As advanced technology proliferates on battlefields from Iran to Ukraine, and the Pentagon grapples with cutting-edge artificial intelligence firms, a unique unit of the US Army has embraced a surprising philosophy: the virtue of simplicity. In a world of accelerated military innovation, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, an elite force, demonstrates that it is not the number of gadgets or the complexity of systems that guarantees success, but rather the robustness and clarity of plans.
The Paradox of Technology: Fewer „Bells and Whistles” for More Victories
Drones, electronic warfare, and even artificial intelligence are undoubtedly valuable tools, acknowledge officers from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment. However, they warn that the organizations, plans, and processes that wield these instruments must be as simple and resilient as possible, otherwise the entire structure will collapse under the infernal pressure of combat.
„Technology, as it advances, has certainly been a boon,” states Captain Jake Thomas, an infantryman by training, now in charge of the regiment’s electronic and information warfare assets. But the real danger, he emphasizes, lies in overloading soldiers with „more bells, whistles, and information” than ordinary human minds can manage. „One thing we absolutely have to do,” Thomas adds, „is take those systems, those processes, and strip them down radically.”
Mojave, the Laboratory of Modern War: Lessons from the Opposing Force
The 11th ACR has learned this vital lesson by participating in eight to ten simulated battles annually, acting as the Opposing Force (OPFOR) at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. In these mock combats, conducted over 1,200 square miles of the Mojave Desert, the OPFOR is renowned for regularly drubbing visiting brigades, which outnumber it in tanks, but not in drones or powerful jamming systems. The unit has assembled an eclectic collection of non-standard technology to emulate the latest threats.
„Today, the battlefield is much deeper, much longer, much more lethal, and we have to respect that,” explains Colonel Kevin Black, the regimental commander, who previously worked on assistance to Ukraine. To replicate real-life threats, he states, „we have to combine all our technology, along with our operational approach, which… boils down to simple plans, violently executed, that retain agility.”
In fact, the colonel’s tactical „bible” for managing his cutting-edge equipment is an Army pamphlet printed in the distant year 1997. Titled „Decision Point Tactics,” the slim publication preaches intense wargaming and meticulous rehearsals before an operation. Thus, commanders and their subordinates can build a common „playbook” of tactical responses to likely situations, which they can then execute on their own initiative, without waiting for permission or detailed instructions.
Decisive Tactics and Delegated Initiative: Secrets of Agility
If a subunit identifies a high-priority target established through wargaming and rehearsals, for example, Black explains, „they have the authority to launch the munition to destroy that [target], because we’ve already thought through that plan.”
The primary objective is to react quickly to new information, seize the initiative, and keep the enemy off balance, forcing them to react to your moves, instead of you reacting to theirs. As a passage from the pamphlet puts it: „if we’re going to dance, we want to lead.”
Centralizing Technology: From Complication to Maximum Efficiency
While the OPFOR seeks to empower its junior officers, it is equally cautious not to overload them with complex technology. „As much as we want to push capabilities down to the lowest level… when you push capabilities down, you often push complexity and additional work,” observes Captain Joshua Ratta, who commands the OPFOR’s headquarters company.
The challenge isn’t just operating and maintaining all the different specialized systems, he says. It’s also interpreting all the different kinds of sensor data they provide – video, infrared, radio – and integrating these jigsaw pieces into a coherent picture of the battlefield, without either missing something vital in all the noise or counting the same enemy multiple times.
„What we don’t want to have happen is 10 sensors looking at one platoon on a battlefield, and that gets recorded as 10 platoons,” Ratta explains. „That integration is one of the most difficult tasks out here… You’re collecting so much intelligence, [you] may not have the ability to process it all.”
So, instead of spreading its drones and jamming systems across its tank and infantry battalions, the regiment has concentrated these high-tech assets – and the scarce technical personnel adept at using them – in centralized, specialist formations. The most notable example is the „Centaur Squadron,” whose precise configuration changes from one wargame to the next, but often encompasses everything from long-range surveillance/strike drones to traditional Humvee-mounted scouts.
„That’s some of our secret sauce,” Black reveals. „We have found that the centralization of those specialties – centralization of our UAS capability, our EW and our recon/strike capability – is much more effective, rather than having it parceled out.”
This concentration of assets and expertise allows Centaur to fight its own battle at long range, ahead of the main defensive line of tanks and infantry, the colonel continues. Jamming, drone strikes, and long-range artillery – hitting targets found by the drones – all combine to disrupt approaching forces and wear them down before they ever encounter the regiment’s human troops. This gives soldiers a decisive advantage when contact is finally made. (This layered approach recalls the drone-swept kill zones on either side of the „zero line” in eastern Ukraine.)
Centralizing these high-tech systems and highly skilled technicians also makes it easier to swap in new technology as it becomes available, Black says. Due to its unique mission and limited budget, the OPFOR has learned to improvise, beg, and borrow all sorts of equipment that replicate reported or potential threats. Much of it comes free of charge from government labs or private companies eager for feedback from real soldiers trying out their tech in field conditions.
„We’re not able to buy a lot of exquisite, expensive equipment, but we can use it for a rotation or two,” Black says. As a result, each regular brigade that visits the National Training Center for wargames (a „rotation”) faces a different threat from the one before. This emulates the „constantly evolving operational environment” of real-life battlefields, where a new system may suddenly surge to prominence only to be quickly countered, at least until someone develops a countermeasure to the countermeasure.
„We’re not yet fully reaching Ukraine speeds” of adaptation, Ratta acknowledges. But for many sensors and unmanned systems, whose performance is largely dictated by software, he says, „if you have someone who’s capable of coding and you have the processing power to do that new line of code, you can change the software in a matter of hours.”
In such a rapidly changing world, Black and his officers argue that it’s dangerous to depend on any single technology or build your organization around a particular „wonder weapon,” however impressive it may seem today.
Adaptation Speed: A Race Against the Technological Clock
„That shelf life is much shorter,” Ratta concludes. „In five years, we could look like old men talking about the Model T.” The lesson from Fort Irwin is clear: in the era of high-tech warfare, agility, simplicity of processes, and rapid adaptability are the true assets, not mere accumulations of technology.
