Future of the Infantry IV
Rolling Thunder
The Future of Infantry I, II, and III.
So far, I’ve focused mostly on infantry of the straight leg persuasion. But there are three types of infantry, at least in the formulation of Brigadier General (Ret.) Huba Wass de Czege (from his 1985 article in Infantry Magazine, Three Kinds of Infantry): regular infantry, which I’ve discussed so far; “armored” infantry, by which he meant motorized and mechanized infantry, and light infantry. This post will focus on motorized and mechanized, and it is where conclusions will diverge for reasons that will be obvious. This issue is especially relevant as Russia’s Cold War era stock of armored vehicles is running so low they’re dipping into the T-55 stocks, so this is the year that Russia may lose the ability to form motorized/mechanized units. Meanwhile, the US has sent only a small portion of the already set to retire armored vehicles it could send.
Bottom line up front: Motorized and mechanized infantry units will change more than other units because they will have more options for crewed/uncrewed integration due to the ability to carry and power more and heavier drones. Once this is accomplished, the real potential of uncrewed systems will be seen.
It’s not just that mechanized/motorized infantry can use their vehicles to carry more stuff and more power generation, but the vehicles themselves will be designed from the ground up to support both the infantry and uncrewed systems.
The Marine Corps new Advanced Reconnaissance Vehicles (ARV) will be the first of this new generation of infantry vehicles.1 The Marine Corps’ requirements are for a vehicle that can support “tethered and untethered unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare systems, long-range weapons and a battle management system that allows vehicles to share information and control a wide battlespace.” It will essentially act as a mothership for both grunts and drones, along with a C2 suite to control them and an EW suite to protect them from adversary drones. While the ARV will be designed for Light Armored Reconnaissance (LAR) units, there’s no reason other armored vehicles can’t be designed like it. It won’t be the last.
This all means that motorized/mechanized infantry units will look very different than straight leg infantry because they will have a wider array of offensive and defensive capabilities resident in their platforms. But that also means they will be tied to those platforms. Straight leg infantry will still be needed to fill the gaps where vehicles can’t go.
Where does that leave the tank part of the mechanized armor team? The Bazaar of War proposes a concept called Going To Ground. It involves combat engineering to provide fortified defenses along the planned route of an armored offensive where tanks would enter a fortified and/or underground post for refueling and refitting. It’s similar to a protected Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) for aircraft. This would be a massive logistical commitment, and probably beyond the abilities of even the US. Moreover, it would be impossible for this kind of preparation to be accomplished beyond the enemy’s forward line of troops, meaning the traditional exploitation role of armor would have to be abandoned.
A better option isn’t changing the battlefield itself to support the tank, but changing the tank. The future of armor, at least armor cooperating with or moving infantry, will be long-range. It will need the legs to start beyond the range of enemy long-range precision fires, move through the range rings with a quickness, and hit its objective on less than one tank of gas or one battery charge. Fast-moving, long-range armored vehicles will be very difficult for even an advanced recon-precision complex to reliably hit.
So while I strongly disagree with predictions that the tank in general is obsolete, it may come to pass that the specific tanks in production today become obsolete. If tank employment has to look more like lightning raids where they dip in and out of the forward area to support maneuver at certain points and then back out for refit and resupply, tanks will have to be designed for speed first, firepower second, and armor third. This is an inversion of how tanks have been designed up until this point, prioritizing armor, firepower, and then speed. The M1 Abrams is a fast tank, but not that fast, and it drinks fuel. But tanks don’t have to be designed like it. It was designed for industrial warfare against the USSR in the Fulda Gap, a purpose for which it was an exquisite fit. A new design will be required for the modern battlefield. The Marine Corps’ divestment of it was not because of any belief that armor is obsolete, but that the M1 is no longer the right fit for the operational environment, at least for a light infantry force. The U.S. Army has recognized this as well as it is in the process of acquiring the M10 Booker for its light infantry divisions.
Every motorized and mechanized force on Earth, including Ukraine’s and Russia’s, are fighting or preparing for 21st century warfare while riding on 20th century platforms. Once platform design and engineering catches up with the demands of the modern operating environment, this will no longer be the case and the future of armored infantry will be a lot more clear.
This series is supposed to be about the future of the infantry, but while we’re on the subject a lot of information has come out in the recent week about Ukraine’s difficulties getting enough infantry to hold the line, especially around Avdiivka. If Russia does take Avdiivka, it won’t be particularly decisive in and of itself as it’s not an important objective. However, Ukrainian manpower shortages, particularly for the infantry are an indicator of deeper problems. Reportedly, Ukraine had to send engineers into infantry combat to shore up the line. I’ve been bullish on Ukraine’s chances due to Russia’s inability to generate effective combat units but Ukraine has to be able to generate them as well. If Ukraine can’t solve its manpower problems, it could turn things around for Russia. Conscripts and prisoners aren’t great fighters, but they're better than nothing.
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The U.S. Army is also developing a replacement for its M2 Bradley, the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Fighting Vehicle, but it does not seem to be designed for crewed/uncrewed integration in the way the ARV is, at least based on publicly available information.