Modular Support Brigades
Similar modularity will exist for support units which fall into five types: Aviation, Fires (artillery), Battlefield Surveillance (intelligence), Maneuver Enhancement (engineers, signal, military police, chemical, and rear-area support), and Sustainment (logistics, medical, transportation, maintenance, etc.). In the past, artillery, combat support, and logistics support only resided at the division level and brigades were assigned those units only on a temporary basis when brigades transformed into "brigade combat teams" for particular deployments.
Combat Aviation Brigades will be multi-functional, offering a combination of attack helicopters (i.e., Apache), reconnaissance helicopters (i.e., Kiowa), medium-lift helicopters (i.e. Blackhawks), heavy-lift helicopters (i.e. Chinooks), and medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) capability. Aviation will not be organic to combat brigades. It will continue to reside at the division-level due to resource constraints.
Heavy divisions (of which there are six) will have 48 Apaches, 38 Blackhawks, 12 Chinooks, and 12 Medevac helicopters in their aviation brigade. These will be divided into two aviation attack battalions, an assault lift battalion, a general aviation support battalion. An aviation support battalion will help with logistics. Light divisions will have aviation brigades with 60 armed reconnaissance helicopters and no Apaches, with the remaining structure the same. The remaining divisions will have aviation brigades with 30 armed reconnaissance helicopters and 24 Apaches, with the remaining structure the same. The helicopters to fill out these large, combined-arms division-level aviation brigades comes from aviation units that used to reside at the corps-level.
Fires Brigades will offer not just traditional artillery fires (Paladin, Howitzer, MLRS, HIMARS) but information operations and non-lethal effects capabilities.
Air Defense: The Army will no longer provide an organic air defense artillery (ADA) battalion to its divisions. Nine of the ten active component (AC) divisional ADA battalions and two of the eight reserve (ARNG) divisional ADA battalions will deactivate. The remaining AC divisional ADA battalion along with six ARNG divisional ADA battalions will be pooled at the Unit of Employment to provide on-call air and missile defense (AMD) protection. The pool of Army AMD resources will address operational requirements in a tailorable and timely manner without stripping assigned AMD capability from other missions.
Sustainment Brigades provide division-level logistics support and above.
Battlefield Surveillance Brigades will offer additional UAVs and long-term surveillance detachments.
Maneuver Enhancement Brigades will command units such as chemical, military police, and civil affairs units. These formations will be designed to be joint so that they under operate with coalition or joint forces such as the Marine Corps.
Read more about this topic: Transformation Of The United States Army
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