The British Army on the cusp of a major transformation

Many believe that the British Army appears to be the big loser in the upcoming arbitrations in Britain following the publication of the new Integrated Strategic Review. It is true that the latter consecrates the preponderant role of the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force in the conflicts and tensions to come, and that these two armies are destined to receive the lion's share, with the force of deterrence, of the £16,5bn budget increase of La Défense promised by Boris Johnson in the next 4 years. In addition, the damning report concerning the dilapidated state of the British Army's heavy equipment published ahead of the strategic review by the Parliamentary Defense Committee, offers little hope of resilience in this area, while the hypothesis of a reduction of 10.000 military posts and the withdrawal of infantry fighting vehicles Warrior and some of the Challenger 2 tanks seem to be taking shape in the second part of the Strategic Review which will be published next week.

From then on, it actually seemed that the British Army was preparing to pay the price for the strategic reorganization decided by 10 Downing Street, partly to mark the distancing between the United Kingdom and continental Europe following Brexit. But an article published by the official website of the British Army, with too much haste since it was quickly withdrawn probably in order not to attract attention before the publication of the second part of the Strategic Review, however allows us to consider a completely different hypothesis, and much more rewarding for the evolution of His Majesty's military land forces. Indeed, it seems that the British Army is at the dawn of a profound structural and organic transformation, the aim of which will be to respond to the challenges and realities of war in the 21st century!

The Brigade Combat Team (BCT) as an autonomous operational unit

This development will involve the organization of a new form of operational combat unit, the Brigade Combat Team or BCT, in accordance with the new doctrine decided by the British General Staff a few months ago. Unlike the current combat brigades which form the battle corps of the British Army, the BCTs will be autonomous combat units with, in their own right, all the capabilities to carry out all the missions entrusted to them. In addition to the traditional armored or mechanized, artillery or engineering units, this will therefore integrate all the capacity services which until now were controlled at the divisional or army corps level, such as air assets, intelligence, cyber war, and even Social Warfare, as well as the entire logistics chain necessary for military action. The objective stated by the British Army is to be able to deploy a unit that is both dissuasive and fully effective, itself made up of smaller, agile and mobile units, each with great autonomy of decision-making on the ground to seize the opportunities that available to them.

This model is very inspired by the one presented a few months ago by the US Marines Corps, from which it also takes the name Brigade Combat Team. This allows us to imagine the way in which the political power and the British general staff envisage the military intervention of its land forces in the future. The same aspects of mobility and agility are also included in the presentation across the Channel, with the objective of never offering the adversary the possibility of striking concentrations of forces while the increase in resources detection systems such as drones and satellites, and long-distance strike capabilities with increasingly short delays continue to grow, as shown for example by the war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

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