By Ann Roosevelt
The Army’s nine new Battlefield Surveillance Brigades (BFSB) are building up and the first is deemed successful in performing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) work in Iraq, according to a service official.
The 525th BFSB has returned from Iraq, where it’s been “a big success,” Pete Rose, Combat Developments, Army Armor Center, Ft. Knox, Ky., told Defense Daily in a recent interview.
At Ft. Knox, Ky., the Maneuver Center of Excellence will continue to develop the BFSB concept throughout Fiscal Year 2009 culminating with the initial release of FM 3-55.1, the Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, likely in September or October.
Informal feedback from senior leaders in Iraq were “nothing but positive about capabilities of unit,” Rose said. Additionally, when the operational and organizational (O&O) plan was staffed service wide before approval for the field Army, it had “nothing but support.”
The BFSB improves situational awareness for commanders at division or higher so they can focus joint combat power in current operations while simultaneously preparing for future operations. The units have the tools to respond to the commanders from unmanned aerial vehicles to signals gathering equipment and human intelligence collectors.
In other words, the new brigades offer more precise collection for upper echelons that can then apply more precise solutions.
Each BFSB consists of a headquarters and headquarters company. Active units have two military intelligence battalions, while the Army National Guard BFSBs have one. The brigades also have a reconnaissance and surveillance squadron, a signals company and a logistics company.
The Army has three active component BFSBs, all interim designs transitioning to the full design. The Ft. Bragg-based 525th is in the process of moving to the full brigade, and the Army is requisitioning the people and equipment it needs, Rose said. It had been an interim design without ground reconnaissance capability and the full brigade headquarters. The 504th, based at Ft. Hood, Texas, now deploying to Iraq, and the Ft. Lewis, Wash.-based 201st round out the active units.
There are six Army National Guard BFSBs: the 58th Maryland, 67th Nebraska, 71st Texas, 219th Indiana, 297th Alaska, and the 560th Georgia. All are moving to the objective designs.
Staff for the three active BFSBs came from military intelligence brigades.
“The Battlefield Surveillance Brigades in the National Guard transformed from an area support group, logistics headquarters, infantry brigade combat team, from a division artillery organization,” Rose said.
“Back in October, the Armor Center hosted a computer assisted exercise where we were examining battlefield surveillance brigade operations,” Rose said. “We had representatives for the six Army national Guard BFSBs in attendance so that they could observe and provide input, so we’re well networked with the brigades in the field. Now the Army National Guard is growing to those organizations whereas the active component has been more focused on taking that interim design without that mounted reconnaissance and deploying to Iraq.”
The BFSB came about as the shift to modular units occurred when most of the capabilities resident at various echelons were broken up and put into the brigade combat teams, he said. That led stand-alone brigade combat teams that could conduct operations and be tasked to do reconnaissance, security, technical surveillance and human intelligence work.
“We found out division commanders still have the requirements to either conduct concurrent reconnaissance and surveillance operations beyond the range of brigade combat teams,” Rose said. “When they designated a brigade combat team to do that you took a well rounded unit that had a fairly significant number of soldiers in it and gave it a mission, so it wasn’t a real efficient use of a brigade combat team.”
So the service looked into designing an organization with the sole purpose of gathering information for the division, corps or Joint Task Force commander conducting reconnaissance and surveillance operations that could also provide such things as targeting information.
The Training and Doctrine Command’s Combined Arms Center took about three years to work out the details, Rose said. That meant identifying requirements and gaps and then creating an organization that could conduct manned and unmanned reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance and surveillance and also conduct human and signals intelligence gathering. This organization also included a counterintelligence capability as well. The initial BFSB O&O plan was outlined in 2007.
For the Army, if you have to conduct combat operations as your primary means of gathering information, you give it to a brigade combat team, Rose said. However, if the idea is to stay out of contact with the enemy yet find out where it is and gather information, then a BFSB is what’s needed.
Looking at brigade combat teams involved in a current operation, the division commander is not only supporting those BCTs but thinking about the next brigade combat team objective, the next area an enemy attack might come from, that’s where an organization like the BFSB comes in, attempting to answer questions for future operations, he said.
“We know the military intelligence battalion and its capabilities of human intelligence collection, signals intelligence collection, counter intel, they work,” Rose said. This brigade [BFSB] sometimes controls those capabilities; sometimes it will reinforce other brigade combat teams and provide capability. We know that works.”
Based on the experience with the 525th in Iraq, no wholesale changes are planned, he said. “What we’re anxious to do is get a fully organized brigade deployed, but I think we’re a deployment or two away from that just because of the time it takes to get the new personnel and equipment in and then train them up.”
The BFSB is designed to be agile and flexible. “The brigade headquarters was designed so that you would have–sometimes they’re called hooks and plugs–but you’ve got the staff capability to bring in additional battalions and you’ve got personnel to assist the brigade commander in commanding integrating those operations,” he said.
The BFSB is designed to support ISR requirements across the spectrum of conflict as described in the Army’s FM 3-0.
“The idea is that the Army looks ahead on where a brigade could be deployed in the [Army Force Generation] cycle,” Rose said. “What we think we have is the core capability that would be required in just about any operation and then as unique factors of [Mission enemy troops terrain time and civil considerations] METTCC” come into play for a specific mission, other capabilities can be added.
The BSFBs have different and unique capabilities designed for collection, not analysis. The brigade passes the information to the primary analytic echelon, which is either division or corps as other BCTs do.
“The units are here to stay,” Rose said. “They’re programmed in the force structure as far our as any other unit. They’re in fielding plans to receive Shadow [UAS] platoons–I think the Army won’t complete fielding Shadow until fiscal year 2015, so they’re getting the resources, the enablers–they’re programmed for all of that as well. And, funded through [Program Objective Memorandum] POM.”