ANDREW EVERSDEN
WASHINGTON — As the US Army prepares to fight on the battlefield of 2030, Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth is making public six key areas the Army must be prepared for as it anticipates “transparent” battlefield, where “Army forces are going to be under constant observation, and what can be seen can be targeted.”
Speaking at the Maneuver Warfighter Conference at Fort Benning, Ga. on Tuesday, Wormuth described a fighting force that must be more lethal, mobile, and protected in order to successfully fight against near-peer threats like China or Russia, as the service moves forward with its modernization strategy.
“The advent of longer range fires, cyberattacks and …proliferation of UAS on the battlefield means that anyone can come under attack whether you’re on the edge of the battlefield, whether you’re in the rear areas, or even if you’re in the homeland,” Wormuth said.
The Army is currently spending billions of dollars on a collection of 35 “signature” future weapons system, like longer range artillery, as well as about 100 other projects, such as high-altitude ISR platforms, that it believes will give soldiers an advantage on the battlefield of 2030 and beyond. The modernization programs focus on enabling Multi-Domain Operations, the Army’s future warfighting doctrine, which is supposed to come out in October, Wormuth said in her comments today.
So, what’s on the list?
The ability to “see” the battlefield at all times. Increasing situational awareness on the battlefield for both commanders and soldiers will be vital, Wormuth said. The Army plans to do that through a series of ISR platforms, including the Multi-Domain Sensing System, High Accuracy Detection and Exploitation System, Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team and TLS-Echelon Above Brigade — all ISR sensors that will share battlefield info with troops across different formations.
“Army forces have got to be able to see farther, see more and more persistently than our enemies,” Wormuth said.
Coordination at greater speed. The second critical area for the Army of 2030, the secretary said, is the service’s ability to coordinate dispersed forces to strike enemy targets at quick speed. To do so, she noted the service’s continued investment in faster ground vehicles, including upgraded tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, which is the Bradley’s replacement. She also highlighted the Army’s recent award for its new light tank, the Mobile Protected Firepower, as well as plans for robotic vehicles to carry heavy loads or providing fires.
“These new vehicles are going to enable the fire supporters, engineers, medics, command post and logistics trains to keep up with the combat elements,” Wormuth said.
“Win the fires fight.” The Army must be able to quickly hit an adversary with quick, high-speed artillery, Wormuth said. The Army’s top modernization priority is long-range precision fires, several parts of which are scheduled to be in some stage of prototyping by fiscal 2023, including the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon, Precision Strike Missile and ship-killing Mid-Range Capability. Range wise, the service is looking at everything from 40 miles with the Extended Range Artillery Cannon to 1,700 miles with the LRHW.
“Recognizing that China and Russia have fire capabilities that significantly range us in some cases and outnumber us, we’re in the process of growing our artillery formations and improving their range, their rate of fire, their lethality and mobility,” Wormuth said.
Hiding on the battlefield. Those first three areas, Wormuth said, are irrelevant if the Army can’t adequately hide itself. She said the 2030 force will need be highly mobile to avoid being targeted, meaning soldiers will need to rely on basic capabilities like camouflage while also developing more advanced electronic warfare capabilities that mask electromagnetic signature to counter-drone options.
“Army formations are going to require improved mobility, and the use of camouflage, decoys and hide sites to reduce visual and electromagnetic signatures,” she said.
Soaking after Wormuth, Gen. James McConville, chief of staff of the Army, agreed, highlighting the Army’s changing nature of its command post. The Army wants to move away from the easily spotted command post tents towards a command post that’s dispersed across mobile vehicles that are interconnected through the network. That type of work is underway at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications-Tactical at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.
“We’re going to have to change the way we think about mission command and command posts because the battlefield is so lethal,” McConville said at the same conference. “For those that haven’t been to the training centers, we’re going to make you move all the time.”
Talk often and quickly. Wormuth’s fifth point was that the Army of the future has to be able to “communicate and share data rapidly,” not only among soldiers, but also among the joint force and coalition partners. The Army is seeking to connect its assets together as part of its Multi-Domain Operations doctrine, which feeds into Joint All-Domain Command and Control, the Pentagon’s future warfighting construct.
The Army is working on networking together its weapon systems, in addition to those of joint and coalition partners, through its annual Project Convergence exercise. So far, the Army has successfully passed targeting data from an F-35 joint strike fighter and a Marine radar to an Army fires unit, Wormuth said.
Professionals talk logistics. Last on Wormuth’s list was the ability of the Army to sustain the fight of 2030, an area “where we have the most work yet to do as a service,” she said. As the Defense Department looks to pivot to the Indo-Pacific, Wormuth has stated that she sees one of the Army’s primary roles in the Pacific being the logistics service for the joint force.
“We have to not only be able to sustain ourselves during the fight, but we’ve got to be able to get to the fight and that’s going to be much harder in a more contested environment,” she said.
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