The first test was an offensive scenario with the two US variants pitted against a dug in BTR-80 Company reinforced with a T-80 platoon. Unlike the other simulation runs (discussed later), in this case, the enemy had to be totally destroyed to end the scenario.

The attack was conducted as shown in Figure 11. A supporting attack was made in the north with one company to seize the support by fire positions, while the main attack, with two companies, was in the south.

The lead company in the south seized OBJ 1, overwatched by the northern company. Once OBJ 1 is secured, the trailing southern company passes through it and takes OBJ 2, and the process is repeated for OBJ 3. Once OBJ 3 is seized, either the northern company can seize OBJ 4 or the company on OBJ 3 can do so.

In both cases, the US force successfully attacked and destroyed the enemy unit in less than an hour. The conventional M2/M1 TF reduced the enemy strength much more quickly initially, but needed a little longer to dig the OPFOR out of their holes than the Medium Battalion. Both battalions finished at about the same percent strength (87 for the medium versus 93 for the Mech) and both units could have been probably withstood a counterattack or continued the attack to subsequent objectives.

Figure 12 and 13 shows how these organizations compared with each other in terms of combat power over the course of the game.

Figure 11.
Offensive Plan of Attack

Figure 12.
 Offensive Strength over time

 Figure 13.
Offensive Lethality Over Time

Next a defensive scenario was run where the two organizations defended against an OPFOR Motorized Infantry Brigade, again organized per FM 100-60. Defensive scenarios were conceived as if the medium battalion was protecting an airhead or beachhead while other elements deployed or arrived. I sought to defeat the enemy attack on the battalion’s initial positions, although there was some maneuver in each company.

The US defensive plan is shown in Figure 14.

Again, the general pattern of the two scenarios was about the same. The US force won in about an hour. The medium battalion fared better than the mech battalion, ending at 59% strength versus 48% strength. (Figure 15 and Figure 16)   In defensive scenarios, the simulation ended when the enemy strength was reduced to 60% or the friendly strength to 50%.

While the enemy penetrated the mech defense further than the medium version, at no time was the US sector in danger of being penetrated through the rear boundary. Critical to success of the medium battalion was its 10 mortars to smoke friendly positions to shield them from enemy fires. Because of the long-range fires of the M1’s, this was not quite so necessary with the Mech TF.

While the first echelon was destroyed pretty handily, neither organization was well suited to deal with the follow on attack by the BMP and Tank Regiment of the OPFOR division, as can be seen by the end state shown in Figure 17.

Figure 14.
Defensive Plan

Figure 15.
Defensive Strength Over Time

Figure 16.
Defensive Strength Over Time

Figure 17.
Defensive End State

The Medium Brigade has only an Engineer Company for mobility, counter-mobility, and survivability support. Reports indicate that this company will be more focused on improving mobility for the Medium Brigade instead of counter-mobility or survivability. This is perhaps more in tune with the role of the brigade in Stability and Support Operations (SASO) and Military Operations in Urbanized Terrain (MOUT). In a standard defensive mission, this would seem to be a weakness.

In the scenarios run without engineer units, defending units were placed in defilade to reduce their vulnerability to direct fire. In the others, each unit was entrenched.

The recon/counter-recon phases saw the scout platoons stripping off the enemy recon elements though casualties were usually heavy.

TACOPS provided 3 155 batteries, an MLRS battalion, and several air sorties in support of the Medium battalion while BCT provided 3 155 batteries and 4 A-10 sorties. All Fire Support assets were used in TACOPS while in BCT, the air sorties were not used. Neither scenario provided for PGM attacks and only HE and Smoke were available for the 120mm Mortars.

Without engineers using TACOPS, the BLUEFOR won each time, with an average ending strength (of all unit types) of 50% and an average OPFOR strength of 37%. When using BCT, the BLUEFOR also won each time, with an average ending strength of 81% and OPFOR strength of 16%.   With engineers, using TACOPs scenarios, the average BLUE end strength was 59% and OPFOR was 36%. With BCT, BLUE strength was 89% and OPFOR strength was 23%.

Note the increase in survivability for BLUE was about 10%. This difference may be significant in defending against a follow on force. The difference in BCT OPFOR strength is attributed to the improper placement of the minefield in such a manner that the BLUE force could not range most of it.

In both games, casualties were higher when shifting battle positions or counterattacking by fire was attempted, highlighting the difficulty of knowing when to start the movement of friendly forces to subsequent positions.

While the popular attention is fixed on the possibility of wheeled combat vehicles for the Army’s new medium brigades, tracked vehicles, such as the venerable M113 and the M8 Armored Gun System are also in competition.

Adopting the M113 and AGS would have some advantages in that the Army has lots of M113s still in use and many spare parts for them. The M8 was type classified and ready for production when it was cancelled and so is not readily available. The main disadvantage of these two vehicles is they do not have common repair parts; something that hopefully buying a system of wheeled vehicles would provide. Recent developments in the evaluation process indicate that a mixture of tracks and wheels may be acceptable or another series of vehicles, not necessarily of the same family.

Much attention has also been fixed on examining the performance of the Medium Brigade based on LAV-25 vehicles. However, the mission of the Brigade revolves heavily on dismounted assault and the infantry school may have a preference for using the logistics carrier equipped with the M240 7.62mm Machine Gun, M2 HB .50 caliber machine gun, or theMK-19 Automatic Grenade Launcher instead of the LAV-25 in order to carry more dismounts. This would be a return to the "battle taxi" concept of infantry, which the US Army used when heavy units were based on the M60/M113 series of vehicles.

This portion studies how a LAV-LOG based battalion compares to a LAV-25 battalion. The OPFOR, as for the other tests, was a BTR-80/T-80 regiment without thermal sights.