Last month, the 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Team ‘STRIKE’ of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) conducted an historic large-scale, long range air assault (L2A2) which saw it conduct a realistic insertion into the Joint Readiness Training Centre by flying 3,000 soldiers into action with the use of 80 aircraft and flying across 3 different states, from Fort Campbell, in Kentucky, to Fort Johnson, Louisiana between August 13 and August 17.

This enormous operation saw the use of 6 different Forward Arming and Refuelling Points across different States, and enabled the brigade to realistically enter straight into “combat” against the OPFOR, task force “Geronimo,” the resident 1st Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment. The movement began August 13 from Fort Campbell to FARP s across Mississippi and Louisiana, where the helicopters refuelled in darkness and took off again to deliver the assault.

“L2A2” is a very demanding Brigade Combat Team deployment into combat that revolves around “jumps” of over 500 nautical miles in one period of darkness, with insertion of the troops as a cohesive element that must be able to fight on for 14 or more days, including behind enemy lines.

This was an historic achievement but it was in fact the second L2A2 exercise this year: the 101st Airborne had conducted an earlier, slightly smaller (76 aircraft) operation in January. That first edition was the first such joint forcible entry exercise at such scale for circa 20 years. L2A2 is a capability unique to the 101st Division and over the course of this year the concept has been developed and put to the test.

The 2nd BCT of the 101st is currently the only “Mobile” BCT in the US army and is writing the script for the units that will follow. The new adjective means that the formation is being enhanced in many ways but, critically, equipped with the new Infantry Squad Vehicle by GM Defense. This lightweight 4x4 offers no protection but can move an entire 9-man squad. 1 can be slung under a Black Hawk, 2 under each CH-47, and it provides a step change in mobility for the formation. A parachute loaded up for his mission can move at 2,5 km per hour in the legacy organization, while the ISV means that an air assault task force can very quickly move up to 200 km overland after already having exploited air mobility to land in an unpredicted direction.

Although the first ISVs were delivered to the 1st BCT of the 82nd Airborne Division, it is with the 101st that they are truly being made core to the operations. The 2nd Mobile BCT is also experimenting with new structures, including standing up the new Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company and using more drones, including lethal ones and First Person View systems, to increase lethality.

The Division is also among the very first US Army formations to be re-equipped with the new Next Generation Squad Weapon rifle and automatic weapon for the squad. A key passage will also be the ongoing Aviation Restructure Initiative: the US Army is notoriously divesting of the KIOWA WARRIOR scout helicopter, using more APACHE and drones in its place, and also intends to progressively abandon the “modular” Combat Aviation Brigade model, that essentially standardized the CAB structure across the entire army to facilitate rotational deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. CABs will now once again be tailored to their specific roles.

For the 101st Airborne, the plan is to add an additional Battalion with 32 CH-47 CHINOOK: the 101st CAB will be the sole Air Assault-configured one in the Army.

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