From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

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Illustrations Stryker with Mobile Gun System variant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 General Eric K. Shinseki with soldiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Stryker vehicles in stateside training exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Soldiers training with the Stryker at the National Training Center . . 12 Platoon on patrol, outskirts of Samarra, Iraq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 Sniper from 23d Infantry in Mosul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Kiowa Warrior helicopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Mosul at night . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Brig. Gen. Carter F. Ham and a senior Iraqi Army officer . . . . . . . . 30 American and Iraqi soldiers on a night mission in Mosul . . . . . . . . . 31 American soldier training an Iraqi soldier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 American soldiers maintaining security for Iraqi National Guard mission. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Stryker platoon on local security duty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Task Force arrow officers preparing for logistics convoy . . . . . . . . 45 Strykers and cargo trucks ready for convoy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Lt. Col. Karl D. Reed and an Iraqi police chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Crashed Kiowa Warrior after recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Soldier firing at insurgents from his Stryker vehicle . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Stryker on the move after searching for insurgents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 Soldiers on local security duty west of Mosul. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Illustrations courtesy of the following: 27, 30, 63, Department of Defense; 40, 45, 47, 56, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry. All others from U.S. Army files. vi
A Need for Change During General Gordon R. Sullivan’s tour as Chief of Staff of the Army, between June 1991 and June 1995, as a consequence of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the U.S. Army began to develop a new strategic vision. By acquiring advanced information technologies such as the tactical internet, it sought to produce an agile, sustainable force capable of meeting any challenge that emerged in an as-yet-undefined future. In this way, by adopting the latest digital technology, the armored and mechanized divisions of the existing force would gain a significantly improved awareness of whatever circumstances they encountered in the field. The concept, Force XXI, looked forward to the next century and to the Army’s role in it. Force XXI employed an innovative approach to warfighting that sought to improve a combat unit’s battlefield awareness by networking battlefield information systems. At the command level, the process would accelerate decision making by providing officers at all echelons with continually updated information on the positions and activities of their forces. In the field, by improving combat commanders’ knowledge of the enemy’s location and movement, it would allow friendly forces to deploy with a minimum of guesswork to points where they could have the greatest impact. The key developmental tool for Force XXI, a division-size Experimental Force, began to take shape in 1993. The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) planned to convert an existing division into a pilot organization to test future force designs. In December 1994 the Army designated the 2d Armored Division based at Fort Hood, Texas, as the Experimental Force. Reflagged as the 4th Infantry Division in 1996, the new interim division, totaling 15,820 people, was slightly smaller than its predecessor. Other changes to the unit included an increased number of fire-support systems, expanded reconnaissance and intelligence capabilities, additional infantry, and greater consolidation of logistics support. Digitization, a term that originated in the Army of the 1990s with the acquisition and testing of computerized communications systems by the Experimental Force, was the main idea behind Force XXI. Those tests, culminating in the Advanced Warfighting Experiment in 1997 that pitted a digitized task force against a conventional foe, affirmed the concept of a “networked battlefield” in the minds of senior Army leaders. The nearly instantaneous sharing of computerized information on events in
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Page 4 and 5: CMH Pub 70-106-1 Cover: Soldiers of
Page 6 and 7: Acknowledgments Many individuals no
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ight front; then the entire interse
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Operating 1,500 yards from the scou
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500 500 � Tall 'Afar B SCT 0 0 I
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Kiowa Warrior shortly after recover
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September 2004, the 5th Battalion,
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On the northeast side of Tall Afar,
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from Company A, 2d Battalion, 3d In
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Soldiers pull local security during
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At the conclusion of their deployme
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joint-force lines so that it functi
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Compared with the battle that occur
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Bibliographical Note Primary Source
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From TransFormaTion To CombaT The First stryker brigade at War

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