Cavalry Operations in Arctic Conditions

Fall 2023 the squadron command post (CP) to plan for the air assault. The combination of mounted and dis mounted organizations in 1-40 Cav did not allow them to deploy with the same combat load as the Strykers. Paratroopers jumped with a maximum of one DoS, relying on the sustainment bundles that were either dropped be fore or after them. In Chaos’s case, these bundles did not make it to them, and they could not put all Soldiers in front of a heat source until Day 4; they resorted to “cold bagging” in their sleeping bags a night. The tempera tures at this time favored their surviv al since the low was only 10 degrees Fahrenheit through the entire exer cise, but five days later, temperatures on Fort Wainwright reached -12F at night. If Soldiers had “cold bagged” it at these temperatures or colder, many Soldiers in the company would have quickly become cold-weather casual ties and would have required medical evacuation to the rear. Way forward To successfully conduct Cavalry R&S operations in the Arctic and align with the 2021 Arctic strategy, squadrons cannot field the same modified table of organization and equipment (MTOE) as squadrons in the lower 48. The 5-1 Cav transitioned from an SBCT to an IBCT this year but received the same MTOE as every IBCT Cavalry squadron, with the promise of changes later. In both rotations, the OPFOR made ex cellent use of tracked vehicles with Small-Unit Support Vehicles (SUSVs) or snow machines to maintain freedom of maneuver against the RTU. The SUSV, originally produced in 1980, is now a legacy system in 11th Airborne Division with very few vehicles still op erational. The division plans to replace remaining SUSVs with more than 100 CATVs in the coming years. Snow machines were fielded in Febru ary 2023 to 11th Airborne Division in limited numbers and were used by the RTU and OPFOR as sustainment assets. Snow machines need to be pushed to line troops in quantities that allow them to use them to emplace and dis place observation posts for R&S. Chaos Troop, 1-40 Cav, had five snow machines with them, but since the troop was not deployed until Day 9, they were unable to use them at the tactical level. Equipping each line troop with a minimum of eight snow machines would enable two for sus tainment, leaving six for tactical operations. That allows a section of scouts to maneuver in all terrain in a single lift. Cavalry leaders learn the importance of dismounted operations during the courses of Scout Leader’s Course and Reconnaissance and Surveillance Leader’s Course. This reconnaissance method was employed very little by both 5-1 Cav and 1-40 Cav, but the OP FOR displayed great success in dis mounted operations. Using skis and snowshoes, OPFOR elements in both rotations repeatedly infiltrated behind the forward-line-of troops and at tacked rear CP nodes. The mounted troops in 5-1 Cav and 1-40 Cav need to maintain a minimum of a dismount platoon if they continue operating with humvees that are limited to roads. Maintaining a dismounted platoon in the Alpha and Bravo troops ensures survivability of the mounted platoons and enables off-road maneuver. The dismounted platoon is then able to clear terrain in front of the mounted platoons to enable their maneuver. The dismounted platoon can then rely on the mounted platoons for more firepower and sustainability. The two JPMRC rotations by 5-1 Cav and 1-40 Cav highlights the inability for purely mounted organizations to conduct successful R&S operations in the Arc tic. Finally, HF and TACSAT communica tions platforms need to be embraced by all echelons to stop reliance on FM communications. The 1-40 Cav had success using the platforms such as Mobile User Objective System and Warfighter Information Network-Tac tical from the platoon to squadron lev el and had little reliance on FM. The 1-40 Cav still had their own com munication difficulties, but they did not repeat 5-1 Cav’s mistakes and had communications platforms that did not rely on line-of-sight. The Army is spending money on inno vation in the Arctic, from snow ma chines to CTAPs and CATVs. Other armies have successfully fought in the Arctic for years, such as Finland in the 1939-1940 Winter War, and they have succeeded using simple methods that are still taught in Cavalry doctrine but Figure 3. Author’s depiction of a Cavalry troop conducting a zone reconnais sance using dismounted, mounted and snow machine (tracked) methods. (Graphic by 1LT Tristan Meadows)

Fall 2023 often not practiced. The squadrons are benefiting from the influx of mon ey to the organization, but you don’t need a $1,000 battery warmer that weighs 15 pounds to keep a AAA bat tery warm when a Soldier can use his body heat. Reinforcing 5-1 Cav to a truly Arctic Cavalry squadron with off-road mobil ity platforms of snow machines and CATVs, conducting dismounted opera tions and leveraging TACSAT and HF communications at all echelons will enable 5-1 Cav’s success in JPMRC in February 2024 and the success of fu ture operations in Arctic environ ments. 1LT Tristan Meadows is S-4 of 5-1 Cav, Fort Wainright, AK. Previous Acronym Quick-Scan AO – area of operations AoA – avenue of approach CATV – Cold-Weather All-Terrain Vehicle CP – command post CTAPS – Cold-Temperature Arctic Protection System DoS – days of supply DTA – Donnelly Training Area FM – frequency modulation FST – forward-support troop HF – high frequency HHT – headquarters and headquarters troop IBCT – infantry brigade combat team JBC-P – Joint Battle Command-Platform JPMRC – Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center MTOE – modified table of organization and equipment OPFOR – opposing force R&S – reconnaissance and security RTU – rotational training unit SBCT – Stryker brigade combat team SUSV – Small-Unit Support Vehicle TACSAT – tactical satellite YTA – Yukon Training Area assignments include platoon leader, 5-1 Cav, Fort Wainwright. He served as Red Platoon leader for Bandit Troop, 5-1 Cav, during JPMRC 22-02 and as observer/coach/trainer for Chaos Troop, 1-40 Cav, during JPMRC 23-02. His military schooling includes Basic and Advanced Military Mountaineer ing Courses, Heavy Weapons Leader’s Course, Stryker Leader’s Course, Scout Leader’s Course, Air-Assault Course, Armor Basic Officer Leader’s Course, UH-72A Light-Helicopter Repairer Course, UH-60 A/L-M Helicopter Re pairer Course and Basic Combat Train ing. 1LT Meadows has a bachelor’s of science degree in criminal justice from the University of North Dakota and a bachelor’s of arts degree in sociology from the University of North Dakota. Cold Weather Leaders Course students move through the rugged terrain at the Northern Warfare Training Center’s (NWTC) Black Rapids Training Site, AK, during a snowstorm in March 2023. NWTC cadre worked overtime to help meet the increased need for more Arctic experts in the units to help pass critical knowledge throughout the formations. (U.S. Army photo by John Pen nell, 11th Airborne Division) Spec. Zachary Ewing digs out a per sonal sleeping space in preparation for an overnight without a tent at the Northern Warfare Training Cen ter’s Black Rapids Training Site, AK. (U.S. Army photo by John Pennell, 11th Airborne Division)

Fall 2023 Junior Leaders in Age of Experimentation by MAJ Adam Nodin Why should anyone outside of Army Futures Command bother thinking about the future of innovation and technology? Battalions and compa nies hardly have enough time to squeeze in a good training event, they can barely keep up with new equipment being fielded, and they can’t get rid of the old stuff fast enough. The property books are a mess, and junior leaders struggle to find time to train their troops. Anyone who has ever been fielded the new Enhanced Night Vision Gog gle-Binocular (ENVG-B) or a PUMA unmanned aircraft system can attest to their utility on the battlefield, but those technologies did not arrive by accident. Their concepts were metic ulously researched, designed by teams of scientists and soldiers, and went through rigorous testing before landing on any company command er’s property books. As the character of war evolves at the pace of techno logical advancement, and without a raging war to spur technological ad vancement, the Army is investing in the Army Futures Command’s Project Convergence. Experimentation will be key to the Army’s ability to evolve with new concepts and technologies, to adapt to those changes, and to in tegrate devices and systems to win on the next battlefield. The fundamentals of fire and maneu ver and the force’s ability to adapt to a changing landscape will always be important, still everyone must re member that technological advance ments are not unique to the United States – its adversaries are adopting their own experimentation programs to aggressively compete on a global scale. Therefore, the United States’ lead as the world superpower is be ing contested. All said, the fundamentals of soldier ing will likely stay un-touched. Very few envision a terminator-like land scape with clashing drones, while the humans remain hidden from sight. Wars will be fought, and won, with people, and those people need to be trained to close with and destroy their enemy. Training this force will be increasingly complex, and leaders need to not only understand their role in training lethality to fight to night, but also embrace the require ments to be relevant tomorrow. Imagine the maneuver company commanders of 2040. For the most part, they look like the company commanders of today: physically fit, Ranger qualified and trained to jump out of an airplane. They wear body armor adorned with fighting tools, are bogged down by an array of wires, batteries, and antennas, and carry a rifle that is likely still the 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapon that is presently being field ed. The main difference is their ac cess to information. They’ll probably carry an advanced version of Inte grated Tactical Network (ITN) that gives them portable data and voice communications transport to both over-the-horizon nodes and shorter-range networks. A device that resem bles a cell phone on their chest will give them access to sensors, shoot ers, and command and control cen ters in their network. With the sup port of artificial intelligence (AI) soft ware, they’ll be able to communicate their company’s situation more effi ciently and contribute to the genera tion of offensive and defensive ac tions. The company’s structure will look much the same as today except for a larger headquarters platoon to manage a small fleet of drones and offensive cyber and communications specialists. Consider the stature of the Army in which those company commanders serve, possibly as much as 20 years removed from counterinsurgency and full-scale combat operations. Years of successful competition and deterrence could keep threats to the United States and its allies in check. Thanks to the degradation of Russia in Ukraine, the shrinking of a Chinese work force, and economic and do mestic pressure on North Korea and Iran, the typical big four adversaries might not cross the threshold of armed conflict. Heavy investment in strengthening partnerships and alli ances, and a nimble counter-terror ism force might keep threats on the homeland manageable. Despite oc casional Immediate Response Force deployments for noncombatant evac uation operations in unstable states across the Baltics and Africa, the low demand on the U.S. Army’s divisions would allow its experimentation cul ture to accelerate. Since technology tends to advance most rapidly during combat operations, the absence of armed conflict will necessitate the focus on rigorous, deliberate military development. The challenges of managing an effective training plan would be complicated by the consis tent introduction of new equipment or experiments to refine the under standing of the battlefield of 2060. If war breaks out in 2040, those com pany commanders’ roles will look much like todays, though the charac ter of war will look different. Their primary mission will still be to close with and destroy the enemy in close combat. A multi-dimension battle field will be second nature to those companies. They’ll be well-versed in signals collection and disruption, likely have the means to launch limit ed cyber-attacks on local objectives, and they will be able to deploy ground and air unmanned systems. Their enemy will have the same ca pabilities. Should these company commanders find themselves being the objective of an enemy attack, their advanced communications, drones, and cyber weapons could be disabled or dis rupted, meaning their ability to fight in an analog environment will be im portant for survival. The training and attention they put into the funda mental fighting skills that are cher ished today will still be the root of their success on a future battlefield.

Fall 2023 Ultimately, the force that can survive in a contested environment, protect its advanced capabilities, and mass all its power in a narrow window of opportunity will win the day. What is experimentation? Experimentation is ubiquitous in most Army formations, and it allows leaders to learn what they don’t al ready know. What exactly is experi mentation? This might sound like an easy answer. Many took high school chemistry and remembered the reac tion when baking soda was mixed with vinegar. But many might not re member what made that event an experiment. After all, the reaction of the mixture is well-known and unsur prising. Most likely, the teacher had the students write a hypothesis – I believe that adding vinegar to baking soda will create a fizz in the solution. A controlled environment was likely prepared for the experiment that in cluded a clean classroom, a graduat ed cylinder, or a scale for measuring the variables, and a sterile glass cyl inder to mix everything together. The students repeat the experiment us ing different amounts of the vari ables or by adding additional vari ables like water or food coloring. Stu dents probably recorded the size of the initial reaction as the control, then measured the size of the reac tion when different amounts of the variables were added. Finally, over time, the experimenters not only an swered their hypothesis, but also learned the exact ratios of vinegar and baking soda required to make the biggest reaction, the speed that they must be added, and how nonreactive ingredients like water affect the reaction. The Department of Defense (DoD) defines experimentation as “testing a hypothesis, under measured condi tions, to explore unknown effects of manipulating proposed warfighting concepts, technologies or condi tions.” It is not an end, but a tool to explore unknown relationships and outcomes that result from new dis ruptive technologies and concepts, new applications of existing capabili ties or emerging threats.1 Experimen tation is more about learning what isn’t known or understood rather than proving what already exists. In recent years, an evolution in indi vidual soldier technology landed in the hands of some of the most junior combat arms troops. Some examples include ITN, a brick-style radio that utilizes both FM and cellular net works to transport voice and data through a relay-style mesh network; ENVG-B, the dual-tube, thermal-en abled night vision devices that incor porate picture in picture views of the user’s geo-position and weapon op tic and can be linked to the ITN; and the Infantry Squad Vehicle, a vehicle that can rapidly transport a nine-per son squad without the cumbersome weight of armor and large-caliber weapons. These enhancements are a result of experimentation, prototyp ing, and assessment. They went through years of development, with stood the durability tests of the De fense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and were tested by Soldiers at numerous stages called Soldier touch points before fielding. Through the research and development cycle, these products tangentially informed the capabilities of the future force. Innovation breeds more innovation, and that is the power of experimen tation. Army Futures Command Conceptualizing the future battle field through the lens of today’s technology. Army Futures Command is already researching the challenges, capability gaps, and requirements that must be overcome to achieve the future operating concept. It is a multi-domain effort, and artificial in telligence and machine learning are at the forefront to accelerate prob lem-solving. A key objective is to build networks from powerful pro cessors that can digest data from sensors of any service, provide ac tionable information to a designated command node, distribute an effects solution to available systems, and in form a logistical action for resupply or maintenance. Multinational partners and the joint services make up a portion of the so lution since the United States will rely heavily on others for things like penetration, mobilization and basing in any conflict. It might sound like the problem is not necessarily revolutionary, and many might be surprised the U.S. military doesn’t already have such a system. Unfortunately, the U.S. mili tary’s focus for the last 20 years has been based on defeating a shape-shifting adversary – the ideological foot soldiers of various terrorist net works in the Middle East who used their ability to vanish within the local population as their primary means of survival. From the 1980s through the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. mili tary focused on platforms to give it the competitive and lethal edge on the battlefield.2 Some of the plat forms that gave U.S. troops a tactical advantage in the Middle East includ ed the Mine-Resistant, Ambush-Pro tectant vehicles, the 155mm M777 Howitzer, the Javelin anti-armor mis sile, the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), and the AH-64 Apache Helicopter. Key defen sive platforms include the C-RAM (Counter Rocket, Artillery, and Mor tar) and the Patriot missile system. All these platforms brought much-needed technological leaps to the battlefield, but none revolutionized the character of war. These platforms often showcased a major enhancement of an old prob lem, but lacked an improvement to the Decide, Detect, Deliver, Assess (D3A)3 targeting process, sometimes referred to as the kill chain or kill web.4 The M777 or HIMARS brought longer-range precision fires and the Apache brought advanced targeting, but a human was still required for much of the targeting process. Hu mans are required to determine if a target observed through an Apache’s Forward-Looking Infrared is friend or foe, to decide the best munition to attack the target, and consider whether that target could be passed to a different platform (such as a howitzer), so the Apache could pre serve its ammunition for deeper tar gets. Should this tactical scenario play out on a current battlefield, a cumbersome process of verbal com munications would fill the radio net