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.