Is the concept of the Infantry Battalion Task Force viable and necessary in the Active Army?

Well if we look back to the Regimental Combat teams such as the 5th RCT or the 7th RCT all these Regimental teams had all the slices; sappers, arty, med, etc. They also fought well (see Korean War) killing beau coup Chinese; much to the CHICOM's chagrin I am sure. I digress. What this concept of the BN Team is another Legion of Merit for somebody. The BLUF is: All thru history, the rifle company takes the beating and every commander and his flesh peddler throughout that history has sat around trying to figure out a way to reconstitute the rifle companies. Everyone remembers Eisenhower in 1944 trying to flesh out the rifle battalions at the cost to AAA BN's and even 'cooks". What we have here is an attempt to cover up the fact we do not have enough men with rifles and bayonets. Period. The COS of the Army the last few years has been a disgrace by not offering his resignation publically to the Senate in order for the public to see what is being done to our military. Old Fat Ray has allowed some of the most combat bloodied GO's in our history to be"RETIRED". His company grade officers with patches on the right shoulder and most significantly our hard bitten combat experienced NONCOMS are being shoved to the curb. The BCT I guess it will be called is a pipe dream. As previously mentioned all those slices must train with each other over and over. There is not enough MFP 2 money available. The SENATE probably does not know that MFP 11 money is not for training military aged Syrians...We are all so F word

Poorly.
In our drive to "task force organize" and "modularize" everything, we are losing sight of the fact that there are minimum densities that are needed both for effectiveness AND efficiency. The only way to be truly effective as a SEPARATE IN BN TF is to be in a CONSTANT training cycle as well as have dedicated slices of (what once on a time were) DIV resources - which means you have a great deal of waste in resourcing.

Of course, I said similar things in 2004/5.... So I'm probably wrong...

A few thoughts:
- There are several reasons at the strategic level to do or not do something. All lead to compromise solutions and not optimal solutions. A few examples are below. BLUF is that we should not just be looking at the IN BN TF as a current fight issue. We also need to be looking to the future and what might/will happen.
- Current fight. Argues against an IN BN TF because it is outside the Army's BCT centric doctrine and organization.
- Reversibility. The Army shrinks and grows over the years. We are shrinking now. I can not tell you when we will grow again but history tells me that we will grow again. It is harder to grow a BCT from nothing than it is to grow a BCT from an IN BN TF seed corn. Look to history. How was the 101st Airborne created? Not from scratch but from cadre from the 82nd Airborne. Keeping an IN BN TF in Alaska and Benning therefore allows for today's decision to more easily be reversed in the future.
- Risk. Several ways to look at risk but a few are COCOM perspective, operational domain perspective, and probability and severity perspective. With Russia flexing its muscle again, should the US really not have ground forces in Alaska at this time? If we do not, how does that impact our ability to shape, deter, defeat? Argues for keeping something.
- Hollow Army vs full readiness. Current CSA guidance is to not have a hollow Army and to achieve as much readiness as we can. Not saying this is wrong but there is an argument to be made that we should have less than fully manned organizations that we can use as the seed corn to regrow the Army when, not if, we have to.

Sp4 Byron Skinner, Actually sir your are asking two rather very good questions here. The first is don't sweat the Battalion Combat Team. This is a formation that is never intended to go into combat. The Army prior to 1957 was organized around the Regiment. In time of little threat A Regiment was reduced to three Battalions each with a single Company or Troop. When the threat level increased each of the battalions broke up the four platoons of its trained Companies or Troops and called them companies and brought in state militias to fill then out. AIT was generally the new Companies first venture into combat. The system worked, it won wars, so the Army had to screw it up starting in 1957. The current circle j--- is the BCT lead by an 06. The BCT is a very robust unit and often has more then three battalions, I have heard of in one case in iraq of a BCT having eight battalions and another time when a marine battalion was attached to an Army BCT. An enlisted whorehouse is better run then the USArmy. The problem of course there is no command for a Brigadier General in this mess. The Regiment was removed so an 06 now reports directly to an 08. The problem here is that the 1938 triangle division is great for winning a Napoleonic War but for insurgent warfare it is to big and unwieldily. The solution to the problem is to fire all O-9 and O-10's and promote into those slots some O-5 and O- 6's who have seen the elephant and can square things away, like Marshall did. The lack of understanding of fire and maneuver of small units in an insurgent environment is totally absent for the senior members of the Chain of Command. Your other question is the roll of Alaska in the next 20-40 years with the opening of the Northwest Passage. Neither time or space for you second question sir but it is a very intriguing one.

BLUF? It's a name change. I've spent 68 months of my life in full boots on the ground combat...Vietnam, Balkan, Iraq. The concept of full organizations on the ground ended in Vietnam. Forward thinking was to size any force to the conflict at hand. Reserve forces are trained to a higher standard than anytime in the past to be able to augment such 'light' active component units quickly. All three of the conflicts I've been involved in experienced a reduction in force (RIF) at conclusion. Those who left the active component were given opportunity to continue service in one of three reserve organizations...TPU, IRR/IMA or simply inactive (Troop Program Units being Tier A in nature). "Lone Battalions" are not alone...there are quite a few still left around after any conflict, although they may be part of the Reserve forces instead.

Necessary, perhaps due to the requirement to downsize; viable no. "Plugging" into a support mechanism is not an easy feat. Support Operations Officers and BCT S4s spend countless hours developing support scenarios that are synchronized in space and time through relationships developed with support BN/SQDN XOs and S4s that take months to build. Acknowledging that they are "not meant to operate alone" implies that they would be supported by someone...if it is a BSB in a BCT, there are already acknowledged resource shortcomings across the board, as you and I discussed at great length back at Lewis; one would assume that there would be an EAB support structure required then to support; but multifunctional sustainment support does not currently exist until LOG 2020 gets fully implemented and the aligned forces are established, C2 is defined, SOPs are developed, and exercised.

For decades the combat force at SETAF in Italy was a Battalion Task Force. It trained in garrison and deployed independently. Perhaps there are historical records that might be informative.

The combat in a complex world is being forced to change structures and organizations. All we need is capacities in very low level to face with the furtive enemy.

An addition to this thread...the Acting Secretary of the Army announced that the Army will keep the Airborne IBCT in Alaska for at least one more year. This stops their conversion to an Infantry Battalion Task Force for now. They would have inactivated in September of 2016, but now will inactivate on September 2017.

The one in Benning lost all of their Armor and Bradleys. I have a feeling they are going to be a second string to the rest of the BCTs. When they need a small unit for a unique mission I can see these BN TF going. Something like Kosovo or other small unit assignments. It might be more reasonable to use these types of unit than breaking up a BCT when you only need a a BN worth of soldiers.