New American Army structure

The U.S. Army is undergoing its most comprehensive transformation since 1939, a process made more difficult by the deployment of 285,000 troops overseas, including more than 100,000 in Iraq, said the service’s secretary.

The Army’s vision is to remain the pre-eminent land-power on earth, Francis Harvey told a audience at the Heritage Foundation on Oct. 20, and achieving that aim means moving the service from a division-centric force to a brigade-centric organization.

The primary combat unit of this new force will be the brigade combat team, which the Army is trying to standardize to ensure more units are available to be plugged into any forward-deployed higher headquarters.



The Army is creating three types of brigades: infantry, heavy, and Stryker, of between 3,500 and 4,000 soldiers. They are collapsing three higher echelons of command, army, corps and division, into two smaller, and as yet unnamed command echelons. The Army’s plan is to ultimately have 77 active duty and reserve brigades in the rotational pool.

Harvey said the Army continues to push the costly Future Combat Systems (FCS) program and said the service does not agree with a recent Congressional Budget Office report that pegged the costs of FCS at $164 billion through 2025. He said the Army’s official cost estimate is $27.7 billion for research and development, and $94 billion to stand up 15 FCS equipped brigade combat teams by 2025, for total program costs of $122 billion.

The Army is adding 40,000 soldiers by 2007, at a total cost of $18 billion spread over six years. Up to 125,000 soldiers will be changing units and skills, moving from artillery to military intelligence for example, to take into account the increased primacy of irregular warfare.

Harvey said the service is in the process of adopting new business practices known as Lean Six Sigma, designed to cut costs, mainly by reducing the number of civilian and contracted personnel, through increased computerization and automation of manufacturing and administrative functions and other efficiency moves.

Click to expand...