From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

progress among command posts, logistics elements, and the managers
of key weapon systems had the potential to give the networked force a
great advantage over its opponent.
At first, however, available technologies were so fragile and lagged
so far behind General Sullivan’s initiatives that a great number of
integration and durability issues arose. In April 1994, for example,
problems with untested gear led to the lackluster debut of a digitally
equipped brigade during a Force XXI Advanced Warfighting Experiment
(Operation deserT hammer vI) at the National Training Center
in Fort Irwin, California. Followup analyses disclosed that the units
involved had received so much new computerized equipment that officers
and enlisted men had lacked sufficient time to train with it. Neither
had commanders yet developed the tactics necessary to fully exploit
the capabilities the devices offered. While the results of the effort may
have fallen short of expectations, however, the exercise proved to be
a valuable learning experience by underscoring technological, organizational,
doctrinal, and training issues that needed to be solved as the
Transformation moved ahead.
When General Dennis J. Reimer succeeded Sullivan as Chief of Staff
on 20 June 1995, he accepted the Force XXI concept as a basis for further
test and evaluation. By February 1996 preliminary explorations led him
to create the Army After Next Project. Where Sullivan had sought to
apply information technology to existing systems and practices, Reimer
would look to the future and focus on developing new capabilities and
fielding a new generation of weapon systems by the year 2025. To that
end, after reconfiguring the experimental division into a standard infantry
organization, the Army formed a “Strike Force” based on the 2d Armored
Cavalry Regiment at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
The Strike Force was to be the Army’s newest step toward creating
a rapidly deployable organization able to act decisively and successfully
under any conceivable set of circumstances from peacekeeping to total
war. General Reimer described it as a cost-effective means of change
that had three objectives: to develop and field an adaptable, rapidly deployable
force to meet the needs of combatant commanders; to act as a
lab for leader development; and to be a prototype for Army After Next
organizations. In the field, early entry and stability operations would
be the unit’s primary functions, but its members would be trained and
equipped both to conduct conventional offensive and defensive warfare
and to coordinate support efforts such as humanitarian assistance. Intended
to deploy from the continental United States to anywhere in the
world with enough lethality to seize the battlefield initiative upon arrival,
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