Training and Doctrine Command Pamphlet 525-3-7, The U.S. Army Functional Concept for Movement and Maneuver (AFC-MM), outlines the way the Army must operate to win against future threats. This guidance has implications for all warfighting functions. The most significant impact to the sustainment community is the requirement for future brigade combat teams (BCTs) to be able to operate semi-independently for up to seven days without relying on ground lines of communication.
The future battlefield will be more active and lethal, and every domain--land, air, cyberspace, space, and maritime--will be contested. According to the AFC-MM, this will drive the Army to "operate dispersed to avoid enemy strengths and evade enemy attacks, while retaining the freedom of movement to concentrate combat power rapidly across domains to fight, survive, and win."
To address this requirement, the AFC-MM prescribes a break from the tightly controlled and rigidly synchronized battles that systematically clear enemy forces from terrain. The concept further states that BCTs must be capable of conducting semi-independent operations by possessing "sufficient mobility, firepower, protection, intelligence, mission command, and sustainment capabilities to conduct cross-domain maneuver at extended supporting range and distance for up to seven days while achieving operational objectives."
In turn, BCTs may be relieved of the requirement to secure traditional lines of communication. This will provide the BCTs time to amass combat power, move freely to create dilemmas for the enemy, rapidly concentrate combat power, and attack the enemy at its weakest point. These operations introduce challenges for logisticians. Meeting the BCTs' new requirements will require the Army to change how it operates and sustains its forces.
The BCT must be able to move quickly to capitalize on opportunities without being tied to a cumbersome tail. To fulfill this requirement, the Army must change both ends of the supply chain. First, BCTs and their support structure must reduce demand. Simultaneously, logistics elements must improve their ability to support BCTs and to survive on the modern battlefield.
REDUCING DEMAND
The AFC-MM states that semi-independent operations "require a fundamental reduction in demand" in order for a BCT to operate for up to seven days. Water, fuel, and ammunition constitute the BCT's greatest sustainment footprint, so reducing those demands will provide the largest gain. The solution is to employ both disciplined consumption of commodities and acquisition of more efficient platforms and systems.
BCTs are organized to store and transport three days of supply. This "tail" requires combat power to keep it secure against peer threats and reduces the BCT's maneuver options. Consider an armored BCT conducting offensive operations; the BCT's requirements and capabilities generate a 16 kilometer-long logistics column with more than 98 truck and trailer systems to transport classes I (subsistence), III (petroleum, oils, and lubricants), V (ammunition), and IX (repair parts).
When operating semi-independently for up to seven days, the BCT's logistics tail grows significantly. This increases endurance but sacrifices agility and the BCT's ability to rapidly respond to opportunities. To help demonstrate the difference in current and future requirements, figure 1 shows how this change affects several key supply items.
The challenge for logisticians is to increase the BCT's endurance while maintaining or improving agility and flexibility. Part of the solution is to reduce logistics demand.
WATER AND FUEL. Most of the BCT's sustainment assets are tied to storing and transporting liquids. Soldiers are unlikely to reduce their water requirements; however, the Army should invest in innovative water generation and purification capabilities to use water available in the air and on or below the surface. However, these solutions must be fuel efficient to avoid simply exchanging one liquid for another in the supply chain.
Reducing fuel demand is an obvious solution that will require significant investment. First, the Army must procure vehicles with more fuel-efficient engines. These vehicles must be able to use various types of fuel to allow for the use of locally procured fuel to reduce transport requirements.
While few hybrid electric engines produce the torque necessary to move heavy combat vehicles, building lighter, more fuel efficient combat vehicles with improved armor and active protective systems will help close this gap. Lighter mobile bridges, transporters, and recovery assets could be developed to support the reduced size and weight requirements, generating second-order fuel conservation.
The Army must also study all power generation requirements in the BCTs and their supporting elements to find opportunities for fuel savings. Inefficient systems in command posts increase a generator's fuel consumption. Some goals of command post convergence should be to streamline mission command systems' power requirements and to procure fuel-efficient power generation equipment. The Army should look at innovative power solutions to further reduce demand.
AMMUNITION. The BCT's ammunition requirements are significant and very dense, often leading to wasted space as transport vehicles "weigh out before they cube out." Handling heavy ammunition requires materials handling equipment, which generates its own sustainment and fuel requirements.
The Army should invest in lightweight capabilities that provide increased lethality and are easier to transport. Caseless ammunition is one potential solution that can reduce ammunition weight. Another solution is to develop directed energy weapons with lightweight, reliable, and fuel-efficient power requirements.
REPAIR PARTS. Class IX constitutes the next largest class of supply for the BCT to store and transport. Reducing demand will require a twofold approach to reduce both stocks and maintenance.
The Army should look for opportunities to use common engines, drivetrains, and suspension components across vehicles to reduce the number of lines in the authorized stockage list. Secondly, the Army should design more reliable and maintainable vehicles and systems that require fewer repair parts and less maintenance.
BATTERIES. The Army should develop lighter batteries that provide improved performance. While lighter batteries will affect all BCTs, this will mainly increase how long infantry BCTs and reconnaissance formations can operate semi-independently.
FOOTPRINT. The Army must seek ways to reduce the logistics footprint and consumption for BCT sustainment organizations' demands during semi-independent operations. This will require the sustainment community to operationalize innovative resupply methods that get the Army beyond its current distribution-centric model.
IMPROVING BCT SUPPORT
The AFC-MM outlines how the sustainment community can support semi-independent operations. BCTs must have "100 percent mobile sustainment assets and capabilities" that meet demand at the point of need. Sustainment elements must be able to deliver support by "using multiple routes, modes, nodes, and suppliers, to provide freedom of action to the supported commander." And, most importantly, the BCT must improve medical life support and develop a sustainment common operational picture (COP).
MEDICAL LIFE SUPPORT. The AFC-MM specifies that "semi-independent and dispersed BCT operations generate the requirement for an enhanced organic medical suite of enablers for prolonged care forward." Units cannot assume air evacuation will be feasible and must assume that ground evacuation may not be possible.
The BCT is currently limited to 72 hours of medical supplies. It is not Role 3-capable and lacks mortuary affairs capability. Most significantly, the BCT cannot hold patients for extended periods during offensive operations.
Designing the BCT's medical organizations to support semi-independent operations will require several lines of effort. First, the Army must resource a capability such as an advanced trauma management module to prepare forward medics for additional lifesaving responsibilities.
Second, the Army must train medics to sustain a large patient load for up to seven days at Role 1 and Role 2 medical facilities. Finally, the Army must study and determine the required medical equipment sets and class VIII (medical materiel) stockage levels to support a BCT for seven days. One goal of this study must be to define the BCT's medical storage and transportation requirements.
THE COP. The AFC-MM states that freedom of action "requires disciplined resource consumption and materiel management." Therefore, the Army must develop and field a sustainment COP that enables accurate reporting and allows sustainers at all levels to forecast BCT requirements.
Today, tactical units carry unnecessary supplies when they lack confidence in sustainment systems. There is blame for such systemic breakdowns at all levels, from the maneuver platoon to the expeditionary sustainment command, and the Army must address this additional unnecessary burden because it reduces the BCT's agility and mobility.
BCTs must carry only what they need during semi-independent operations instead of dedicating space and weight for nice-to-have or redundant items. BCTs should review their load plans and eliminate all unnecessary items so that they can use all available space to store essential supplies. For example, tank crews could leave tarps behind to create space in the bustle rack for class I items. However, practices like this will generate only some of the required reduction of supplies.
BCTs must also have a COP to ensure accurate reporting and timely visibility of the BCT's logistics status so sustainers can forecast requirements and plan resupply operations. This COP should enable sustainers to provide the required supplies at the right time to create the trust that will make maneuver units more confident "operating on amber."
Additionally, the COP must be capable of transmitting large amounts of data very quickly during limited windows of connectivity when the Army network is degraded. It must also be protected from cyberspace attacks, electronic warfare attacks, and the threat's artificial intelligence and machine learning tools.
INNOVATIVE SUPPORT. Sustainment elements must find innovative ways to improve support to the BCT. One idea being developed is a capability that provides responsive aerial resupply without rotary-wing assets.
Another opportunity is to develop systems and procedures for conventional units that mirror those used by special operations sustainment units. Finally, the Army should explore how BCTs can use operational contract support when the operational environment allows.
IMPROVING SURVIVABILITY
Future threats pose significant risks to sustainers; they must change how they think, function, and operate. Sustainers supporting BCTs must move quickly and operate deep in enemy territory on an increasingly lethal future battlefield. Traveling on supply routes always involves risk; however, this risk increases during semi-independent operations against an armored threat, especially if BCTs are bypassing combat forces along the way.
The AFC-MM acknowledges and addresses this challenge with two recommendations. First, sustainment forces must increase their internal protection and offensive capabilities in order to travel on long, contested supply lines. Sustainment platforms must incorporate armor and protection without sacrificing payload, mobility, and fuel economy. Sustainment forces must be able to disable or destroy unmanned aerial systems that provide targeting data to artillery systems and must possess the weapons and training needed to defeat large threats.
Second, sustainment organizations must be able to seamlessly communicate and coordinate with all units that operate in the support area. Reducing the size and increasing the mobility of the brigade support area (BSA) and other logistics nodes will contribute to rapid maneuver and will increase survivability because threats easily locate and target large, static assets. Decreasing demand and using alternative distribution methods will contribute to this effort.
However, the BSA will remain a lucrative target, so sustainers must become masters of camouflage to reduce their odds of detection. All logisticians must know how to use terrain to hide assets, and they must always employ proper camouflage.
All sustainment nodes must become as invisible as possible across the full electromagnetic spectrum. This will require learning and enforcing proper communications discipline, but the Army is also seeking technical solutions that will mask, obscure, and reduce the BSA's signatures.
To ensure survivability and best enable semi-independent BCT operations, sustainers must be equipped and trained to "own the night." Operating at night reduces the risk to sustainers as they travel on contested supply lines and reduces the risk to maneuver units.
The Army must examine existing tables of organization and equipment for logistics organizations to ensure the BCT's sustainment Soldiers are equipped with enough modern night-vision devices and weapon sights to conduct resupply quickly and safely at night. Finally, sustainers must train during periods of limited visibility to ensure they can support semi-independent operations under all conditions.
The AFC-MM describes how the Army must fight to win against future threats. It specifies that the Army must operate with increased dispersion and mobility by conducting semi-independent operations for up to seven days to achieve operational objectives. The AFC-MM acknowledges the associated sustainment challenges and asserts that sustainment forces must "support semi-independent and dispersed BCT operations with reduced demand, improved shared understanding, and enhanced distribution." In addition, the concept adds that logistics elements must increase their organic survivability to support semi-independent operations.
The Army must examine how to reduce demand in the BCTs, increase sustainment capability to support semi-independent operations, and improve the survivability of logistics forces to enable future maneuver as described in the AFC-MM. This will take a deliberate effort by many stakeholders, and the force must begin working today to dominate in the future.
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Dominick L. Edwards is a retired lieutenant colonel and an operations research analyst in the Concepts Development Division of the Maneuver Center of Excellence. He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, the Armor Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Combined Arms and Services Staff School, the Command and General Staff College, and the School of Advanced Military Studies.
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This article was published in the January-February 2018 issue of Army Sustainment magazine.
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