THE ROYAL LOGISTIC CORPS FOUNDATION
they were vastly short on vehicle repair and maintenance assets relying on civilian contractor support. Fortune and Budihas (2013, p.29) point out that the easy accessibility of civilian mechanics was a trait that was fairly unique to conducting counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. It may not be so readily available in conventional or future warfare. As such, SCBTs began introducing FSCs in 2014. Experimentation will be required to find the right balance of equipment and logistic support required in FRTs and IRGs to the Strike battlegroups, but it is obvious from the Stryker experience that this needs to be established in some robust form. Ten years of operational experience allowed the US Army to adapt its BSBs to better support their dependency units. For CSSRs to be truly successful in supporting Strike it would be prudent to draw upon these lessons of security and properly resourced IRGS. If these can be achieved then CSSRs, as a new construct, can offer genuine merit. However, if these types of lessons are not absorbed in the CSSR planning, there is a real danger that mistakes will only be identified when lives are lost in an operational environment.
Having examined the US Army’s version of CSSRs, this essay will now look at the way French forces have used similar structures. Operation SERVAL, the French intervention in Mali in 2013, typifies the expeditionary sustainment that CSSRs seek to provide. By examining this operation, it is possible to see how CSSRs can provide real merit in supporting the type of deployment that Strike is designed for. Operation SERVAL is an interesting case study because it was thrown together at speed to counter a fastmoving threat of rebels in Northern Mali. The force the French assembled and the way it operated was similar to the design Strike intends, though this came about more from improvised requirement than a structured design. An initial march of 1200km across largely uncontested terrain, from Bamako to Gao (Laird and Timperlake, 2013), or 3000km for troops based in Dakar (Tramond and Seigneur, 2013), preceded the fighting. To gather the troops required for this task at short notice, the French military combined a number of units based across West Africa, supplemented by units flown in from France. This created a cobbled together task force, but one that was eventually highly successful.
OPERATIONS AND TRAINING
The French Army trains and is structured to fight in Company Groups (SGTIAs) and Battlegroups (GTIAs) and it was in this format that they deployed to Mali. Similar to SBCTs and Strike, the 3e Brigade mécanisée, later the Serval Brigade, which lead the deployment, was supported by a ‘BATLOG’ (logistic battalion) with further logistic support organic to both SGTIAs and GTIAs. This support was akin to FSCs and IRGs, but with logistic troops even more doctrinally integrated within the group (Delaporte, 2013). Each SGTIA had a logistic platoon while a GTIA had a CSS company (Shurkin, 2014, p.28). With the company and battlegroup level forces deployed and dispersed at extended reach across the battlefield, this IRG type system was highly effective. Shurkin (2013, p.29) notes that this was partly down to the way that the French task-organise. While other armies also do so at a subbrigade level, the French have adopted it as a system out of budget necessity and enforce it in their doctrine. As such, the troops are accustomed to continuously training in combined arms groups and commanders are comfortable sending comparatively small ‘force packages’ into battle. This is further reinforcement of a key lesson outlined earlier about the US Army’s SCBTs – that elements of the CSSR have to be integrated with the battlegroups they are supporting if the brigade seeks to achieve dispersal and range. Clearly, this is the kind of expeditionary operation that Strike seeks to emulate. In support of this, CSSRs must adopt the lessons of being closely integrated with dependency units, similar to this format, if commanders seek to make the most of having CSSRs over the conventional CSS in an armoured infantry brigade. Conclusion Throughout this essay the argument has been made that there are real and significant advantages to be had by forming CSSRs. These are a flexible, efficient and bespoke solution to supporting Strike’s CSS needs. Given the unlikelihood of the decision to form Strike being reversed in a particularly challenging financial environment, two new Strike brigades will eventually form half of the capability of the Reactive Force. Evidently there is merit in designing a CSS solution that best supports these new units. As CSSRs have not been formed yet, now is an ideal time to examine the pitfalls the British Army could encounter - either in dangerous assumptions in the theory, or by ignoring lessons identified by the French and Americans. These lessons, drawn out above, present the following recommendations: 5 Strike planners must acknowledge that the assumption of reduced logistic need requires rigorous testing. CSSRs must be protected from performing 3rd line tasks and supporting a line of vehicle casualties on the initial march. All efficiencies gained using CSSRs will be lost if it gets bogged down enroute to theatre. 5 Contingency must be developed for the lack of availability of local resourcing of combat supplies, host nation assistance and aviation support. None of these are given, yet Strike CSS assumes they can be found. Similar to the previous point, CSSRs will not be able to demonstrate their unique merits if they are tasked to fill this capability gap. THE REVIEW 2019-2020
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