July 1, 2022

NO MAN’S LAND, PEANUT BUTTER, AND ARMY AVIATION: THE CASE FOR A FOURTH BCT TYPE AND REORGANIZING THE US ARMY FOR A 200 MPH BATTLEFIELD

The U.S. Army currently has 12 active Combat Aviation Brigades (CABs), and like peanut butter on a sandwich, each of the Army’s ten active-duty divisions enjoys its own evenly spread CAB. The cost of equality in aviation support across the Army is paid by sacrificing our ability to conduct independent operational maneuver at air-mobile speeds. Current American operational formations cannot assure U.S. land force domain overmatch against peer competitors. To maintain land dominance the U.S. Army must create a fourth Brigade Combat Team (BCT) type, the Air-Mobile Brigade Combat Team (AMBCT), and further we must arrange AMBCTs into air-mobile divisions aligned under an air-mobile corps. Our minimum benchmark for operational maneuver must include at least two divisions, able to lift by air, with all assets moving at air-mobile speeds up to 200 mph. To state the problem simply, we have Armor divisions with enough armor, why don’t we have Air-Mobile divisions with enough helicopters?