Canada's tanks

[FJAG]

I wonder if the shrinking of the AD bubble you're able to create in the face of so many (and widely dispersed) systems means that the scale of individual offensive operations will shrink as well...at least until the point that you manage to break through the static front line where small drones are the most effective.

Does this suggest that maybe combined arms groupings need to be shifted down to lower levels? Combined arms battalions or even companies rather than re-grouping in order to keep all the elements required for the type of offensive actions in a modern, drone-heavy battlefield internal to a single unit?

I think that there is a fine line between "combined arms" and a "specialty" within an existing trade.

As an example, I see an infantry company that has a higher organic CUAV capability - let's say that a quarter to one half of all LAVs in the company have their 25mm turrets removed and replaced with a 30mm RWS which is capable of both ground support and AD fire. Each of these vehicles would be slaved to an integrated air defence warning and fire control system so that within the company the right vehicle(s) engage any detected threat (maybe even semi-autonomously. So is that an AD arty specialty or is it more suited to the infantry company itself? I'd argue for infantry as the main purpose is to carry an infantry section.

Clearly their would be other systems - some heavier, some the same - which are run by folks not in the battalion - probably the Div AD arty - who cover the gaps between the battalion and company bubbles and who handle higher flying and more distant threats. and probably run the warning sensors and fire control systems.

I'm not a great fan of "combined arms" at the low level (by which I mean shoe horning together folks from different units). My preference is for homogeneous units with more of the organic skill sets and gear they routinely need for their part of the battle (which IMHO should include CUAV). The big issue, as always, is: how do you train these folks and maintain their ever more complex gear?

$0.02

 

[GR66]

If it takes the resources of a Division to create the conditions for a Battalion-sized attack and that attack requires a combined arms force then does it make sense to have combined arms battalions instead of creating Battle Groups that are drawing on support echelons from multiple units? I'm much less convinced of the utility of combined arms at the level of the Company but on the modern battlefield I wonder if something like the Swedish Mechanized Battalion might make sense.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/my7ugd/structure_equipment_of_swedens_mechanized

 

[Brad Sallows]

If it takes the resources of a Division to create the conditions for a Battalion-sized attack and that attack requires a combined arms force then does it make sense to have combined arms battalions instead of creating Battle Groups that are drawing on support echelons from multiple units? I'm much less convinced of the utility of combined arms at the level of the Company but on the modern battlefield I wonder if something like the Swedish Mechanized Battalion might make sense.

Whether it makes sense is certainly the debate. Whether it can be done effectively shouldn't be. Divisional resources and cross-attachments between units and brigades has been part of effective formation warfighting since at least WW II (eg. an infantry unit of an infantry brigade, with an armoured sub-unit of an independent armoured brigade, supported by divisional artillery and other resources).