The United States Army currently fields armored, Stryker, and mobile brigade combat teams without doctrinally defining their distinct operational purposes, risking severe tactical failures in close combat. This structural ambiguity forces force development, training, and equipment acquisition to rely on arbitrary design assumptions rather than defined operational necessity in combat.
Historically, Field Manual 3-96 outlines organizational structures while failing to clarify when a division commander should employ specific formations. Consequently, the newly introduced mobile brigade combat team lacks a clear role in divisional large-scale combat operations, leading to mismatched procurement decisions like the under-protected Infantry Squad Vehicle. To resolve this design-doctrine gap, the military must update its publications to assign explicit functional roles: armored units for forced penetration, Stryker formations for rapid exploitation, and mobile brigades for distributed resilience. Aligning training center exercises and acquisition programs with these defined purposes will ensure future forces are optimized for specific tactical problems rather than generic tasks.
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