Brigades Lead Transforming in Contact Initiative
Brigades Lead Transforming in Contact Initiative
When Gen. Randy George became chief of staff of the Army last year, he established four priorities for the service. One of them was “continuous transformation.”
The first initiative to support that priority is what the Army calls “transforming in contact,” a short-term effort to transform but not necessarily “modernize” Army units for the rapidly evolving reality of warfare.
Speaking at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Annual Meeting and Exposition on Oct. 15, Maj. Gen. Joseph Ryan, the Army’s deputy assistant chief of staff for operations, G-3/5/7, described transforming in contact as an effort driven by both experimentation with organizational design and innovation with new materiel.
While other transformation efforts will come in time, transforming in contact is a two-year sprint “grounded in one simple principle: increase lethality for our formations,” Ryan said.
The Army executed the first phase, which Ryan called “TiC 1.0,” in fiscal year 2024 with three brigade combat teams—2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division; the 10th Mountain Division’s 3rd BCT; and 2nd BCT, 25th Infantry Division.
The 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd BCT, commanded by Col. James Stultz, transformed into a mobile infantry brigade combat team over the past year. This involved fielding more than 200 Infantry Squad Vehicles each capable of transporting nine soldiers to increase the brigade’s mobility, and the Next Generation Squad Weapon to increase its lethality.
It also saw the employment of Raspberry Pi-powered electronic decoys that can mimic the electronic signatures of headquarters elements, such as smart watches and wireless printers, to draw enemy artillery fire, which then unmasks enemy locations and enables counterbattery fires.
Stultz developed a “multifunctional reconnaissance company” to replace the capabilities formerly provided by a brigade reconnaissance squadron. This unit’s three “hunter-killer platoons” return some of the capabilities lost when the Army eliminated the reconnaissance squadrons as part of the service’s force structure transformation announced in February 2024.
At the battalion level, Stultz created multipurpose companies that reassigned the scout and mortar platoons from the headquarters company and added anti-tank and human-machine integration specialists.
Col. Joshua Glonek, commander of 3rd BCT, 10th Mountain Division, faced an added challenge. His unit transformed into a light infantry brigade combat team while deployed to Eastern Europe in support of Operation Atlantic Resolve.
Glonek said the transformation has made his brigade “more mobile, less detectable and more survivable.” To fill the loss of the cavalry squadron, Glonek turned to unmanned aerial vehicles. The point, as other Army leaders have said, is for robots to make first contact with the enemy rather than a human.
To this end, Glonek deployed drones “at every echelon from squad to brigade headquarters.” To further increase survivability, the brigade support battalion transformed into a light support battalion and “decentralized” its resupply operations to reduce the footprint of the brigade support area.
“Failure is an option,” Ryan said. The Army encouraged the three brigade commanders to take risks and learn from mistakes. Those lessons will guide the implementation of “TiC 2.0” in fiscal 2025, which will see similar transformations of two division headquarters, two armored brigade combat teams, two Stryker brigade combat teams and additional units in the Army Reserve and Army National Guard.
— Tom McCuin