Maneuver Isn’t Dead, Armor Isn’t Obsolete: Modern Battlefield Conditions Encourage Positional Warfare, But Don’t Dictate It

Modern War Institute | Alan Hastings, James Casey and Elijah Leroux

Modern armored forces facing ubiquitous surveillance, loitering munitions, and precision strike complexes retain unique capabilities to penetrate adversary defenses and restore battlefield maneuver. While peer competitors exploit contested air-ground littorals to enforce attritional, positional warfare, US Army armored formations offer protected firepower and mobility essential for operational exploitation.

Overcoming contemporary reconnaissance-strike networks requires establishing local air-ground dominance through integrated joint fires, electronic warfare, and unmanned systems. Recent operational experiments in Ukraine demonstrate that coordinated reconnaissance, masking, suppression, and isolation can disrupt sensor kill webs. To maintain maneuver capability, the US Army is actively executing its Transformation in Contact initiative across multiple formations. Units like the 1st Cavalry Division and 3rd Infantry Division are integrating heavy cavalry, strike drones, and counter-unmanned capabilities during rotations at the National Training Center. Transformation is essential. These initiatives aim to adapt combined arms doctrine, ensuring armored brigade combat teams continue dislocating enemy defenses in high-intensity peer conflict.

Comment

Integrating organic uncrewed systems and electronic warfare directly into the Armored Brigade Combat Team redefines how ground forces generate local dominance in the air-ground littoral. Traditional combined arms doctrine relied heavily on air-to-ground interdiction and centralised joint fires to suppress enemy defenses before armor commitment. The ongoing experimentation by the 1st Cavalry Division at the National Training Center shifts this burden directly onto tactical maneuver units. This evolution demands lower-echelon command nodes to sequence electromagnetic spectrum operations, kinetic strike drones, and direct fire maneuver simultaneously.

This tactical decentralisation creates severe friction for traditional division and corps battle staffs designed to retain targeting authority. Distributing sensor-to-shooter kill webs to battalion command posts requires real-time airspace management tools that current tactical command posts struggle to sustain. Consequently, III Corps faces structural pressure to delegate airspace allocation authority down to brigade combat teams to avoid operational bottlenecks during high-tempo breakthrough operations.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If III Corps decentralises airspace and electronic warfare management to the brigade level during high-intensity conflict, how does that shift alter the vulnerability of tactical command posts to enemy counter-battery and long-range precision fires?

The pattern suggests that pushing targeting authority and sensor integration to brigade combat teams drastically increases the electromagnetic footprint of forward command nodes. My assessment is that this operational decentralisation forces staff elements to operate in highly dispersed, mobile configurations to survive adversary loitering munitions and long-range artillery. Consequently, the trade-off for tactical speed in the air-ground littoral is a significantly heightened risk of command post detection and destruction.

Share your assessment in the comments below.

To read in details click here