divisions of about 14,000 soldiers apiece. Each division, in turn, was 

normally equipped with three maneuver regiments. Forerunners of Cold War brigades, 

these infantry regiments commanded three maneuver battalions. These regiments, 

however, were normally not independent, self-sustaining units, with their own 

permanently assigned support assets. Instead, they were organic parts of their parent 

divisions. The regiment commander had mainly tactical and operational responsibilities, 

and had only the three maneuver battalions, each totaling about 900 soldiers, plus a 

company of six artillery tubes, an antitank company, and a logistic support company—a 

total of about 3,200 soldiers—under his personal leadership. Virtually all types of combat 

support and logistic support, including artillery firepower, were provided by upperechelon commands, particularly division and corps commanders. For example, division 

commanders had 72 artillery tubes and an engineer battalion under their control; corps 

commanders had 252 artillery tubes and 4–8 engineer battalions under their control.1

 

1

 See Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe (New York: Doubleday, 1948). At the height of its 

buildup in Western Europe, the U.S. Army deployed 50 infantry and airborne divisions and 15 armored 

divisions that were distributed among five armies and 15 corps. Allied forces included 11 British divisions, 

6 Canadian divisions, and 6 French divisions. Supporting them were large U.S. and British air forces. 

Additional U.S. and allied divisions were deployed in Italy. For discussions of U.S. and allied ground and 

air operations, see also David Eisenhower, Eisenhower: At War 1943-1945 (New York: Random House, 

1986) and Charles B. MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge (New 

York: Bantam Books, 1984). 

2
This practice of embedding regiments in divisions was especially true for infantry 

divisions, which dominated the Army force structure. For armored divisions, a different 

approach was followed. Each armored division was composed of three regimental combat 

teams (RCT), each of which had its own organically attached support structure. As a 

result, these RCTs could be removed from their parent divisions, sent a considerable 

distance away, and operate on their own or with other forces. The effect was to provide 

modularity and flexibility in how armored forces were used in the European theater. But 

infantry divisions were another matter. Their regiments could not be readily detached 

from their parent divisions and sent elsewhere. Army infantry divisions were thus cast as 

units whose main components normally remained with them. 

The Army’s emphasis on allocating substantial assets to upper-echelon commands 

provided division and corps commanders with multiple options in deciding how to 

allocate critical amounts of combat power among their maneuver units. For example, a 

corps commander could allocate a substantial share of his artillery fires and logistic 

support to one of his three divisions, thus enabling that division to conduct offensive 

actions with extra strength and vigor. The favored division commander, in turn, was able 

to concentrate his support assets among one or two of his regiments, thus enhancing their 

potency. A core purpose of this approach was to enable Army forces to conduct a 

massive, theater-wide campaign in ways that combined the benefits of widespread 

geographical coverage and localized force concentration. Essentially, U.S. and allied 

forces had enough divisions to form a contiguous front line across the entire 700-

kilometer theater of operations, and to employ nearly all of these divisions in constant 

offensive actions. The effect was to compel the undermanned German Army to disperse 

its forces across this entire front in order to protect Germany’s borders. Within this 

framework, U.S. and allied commanders were able to concentrate artillery fires, 

maneuver operations, and logistic support at multiple selected, shifting points, thus 

enabling their forces to achieved localized advantages in combat power that drove 

German forces backward and inflicted substantial losses on them. In addition, U.S. and 

allied forces benefited from major tactical air support from bombers and fighters, which 

inflicted major losses on German combat forces and support assets. As a result, the 

German Army, which lacked comparable staying power, was gradually weakened while 

the U.S. and allied forces, which benefited from much greater ammunition stocks, other 

supplies, and casualty replacements, continuously maintained their strength at high 

levels. In this way, the German Army was gradually pulverized and eventually compelled 

to surrender in May, 1945. 

This portrayal of a linear, broad-front, and attrition-oriented campaign plan by U.S. and 

allied forces, embodying slow but steady advances across the entire front, does not mean 

that bold, sweeping maneuvers by concentrated forces were not employed when the 

opportunity arose. For example, General Patton’s Third Army broke through German 

defenses at St. Lo in July, 1944, and employed an encircling maneuver to trap much of 

the German Seventh Army. Similarly, British General Montgomery in early fall, 1944, 

launched a highly concentrated attack into the Netherlands that was aimed at driving into 

Germany’s Ruhr area and winning the war quickly. This attack failed to achieve its most 

ambitious objectives, but it did succeed in liberating considerable Dutch territory from 

3
German control. These big maneuver operations, however, were the exception, not the 

rule. For the most part, the war in Europe was waged and ultimately won by virtue of a 

broad-front strategy of many divisions and corps lined up abreast in a linear array, and 

that employed massive firepower, air strikes, steady attrition, superior sustainment, and 

unrelenting pressure across the entire theater to wear down a German Army that, 

although possessing excellent troops and weapons, simply lacked the numbers to compete 

indefinitely. 

A key point is that the Army force structure of World War II played a positive role in 

allowing this broad-front strategy to be pursued successfully. In that conflict, combat 

regiments and their battalions did much of the tactical fighting, but they were not the 

main units upon which theater-level plans were forged. The main units were divisions 

and corps, and major combat operations were mainly anchored in how these large 

formations were employed and supported. Indeed, the Army corps, rather than the 

division, was normally the centerpiece of campaign planning. It provided a focal point for 

bringing together infantry, armor, artillery, and logistic support to form the Army’s 

integrated, combined arms team. Maneuver regiments were important cogs in this 

machine, but not always its heart-and-soul. Indeed, in some cases infantry regiments were 

employed as tactical means to enable artillery to find and strike enemy positions. To an 

important degree, the Army prevailed not only because of its hard-fighting soldiers and 

effective combined arms operations, but also because of its excellence at employing 

artillery firepower and the logistic support required by it. Massing artillery fires was the 

main business of divisions and corps, not of maneuver regiments. Equally true, the 

Army’s entire hierarchy of multiple command echelons—stretching from regiments and 

divisions to corps and field armies—proved effective at performing the two principal 

command functions of resource allocation and battlefield operations that were essential to 

carrying out a grueling war this huge and long-lasting. In that conflict, five decades 

before the Information Age, all of these echelons were needed, and none of them could 

have been dispensed with. 

Finally, widespread standardization of Army force structures was a dominant theme of 

World War II. In order to facilitate training and logistic support for such a huge force—

nearly 100 Army divisions were eventually fielded in Europe and Asia—an imperative 

existed to design Army divisions and regiments along a few standard models: mainly 

infantry, armor, and airborne units. When alteration of combat formations was needed, it 

typically was pursued by inflating or deflating the number of divisions assigned to corps, 

or corps assigned to field armies in numbers ranging from three to five. Maneuver 

regiments and battalions were typically treated as standardized units, whose combat 

assets remained constant and were not often altered to meet the demands of particular 

situations. The same philosophy of standardization also applied to the design of combat 

support and combat service support (CS/CSS) units: e.g., artillery, engineers, 

maintenance, and truck transport. The implication was that Army divisions and corps 

were intended to strongly resemble each other, and each was assigned a standard issue of 

internal components intended to provide a fully functional combined arms team that 

would not have to be torn apart and reassembled in response to shifting combat 

4
conditions. This approach was suited to the demands and capabilities of mass production 

in the Industrial Age and to the operational requirements of World War II. 

The Cold War 

When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the U.S. Army force of multiple infantry 

divisions that deployed there reflected its World War II heritage, with its reliance upon 

triangular combat formations (e.g., three regiments per division) and large CS/CSS forces 

aimed at providing high firepower and enduring sustainment. After the Korean War, U.S. 

military strategy during the mid-to-late 1950s shifted to reliance on nuclear weapons and 

massive retaliation rather than sustained conventional defense. As a consequence, Army 

divisions were reconfigured to a pentomic design of five small brigades apiece, and were 

dominated by a doctrine of tactical nuclear warfare. The early 1960s, however, saw U.S. 

military strategy switch from massive retaliation to flexible response, which greatly 

increased the importance of being prepared for conventional wars. In response, U.S. 

Army divisions reverted to their traditional triangular formations, with three brigades 

apiece and large CS/CSS assets. During the mid-1960s, a large Army and Marine force of 

about 500,000 troops, along with air and naval forces, deployed to Vietnam to wage war 

against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. This ground force was traditionally 

organized, was led by a highly echeloned command structure, and was equipped with 

large CS/CSS assets. Combat operations were dominated by infantry, airmobile, and 

artillery units that focused mainly on securing and protecting South Vietnamese territory 

while inflicting high attrition on enemy forces. The effect was to reinforce the Army’s 

reliance upon traditional structures and formations. The main innovations of that war 

were use of attack helicopters and creation of airmobile units that employed large 

numbers of helicopters to quickly move infantry troops around the countryside. 

When the U.S. Army returned in the early 1970s from the frustrating experience of 

Vietnam, it was badly demoralized and in need of modernization to replace its aging 

weapon systems, particularly its M-60 tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers 

(APCs). Moreover, it was heavily an infantry and airmobile force: its few armored and 

mechanized divisions had atrophied because so much attention had been devoted to 

Vietnam. Low defense budgets prohibited systematic attention to the Army’s need for 

enhanced readiness, new doctrines, and new weapons. In the mid-1970s, however, the 

Army encountered a new mission that called for major changes: conventional defense in 

Central Europe against the growing Soviet/Warsaw Pact threat. In Central Europe, the 

Army was assigned the mission of defending two major sectors along NATO’s long 

inter-German border: the V and VII Corps sectors in southern Germany. In addition, it 

also was assigned the mission of rushing reinforcements from the United States to Europe 

in an emergency in order to provide NATO with additional, badly needed operational 

reserves. The Army’s III and XVIII corps were assigned this reinforcement mission. By 

the early 1980s, fully 13 of the Army’s 16 active divisions were oriented to NATO and 

Central Europe, where the emphasis was placed on fast-moving armored and mechanized 

infantry operations, not light dismounted infantry forces. 

5
The mounting requirements of defense preparedness in Central Europe resulted in 

important innovations to the Army. Several infantry divisions were converted to 

armored/mechanized status, thereby producing an active Army of nine heavy divisions 

and seven light divisions (i.e., infantry, airmobile, and airborne units). In addition to the 

five division-equivalents permanently deployed in Central Europe, several division sets 

of Army equipment were prepositioned there in order to permit fast reinforcement from 

CONUS. Army reserve component units (i.e., National Guard divisions and brigades) 

were configured for European operations in order to permit their deployment there after 

mobilization in a crisis. The Army’s goal was to be able to provide a D-Day force of ten 

deployed divisions after ten days of mobilization and reinforcement, backed by a total 

deployment of 20–25 active and reserve divisions after about two or three months of 

reinforcement.2 

When larger budgets became available during the Reagan Administration, the Army 

embarked upon a major modernization effort, which was led by procurement of the new 

M-1 Abrams tank and the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV), both of which were 

developed during the 1970’s. These two weapon systems provided a badly needed 

infusion of extra firepower, mobility, and survivability for contending with well-armed 

enemy forces. Acquisition of attack helicopters, MLRS weapons, and the Patriot air 

defense system further strengthened Army forces. Because NATO’s ground posture of 45 

divisions at D-Day was outnumbered by the Warsaw Pact’s 90 divisions, the Army 

endeavored to make each of its divisions as powerful as possible in order to enable them 

to fight outnumbered and win. Major emphasis was placed on generating massive 

artillery firepower. Divisions were equipped with enough artillery tubes, MLRS, and war 

reserve stocks to fire over 1,000 tons of ammunition per day: well more than double the 

rate of World War II. Moreover, each armored and mechanized division was equipped 

with about 275 tanks and 275 IFVs, plus several hundred TOW and Dragon anti-tank 

guided missile launchers capable of destroying large amounts of enemy tanks and 

infantry fighting vehicles. Large numbers of attack helicopters capable of anti-armor 

strikes were also acquired and distributed among the Army’s divisions and corps. As a 

result of this widespread modernization, Army divisions virtually doubled their combat 

power and greatly improved their capacity to operate on the modern battlefield. 

These new weapons enabled the Army to broaden its traditional focus on generating 

artillery firepower and stationary operations to include a greater emphasis on mobile 

operations. In response, Army doctrine gradually shifted from linear defense to nonlinear operations in which armored and mechanized formations planned to conduct 

assaults against exposed enemy flanks and to employ other types of swift battlefield 

maneuvers. The Army’s guiding concept was to enable each corps of three divisions to 

defeat a Soviet formation of five divisions and then to fight a second, five-division 

formation to a standstill. Overall, this preparedness effort was successful. By the time the 

Cold War ended in 1990, NATO’s ground posture, led by the U.S. Army, had become 

 

2

 For more details of the history of the NATO-Warsaw Pact military confrontation in Europe and its affects 

on U.S. force planning, see Richard L. Kugler, Commitment to Purpose: How Alliance Partnership Won 

the Cold War (Santa Monica, Ca.: RAND, 1993). 

6
capable of mounting a stiff initial defense in Central Europe to the point of denying the 

Warsaw Pact confidence that it could prevail in a war. 

The Army emerged from the Cold War as the world’s premier ground force, capable of 

operating powerfully not only in Europe, but also in the Persian Gulf and Korea as well. 

Yet its force structure continued to reflect a traditional design. Its command structure 

continued to be highly vertical and layered, stretching from field armies and corps to 

divisions and brigades. The Army thought principally in terms of large-scale operations 

by corps and divisions: brigades of all types were mostly still embedded in divisions and 

not capable of independent operations on their own. Instead, division commanders were 

expected to draw upon their CS/CSS units to create brigade task forces that possessed the 

necessary support assets for each occasion. In addition, the Army continued to emphasize 

large CS/CSS structures provided by divisions, corps, and higher echelons. As a result, 

each division of 16,000 troops came attached with fully 32,000 support troops that were 

commanded by corps and field army headquarters. Taking its non-divisional support 

troops and war reserve stocks into account, an Army heavy division weighed over 

300,000 tons, and a three-division corps, over a million tons. The effect was to make 

these formations highly powerful, but also big and unwieldy, incapable of deploying 

rapidly to distant areas that lacked prepositioned equipment and a well-developed 

infrastructure. 

The 1990s 

The liabilities and assets of the Army’s traditional, weighty structure were put on display 

during the Desert Shield/Desert Storm campaign in the Persian Gulf during 1990–1991. 

When Iraq suddenly invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, the Army was slow to 

deploy to the region. Initially it was able to swiftly deploy only the 82nd Airborne 

Division, which lacked the tanks, IFVs, self-propelled artillery, and other heavy weapons 

needed for combat against Iraqi armored forces. As a result, initial defense of Saudi 

Arabia relied mostly on tactical air and naval forces, which were able to deploy swiftly, 

linked to a thin ground defense incapable of mobile armored operations. A period of high 

danger slowly passed as heavy Army and Marine forces began to arrive on the scene over 

a period of weeks and months. Fully five months were required to deploy a full force of 

nine Army/Marine divisions, with their large inventories of weapons, layered command 

structures, and large support assets. Once this ponderous deployment was completed, 

however, the U.S. ground force was ready for decisive operations. Employing its 

combined arms assets skillfully when the Desert Storm campaign was finally launched, 

the Army/Marine force, supplemented by British, French, and other allied formations 

plus air strikes, easily overpowered the Iraqi Army, defeating it in a matter of days. The 

lesson was that the Army could perform expeditionary operations in distant areas, but 

only after taking considerable time to arrive on the scene with its traditional, wellendowed structure.3 

 

3

 The coalition assault against the Iraqi Army was composed of a frontal assault against its main body 

coupled with a high-speed “left hook” attack around its exposed flank, carried out by the Army’s VIIth 

corps and XVIIIth corps. 

7
After the Persian Gulf War was won, the Army went through a period of consolidation 

during the 1990s. Its active force was reduced from sixteen divisions to twelve divisions, 

and then to ten divisions. The divisions themselves—equally divided into light and heavy 

divisions—retained much of their traditional character. Brigades remained embedded in 

divisions, and divisions remained under command of corps and field army commanders. 

The Army’s CS/CSS support structure and its war reserve requirements also remained 

large and unwieldy. Preservation of this traditional structure was partly a product of the 

Army’s lack of desire to experiment with major changes, but it also reflected the 

imperatives of U.S. defense strategy at the time. Throughout this decade, DOD focused 

its defense planning on being prepared for two nearly simultaneous Major Theater Wars 

(MTWs), which presumably would occur in Southwest Asia and on the Korean 

Peninsula. Each contingency was deemed to require about one-half of the active Army—

five divisions apiece—plus Marine forces. The practice of planning for two contingencies 

this large reinforced the tendency of the Army to continue thinking in traditional terms.4 

The Army remained well-prepared for contingencies requiring multiple divisions and 

corps, each of which could be sent with all of its organic combat and support assets. But 

what about situations requiring a mixture of forces that did not naturally arise from the 

existing force structure? Here, a less flexible and adaptable situation applied. An example 

will illustrate the troubles confronting the Army—a hypothetical contingency requiring 

three different types of brigades: one light infantry, one air assault infantry, and one 

armored. In order to assemble this force, the Army would have been compelled to remove 

each of these brigades, along with its CS/CSS support structure, from three different 

parent divisions. The act of detaching and assembling the necessary units would be timeconsuming, thus inhibiting a quick deployment. In addition, the three parent divisions 

would have had key assets removed from them, thereby damaging their readiness until 

the necessary adjustments could be made. The bottom line is that the Army’s existing 

structure did not readily permit the flexible design of uniquely configured task forces 

made up of several different types of combat brigades—the type of requirement likely to 

arise in many new-era expeditionary missions. In addition, the heavy weight of most 

Army units, brought about by weighty weapon systems and large support structures, 

made them almost impossible to deploy by airlift and therefore highly dependent upon 

sealift coupled with ready access to well-prepared ports. As a result, the Army entered the 

Information Age with a reputation for being muscle-bound, but slow-moving and lacking 

versatility. 

In the eyes of critics, the Army’s sluggishness at swift-deployment operations seemed to 

be confirmed when, in early 1999, NATO went to war in order to eject Serbian forces 

from Kosovo. U.S. air and naval forces quickly deployed to the scene and mounted an 

effective air bombardment campaign that achieved its goals over a period of several 

weeks. Although U.S. and NATO political leaders wanted to avoid commitment of large 

ground forces to Kosovo, a decision was made to deploy a small force of U.S. Army 

attack helicopters to the battle zone. Beset with a large, cumbersome logistic support 

apparatus and lacking a prepared infrastructure, these attack helicopters were slow to 

 

4

 For an analysis and critique of MTW planning during the 1990s, see Steven Metz et. al., Revising the Two 

MTW Force Shaping Paradigm (Carlisle, Pa: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2001). 

8
deploy and equally slow in achieving operationally available status. The war ended 

before they were used in combat. Ultimately the war was won by airpower alone, but 

afterward, Army forces entered Kosovo in order to perform peacekeeping missions there 

in ways paralleling the peacekeeping mission that had been performed in Bosnia since 

1995. These peacekeeping missions not only exposed the Army to new types of 

operations, but also called attention to the growing need for light armored vehicles; heavy 

M-1 Abrams tanks sometimes were unable to cross weak bridges in Kosovo. The 1990s 

ended with the Army’s battlefield supremacy unrivalled, but with growing questions 

being asked about its suitability for performing a widening spectrum of expeditionary 

missions that seemingly loomed on the horizon. 

Impact of Defense Transformation and Warfare in Afghanistan 

and Iraq 

The Army’s decision in 2003–2004 to alter its traditional force structure was influenced 

by two strategic imperatives, both of which merit brief discussion here: the DOD 

approach to defense transformation and the experiences encountered during warfare in 

Afghanistan and Iraq. 

Defense Transformation 

Although the idea of defense transformation had its origins in the 1990s, major efforts 

officially got underway in mid-2001, when DOD released its new Quadrennial Defense 

Report (QDR 2001).5 A central purpose of defense transformation was to take advantage 

of information networks, precision munitions, stealth, plus other new technologies, 

weapon systems, doctrines, and structures in order to make major changes in U.S. 

military forces in ways that would produce substantial increases in their combat 

capabilities for carrying out Information Age, network-empowered operations and for 

enhancing military superiority over adversaries. Modern information networks composed 

of computers, sensors, distribution systems, and trained soldiers promised to greatly 

increase the effectiveness, efficiency, and multi-mission capacity of force operations. The 

core plan was to establish integrated communications, intelligence, operational, and 

logistics networks that could increase and speed the flow of information, thereby creating 

a common operational picture for all command echelons and among all service 

components. Precision strike munitions, in turn, promised to greatly enhance the lethality 

of U.S. forces, thereby allowing them to destroy enemy forces more rapidly or, 

alternatively, to allow smaller forces to perform combat missions previously reserved for 

larger forces. Information networks and smart munitions especially promised to enhance 

the combat capabilities of air and naval forces, but they also offered to make ground force 

operations easier and more effective as well.6 

 

5

 See Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (Washington 

D.C.: Department of Defense, 2001). 

6

 For additional official analysis, see Office of Force Transformation, Transformation: A Strategic 

Approach (Washington D.C.: Department of Defense, 2003). 

9
Although many defense transformation initiatives had a technical focus (e.g., creation of 

a Global Information Grid), the effort was also guided by important strategic imperatives. 

Defense transformation abandoned the old DOD focus on threat-based planning anchored 

in a few canonical contingencies, substituting in its place “capability-based planning,” 

which decreed that U.S. military forces must have sufficient flexibility and agility to 

handle a wide spectrum of military operations, including fighting wars in unpredictable 

locations. In addition, defense transformation placed a high premium on joint force 

operations in ways that would fuse ground, air, and naval forces into a seamless web 

capable of working closely together on the battlefield. Also important, defense 

transformation focused on preparing U.S. military forces, including the Army, for 

expeditionary missions requiring swift deployment of joint forces to distant areas lacking 

a prepared infrastructure. Together, these strategic imperatives called for networked U.S. 

military forces that would have a different focus than had been the case during the Cold 

War and the 1990s. In particular, the growing emphasis on joint operations meant that all 

components, including ground forces, could no longer focus mainly on their own combat 

domains, but instead would have to think in terms of how operations in multiple domains 

could be blended together to create powerful effects on the battlefield.7 

For the Army, joint operations meant that airpower would be providing enhanced support 

to ground forces, which dictated that planning for land warfare would need to take into 

account how the precision strikes of air forces could best be employed to achieve success 

on the ground. The presence of lethal airpower meant that Army forces could pursue 

more ambitious goals than before, and in some cases, employ fewer forces than before. 

The emphasis on expeditionary operations, in turn, meant that Army forces would need to 

be highly flexible and adaptable, capable of being swiftly packaged and deployed to meet 

an ever-shifting array of operational requirements. In previous years, contingency-based 

planning meant that the Army had the luxury of employing predetermined, constant force 

packages to meet operational requirements in a relatively narrow set of circumstances. 

The new focus of capability-based planning and expeditionary missions meant that the 

Army would be compelled to treat each strategic mission as unique, to shape uniquely 

tailored forces for each case, and to deploy them more rapidly than in the past. For the 

Army, this was an unfamiliar environment for which its traditional forces structure was 

not always well-suited. 

Beyond this, defense transformation aimed to open the door to a new era of military 

doctrines and operational concepts on the battlefield that had important implications for 

how Army forces were structured and employed in warfare. Previously U.S. military 

doctrine had focused heavily on mechanical attrition processes in order to defeat enemy 

forces. Army doctrine, in turn, had focused mainly on massing large forces with 

formidable firepower in order to launch concentrated strikes against enemy troop 

formations. In previous years, for example, Army doctrine called for divisions to be 

deployed along relatively narrow frontages of 25–50 kilometers apiece, and for corps to 

cover frontages of 75–150 kilometers. By contrast, defense transformation switched focus 

away from attrition, and concentrated instead on a wide set of battlefield effects through 

 

7

 For additional official analysis, see Department of Defense, Joint Vision: 2020 (Washington D.C.: Joint 

Staff, 2003). 

10
dominant maneuvers and precision engagements aimed at unraveling the enemy’s 

cohesion, thereby fracturing its capacity to operate effectively. This emphasis on 

battlefield effects, in turn, switched emphasis away from concentrating U.S. ground 

forces toward dispersing them on the battlefield in appropriate situations so that they 

could rapidly attack the enemy from multiple different axes of advance. A doctrine of 

dispersed, non-contiguous force operations meant not only that Army forces would be 

deployed across much larger distances, but also that maneuver brigades would need to 

develop the capacity to operate independently, at locations well-removed from their 

parent divisions and corps. 

Afghanistan and Iraq

For the Army, the implications of expeditionary missions and Information Age operations 

became increasingly apparent when the United States invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, 

following the terrorist strikes of September 11. U.S. air and naval forces swiftly deployed 

to the scene, ready to conduct a precision bombing campaign against Taliban and al 

Qaeda strongholds. Small teams of U.S. and allied special operations forces (SOF) also 

quickly deployed, and were instrumental in helping air and naval forces strike their 

targets. But Army maneuver brigades—infantry units from the 10th Mountain Division 

and the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)—were able to deploy only by early winter, 

first entering major combat when Operation Anaconda was launched in February and 

March. The absence of Army combat forces in earlier weeks and months allegedly 

hampered efforts to trap Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders when the 

opportunity was available at the battle of Tora Bora. During the subsequent Operation 

Anaconda in the mountain-surrounded Shahikot Valley, the Army’s lack of mortars, 

artillery, attack helicopters, and armored vehicles compelled a reliance on massed air 

strikes by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines to win the battle. The phase of major combat 

operations in Afghanistan was successfully concluded by spring 2002, but the Army soon 

found itself with the mission of permanently deploying several brigades across a very 

large countryside in order to perform S&R operations and to prevent the Taliban from 

rebuilding a foothold there. By 2003–2004, it had become evident that the Army’s 

presence in Afghanistan, supplemented by NATO forces from Europe and other allies, 

would be longer-lasting than originally envisioned.8 

 

The invasion of Iraq that was launched in early 2003 provided the Army a further 

introduction to the unique demands and enduring requirements of expeditionary 

operations in the Greater Middle East. In prior years, CENTCOM war plans for major 

theater war there had contemplated the deployment of large ground forces totaling 6–7 

Army and Marine divisions, followed by prompt withdrawal after the war was won. In 

the months preceding the 2003 invasion, however, careful study by DOD and 

CENTCOM revealed that a significantly smaller ground force would be needed to defeat 

the Iraqi Army and topple Saddam Hussein’s government. The main reasons for a smaller 

force requirement were joint operations employing air power in ground attack roles and 

the superior lethality and maneuverability of U.S. ground forces. When the invasion was 

 

8

 For a journalistic account of Operation Anaconda, see Sean Naylor, Not A Good Day to Die (New York: 

Berkley Caliber Books, 2005). 

11
launched, the coalition ground force included only two U.S. Army divisions—the 3rd

Infantry Division (Mechanized) and 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)—plus a 

brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, coupled with a division-sized Marine 

Expeditionary Force and a the UK 1st Armored Division. The Army’s 4th Infantry 

Division (Mechanized) was also present offshore, but held in a reserve status. This 

relatively small force employed bold, fast maneuvers and precision strikes to quickly 

defeat the unraveling Iraqi Army and to occupy Baghdad and other major cities. This 

phase of the invasion was accomplished swiftly with quite low casualties, in ways 

suggesting that future major combat operations against some military rivals could be 

carried out with smaller ground forces than previously was thought possible.9 

Within a few months of this overwhelming victory, hopes to promptly withdraw the bulk 

of U.S. ground forces from Iraq dissolved when insurgency operations began growing 

and Iraq proved to be highly unstable, marked by violent religious rivalries between 

Sunnis and Shiites. By early 2004, deteriorating events in Iraq were making clear that the 

U.S. military would need to maintain a ground force of 130,000 troops or more there for 

a considerable period of years, while carrying out demanding S&R missions and 

performing new types of counterinsurgency operations. The result was to confront the 

Army and DOD with an entirely new strategic situation than when transformation had 

gotten underway only two years earlier. On the one hand, the enduring requirements to 

maintain large ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaling more than 150,000 troops, 

meant that the Army would need to perform lengthy rotational operations in both 

countries: i.e. rotating troops and units out of these countries after about one year of 

presence, and substituting fresh troops in their place. On the other hand, the Army had to 

remain continuously ready for wartime deployment missions to Korea and elsewhere. 

These two missions—enduring presence in Iraq and Afghanistan coupled with 

preparedness for war elsewhere—compelled the Army to temporarily add 30,000 troops 

to its active roster and to make greater use of activated Reserve Component (RC) forces 

(e.g. National Guard units) than ever before. Even with the presence of this added 

manpower, the new strategic situation created a previously unanticipated requirement for 

a larger active Army and for more combat maneuver units, especially for more combat 

brigades that would be available for duty in the Greater Middle East and for other 

preparedness missions. The Army’s existing posture of 33 such brigades, housed mainly 

in its ten active divisions, was not large enough to meet this requirement. Finding an 

effective solution to this problem, while also making the Army’s force structure more 

agile and mobile, was to prove a main focal point of the Army’s new transformation 

strategy that was adopted in 2003–2004. 

 

9

 For a description of DOD force planning for Operation Iraqi Freedom, see Tommy Franks, American 

Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004). See also Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: 

The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Pantheon Books, 2006). 

12
The Army’s Transformation Plan of 2003–2004: Toward ForceWide Modularity 

During 2001–2002, the Army issued its initial transformation roadmap, which contained 

important innovations, but proved to be short-lived because it did too little to reorganize 

and upgrade its combat forces for expeditionary missions in the near-to-mid term. This 

plan divided active Army forces into three categories: Legacy Force, Interim Force, and 

Objective Force. The plan mainly focused on the latter two categories. The Interim Force 

was to be composed of five Stryker brigade combat teams, four active and one reserve 

component. The Stryker units were to be medium-weight brigades dominated by Stryker 

combat vehicles that would help create a bridge between the Army’s large numbers of 

light and heavy brigades. The Stryker brigade was the first modular BCT to employ a 

new organizational structure and RSTA squadron. The Objective Force was a distant 

vision of how the Army would take shape when its new FCS vehicles would be fielded in 

10–15 years. The Army’s plan for the so-called Legacy Force—encompassing 29 of its 

33 active combat brigades and all ten active divisions—was focused primary on 

achieving digitization, and on acquiring the new Crusader artillery tube and Comanche 

attack helicopter. Both of these weapon systems however, were subsequently cancelled 

when they were judged to be insufficiently transformational and otherwise failed to meet 

operational requirements. Critics besieged the Army with complaints that the Legacy 

Force was left mired in the status quo until sometime in the distant future when the FCS 

systems might be fielded. 

Strategic Premises of Modularity

In 2003–2004, the Army reacted to these criticisms by issuing a new transformation plan 

that was portrayed in full detail in an officially published document of July, 2004. This 

revised plan abandoned the earlier framework of Legacy, Interim, and Objective Forces 

by creating two categories: Current and Future Forces. It retained the Stryker brigades 

and sought to accelerate introduction of FCS technologies. Its most important change, 

however, was an ambitious plan to reorganize how the combat brigades, divisions, and 

corps of the Current Force were structured. The centerpiece of this plan was creation of a 

new brigade “Unit of Action” (UA): the modular brigade combat team (BCT), which 

promised to dramatically reconfigure how Army combat brigades were structured and 

employed on the battlefield. Modularity was not restricted, however, to combat brigades 

alone. Rather, it was applied also to the Army’s higher-echelon command structures and 

to the organization of its CS/CSS forces and aviation forces. 

The Army’s 2004 Army Transformation Plan: A Campaign-Quality Army with Joint and 

Expeditionary Capabilities provided a strategic approach to transformation along with a 

“campaign plan” for executing the desired changes—by both adopting modular 

formations and later fielding networked FCS systems—in a carefully phased manner over 

the coming decade and beyond.10 The new plan began by discussing the imperatives of 

 

10 See United States Army, 2004 Army Transformation Roadmap: A Campaign-Quality Army with Joint 

and Expeditionary Capabilities (Washington D.C.: Department of Army, July 2004). 

13
defense transformation and the Army’s roles as a member of the joint force. It placed 

emphasis on learning the lessons of ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which 

were blurring the traditional distinction between combat and stability operations, and 

were revealing enemies becoming more skilled at insurgency, terrorist attacks, and 

asymmetric operations aimed at blunting American technological superiorities. In 

addition, the Army transformation plan emphasized the important role of new-era joint 

concepts in determining how new ground forces and capabilities should be built. As 

spelled out in Joint Staff documents and the Army plan, these concepts included “joint 

operating concepts” (e.g., major combat operations and stability operations), “joint 

functional concepts” (e.g., battlespace awareness, force application, focused logistics, and 

network-centric operations), and “joint integrating concepts” (e.g., forcible entry 

operations, global strike, joint logistics, and joint urban operations). The effect of these 

joint concepts was to create an operational framework within which transformation 

efforts by all services, including the Army, were to be carried out. Also important, the 

Army transformation plan emphasized the importance of pursuing joint 

interdependencies for expeditionary operations as the future unfolded. It cited five key 

interdependencies: joint battle command, joint fires and effects, joint air and missile 

defense, joint force protection, and joint sustainment.11 

This strategic framework led the Army transformation plan to conduct an assessment of 

key Army capabilities for joint and expeditionary operations that would need to be 

developed for both the Current Force and the Future Force. Desired current capabilities 

included such areas as network-enabled battle command, force protection and logistics 

for noncontiguous battlefields, networked precision fires, and ability to conduct joint 

urban operations. Desired future capabilities included such areas as dynamic C4 

architecture, better deployability and mobility, better ISR assets, lethal overmatch, 

improved training, and sustainment of modular forces. In order to create such 

capabilities, the Army transformation roadmap articulated a multi-year plan that would 

focus mainly on improving the Current Force from 2004–2010, and then gradually 

transition to focus on building the Future Force in the following years. 

Although the Army transformation plan recognized that some future operations might 

require deployment of multiple divisions and corps—a conflict on the Korean peninsula 

was one possibility among others—it also responded to the growing likelihood that many 

expeditionary missions would require smaller forces, possibly only a few combat 

brigades and associated support assets. But because many of these contingencies 

promised to be demanding, the smaller forces deployed for them often would have to be 

multifaceted—e.g., a mixture of infantry, air assault, armored, and SOF units—as well as 

highly capable, equipped with modern weapons, modern information networks, and other 

Information Age assets that would enable them to perform as well as, or better than, the 

larger forces that would have been deployed in previous years. Acquiring these assets and 

ensuring the presence of well-trained troops attuned to the demands of such operations 

was a main concern of the Army transformation plan. 

 

11 See Department of Defense, Joint Operations Concepts (Washington D.C.: DOD, 2003). 

14
Creating modular forces thus was not the only strategic imperative animating the Army’s 

transformation plan, but it provided the overarching military framework for pursuing 

other capability enhancements in the near term and long term. While the initiative to 

create BCTs attracted the most public attention, the plan’s larger potential impact derived 

from its mating of BCTs with modular forces in the other areas of command structures, 

support assets, and aviation units. The combination of modular forces in all four areas, in 

the eyes of the transformation plan, promised to significantly speed the process by which 

Army forces stationed in the United States could be selected, configured, and deployed 

for expeditionary missions while leaving the rest of the Army intact, capable of 

responding to other contingencies. Moreover, each of these modular formations promised 

to operate more effectively on the battlefield not only individually, but collectively as 

well. The combination of modular brigades that interlocked into a cohesive whole, 

improved command structures, leaner and more effective logistic support assets, and 

better-tailored aviation units was intended to significantly improve the Army’s aggregate 

capacity to carry out a wide spectrum of expeditionary missions with forces that likely 

would be smaller than in previous years, but still amply large to get their jobs done—all 

while not draining other forces away from other missions. Beyond this, modular forces 

provided a modern setting within which to pursue long-term transformation with modern 

information networks, FCS weapons, and other new-era capabilities. This, at least, was 

the appealing vision put forth by the Army transformation plan, which imposed changes 

in force structures and weapons that went beyond those being pursued by the other 

services. 

Key Features of Army’s Modularity Plan 

• Creation of New Unit of Action: Modular Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) 

• Fielding of 43-48 active BCTs, all independently deployable 

• Consolidation of old layered command echelons into UEx and UEy modular units 

• Reorganization of CS/CSS assets into modular units. 

• Creation of modular aviation units 

• Assignment of FCS weapons and associated systems to modular formations 

Modular BCTs 

The Army’s plan for creating modular forces, including BCTs, stemmed logically from 

its comprehensive, multi-year approach to transformation. Whereas traditional Army 

combat brigades were embedded in parent divisions, the new BCTs were to be 

independent formations capable of operating entirely on their own. In order to achieve 

this independence, the Army plan called for critical CS and CSS support assets to be 

transferred from division commanders to brigade commanders. As a result, BCT 

commanders would now have under their control the full spectrum of combat and support 

assets needed to deploy independently and operate effectively without drawing heavily 

upon support from parent divisions and corps. These new BCTs were to be organized into 

three types: Heavy (armored and mechanized), Infantry (including airborne and air 

assault), and Stryker BCTs. The size of each Heavy BCT was to be 3700 soldiers, and 

each Infantry, 3400 soldiers. This troop level was substantially less than the 5300 troops 

15
normally assigned to old-style brigades when their task-organized structure resulted in 

their full share of divisional CS/CSS assets being counted. The Army achieved this 

manpower reduction by assigning each Infantry and Heavy BCT only two maneuver 

battalions, of four companies apiece, rather than the three battalions assigned in the past. 

Only the Stryker BCTs were to retain three maneuver battalions apiece. By drawing upon 

the resulting manpower savings and a temporary increase in Army end-strength of 30,000 

soldiers, the Army was plan, to be carried out over a period of several years, was to 

increase the number of its active combat brigades from 33 old-style brigades to 43–48 

BCTs. In similar fashion, the Army plan called for RC brigades (National Guard units) to 

be reorganized into 34 BCTs. In a subsequent program review, DOD approved creation 

of 43 active BCTs, but earmarked the final 5 BCTs for validation depending upon future 

requirements. 

In the Army’s view, this larger number of active BCTs promised to greatly increase its 

flexibility and versatility for future expeditionary missions. Modularity meant that the 

Army could swiftly task-organize combat forces for each unique mission without tearing 

apart existing divisions and extracting cobbled-together brigades from them. Instead the 

Army would be able to flexibly draw upon whatever combination of Heavy, Infantry, and 

Stryker BCTs were needed for the situation at hand. The act of assembling such a tailored 

force, in turn, would leave the rest of the Army intact, thereby providing a large pool of 

BCTs which themselves could be drawn upon in order to handle multiple concurrent 

contingencies. 

The Army’s plan, moreover, called for this enlarged BCT force to be maintained at tiered 

readiness in order to provide for phased force generation. It articulated a 3-year readiness 

cycle for active BCTs, during which soldiers would be assigned to their parent units for 

the entire time. BCTs, the plan said, would be fully ready for deployment for about twothirds of this time. As a result, at any given time, a large number of BCTs would be ready 

for prompt deployment within 30 days, some would be standing down and resetting from 

prior high readiness status, and some would be undergoing training for a future period of 

high readiness in a few weeks or months. A pool of high readiness units would mean that 

enough forces would always be available to perform sustained presence missions of the 

sort being carried out in Iraq and Afghanistan, including providing replacement BCTs for 

those BCTs that were completing their tours of duty in wartime theaters. Meanwhile, 

enough BCTs would always be available for additional emergency deployments, some 

after a relatively short period of mobilization and preparedness—including by drawing 

upon BCTs that were either recovering from earlier high readiness status or nearing 

completion of their training periods for future preparedness missions. The large pool of 

RC BCTs, in turn, meant that additional combat brigades could be promptly mobilized 

for demanding situations in which the active force was overstretched. The Army plan put 

forth a 6-year readiness cycle for ANG BCTs that would allow for 40 percent of units to 

surge for a contingency while still maintaining the capacity to support other missions, 

including homeland defense and disaster recovery. In addition, the plan created an Army 

Reserve Expeditionary Force of ten force packages, each of which would be eligible for a 

nine-month mobilization period one time during the 6-year cycle. 

16
The Army transformation plan called for conversion of existing active brigades to BCT 

status during 2004–2009, coupled with fielding of the 10–15 entirely new BCT units 

during this period. The 3rd Infantry (Mechanized), 101st Air Assault , and 10th Mountain 

divisions were slated to be the first converted, followed by the remaining active divisions 

thereafter. Meanwhile, conversion of the 34 Army National Guard brigades to BCT status 

would take place during 2005–2010. The sequential phasing of this plan enabled the 

Army to focus on 4–6 active brigades and 6–8 National Guard divisions per year. It also 

enabled overseas-deployed brigades to begin converting to BCT status after they returned 

home from their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Completion of the entire BCT conversion 

plan by 2010 or shortly thereafter, in turn, was intended to have an entirely new force 

structure in place by the time that FCS systems began arriving on the scene. Successful 

deployment of FCS systems by 2014 and thereafter would mean that the entire, complex 

Army transformation plan could be completed by 2020 or sooner. 

 Surface appearances suggested that the act of removing one of three maneuver battalions 

would leave each Heavy and Infantry BCT with significantly less combat power in 

comparison to old-style brigades. The Army’s transformation plan, however, endeavored 

to compensate for this drawback by strengthening each BCT in other ways. Each of the 

two maneuver battalions would be combined arms units, possessing engineers, scouts, 

and sustainment forces. Each Infantry and Stryker BCT would be assigned a RSTA 

squadron capable of reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition functions; each 

Heavy BCT would be assigned a cavalry squadron that would possess RSTA assets plus 

armored vehicles that provide firepower. Each BCT would also have a Fires battalion 

composed of two artillery batteries with target acquisition and countermortar radar 

systems. Each BCT would also have a Brigade Troops battalion composed of command 

posts, intelligence, and signals units, plus a support battalion consisting of transportation, 

distribution, and maintenance assets. Each BCT would also have a Support battalion for 

logistic supply. The Army plan argued that when the advantages of these assets and 

modern information networks were factored into the equation, the new BCT would 

possess aggregate capabilities that matched or exceeded those of old-style brigades. In 

essence, in the Army’s plan, the new BCTs were intended to offset less quantity with 

more quality. 

Key Features of Army Modular BCTs 

• Two maneuver battalions for Heavy and Infantry BCTs; three maneuver 

battalions for Stryker BCTs. 

• RSTA squadron or cavalry squadron. 

• Fires battalion composed of artillery batteries. 

• Brigade Troops battalion for multiple functions. 

• Support Battalion for logistic supply. 

Notwithstanding such qualitative assets, some critics continued to argue that a BCT of 

only two maneuver battalions would suffer from the absence of either nearly 1000 

infantry troops or 130 tanks and IFVs that otherwise would be available. The 

consequence presumably would be an insufficient number of troops and weapon systems 

17
for missions in which numbers mattered as well as quality. The rejoinder to this criticism 

was that in such cases, each BCT could control more than two maneuver battalions once 

advanced information networks were fielded. Alternatively additional BCTs could be 

deployed to provide the necessary numbers. For example, a deployed Army division 

could be provided four or five BCTs rather than the standard three old-style brigades. A 

second criticism fretted about the potential consequences of permanently allocating to 

brigade commanders many of the CS/CSS assets normally owned by the division 

commander. The new BCT structure, critics alleged, could deprive division commanders 

of their important capacity to flexibly determine the amount of support that could be 

provided to the brigade commanders under their leadership. For example, division 

commanders no longer would possess the capacity to focus the bulk of their artillery fires 

in support of one brigade rather than uniformly distribute it among all three brigades. Yet 

a third criticism argued that BCT commanders would be saddled with too many 

responsibilities, and would have trouble performing their operational duties while also 

attending to such logistics functions as maintenance and supply. A fourth criticism 

argued in favor of a smaller number of larger brigades (e.g. 5000–7000 task-organized 

troops apiece), rather than a larger number of smaller BCT units. This viewpoint 

presumably would have left the active Army with 25–30 big, heavily armed brigades 

rather than 43–48 BCTs.12 The Army transformation plan rejected these and other 

criticisms, yet this plan made conscious tradeoffs whose effectiveness could be tested 

only through operational experience. Even so, the switch to a larger number of modular 

BCTs offered obvious advantages in enhancing the Army’s capability for dealing with a 

widening spectrum of expeditionary missions. 

Modular Headquarters 

Another important feature of the Army’s transformation plan was its decision to create 

new, modular headquarters for commanding its BCTs. When the Army entered the 

Information Age, it continued to possess three high-echelon commands for operating its 

forces: divisions, corps, and field armies. The Army’s initial transformation plan made no 

changes to this structure, but the new plan of 2003–2004 sought to alter it by 

consolidating the three command echelons into two echelons, both of which were to be 

lean modular structures: the Unit of Employment X (UEx) and the Unit of Employment 

Y (UEy). In the eyes of critics, surface appearances suggested that the UEx and UEy 

would be merely linear improvements to old-style divisions and corps, but the Army plan 

argued that the changes would be truly transformational by virtue of creating decidedly 

new command structures that would be better able to carry out expeditionary missions. 

The UEx was designated to be the Army’s main tactical and operational warfighting 

headquarters and for directly commanding BCTs for full-spectrum missions. Assigned no 

organic units apart from headquarters staffs, it was intended to be small and modular, 

capable of rapidly deploying abroad. Its staff was to include a command group, 

communications units, maintenance, security, and signals units. The UEx was intended to 

control up to six BCTs, to include any mix of Heavy, Infantry, and Stryker brigades. It 

 

12 See Douglas A. Macgregor, Transformation Under Fire: Revolutionizing How America Fights (Westport 

Ct.: Praeger, 2003). 

18
also was intended to control a tailored mix of other warfighting functions, including 

CS/CSS brigades for artillery fires, RSTA, aviation, and sustainment. The UEx’s span of 

operations and control thus resembled the traditional division command, but its modular 

nature was intended to allow it to be deployed independently and promptly to take 

command of whatever combination of combat and support brigades was necessary to 

meet battlefield requirements. For relatively small contingencies, a single UEx was to be 

capable of commanding all deployed Army forces, while (assuming appropriate 

reinforcements) performing many of the functions normally allocated to corps and army 

headquarters. For larger contingencies (i.e., requiring more than six maneuver brigades), 

two or three UEx units could be deployed, and would function under command of the 

UEy headquarters. The Army plan identified a requirement for ten active UEx and eight 

RC UEx—the same number of division headquarters currently in the force structure. 

 

The UEy headquarters was intended to consolidate functions traditionally performed by 

corps and army service component commands. That is, it would mainly play the role of 

providing for the flow of resources to UEx headquarters and their subordinate combat 

and support brigades. In major combat operations, it also would normally become the 

JFLCC (Joint Forces Land Component Command) of the regional combatant 

commander, and exercise tactical control of land forces, including their deployment and 

commitment to battle. In addition to command staffs, the UEy would include 

sustainment, protection, and battlespace awareness assets. Similar to the UEx, it was to 

be a lean, modular organization, capable of deploying swiftly and providing command 

support to whatever mixture of combat and support forces were allocated to the situation 

at hand. While the Army plan did not say how many UEy staffs would be created, the 

existing posture of four active corps headquarters suggested the number that might be 

contemplated. A core premise of the Army’s transformation plan was that the 

combination of modular UEx and UEy headquarters could perform the full range of 

command functions that would be required on the modern battlefield, while providing the 

flexibility and agility needed to respond to the full spectrum of missions and 

contingencies likely to be encountered. 

Modular Support Brigades 

In order to meet requirements for support assets stemming from Afghanistan and Iraq, the 

Army transformation plan announced measures to alter its force structure by shifting 

100,000 active and RC troops to units that faced especially high demands. Manpower 

reductions and rebalancing of active/RC units were made in field artillery, air defense, 

engineer, armor, and ordnance battalions. The liberated manpower was to be distributed 

among military police, transportation, POL/water supply, civil affairs, PSYOPS, and 

biological detection units—all areas of high demand in carrying out S&R missions in 

distant areas. The effect was to increase the number of troops available for non-combat 

S&R missions, an improvement that had been urged by critics. 

In addition, the Army transformation plan applied the philosophy of modularity to 

support brigades that primarily would be placed under control of its UEx commands. The 

main types of support brigades included aviation brigades, fires brigades, RSTA brigades, 

19
maneuver enhancement brigades, and sustainment brigades for providing logistic support. 

Such modularity was intended to allow for prompt task-organizing and deployment of 

these assets in accompanying BCTs and UEx staffs on expeditionary missions. While 

modular and standardized, each of these types of support brigades were to be designed 

with flexible structures that would enable them to absorb additional assets if the situation 

demanded. For example, fires brigades could be expanded to absorb additional artillery 

tubes if necessary. Equally important, the exact number and mixture of support brigades 

could be varied to deal with the situation at hand. For example, whereas one contingency 

could require two fires and three sustainment brigades, another contingency could require 

a different mixture of these two units. Modularity allowed for such diverse requirements 

to be handled readily. 

The Army’s transformation plan endeavored to provide the kind of modularity and 

flexibility that would enable CS/CSS support structures to be tailored to the unique 

demands of each situation, rather than be deployed in fixed, prearranged packages that 

often would require larger-than-necessary support assets in order to ensure that all 

functions could be performed with the necessary strength. An important implication of 

this plan for flexible, modular support is that in expeditionary missions, the Army’s 

previously long logistics tail could be shortened significantly, thereby allowing for 

speedier force deployment and smaller requirements for manpower and war reserve 

stocks coupled with better performance and reduced imprint on the battlefield. 

In addition, the Army transformation plan announced an ambitious effort to use 

information networks and other new technologies to improve the performance the 

Army’s entire logistic support system for battlefield forces. This plan called for 

improvements across the entire range of functions, including arming combat forces, 

transporting ammunition and stocks to distant areas and distributing them to committed 

forces, and achieving improved maintenance. Modular logistics units, ranging from reararea supply depots to support units embedded in BCTs, were critical to this design for 

enhancing end-to-end support and sustainment, while reducing supply echelons and 

excess stockage requirements and increasing joint logistics planning. The ultimate goal 

was creation of a networked, lean, and highly responsive logistics support for the full 

spectrum of expeditionary missions, each of which would likely generate unique 

requirements and demands by engaged combat forces that could be widely dispersed over 

the battlefield and deployed long distances from ports and supply bases. 

Modular Aviation Brigades 

Surface appearances suggested that cancellation of the long-awaited Comanche had dealt 

Army aviation a serious setback. But the Comanche had suffered from problems during 

its development that weakened support for it within the Army. Unlike the Crusader, 

which had been cancelled by DOD, the Comanche was cancelled by the Army itself. 

Reacting to the cancellation, the Army transformation plan announced measures to apply 

funds saved from the Comanche program in order to recapitalize or modernize fully 2400 

existing helicopters. For example, efforts were to be taken to improve avionics, attack 

20
weapons, survivability, and maintenance. This shift of priorities offered to significantly 

increase the capabilities of the existing force, thus offsetting loss of the Comanche. 

 The Army’s plan for refurbishing its aviation forces, however, did not end there. In 

addition, the Army transformation plan called for creation of modular aviation brigades. 

In order to correct for performance shortfalls encountered in Iraq and elsewhere, the 

Army plan called for active aviation forces to be organized into three different types of 

standardized, modular, and multifunctional brigades based upon company-sized building 

blocks: heavy, medium, and light brigades, each containing a mixture of 52–76 attack, 

utility, and general support helicopters. With its emphasis on flexible companies and 

brigades, this reorganization was intended to shift away from concentration of helicopters 

at the corps in order to provide for greater, responsive distribution to UEx units and 

BCTs. Other goals were improved sustainment, supportability, modular maintenance 

packages, and airspace control. The Army plan called for this reorganization of active 

and RC aviation forces to be carried out during 2004–2008. 

Information Networking and FCS Systems

For the near term, the Army transformation plan called for a “network enabled” force, 

which implied less ambitious goals than the “network centric” capability being sought 

throughout most of DOD. But the Army plan was far from indifferent to the pressing 

need for capability enhancements in this important area. It put forth a plan for practical 

improvements in several areas, especially in intelligence (e.g., the Distributed Common 

Ground System-Army), widespread adoption of blue force-tracking assets (FBCB2-BFT), 

the JTRS radio communication system, and better networking of UA, UEx, and UEy 

headquarters. For the long term, the Army plan was significantly more ambitious. It 

called for full development and deployment of the Army’s LandWarNet system, which 

would serve as the Army’s portion of the GIG, analogous to the Air Force 

ConstellationNet and the Navy’s Force Net. The desired effect was to create a fully 

integrated joint communications architecture that would facilitate global military 

operations by all combatant commands and their components. Along with LandWarNet 

came an ambitious long-term plan to greatly expand the Army’s access to wide 

bandwidth through 2020. The Army’s plan for LandWarNet and access to wide 

bandwidth, in turn, set the stage for pursuing full networking not only among highechelon commands, but down to the tactical level of Army brigades, battalions, 

companies, and individual weapon systems. The vision articulated was that by 2020, the 

Army would be fully networked from top to bottom. 

 

This vision of a network-empowered posture was central to the Army’s plan for fielding 

FCS systems. The idea of creating a networked Army of lightweight combat vehicles had 

its origins in earlier Army force improvement efforts, including Force 21 and Army After 

Next. The FCS concept was officially unveiled in the initial Army transformation plan of 

2001–2002, and then brought to fruition in the 2004 transformation plan. The contract 

award for lead system integrator of the FCS effort took place in 2002. In this plan, the 

Army’s FCS program called for prompt fielding of new technologies and systems as they 

gradually became available through spiral development, thus progressively transitioning 

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the Army from the Current Force to the Future Force. FCS vehicles were designed to 

employ common chassis and standard parts, thereby reducing logistic support costs and 

the number of total vehicles required. Ultimately, the plan called for development and 

fielding of fully eighteen new FCS combat vehicles, including mounted armored 

vehicles, infantry carrier vehicles, cannons, mortars, air defense vehicles, command and 

control vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), 

non-line-of-sight launch system (NLOS), medical vehicles, and logistic support vehicles, 

some of them robotic. In the Army’s plan, all of these FCS vehicles were to be fully 

networked, and joined together in a seamless communications and information 

architecture that would facilitate highly integrated combat operations. Another important 

theme was that these FCS vehicles were to be lighter-weight than their predecessors, 

many of them light enough to be loaded aboard C-130 transports, which could carry only 

about 20 tons apiece. In the Army plan, light-weight weapons translated into faster 

deployability, including into distant locations lacking a well-developed infrastructure of 

modern airfields and sea ports. 

The FCS plan to create lightweight weapons reversed decades of experience in which 

Army platforms had become increasingly weighty. Such lightweight vehicles meant that 

the new FCS systems could have fast tactical mobility on the battlefield as well as 

adequate firepower and lethality when the beneficial effects of sensors, computers, and 

new weapons were taken into account. The drawback, critics alleged, was that FCS 

systems might not have the high survivability that is commonly associated with thick 

armored protection, which accounts for much of the weight of traditional weapons. The 

proposed reduction of weight was especially noteworthy in the design of FCS 

replacements for the M-1 tank, which weighs nearly 70 tons, and the Bradley IFV, which 

weighs 35 tons. The same calculus applied to self-propelled artillery vehicles, which 

currently weigh well over 20 tons. If the new weapon platforms were to weigh in the 

vicinity of 20 tons, they could not, with current technology, possess nearly as much 

protective armor as their predecessors. 

The Army transformation plan placed considerable emphasis upon the ability of a 

successful RDT&E effort to produce new technologies (e.g., new types of protective 

armor and sensors to warn of impending attack and enemy use of IED explosives) and 

thereby achieve a successful new-era balance among these competing imperatives. Army 

leaders expressed confidence that by using such new technologies, lightweight weapons 

could be designed with the necessary blend of firepower, mobility, and survivability. 

Critics, however, expressed worry that many of these new technologies were still on the 

drawing board and unproven, that the multiple FCS goals could not all be accomplished 

at the same time, and that the RDT&E process, in striving for a big leap forward into new 

lightweight technology, advanced sensors, ultra-sophisticated computers, and airborne 

systems was being pushed too far, too fast, and possibly beyond the art of the possible. 

In addition, critics worried about another potential problem: the Army’s aggregate 

combat power when the combination of BCTs and FCS systems was taken into account. 

They fretted that the package of lightweight vehicles and BCTs fielding only two 

maneuver battalions would deny the BCTs the mass, firepower, and survivability needed 

22
to prevail against well-armed, tank-heavy opponents in close combat. The Army plan 

countered this criticism by asserting that the FCS-equipped BCT would be optimized to 

perform combat missions at distances beyond direct contact with the enemy. That is, the 

BCT would employ sensors and long-range fires (e.g., by artillery, missiles, and attack 

helicopters) to quickly disrupt and destroy large numbers of enemy forces before direct 

contact and close combat ensued. As a result, FCS-armed BCTs presumably would have 

ample fighting strength to destroy residual forces through fast maneuvers and lethal fires 

when direct contact occurred, thereby prevailing swiftly while also minimizing their own 

vulnerability to massed enemy forces. Critics continued to worry about the validity of this 

assertion, but as a practical matter, the long-range FCS plan ensured that many M-1 tanks 

and Bradley IFVs—principal heavy weapons for close combat—would remain in the 

Army inventory for many years. The long-range viability of the FCS plan for close 

combat, in turn, would depend upon how FCS systems prospered during the RDT&E 

process and whether their demanding design goals proved achievable. 

The Army transformation plan called for accelerated development of FCS capabilities, 

not only by introducing new subsystems into the Current Force, but also by speeding 

creation of entire FCS-equipped BCTs. Whereas the original plan called for the first such 

BCT to be fielded in 2010, the plan of 2004 called for the first FCS-equipped BCT to be 

fielded and employed for evaluation in 2008. Successive spirals of FCS deployment 

would then expand the number of such active BCTs over a period of several years. The 

Army plan called for 8 FCS-equipped BCTs to be fielded by 2010, for 21 units to be 

fielded by 2012, and for 32 units to be fielded by 2014. FCS conversion of the Army’s 

remaining 11–18 BCTs presumably would follow in succeeding years, as would eventual 

conversion of RC BCTs. Provided adequate funds were available and the FCS RDT&E 

effort unfolded successfully, the bulk of the Army was to be converted to FCS status 

around 2020 if not before. 

Conclusion: Prospects and Challenges 

In the years immediately following 2004, critics of the Army’s modularity plan continued 

to worry about its alleged drawbacks, but the Army continued to express satisfaction that 

adequate progress was being made on implementing it in the aftermath of its adoption. 

Supporters of the modularity plan, inside the Army and outside, celebrated its 

innovativeness and other transformational qualities, as well as its potential contributions 

to making the Army more swiftly deployable, better able to handle multiple different 

contingencies, and more effective on the battlefield. While its ultimate effectiveness will 

need to be tested by missions and operations in the future, thus far (through no inherent 

fault of its own) it has not proven to be a panacea in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2004–

2007, the stability operations and associated S&R missions there continued to demand an 

enduring combined presence of 150,000 troops, and they eventually proved to exert 

substantial pressure on the Army’s ability to sustain such large troop presences abroad. In 

order to help meet these demands, DOD in 2007 decided to further enlarge the active 

Army from 512,000 soldiers to 547,000, with this goal to be accomplished by 2013. In 

2007, DOD also adopted a plan temporarily to surge an additional 30,000 soldiers to Iraq 

23
in order to help quell violence there, and by early 2008 plans were being considered to 

send an additional 3,000 troops to Afghanistan for the same purpose. 

The bottom line is that although the modularity plan enlarges the number of maneuver 

combat brigades in the Army, it thus far has not settled deeper questions about how large 

an Army is needed in order to handle multiple expeditionary missions abroad. Nor does it 

resolve the problem of the Army gradually becoming worn down in the face of large 

enduring missions demanding multiple brigades and thousands of troops that stretch the 

Army’s rotational base. How large does the future Army need to be in order to handle 

such contingencies and demands? This question will need to be answered, and it cannot 

be resolved by the modularity plan alone. Beyond this, the Army’s modular force is 

intended to be optimized for major combat operations and high-tech missions. While this 

focus is understandable in light of the Army’s world-wide responsibilities, the equal 

reality is that enduring expeditionary missions in the Greater Middle East and adjoining 

regions demand not only combat maneuver brigades, but also large numbers of the 

CS/CSS troops that are needed for stabilization and reconstruction. For example, modular 

BCTs might not be the best organization for advising foreign militaries as they perform 

stability operations in their own countries—an issue now under review by the Army. 

Will the modular Army, with its current structure, be able to provide sufficient numbers 

of both types of forces, or will further changes in its posture become necessary? In the 

eyes of critics, modular FCS-equipped forces might have trouble—owing partly to too 

much exotic technology (e.g., robotics) and too few foot soldiers—to perform S&R 

missions, counterinsurgency, and related operations in urban areas. In response to these 

and other criticisms, an alternative proposal called for the Army to create an S&R 

division that would include modular S&R brigades capable of being distributed to the 

combatant commanders.13 Another proposal was even more sweeping. It called for 

creation of a bimodal Army, with one part configured for swift high-tech combat 

operations, and the other part designed for enduring S&R presence and similar longlasting expeditionary missions.14 The Army rejected both proposals, but together, they 

illustrated that although the Army’s modular plan is a good step in the right direction, it is 

not necessarily seen, at least in the eyes of critics, as a permanent solution to 

reconfiguring Army forces for the full set of missions that could lie ahead. 

Another important question arises: Exactly how swiftly deployable will be the Army’s 

modular formations and FCS systems? Clearly modular formations will enable the Army 

to organize and prepared expeditionary forces more quickly. Also, smaller brigades, 

command structures and support assets, combined with lightweight FCS weapons, will 

reduced the tonnages that must be sent overseas in any given situation. In theory, a 

limited number of BCTs could be dispatched overseas via strategic airlift. But deploying 

a larger force of BCTs, along with their support assets, is another matter. The core 

 

13 See Hans Binnendijk and Stuart E. Johnson, eds., Transforming for Stabilization and Reconstruction 

Operations (Washington D.C.: Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 2004). 14 For more budgetary detail, see Richard L. Kugler and Hans Binnendijk, Shaping Future Defense 

Budgets: Defense and Technology Paper 6 (Washington D.C.: Center for Technology and National 

Security Policy, 2004). 

24
constraint is that even if USAF air transports are fully mobilized, they can lift only about 

15,000–20,000 tons per day to long distances, and a significant portion of this airlift must 

be employed in order to provide USAF combat formations with adequate support. For 

major deployments, the reality is that the Army will remain dependent upon fast sealift 

and overseas prepositioning of equipment in order to converge rapidly on diverse scenes. 

Further improvements in both of these areas will be necessary if the full benefits of faster 

Army deployability are to be realized. 

Similar challenges evidently lie ahead for the Army’s plan to introduce FCS systems in 

the coming years. The FCS plan is undeniably visionary, but its broad, sweeping scope—

embodying not only new weapon platforms but also a major infusion of sensors and 

information networks—stretches the Army’s RDT&E capacity, and that of supporting 

defense industries, well beyond anything ever attempted before. For example, the task of 

developing sophisticated new software is especially challenging and uncertain. Is the 

RDT&E process capable of performing this complex, demanding agenda? As of 2004, 

critics were expressing doubts on this score, and by 2007, their doubts had not vanished. 

Only time will tell whether the FCS effort succeeds, but as of this writing, it can best be 

regarded as an uncertain variable, not an assured constant, in the Army’s transformation 

equation. Beyond this, questions loom about the affordability of the FCS plan on its 

current timelines. The Army’s procurement budget is not as large as that of the Navy and 

Air Force. Major expenditures will be needed to repair or replace equipment worn out by 

extended duty in Iraq, and the FCS plan apparently will cost $100–150 billion. Whether 

the Army will be able to afford such a large expense is uncertain, and this uncertainty is 

further enhanced by the large procurement requirements, totaling about $1 trillion, facing 

DOD as a whole through 2020 and beyond.14. Not only does the Army need FCS systems, 

but the Air Force needs many new aircraft, the Navy needs new vessels, and ballistic 

missile defenses will need to be deployed. If future DOD budgets are not large enough, 

the combined effect of these multiple procurement challenges could compel setting of 

painful priorities, and the Army’s FCS systems could suffer some of the consequences. 

These challenges thus raise issues regarding how the Army transformation plan will 

unfold in the future in both its contents and pace. But such is the case for all ambitious 

transformation plans, including those of the other services. Much will depend upon how 

the future unfolds, and how the Army chooses to handle it. What can be said now is that 

even if the Army transformation plan embraces sweeping visions in the face of myriad 

practical challenges, it has at least put an end to accusations that the Army is hide-bound, 

tradition-minded, and locked in the past. This alone says something good about the 

Army’s ability to handle future challenges as well as it has handled those of the past. 

25
Instructor’s Guide to Case Study of Army Transformation Plan

This case study of the Army transformation plan provides an opportunity to survey major 

changes taking place in Army forces and weapons, to gauge how sweeping 

transformations plans can affect military force structures in general, and to provide 

insights on the controversies, difficulties, and risks encountered in such an enterprise. 

This case study can be taught with the following objectives in mind: 

Objective 1: Assess how the Army’s historical legacy set the stage for pursuing 

transformation and Information Age forces. 

Objective 2: Discuss how the Army’s transformation plan of 2004 fitted into DOD 

transformation as a whole, and how it compared to plans of the other services. 

Objective 3: Examine the benefits and tradeoffs of the Army’s plan for creating modular 

BCT combat brigades. 

Objective 4: Discuss other aspects of the Army’s plan for modularity, including the 

impact on command structures, support assets, and aviation units. 

Objective 5: Evaluate how the Army’s plan for creating modular forces worked together 

with its futuristic design for fielding networked FCS systems to create a viable long-term 

vision for transformation. 

Objective 6: Assess the goals, priorities, and risks of the Army’s plan to create networked 

FCS forces in the long term. 

Objective 7: Examine the capacity of FCS-equipped BCTs to employ standoff fires in 

order to prevail against well-armed opponents in impending close combat. 

Objective 8: Evaluate the capacity of Army future forces to perform both major combat 

operations and expeditionary missions involving large enduring force presences and S&R 

operations. 

Objective 9: Discuss the affordability of the Army’s plan for acquiring FCS systems in 

the context of constraints on DOD procurement budgets. 

Question for Objective 1: How did the Army’s historical legacy affect its challenges and 

requirements for pursuing transformation and Information Age forces? 

Historical experience from World War II through the Cold War and the 1990s, most of it 

successful, made the U.S. Army the world’s most powerful ground force as the 

Information Age approached. But U.S. Army forces, which primarily were designed for 

major land wars, were large and cumbersome, and lacked the agility for swift 

deployments to new-era expeditionary missions. Their heavy weight, brought about by 

weighty weapons combined with large support assets, made them almost impossible to 

26
deploy by airlift in large numbers, and dependent on sealift coupled with access to wellprepared ports. With their combat brigades embedded in divisions and not easily 

detachable, they were also not well-tailored to dispersal on modern battlefields and for 

similar operational concepts that emphasized multiple axes of attack rather than massing 

closely together for concentrated advances. 

Question for Objective 2: To what degree did the Army transformation plan of 2004 

respond effectively to the goals and priorities set by DOD transformation policies, and 

how did it compare to the transformation plans of other services? 

The initial Army transformation plan of 2001–2002 was visionary in its long-range 

pursuit of FCS systems, but apart from creating new Stryker brigades, it failed to make 

major changes in so-called Legacy Forces, which comprised the bulk of the Army’s 

structure. By contrast, the Army transformation plan of 2004 sought to introduce 

modularity across active and RC forces and to speed the arrival of FCS technologies and 

systems. As such, this new plan fitted comfortably into DOD’s overall approach to 

transformation by promising to create better forces for new-term expeditionary missions 

while also pursuing radically new weapon platforms in the long term. Compared to other 

services, the Army plan envisioned greater changes in force structures and weapon 

platforms. 

 

Question for Objective 3: What were the benefits and tradeoffs of the Army’s plan to 

create 43–48 modular BCT brigades? 

The Army transformation plan for BCTs offered the major benefit of not only increasing 

the number of combat brigades in the active structure, but also making them more swiftly 

deployable, more readily tailorable for task-organized expeditionary missions, and more 

suited to dispersed, independent operations on the battlefield. In the eyes of some critics, 

the BCT design took too many support assets away from division and corps commanders, 

and it suffered a loss of combat power by fielding only two maneuver battalions rather 

than the standard three battalions. The Army sought to compensate for the loss of this 

battalion by strengthening the BCT in other ways, such as assigning RSTA assets and 

organic artillery tubes. 

Question for Objective 4: To what degree did Army plans for restructuring command 

echelons, support forces, and aviation units promise to further enhance the modularity of 

the Army? 

The Army plan called for two command echelons—UEx and UEy units—to replace the 

existing three echelons, for streamlined and modular CS/CSS assets, and for multiple 

types of modular aviation units. These changes promised to further increase the capability 

of the Army to organize and swiftly deploy forces for expeditionary missions, and to 

employ them effectively on the battlefield by carrying out modern combat doctrines with 

less-layered command structures, leaner support assets, and aviation assets better able to 

provide direct help to engaged BCTs. 

27
Question for Objective 5: How did the Army’s plan for creating modular forces work 

with its futuristic design for creating networked FCS systems combine together to create 

a viable, cohesive transformation plan for the near term and long term? 

Basically the two component plans were designed to operate sequentially in interlocking 

ways, thus providing successive waves of changes to the Army during 2004–2020. The 

pursuit of modular forces came first, with most changes to be accomplished by 2010 or 

before. As this phase of transformation was being completed, initial efforts to field FCSequipped units were to begin, resulting in the fielding of 32 FCS-equipped BCTs by 

2014, followed by the rest of the active and RC structure afterward. Essentially the 

creation of modular forces was intended not only to provide usable combat capabilities in 

the near term, but also to create a foundation of new combat formations for introducing 

networked FCS systems in the aftermath. In the long term, the combination of modular 

BCTs and networked FCS systems was intended to provide a fully transformed Army for 

new-era missions and operations. 

Question for Objective 6: What were the key goals, priorities, and risks of the Army’s 

plans for creating networked FCS-equipped forces? 

The Army plan endeavored to create a highly networked force—equipped with ultramodern computers, sensors, UAVs, information networks, and robotics—that would 

enable its multiple lightweight FCS combat vehicles to perform joint expeditionary 

missions with greater speed and fighting proficiency than before. In the Army plan, FCS 

vehicles would have tactical speed on the battlefield coupled with high lethality deriving 

from direct fire, indirect fire, and overhead systems. In the eyes of critics, the main risks 

were questionable battlefield survivability of FCS platforms caused by insufficient armor 

protection, coupled with uncertainty about the RDTE plan’s ability to achieve the desired 

standards of technological innovation and proficiency for the entire set of FCS systems 

and subsystems, including information networks and weapon platforms. 

 

Question for Objective 7: How did the Army’s plan for lightweight FCS weapons propose 

to deal with the problem of close combat with well-armed enemy forces? 

Critics alleged that the FCS-equipped BCTs would lack the defensive protection systems 

and armor protection to survive in close combat with well-armed enemy forces. The 

Army plan offered two solutions to this allegation. The first solution was technological 

innovations that would provide FCS systems with better protection. The second solution 

was to rely upon lethal fires to destroy the bulk of enemy forces at distances beyond 

visual contact, thereby ensuring that FCS-equipped BCTs could swiftly overpower 

residual enemy forces when close combat did take place. 

Question for Objective 8: To what degree does the proposed Army force structure 

provide a well-endowed strategic capacity to perform major combat operations as well 

as expeditionary missions that include enduring presence and S&R operations? 

28
The proposed Army force structure is to be optimized for major combat operations, but 

its BCT brigades will be able to perform other types of expeditionary missions, and its 

increased numbers of CS/CSS support units in several areas will provide additional assets 

for non-combat S&R missions. Proposed expansion of Army manpower to 547,000 

troops will provide additional resources, including for sustained presence missions 

abroad. Even so, some critics allege that the Army will still not be large enough for future 

missions, and they argue that the Army remains too preoccupied with major combat 

capabilities and insufficiently attentive to S&R missions and related expeditionary 

operations. Regardless of how such criticisms are appraised, the transformed Army will 

be capable of deploying abroad more quickly than now, but it will still be dependent upon 

fast sealift and overseas prepositioning of equipment to deploy large numbers of BCTs 

rapidly to distant locations. 

Questions for Objective 9: To what degree is the Army’s FCS plan affected by constraints 

on future DOD procurement budgets? 

The Army’s FCS effort likely will require investment expenditures of $100–150 billion in 

the coming years, which will require increases in Army procurement budgets. The 

availability of these funds will depend on DOD’s overall budget, the expenses needed to 

reset Army equipment after Iraq, and potential competition from other DOD procurement 

programs, including fighter aircraft, naval vessels, and ballistic missile defenses. 

29