What an army megacities unit would look like

[Peter1469]

What an army megacities unit would look like

This is a follow up to a previous article that I posted (link at the top of this article). This article discusses the force structure for an army unit that is tasked with certain missions in the megacities of the future.

A 5000 BCT.

3 battalions of mobile infantry
1 Armor battalion
1 fires battalion (artillery)
1 multifunctional engineer battalion
1 multifunctional aviation battalion
1 support battalion (logistics)
1 Military intelligence battalion
1 cyber electromagnetic activities battalion
1 explosive ordnance battalion

This force package would allow for the forming of multi-domain combat teams (infantry, armor, cyber, intelligence, information operations) all the way down to the company and platoon level needed to operate and win in megacities and dense urban terrain.

The urban BCT would be different in other important ways than today’s BCTs, specifically in their organizational commitment to three principles.


Rapid experimentation, structure changes, and equipment fielding. The urban BCT will provide an organizational base for rapid experimentation, equipment fielding, and structural change. The unit would need advanced capabilities from Army and Department of Defense labs, academia, and industry. Many of the proposed soldier and unit enhancements, such as robotics, population mapping, sensors, scalable-effects weapons and munitions, and soldier and command networked communication and control systems, could all be inserted for experimentation and testing while training for megacity operations.


The proposed urban BCT structure, outlined here, is only a starting point. Brigade combat teams are force packages that have, as one of their core design principles, the ability to adapt to a wide range of environments. A megacity unit must be designed with a capability one step further—not only to evolve in response to our constantly refined understanding of the unique requirements of big cities, but to evolve rapidly to fit the needs of each city’s unique characteristics once deployed. Unlike existing units that conduct experimentation, such as the brigade that until recently was permanently assigned to the Joint Modernization Command, which must maintain their BCT organization, a megacity unit would need authorities to radically and rapidly change its organization. The unit would also need addition funding lines in its authorizations to support changes.

An interesting proposal. Considering most of the world's population will soon live in megacities such units will be created.

[Peter1469]

Here is a new article about the need for the army to develop new formations and tactics for future wars and battles- which will increasingly be fought inside cities or mega-cities.

In 2001, when U.S.-backed Afghan fighters forced the Taliban out of Kabul, the capture of the city was largely a symbolic victory. In many ways, the more meaningful fight would rage in Afghanistan’s rural areas, scattered with villages from the ruggedly mountainous east across to the dusty plateau of the southwest.


Indeed, control of those areas was key to the Taliban’s consolidation of power during the 1990s. The group fought and defeated various factions whose violence had made traveling even short distances along rural roadways a frighteningly dangerous event. When Afghans could once again travel on a consistently and reasonably secure road network, an important measure of normalcy re-emerged, and the Taliban’s harsh policies seemed an acceptable price to pay.

But in recent years, traffic on those roadways has become largely one-directional: toward Kabul. The population of the city has grown tenfold since 2001, from 500,000 to more than 5 million. With that, the Taliban and other combatant groups have energized efforts to bring the ongoing war’s violence to the city with complex, spectacular and deadly attacks against government, military and civilian targets alike.

Much like Kabul’s population explosion preceded the Afghanistan War’s migration to the city, rates of urbanization worldwide strongly suggest the likelihood of more and more urban conflict in the future. In 1950, as the U.S. was embarking on its last sustained, conventional war, less than 30 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. That figure surpassed 50 percent a decade ago, and by 2030, it is expected to rise to 60 percent. Urbanization is happening most rapidly in poorer regions of the world that are also home to some of the greatest instability and most prone to conflict.

No wonder Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley has said he has “very high degrees of confidence” that in the future, “the American Army is probably going to be fighting in urban areas.” But he went on to say that the Army needs to fundamentally adjust the way it is staffed, organized, trained and equipped to operate effectively there.

Planning Ahead

The U.S. military has a proud tradition of adjusting on the fly, adapting to new missions and new environments as needed. Though it is perhaps apocryphal, a quote attributed to an unnamed German officer from the World War II era (or was it a Soviet observation during the Cold War?) sums it up: “A serious problem in planning against American doctrine is that the Americans do not read their manuals, nor do they feel any obligation to follow their doctrine.” The quote’s staying power despite its dubious origins testifies to an important quality within American military formations: If the preplanned solution isn’t working, find a new solution.

But that will not be good enough in dense urban environments. The complexity of cities presents too many layers of tactical and strategic challenges. The notion that a city of millions could swallow a division of soldiers is an oft-used and perhaps simplistic trope. But it points to an undeniable truth: We will not have the days, weeks, months or even years to test new solutions in order to find the right one, to field equipment optimized to an environment we’re already in or to train soldiers to overcome the unceasing assault of new and unique challenges that a city poses. We need to be ready before we send units into dense urban environments.

[jimmyz]

What mental deliberations or captured domestic inhabitants regulations would apply? Would certain domestic captives be deemed expendable and or would they be deemed convertible and less threat level? This scenario makes me thinks negatively for my kids future.

[DGUtley]

Oh don’t we long for the days of large tank battles?

[Peter1469]

What mental deliberations or captured domestic inhabitants regulations would apply? Would certain domestic captives be deemed expendable and or would they be deemed convertible and less threat level? This scenario makes me thinks negatively for my kids future.

The military is in the planning phase. These questions and more need to be answered before mega-city war becomes a reality. In the past armies could bypass major cities. That is becoming less possible. ISIL used large cities as hopeful shields from attack. The allies had no choice but to go in and take them out.