The Army is pursuing a new plan to train and deploy units at the same time it modernizes, with the goal of preparing units for specific regions worldwide.
Army Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, deputy chief of staff for operations, last Thursday outlined the concept, called the “Regionally Aligned Readiness and Modernization Model (ReARMM), which would have units use prepositioned stocks when they deploy in emergencies.
Read Next: Marine Corps Marks End of Harrier Operations for Historic ‘Tomcats’ Squadron
“You’ll have a cadre for each theater and contingency that is well-versed and deeply rehearsed in the war plans for those areas, and they will be early movers [in response to a crisis],” Flynn said at an Association of the U.S. Army event. “We’re working through rehearsals right now.”
He said officials hope to implement it across the total Army for fiscal 2022.
“Our most modern [Armored Brigade Combat Teams] might be in one theater; our most modern [Infantry Brigade Combat Teams] might be in another,” depending on the needs of combatant commanders, said Brig. Gen. Peter Benchoff, Flynn’s deputy as director of Force Management.
Flynn and Benchoff said they are looking at implementing an 18-month cycle for ReARMM — six months of modernizing with new equipment, six months of training, and six months being on call for deployments.
To fine-tune the plan, Flynn said he is going to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, later this month to work through “a wide range of scenarios that we want to make sure that we do deep dives” on before implementation.
If it works, the plan will “give us the opportunity to make sure we have the right equipment in the right location at the right time,” in line with the National Defense Strategy’s focus on great power competition with Russia and China, he added.
In remarks at a separate AUSA event last Thursday, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said the Pentagon is intent on developing a concept called “dynamic force employment” across the services to prepare for the possibility of conflict with Russia and China.
The Army has been applying the concept “to build rapid-power projection through dispersed, prepositioned equipment” worldwide, he said.
“This has enabled the department to become more nimble and less predictable and better capable of rapidly shifting to combat operations as needed,” Esper said.
The efforts are designed to build readiness “for the high-end fight that we hope we must never have but must be prepared to win,” he added.
Source: Military News
