Nestled within a block of relatively uncontroversial additions to the 2019 defense authorization bill is an amendment encouraging the Defense Department to invest in upgrading the battlefield effectiveness of infantry troops, recognizing they are as important a tactical capability as pilots or the aircraft they fly.
Offered by Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), the amendment adds to the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) version of the fiscal 2019 National Defense Authorization Act a recognition of the outsize contribution close-combat troops provide relative to the cost of modernizing the training and equipment of ground forces.
“The Committee understands that military operations still require our units to close with and destroy the enemy,” the measure, which passed without discussion along with several other en bloc amendments, reads. “Despite comprising a tiny fraction of total Department of Defense personnel, the ground close combat formations primarily tasked to close with and destroy the enemy bear a unique burden, reflected in them historically accounting for almost 90 percent of casualties.”
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis launched a Close Combat Lethality Task Force (CCLTF) in February to study how best to train and equip dismounted infantry for future conflicts. The task force focuses on improving personnel policies, training methods and equipment to enhance the battlefield effectiveness of frontline infantry formations through available technology, human factors science and talent management.
Part of the task force’s mandate is to find ways to invest in infantry personnel, their training and equipment the same way the Army and other services invest in training pilots. Mattis’ goal is to send every frontline soldier or Marine through “25 bloodless battles” before they are ever shot at in anger.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley is dead-set on providing immersive training simulators for frontline troops, just as it does for helicopter pilots and the Air Force does jet pilots.
“Tens of millions of dollars are spent and invested in training and simulation for an F-35 pilot before they are ever allowed to come near a fifth-generation fighter,” Milley said in an Oct. 10 speech. “Well, we have fifth-generation fighters in our squads and platoons and they are actually fighting every day. So, we must do the same thing for them.”
The NDAA amendment makes the same connection, but points out that providing new and improved equipment and training for ground troops is a relatively inexpensive proposition that will pay dividends in future wars.
“Relative to the overall size of the Department budget, the cost of supporting modernization to equipment and training for ground close combat formations is relatively small,” the amendment says. “Increased investments in these units’ personnel, equipment, readiness, and training offer outsize returns for our military’s combat capabilities.”
Panetta, son of former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, calls for increased integration of tactical unmanned aircraft – specifically medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft – that can offer ground troops better situational awareness, sensing, load-bearing, communications and offensive capability.
The amendment also calls for training conventional frontline troops more like special operations forces, which have taken on a greater share of combat duties since the U.S. has backed away from full-scale operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere. The close-combat task force is planning to bring SOF capabilities and training methodologies to close combat formations, which Panetta’s amendment says “is an important element of the overall CCLTF effort.”
The measure directs Mattis to report on the task force findings by Dec. 1, including whether it is feasible or preferable to establish a Joint Close Combat Leader Center to train small-unit infantry leadership.
That report also should include recommendations on “the feasibility of making existing unmanned aircraft organic to ground close combat units; and the impact of improving line close combat formation capabilities and interoperability with SOF, as well as any other topics the Secretary deems appropriate.”