The Light Strike series started with a practical question.

How can the British Army generate a useful combat effect, at acceptable cost in people and material, against a peer opponent?

Earlier parts followed that question from 24 Airmobile Brigade, through the Think Defence 2018 concept and the 2022 review, to 11 Brigade as it now stands. 

Part 5 anchored the new requirement in Estonia and behind the Eastern Flank Defence Initiative (EFDI), renamed from the Baltic Defence Line, and concluded that a general-purpose infantry brigade or armoured battlegroup was not the answer. 

I proposed a hybrid supporting formation as a better option, one that can shape, canalise and attrit an opponent under persistent surveillance and degraded communications, inside an Estonian-led, NATO-enabled defence.

Light now refers to footprint and sustainment, not air portability.

This article turns that into a suggested force design.

Increment 1 is not the in-place UK force in Estonia. That force is a Mobile Anti-Armour Force of about 1,200, converting from the armoured battlegroup from April 2027. Light Strike is a candidate structure for the UK-based reinforcement formation, or a later increment if the in-place force is expanded. 

Increment 1 is also not a reorganisation of 11 Brigade. Part 4 treated 11 Brigade as the nearest relative of Light Strike, with a lineage back to 24 Airmobile Brigade, not as the in-place Mobile Anti-Armour Force. It still lacks the engineer, firepower, force-protection and sustainment mass this idea requires.

Light Strike is a concept trying to keep equipment and organisation honest against terrain, money, people and politics. Even if the design appears economical on paper, the British Army may still lack the people or the money to field it as written.

This article is not a catalogue of every sensor, weapon or vehicle but sets out the structure of the formation and enough equipment to make the idea testable. 

‘Light Strike’ remains my working label for a mobile, firepower-heavy force that sits between light infantry and heavier armoured formations. 

The name can change, but the concept remains, the formation is designed around Integrated Action: combining fires, information, manoeuvre and protection to generate advantage

This is Increment 1. The Command Group and Information Group are sized with spare capacity so that a second Firepower Group, or later growth in other groups, can be absorbed without redesigning the foundational elements.

Seven Design Principles for Light Strike

Seven principles govern the equipment and organisational choices in Increment 1.

The Capability Must Evolve

Light Strike will not arrive complete.

It will take years of money and attention. Until then, Increment 1 has to fight with what is already in service, or can be bought quickly.

A force built on uncrewed systems, digital targeting and massed precision fire is in an adaptation race from the moment a peer opponent sees its signature. Jamming, physical deception and counter-battery fire will be directed at launch sites and command nodes.

The formation has to take in one new method or system a year without dropping the platforms it already runs, and without dropping the basic skills that keep it viable when the network fails or the weather grounds the UAS.

Physical concealment, manual navigation, un-networked support fires, and defensive engineering must remain.

A practical test is whether it can stay current on its core platforms and still take on one major new capability or method each training year.

Ownership inside the ORBAT should stay open. Who holds which capability will move as the force learns.

‘Already in service, or bought quickly’ is the preference, not a description of every Increment 1 equipment choice. Two load-bearing items are still programmes. If Project WOLFRAM does not deliver an eight-round vehicle-launched Brimstone module, the Missile Battery is a mix of existing light vehicles and palletised launchers, at a cost in reload speed. If Project STOKES remains paused, the Heavy Mortar Battery is an off-the-shelf palletised 120 mm system, not a Jackal-mounted hinged mortar fleet. 

Neither invalidates the group, but both change vehicles, training and the Clock A stockpile.

Economy of People, Resources and Risk

Light Strike no longer means the lightest kit that will fit a Chinook. That is the turning point of the series.

The 2018 and 2022 articles still set the vehicle envelope by Support Helicopter. Earlier parts of this Light Strike series deleted those rules. 

Increment 1 is therefore ground-borne, pre-positioned where it must be, and dependent on Estonian commodities and medical handover.

Two clocks apply. 

• Clock A is 6 days of independent combat operations from supplies already in units and selected caches: missiles, mortar bombs, electrical batteries, water and medical supplies.
• Clock B is 14 days of constrained replenishment from pre-positioned stocks, host-nation commodities and uncrewed last-mile movement, under observation. 

Clock A and Clock B map broadly to tactical and operational sustainment cycles.

Some parts of the Light Strike organisation are designed to be self-sustaining to Clock B (command nodes, and observation posts).

Uncrewed platforms take physical risk. They do not remove operators, maintainers, launch teams, or the soldiers who protect them.

Every extra post, vehicle type or munition nature has to pass one test: does it reduce the support burden, or increase it?

Endurance in Place, Graduated Readiness and Theatre Realism

Estonia’s geography and politics mean the forces and pre-positioned stocks have to live forward. The rest of Increment 1 arrives into a prepared theatre, at high readiness, without wearing out people or stocks in peacetime.

A strategic reserve that flies or sails in on transition to conflict may not arrive in time. Readiness is therefore measured by forward basing, pre-positioned ammunition, and peacetime work with the Estonian Division and the wider EFDI, not by the speed of a strategic move.

The formation has to fight from the first hours, in a Baltic winter. The roots must not go so deep that it cannot do the same work somewhere else if the requirement changes.

Stand-Off Preference with Close Combat Reality

Light Strike prefers to attrit at stand-off distance with mines, uncrewed aircraft and precision munitions. That is the cheapest way in lives to produce effect. 

It still needs a trained close-combat force. Find, fix, strike and exploit have not been replaced by technology. A mobile defence that cannot make a local counter-attack is only a delaying force, waiting to be fixed, bypassed and destroyed.

Uncrewed platforms do not replace the dismounted soldier. They take the first physical risk, push sensors forward of prepared positions, and carry the heavy weapons so that the remaining close-combat strength stays usable.

Decisive Weight of Fire

Mike Tyson’s line that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth is still useful here.

Low-volume precision appears impressive in peacetime demonstrations but is not a credible plan for confronting a peer adversary possessing significant numerical superiority.

Adversary doctrine, particularly within Russian Motor Rifle formations, routinely treats the first tactical echelon as an expendable asset, deliberately sacrificing them to reveal allied defensive positions. Responding to this initial advance with sparse, sequential pinpricks is minor harassment against an opponent prepared to accept severe material losses to maintain momentum.

The formation has to land a disabling blow: the leading grouping of some 50 to 70 armoured vehicles destroyed or disabled in a single short engagement. That is massed precision fire against a concentrated assault, not a string of individual kills.

Two conditions follow.

First, enough munition stocks must remain for the next grouping without a pause for resupply. Firing the ready load at the first and standing empty for the second fails the design.

Second, launchers must move, or they must be sited and prepared so that the first engagement does not force all of them to unmask for the next.

The Volume Test later in this article shows that Increment 1 meets the first condition only with reload under observation, or with more launch vehicles. The second of those options fails the economy test. 

Increment 1 is therefore a first-grouping design with a Clock B reload dependency.

Information as the Central Nervous System

The information and communications architecture is what makes Light Strike work.

Outsized effect needs a working picture of the ground and the electromagnetic terrain. That picture cannot be built in a crisis. It has to be compiled in peacetime: three-dimensional models of buildings and routes, accurate mapping, and infrastructure data, then updated as sensors add to it.

Persistent acquisition comes from unattended ground sensors, vehicle-mounted systems, covert observation and uncrewed aircraft, feeding a shared targeting baseline. The volume will overwhelm an unaided staff. Edge compute, automated cueing and open standards such as SAPIENT turn raw feed into something a commander can use.

This is not the seamless kill web of marketing brochures. High-bandwidth tactical networks will be jammed or exploited. The information architecture has to survive that, be connected to Estonian networks, and keep a commander able to allocate fire when a bearer is lost.

Contested Sustainment

Under persistent surveillance, combat service support is a combat task. Headquarters, maintenance areas and supply points will be hunted. Russian targeting of rear-area logistics has become more effective over the course of the war in Ukraine.

The formation has to protect its own support, move when communications are poor, and keep working when the main supply route is cut or host-nation support is late.

That requires few types, repair by module swap, supply caches placed in peacetime, local supply where it exists, and uncrewed last-mile movement for stores and casualties.

How Light Strike Works

Light Strike is not a general-purpose infantry brigade holding a wide sector behind a continuous network of field defences. It is not a heavy armoured formation built for a deliberate offensive breakthrough.

It is a hybrid supporting formation: screening and targeting, not a sector-holding infantry brigade.

It produces effect across a wide area by combining a working picture of the ground, the canalised Baltic routes and urban strong points, and a precision attack capability sized well above what a formation of this strength would normally hold.

Canalisation is not only geography. Light Strike engineers can change the ground behind the EFDI and force any breakthrough into prepared engagement areas.

Several familiar capabilities are set aside. 

There is no heavy armour and no infantry fighting vehicle. Engineers have no offensive mobility task, no substantial tactical bridging and no dedicated breaching capability. There is no 105 mm or 155 mm artillery. 

Effect comes from conventional and smart mines, guided missiles and strike drones. 

There is no Support Helicopter package as a design driver, and no organic attack aviation. 

Increment 1 arrives by ground, sea and A400M into a prepared theatre, not from a landing zone.

Logistic demand is reduced, not wished away. Endurance comes from pre-placed supply caches, lower consumption, local supply where it exists, and uncrewed platforms for resupply and casualty evacuation.

Light Strike concentrates its resources on three fights. They are not a campaign sequence. The first runs throughout. The second is episodic. The third is a timed prelude to reinforcement, not a restatement of the first.

Continuous counter-reconnaissance. Russian Unmanned Systems Forces and Rubicon-type detachments will be working well before armour is committed, out to about 50 km from the forward edge. This standing task is to find and destroy operators, ground-control stations, electronic-warfare vehicles, communications relays, workshops, battery exchange points and stores locations. The aim is to strip the opponent of the picture he needs to fight. UAS or loitering munitions in flight are a Force Protection Group problem.

The episodic counter-armour fight. When a motor rifle battalion grouping, often with an attached tank company (50 to 70 armoured vehicles) is committed, the formation does not accept a meeting engagement. Sensors detect the move, engineers canalise it, and the Firepower Group delivers a single short engagement with guided missiles, 120 mm mortars and heavy-lift attack drones. The first grouping has to be broken while enough munition stocks remain for the next echelon.

Time-bounded blinding. Light Strike cannot eject an invasion on its own. Before heavier allied units and host-nation reserves move, smoke, counter-UAS, deception, electronic attack and the remaining firepower can be concentrated in time and space to degrade and destroy the opponent’s picture. That is not the standing counter-reconnaissance fight. Residual engineer capacity, if the main counter-mobility plan allows it, can also prepare positions for that follow-on force. 

Light Strike ORBAT

The ORBAT is not a triangular or square infantry brigade with artillery in support. It is a modular skeleton, sized for what the Army can actually field now, with a command and information spine that can take a second increment, another Firepower Group, or later growth elsewhere, without being redrawn.

Historical examples of firepower concentrations exist: independent artillery brigades in a Soviet corps, or the current Deep Recce Strike Brigade. Those are combat support formations reinforcing someone else’s manoeuvre plan. They do not bring their own close-combat mass, forward screen or defensive engineers.

There is no tidy combined-arms precedent for a light formation in which sensors and precision fire are the supported capability and the infantry battalion is the supporting one. In Land Operations doctrine, artillery enables the manoeuvre of several battalions. 

Light Strike inverts that. 

One infantry battalion anchors the force, protects the sensor network, and makes the local counter-attacks once the Firepower Group has broken the grouping in front of it. The formation is not designed to occupy a continuous frontage. It is designed to find, canalise and destroy.

The brigade is built as seven groups: Command, Information, Engineer, Close Combat, Firepower, Force Protection and Sustainment.

Each group can expand. Engineer Group, for example, has two Field Squadrons rather than three. Increment 1 has not yet been closed against a total personnel ceiling. That ceiling is the next design product. Until the table below is validated by establishment work, ‘lean’ is an aspiration, not a demonstrated result. 

The figures below are estimates for experimentation and discussion.

They exist so that a new post, trade or uncrewed team can be tested against the economy rule: does it reduce the support burden, or increase it? Increment 1 is held inside a limit of 3,800 all ranks. Posts in the United Kingdom are not counted against the limit.

Table 1. Increment 1 planning strength (all ranks, theatre)

Group	Principal subunits	Planning strength	Of which UAS/UGV operators
Command	3 active nodes, dark node, fit-out and deception	180–250	few
Information	HQ and support; 2 Sensor Sqns; Counter-Recce Bty	520–700	80–120
Engineer	HQ and support; 2 Field Sqns	350–450	10–20
Close Combat	1 motorised infantry battalion, 3 companies	550–700	60–90
Firepower	HQ; mortar, missile and heavy-lift batteries	400–550	70–110
Force Protection	C-UAS battery; SHORAD troop; security company, CIMIC troop	300–400	20–40
Sustainment	HQ; 2 composite CSS Sqns; medical/life support; power troop	400–550	20–40
Total Increment 1	Seven groups	2,700–3,600	260–420

Command Group

Command Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

No one now assumes a secure rear for a brigade headquarters. Tent cities are finished.

NATO work, the US Army’s C2 Fix and Next-Generation Command and Control, Marine Corps Force Design trials, and British programmes are all moving toward smaller, mobile, distributed nodes, edge processing and continuous signature control.

A conventional, centralised brigade headquarters is an obvious target. Sequential Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency (PACE) handovers may no longer be enough; the handover itself is a signature. Mission command remains the default for tactical authority, but it is not a substitute for a headquarters that can still coordinate, allocate fire, and move launchers when the picture is moving.

Going underground is as valid as staying small and moving. 

Estonia provides a home-team advantage. Prepared cellars, municipal facilities, agricultural buildings and underground sites can be surveyed in peacetime with Estonian territorial forces. A note of caution though, operational security failures and enemy reconnaissance could render some of these locations vulnerable. 

Command Posts do not have to sit next to the area of operations if the communications plan allows. Some traditional headquarters work can sit in the United Kingdom via reach-back.

The Command Group also has to stay away from the Information Group’s high-signature fusion and communications footprint. Headquarters deception is part of counter-reconnaissance: synthetic traffic that looks like a working headquarters, several kilometres from the real nodes.

Command Group: Organisation and Capabilities

Physical Architecture

Three physically and electromagnetically identical command nodes work in parallel on a shared picture. There is no sequential handover. If one node is lost, the other two continue without a formal transfer of authority.

Each node is standardised on containerised shelters carried on support trucks, ensuring that they do not present a distinct visual signature.

A Fit-Out Troop of Royal Signals and Royal Engineers converts civilian spaces of opportunity such as cellars, commercial basements, agricultural units, municipal underground facilities into working command locations. For underground facilities, this is a challenge, but much can be prepared in advance, burying and installing cable ducts and fibre optic cables for example.

An organic Tactical Deception Troop reproduces the multi-spectral signature of a working headquarters several kilometres from the real nodes.

A small attached engineer party would be supplemented by the Engineer Group as needed to enhance protection engineering or create new hides and shelters.

The reversionary option is a fourth, dark node. 

It receives only via passive satellite downlinks and pre-surveyed buried connectivity. It does not transmit but compiles the common operational picture without ever giving its position away, staying silent for the whole campaign unless all three active nodes are destroyed, at which point it takes command and starts transmitting.

Digital Architecture

ASGARD is the Army pathfinder for faster targeting and decision support and the land contribution to the Digital Targeting Web set out in the 2025 Strategic Defence Review. ZODIAC is the Land ISTAR middleware for degraded, denied, intermittent and limited-bandwidth (DDIL) conditions and the fusion layer underneath ASGARD. Both sit within the Army’s wider THEIA digital transformation programme, which governs the data standards, cloud hosting and architectural coherence that let programmes like ASGARD and ZODIAC operate from dispersed locations rather than a fixed rear infrastructure. The new AN/PRC-163 and AN/PRC-167 Multi-Mode Radios (MMR) are part of the working communications fit.

That ICT stack is the first design principle, start from what is already programmed, then adapt.

Decision-support software, including edge processing consistent with JSP 936, is support, not a decision-maker. It does not execute autonomous targeting.

Command Group: Personnel Reduction Potential

Claims of large staff cuts from reach-back, digital twins and software should be treated as hypotheses. 

Each active node holds a tactical watch of 12–18, with a supporting party for communications, power and close protection counted separately. Administrative planning and geospatial maintenance sit in reach-back or in the dark node. The test is not the smallest possible watch. It is whether the watch can still allocate fire and move launchers when two bearers are lost and the Information Group is publishing only standing summaries.

Command Group: Human Factors, Ergonomics, and Logistics Autonomy

A headquarters is fundamentally a knowledge-work environment for high performing individuals operating under conditions of physical fatigue and cognitive pressure. 

Workspace ergonomics matter here because decision-making has to stay effective over prolonged operations. Existing Field Command Centre and MECC work, and HQ ARRC trials, are the start point.

Each of the three parallel nodes is designed to Clock B: ten to fourteen days of water, rations and power without resupply.

Information Group

Information Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

The Information Group is a regimental-scale sensing engine. It compiles the picture and hands target data to Firepower and Close Combat groups.

This is not a second Deep Recce Strike Brigade. DRS finds at operational depth so that a division’s armoured and mechanised brigades can manoeuvre. The Information Group works the defence line, the routes, and out to about 50 km.

Default posture is passive: unattended ground sensors and covert observation posts, each post self-sufficient for up to two weeks. Housings and disguises come from the Factory. The Counter-Reconnaissance Battery is the exception. Its sole function is to find the opponent’s reconnaissance strike teams and locations.

The reference is a three-dimensional model of the ground, compiled in peacetime and updated whenever the ground changes.

Information Group: HQ and Support Squadron

The squadron is organised into four specialised technical subunits alongside command and attached CSS elements:

Spatial Intelligence Troop: The foundational layer for Light Strike is an extremely detailed geospatial intelligence picture of the area of operations, generated in peacetime as an enduring task.

The UK and Estonia can draw on a wide range of organisations to generate this picture. For the UK, the Defence Geographic Centre, MOD Geospatial Library, 42 Engineer Regiment (Geographic), the Defence Geospatial Intelligence Fusion Centre, and civilian organisations such as the British Geological Survey and Ordnance Survey. For Estonia, the Estonian Land and Spatial Development Board (formerly the Estonian Land Board) is the national mapping agency although defence-specific mapping and geospatial intelligence sit with the Military Intelligence Centre of the Estonian Defence Forces.

Most of that product is generated and maintained outside the formation. The troop keeps a deployable survey gap-filling capability: street-level imagery and three-dimensional models of terrain, buildings and, where access permits, interiors.

Once established, the baseline is maintained by all parts of the brigade, but mostly the Engineer Group, so that, on transition to conflict, the force already possesses a shared, high-fidelity understanding of the ground. This point-cloud database will be loaded into the brigade’s battle management systems to serve as the reference model against which subsequent tactical sensor feeds are assessed, enabling immediate anomaly and target detection.

Fusion and Analysis Troop: Each sensor squadron generates a heavy volume of data, and this is joined by inputs from other components of the brigade, local forces, and data from outside. To fuse and analyse this data, of all the Light Strike components, it carries the hardest signals and compute problem in the brigade, and that means space, emissions, power and cooling. This creates both a bottleneck and a single point of failure. A mobile data centre is genuinely hard to make resilient so the only way to be survivable is to duplicate, and then work on emissions control, protection and mobility.

When network connectivity is lost, the Troop continues local fusion for the sensors still connected to it and publish standing summaries on whatever bearer remains. If both fusion nodes are degraded, the formation reverts to standing summaries and local sensor fusion until mobility or deception allows reconstitution.

As with the Command Group, space, power and cooling point to a larger truck, not a pickup, and it must be able to work from buildings of opportunity.

The Factory: Operating as a joint military and civilian design and manufacturing cell, The Factory will produce custom physical housings, multi-spectral disguises, and realistic decoys.

The workshop is equipped with 3D printers, CNC machines and large format dye-sublimation printers and will also maintain standing links with modelling groups, television and film prop specialists, and infrastructure companies. 

A strong Estonian component will provide local knowledge of the built environment, construction methods and everyday objects. Partnerships with critical national infrastructure companies, and other host-nation organisations will also supply the practical knowledge required to produce convincing, low-signature housings that work in Estonia.

If there is to be an advantage from small-scale manufacturing, it is here, not printing drones, but one could still argue that it does not need to be wholly deployable, although that would be preferable.

Once established, the factory will also produce highly realistic decoys (older inflatables will quickly be ignored on a modern battlefield), housings for smoke generators/remote detonated explosives, and digital/conventional signage, deployed by the Engineer Group.

Electronic Warfare Troop: This troop will provide persistent spectrum awareness and local electronic attacks. It will actively scan the electromagnetic environment to locate hostile uncrewed system operators, ground-control stations, and communications relays, whilst holding a small reserve of directional jamming and electronic deception capabilities.

Information Group: 2x Sensor Squadrons

Sensor Squadrons establish and maintain a pervasive sensor network across the brigade’s sector.

On the build-up to conflict, each squadron installs and conceals unattended covert sensors, then ensures key points have covert human observation and robust communications tying them into a collection and dissemination workflow.

Barriers created by the Engineer Group will always be more effective if they are observed, the sensor squadrons provide that observation.

If you want a sensor placed on top of a street light at the side of a motorway, the Sensor Squadron will put it there for you, another in a wrapped hay bale next to a likely river crossing point, likewise.

Rural and urban terrains are equally catered for.

The sensor network collects data, runs initial fusion and analysis, and passes it to the Information Group HQ. Reversionary modes reduce single points of failure.

The technical architecture of the sensor network is based on the SAPIENT standard, published as BSI Flex 335, provides the open standard for modular autonomous sensor networks. Edge nodes process locally, exchange lightweight messages and reduce bandwidth and operator workload. Fusion nodes correlate data within a hierarchical structure that aligns with existing British Army digital programmes. 

Emplacement and maintenance draw on rope-access specialists, arborists, window-cleaning and municipal teams, power and telecommunications crews, and wind-turbine technicians, with aerial work platforms and high-angle equipment. Sensors that exploit The Factory’s capability stay undetected longer.

Each squadron also retains some UAS and UGV capability, mostly for sensor placement.

The Close Observation Troop dug-in or semi-hardened Observation Posts (OP) with thermal, low-light, acoustic and other short-range radar sensors, linked with fibre/mesh networks where applicable. 

Each Sensor Squadron has a mix of unattended ground sensors (seismic, acoustic, magnetic, short-range radar and electro-optical), a Close Observation Troop of not more than six observation posts, and a small placement party with UAS and UGV. 

The squadron does not hold the brigade’s long-endurance search UAS; that sits in Counter-Reconnaissance. 

Information Group: Counter-Reconnaissance Battery

The Counter-Reconnaissance Battery is the active search element. It locates adversary reconnaissance from the contact zone out to about fifty kilometres and hands those locations to the Firepower and Close Combat Groups.

Battery Headquarters: Operations and intelligence cell, and attached combat service support.

Uncrewed Aircraft Troop: Long-endurance aerial search. Three teams, each with a ground-control station, an operator vehicle, a launch and recovery team, and three unarmed long-endurance UAS such as Tekever AR5 or Stalker VXE30.

Electronic Warfare Troop: Three parties, each an electronic-warfare vehicle and a small detachment. Direction-finding and limited intercept against control links, video downlinks and the generators beside a launch site. Six Stormshroud UAS complete the mix.

Close Find Troop: Coordinates the search for infiltrated adversary reconnaissance teams operating five to fifteen kilometres from friendly positions. Three detachments with medium-endurance uncrewed aircraft, acoustic arrays and mast-mounted electro-optical sensors.

Engineer Group

Engineer Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

The Engineer Group shapes the ground so that the Close Combat and Firepower groups can work. The primary effort is counter-mobility: vehicle ditches, wire and post barrier, urban obstacles and mines. Plant is medium-weight. Light Strike does not mean light plant.

The Estonian Pioneeripataljon and territorial engineers already own the national-scale field defence projects along the EFDI, but it is not yet complete. The Engineer Group will not duplicate these efforts where complete, but canalises a breakthrough into the engagement areas where Firepower and Close Combat groups will fight.

Because the large-scale modification of terrain or the demolition of civilian infrastructure involves sensitive political and economic decisions, all major counter-mobility operations are coordinated through a permanent host-nation liaison cell. 

Major counter-mobility work that alters civilian infrastructure, closes a route or lays mines beyond existing plans requires host-nation authority arranged in peacetime. The liaison cell holds a pre-agreed selection of obstacle packages, each already surveyed into the Information Group model, with a release authority that does not wait for a British legal review in contact. 

Increment 1 does not assume a free hand with smart mines or urban demolition. Where authority is withheld, canalisation is limited to field obstacles on military or pre-consented ground, and the Volume Test shaping rate is reduced accordingly.

Force protection engineering is another main task, creating defensive positions for the brigade, and for follow on forces to occupy if resources are available within the main engineering plan.

Limited mobility and life-support tasks sit last. Security of working parties comes from Force Protection.

Any physical change to the ground is surveyed and written back into the Information Group model.

Physical decoys and baseline smoke sit with the Engineer Group. The deception plan sits with Information and the Firepower Group retains control of mobile smoke deployment.

The group is an HQ and Support Squadron and two Field Squadrons. Two Field Squadrons rather than three is an economy choice. Plant, obstacle stores and the survey party sit with the Field Squadrons, not in a separate plant squadron.

Engineering plant is that already in service, although given the use of the JCB Fastrac by Estonian engineer units, Increment 1 should do the same. They are equipped with clearance blades, hydraulic loaders, recovery winches, and various tipping and plant trailers. 

Conventional, off route and smart mines, such as the XM204 top-attack munition are used.

These are joined by realistic visual, thermal, and radar decoys, alongside acoustic simulators to mimic active defensive lines. Multi-spectral smoke dispensers, such as the Screening Obscuration Module (SOM), are used where applicable. 

Engineer Group: HQ and Support Squadron

Squadron Headquarters: Operations and intelligence, and attached combat service support.

Resources Troop: Counter-mobility stores: mines and physical obstacles for the Field Squadrons.

Light Aid Detachment: Heavier recovery and second-line repair.

Host-Nation Liaison Cell: This permanent cell will coordinate access to Estonian military engineering capabilities, local forestry and construction resources, and commercial plant equipment.

Transport Troop: Permanent Estonian military engineers, forestry, construction plant and commercial hire.

Specialist Survey: After any change to the ground, ditches, minefields and hides are surveyed back into the Information Group model. Some of that data will come off the plant as it works.

Engineer Group: Field Squadron x2

Two identical Field Squadrons. Plant and obstacle stores are not centralised in Support. They are split across the two squadrons.

Plant Troop: Earth-moving, route denial, bridge-approach destruction, protective excavation

Field Troop x2: Counter-mobility, post and wire barrier, force-protection engineering, mines and smoke.

Close Combat Group

Close Combat Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

The Close Combat Group is the residual close-combat capability: one full-strength light motorised infantry battalion.

That footprint is deliberate. Close-combat infantry is expensive in people and lift. One battalion makes the local counter-attack once the Firepower Group has broken the echelon in front of it, and it can fight a mobile urban defence in one area. It is not sized to occupy a sector.

The battalion runs on the Toyota Hilux fleet bought under Project NIALA, with light UGVs. It is built to disaggregate. Small teams move into hides and concentrate at the point of engagement. No support helicopters, no heavy tracked vehicles, none of the lift requirement that broke 24 Airmobile Brigade.

Lethality is biased to anti-armour and support weapons on ATVs and UGVs, IDV Viking and DCE X Series, and to armed and unarmed UAS, the Ghost and Bolt pairing. An 81 mm mortar platoon in each company gives weather-resilient fire for breaking contact, smoke and illumination. 

A lightweight expendable UGV can carry a mine, an explosively formed penetrator or a fragmentation warhead. FireAnt, Banshee or the UAVTEK R Series are the increment 2 suggestion. 

A self-contained remote weapon station with a GPMG provides local coverage.

The Close Combat Group does not hold force protection or static security. That work sits with the Force Protection Group.

Close Combat Group: Close Combat Battalion

Battalion Headquarters and Support Company: Headquarters on the Hilux fleet or in a space of opportunity. Many of the uncrewed systems are attritable, but they still need first-line support, which sits here. Repair is by module swap where possible. Logistic support and the first medical echelon use the same vehicle and UGV families already in the companies

Close Combat Company x3: Company headquarters; two rifle platoons; one weapon platoon (Javelin and a section of expendable UGV effectors); one mortar and loitering-munition platoon; one reconnaissance and UAS section. Local find, five to fifteen kilometres forward of the company, sits in that reconnaissance and UAS section. Mobility is wheeled utility vehicles and light UGVs. ATVs or light tracked vehicles only where the ground demands them.

Firepower Group

The Firepower Group delivers the bulk of Light Strike effects.

Firepower Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

It concentrates on high-precision, lower-demand weapons: ground-launched guided missiles, heavy-lift drone bombers, and guided 120 mm mortars.

Its design is governed by five constraints.

A mixed target set. The group has to engage main battle tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, dismounted infantry, crossing points, high-value vehicles and control nodes, drone-control positions, and command installations. It has to keep a usable range of effects without becoming the ‘Argos Christmas Catalogue’.

Scale. Sequential harassing fire is useless against an opponent prepared to accept the loss of a first echelon. The group has to fire in parallel.

Economy. Do not invent a new family of munitions for each of those tasks. Preference runs to stores already in British Army service, then to the wider British Armed Forces, then to Baltic host-nation inventories, and only then to other NATO or AUKUS. Adaptation of what exists is preferable to introduction of what does not.

Uncrewed aircraft will fail. Baltic winter, low cloud, fog and jamming will regularly restrict flight. The group therefore keeps a weather-resilient alternative in guided mortar and missile systems.

Survival. Launchers have to move, or they have to be sited so that the first engagement does not force all of them to be revealed. Effectors work at different depths so that no single counter-battery solution covers them all. Uncrewed aircraft that have released do not return to the launch point.

Firepower Group: Weapon and System Selection

The Firepower Group combines heavy mortars, precision surface-to-surface missiles and heavy-lift uncrewed aircraft. All effectors can be mounted on light mobility vehicles, ATVs or medium UGVs. The optimal balance between crewed and uncrewed launch platforms will be refined through experimentation. 

120mm Mortars

There is no 105 mm or 155 mm artillery. Both would add weight of fire. Both impose a distinct vehicle fleet, a training burden and a logistic tail this formation cannot carry.

The 120 mm mortar is the indirect-fire system for the brigade. It gives area and point effect to support the Close Combat Group, contributes to the anti-armour fight, and remains usable when electronic attack or weather grounds UAS.

Project STOKES was paused in 2026 pending funding. Increment 1 therefore assumes a palletised 120 mm system as the planning baseline, such as Patria TREMOS. A Jackal-mounted hinged mortar is the alternative if STOKES is restored. 

Precision-guided bombs, GPS/INS or semi-active laser, are used where they reduce expenditure. Conventional natures remain the stock for volume. Short range puts the mortars in harm’s way. Rapid fire, movement, local countermeasures and the Force Protection Group are how that risk is addressed.

Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS)

The 70 mm APKWS is the low-cost, non-line-of-sight option against lighter vehicles, UGVs and UAS inside a 1.5 km to 6 km range band.

Its introduction with the Army Air Corps Apache force offers useful commonality benefits. While APKWS relies on Semi‑Active Laser designation, a pseudo fire‑and‑forget variant used in counter‑UAS roles may offer additional utility. Multi‑round launchers such as the Arnold Defense four round Fletcher and the 23‑round MLHS provide high packing density.

Brimstone

Surface-launched Brimstone 3 is the formation’s principal all-weather anti-armour missile.

Public planning figures for surface launch lie in the 10–25 km class depending on variant and trajectory. Increment 1 is designed to the lower end so that displacement and concealment remain mandatory. Dual-mode seeker and autonomous guidance allow a simultaneous engagement of a moving armoured grouping without a designator on every vehicle.

If Project WOLFRAM proceeds, it formalises the eight-round vehicle module. If not, existing light mobility platforms carry eight-round modules at a cost in reload speed.

Missile in a Wheelie Bin

The Factory produces realistic housings for single or multiple missiles (Brimstone of APKWS), enabling remote firing from disguised positions such as wrapped hay bales, log stacks, skips or wheelie bins. These distributed firing points can be activated, abandoned, and later recovered for replenishment, enhancing survivability and deception.

Distributed firing points, remotely activated, then abandoned or collected for replenishment.

Extended Range Heavy Lift Drone

A heavy lift drone can extend the range of the Brimstone and APKWS beyond circa 15km, and easily used with free-fall 120mm or 81mm mortar bombs at the maximum practical range of the drone.

They can also be used with other payloads such as a smoke generator described in the Engineer Group, emplacing surface laid and rooftop smart mines, as a carrier for FPV and small UGVs, and for time-critical logistics.

A heavier drone can also operate in a wider range of climatic conditions then lightweight designs, although their vulnerability must also be acknowledged and mitigated with attrition stock.

There are no heavy lift drones in full service with the British Army but the T150 is already in service with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, and via Survice Engineering, the USMC, this is why it is selected for Light Strike.  The heavier Malloy T400 variant is also selected, besides the obvious architecture, support and training commonality benefits with the T150, it also provides greater payload and range.

The drones can be deployed from vehicles, ground locations, or ‘drone in a box’ style self-contained hangars, forward deployed if needed. Another benefit of a larger drone is the size of effect v operator ratio, important in a personnel constrained force design.

Equipment Considered for Increment 1 but Discarded

The three initial core weapon choices (120mm mortar, APKWS and Brimstone) are pragmatic choices. Alternatives considered include JAGM, LMM, and SPIKE NLOS. The first two are in service, and the latter was, but now withdrawn.

Recognising the potential for longer range interdiction, either as a component of the counter-reconnaissance task, or an addition to the Light Strike armoury, a HIMARS/LIMAWS(G) type single pod GMLRS would be a useful addition. 

It is worth noting that Estonia is investing in HIMARS and K9, Light Strike could generate targets for these.

The range of One-Way Attack effectors currently in development (Nyan OWE, MBDA Crossbow, Rotron Tigershark and MGI Tigershark) would complement GMLRS, as would the shorter range Modini Dart 250 or MG Defence Skyshark might be more appropriate.

The Rotron Talon, Flowcopter FC100, Certo Capstone or Hydra heavy lift drones also provides a good range of alternatives to the Malloy designs. Hydra has been shown with Brimstone, and Talon with Javelin.

Improvised warheads for heavy drones are impractical for NATO forces, fuzing and warhead safety will result in compliance costs that reduce any apparent cost advantages, with warheads potentially significantly more expensive than the drone itself.

As part of Increment 2, we could develop an enhanced fragmentation warhead taking design cues from something like the GMLRS Alternative Warhead or Elbit 155mm M454 Super-High Explosive (S-HE) shell. BONUS and SMArt are designed to be fired from a 155 mm gun. The carrier is expelled, spins and setback arms the submunitions, and only then do the attack modules descend under winglets (BONUS) or parachute (SMArt) and scan. With some engineering work, either could potentially be adapted for drone drop.

A top-attack 120 mm nature such as Saab STRIX would extend mortar fire to heavier vehicles when the heavy-lift drone fleet is grounded, but STRIX has not been produced for some years and would add another unique nature. 

Despite the attractiveness of these options, Increment 1 stays on 120 mm mortar, APKWS, Brimstone and drone dropped mortar bombs or APKWS/Brimstone.

Firepower Group: Organisation

Whilst homogenous subunits, each with a bit of everything, might appear attractive for resilience purposes, the distances they need to operate over and the range of equipment creates too much friction. 

Headquarters and Support Battery: Coordinates the group, synchronises fire and holds legal release if any autonomous system is used. Headquarters works from vehicles or from buildings of opportunity. A Locating Troop holds short-range weapon-locating radars, passive acoustic arrays and a Corvus / Tekever AR5 detachment for local acquisition and post-strike evaluation. A support troop holds second-line UAS and UGV repair.

Heavy Mortar Battery: Eight vehicles, each with one 120 mm mortar and 24 bombs, in four pairs plus a command and fire-control group. Four ammunition vehicles hold a further 96 bombs. A light CSS attachment.

Missile Battery: Nine Supacat HMT vehicles under Project WOLFRAM, or equivalent, would provide a total of 72 ready rounds. A second troop of 12 IDV Vikings provides a mix of APKWS and Brimstone (6 with 3x Brimstone each and 6 with 23x APKWS each). Ready Brimstone load is therefore 90. A third troop manages the palletised and/or disguised launchers that are emplaced and left at low power as a standby capability, ready to be remote-fired. The troop will have 9 vehicles for the transport and emplacement of 24 expendable pallets/skips/bins, each with 1 missile, either APKWS or Brimstone. A reload group holds enough replacement missiles for a single reload of all launchers and appropriate vehicles and mechanical handling equipment to complete tactical reloads quickly.

Heavy Lift Drone Battery: Six launch and recovery teams for ground handling, battery management and munitions. Eight ground-control stations. 12 T-150 and 12 T-400 with the same number held in the battery support group as attrition stock.

Firepower Group: The Volume Test

The Firepower Group must break a first-echelon grouping of 50 to 70 armoured fighting vehicles in one engagement and remain able to engage a second. The planning case used here is the worse first grouping: 70 armoured fighting vehicles on one axis.

Minefields built by the Engineer Group will canalise movement and destroy some vehicles, but their primary purpose is to force the enemy onto predictable routes rather than to generate decisive attrition.  Heavy-lift drone sorties may destroy further vehicles in form-up points or assembly areas; those effects are opportunistic against a first echelon that still has a defence against uncrewed aircraft. Both are treated as a median reduction of 15 per cent. On a grouping of 70 that is 11 vehicles. 

This leaves 59 residual vehicles in the engagement area, the test case.

The Missile Battery remains the decisive element against that residual. Brimstone’s autonomous guidance allows each missile to acquire a target without continuous designation, which is what makes a simultaneous salvo possible.

Nine Wolfram launch vehicles at eight Brimstone each provide 72 ready missiles. Six Viking launch vehicles at three each provide 18. The ready load is 90. The 24 disguised launchers are excluded from that total and held as a hedge against surprise.

A 70 per cent success rate applied to 90 missiles produces 63 expected hits. Against a residual of 59 that is sufficient, with a margin of about four hits. It is not a stock of unused missiles. If the entire ready load has been fired, the ready holding for the second grouping is zero.

Fifty-nine expected hits at 70 per cent success require about 84 missiles (59 ÷ 0.7). Ninety minus 84 leaves about six unused, plus whatever the disguised launchers and the replenishment group still hold. 

Six missiles will not destroy a second echelon, and a 70 per cent hit rate may itself be generous.

Table 2. Volume Test sensitivity

Test Case	Shaping	Ready Brimstone	Hit rate	Expected hits	First grouping	Second grouping with no reload
Planning	15%	90	70%	63 vs residual 59	Pass	Fail
Adverse seeker / EW	15%	90	50%	45 vs residual 59	Fail	Fail
Better shaping	25%	90	70%	63 vs residual 53	Pass	Fail
Commit 12 disguised	15%	102	70%	71 vs residual 59	Pass	Fail
Reload in the interval	15%	90 + 90	70%	63 then 63	Pass	Conditional pass

If live firing and performance against APS, decoys and jamming cannot support a planning hit rate at or above about 60 per cent, the concept requires either more shaping before the engagement area or a larger ready load.

On these assumptions, worse first grouping of 70, median shaping of 15 per cent, disguised launchers uncommitted, first engagement fired from the 90 ready Brimstone, the Missile Battery can defeat the first echelon but not the second echelon with no reload test.

Options to address the shortfall:

Fast Reload. In an interval between attacks, launch vehicles can be replenished. Full module reloads, rather than single missiles, restore 90 missiles, or 63 expected hits at 70 per cent: enough for a second attack. The constraint is movement and replenishment under observation.

Raise the shaping rate. If mines and heavy-lift drone sorties against form-up points can be increased to 25 per cent, the residual falls to 53 and the first engagement leaves 16 unused Brimstone instead of six. That does not solve the second attack. It only eases reload, or allows some Wolfram vehicles to stay silent.

Assign APKWS and 120 mm. Both are less effective against heavy vehicles. They can still take mobility and sensor kills. 

Commit part of the disguised launchers. Assigning twelve of them to the first engagement supplies twelve Brimstone missiles. The remaining twelve stay the hedge against surprise, but this option only reduces the resupply demand.

Commit part of the disguised launchers. Twelve of them add 12 Brimstone to the first engagement. The remaining 12 would stay concealed. This only reduces the reload demand.

Commit the Close Combat Group with Javelin. Used against vehicles already in the engagement area, Javelin can take a share but requires crews who can see the target. It reduces the Brimstone reload.

Hold heavy-lift sorties for the interval. Sorties not flown against form-up points remain available before the second grouping arrives. They can take vehicles that halt, bunch or are delayed at a barrier.

Add launch vehicles. Further Wolfram or Viking launchers would raise the ready load and the load after one module reload. That meets the second-echelon test only by failing the economy test that Increment 1 rests on.

The Missile Battery, as defined, can defeat the worse first grouping in a single engagement, but not a second. Only two things restore that weight of fire: replenishing launch vehicles in the interval, or adding more launch vehicles.

Force Protection Group

Force Protection Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

The Force Protection Group is a dedicated defence capability. It is neither a second Close Combat battalion nor a manoeuvre reserve.

Its task is to keep the sensor network, firing points, replenishment sites, headquarters and engineer works alive against enemy threat. Finding the crews and ground-control stations that launch those systems is an Information Group task. Prosecuting them is Firepower and Close Combat Groups. 

Force Protection works in parallel against what is already in the air or already on the ground inside the formation.

That needs persistent patrolling, key-point defence, short-range counter-UAS, acoustic and thermal detection, and the ability to fight at very close range. 

Counter-UAS

Counter-UAS and low-level air defence now consume a large share of British and Allied staff work, industrial capacity and programme funding. 

Some of the more relevant programmes include the MSI-Defence Systems Terrahawk (demountable 30 mm Bushmaster), Skyhammer (Cambridge Aerospace UAS interceptor), and LCADE (NAD Group / Commercial X to Frankenburg, Greenjets and Cambridge Aerospace).

Those programmes are pointed at the same problem the Force Protection Group has to solve. 

Directed energy, interceptor drones, programmable 30mm air bursting ammunition, remotely operated turrets and shotgun payloads on small uncrewed aircraft are all in trials or early service. 

None has settled as the single answer to fibre-optic first-person-view munitions, small reconnaissance aircraft and one-way attack drones. Increment 1 therefore takes what is in British service now and accepts a better effector later.

All-arms detection and last-ditch defence sit with every group. 

Soft kill, nets and barrier, then guns or interceptor drones, then LMM/HVM, is the layered method. Decoy are entered into the information model in the same way the Firepower Group enter smoke. 

Force Protection Group: Organisation

Organised around air defence, with a ground security company.

Headquarters and Support Battery. Group headquarters and first-line support, a small electronic-warfare team and a logistics team. A Civil-Military Cooperation troop holds local liaison. A small CBRN detachment completes the battery.

Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Battery: The mass of the group. An electronic-warfare troop and three mobile fire troops, each of six interceptor vehicles working in pairs. Each vehicle carries a counter-UAS interceptor pod. New effectors enter as they become available.

Short-Range Air Defence Troop. Three RapidRanger or equivalent launch vehicles with Lightweight Multirole Missile (LMM) and High Velocity Missile (HVM), supporting command and logistic vehicles, and a dismounted LMM/HVM detachment. This is the layer against helicopters, larger uncrewed aircraft and loitering munitions.

Ground Security Company: Company headquarters, three security platoons and a robotics platoon on DCE X Series UGVs as sentries. A military police section handles captured persons.

Sustainment Group

Combat service support is the means by which the Light Strike Brigade remains able to fight, Combat Service Support (CSS).

Sustainment Group: Operational and Technical Introduction

British land doctrine places CSS among the functions that generate and restore fighting power: logistic support, health service support, equipment support, infrastructure support where it is not already an Engineer task, and administration.

Increment 1 differs from a British light mechanised brigade, a United States infantry brigade combat team, or the Estonian 1st Infantry Brigade in four ways.

Instead of pallets of 105 mm or 155 mm, it has to account for and move nationally accounted high-value missiles and precision natures. The opponent can observe and strike the support system throughout its depth. Distances inside the area of operations are long, so every move is a targeting opportunity. The uncrewed fleet adds a power and equipment-support demand that a conventional brigade does not carry.

Tactical sustainment is two processes on two clocks. 

Matériel moves forward. Equipment and casualties come back. 

Clock A, 6 days, governs ready munitions, electrical batteries, water and medical holding for the first fight. Clock B, 14 days, governs constrained replenishment from pre-positioned stocks, host-nation commodities and uncrewed last-mile movement.

Demand Reduction: JDP 4-00 and the Support Operating Concept say the same thing: move only what is required when it is required. Fleet and munition commonality, living off local supply where it exists, and low-power architectures contribute. Every equipment choice is tested against it.

Pre-positioning. Light Strike will make extensive use of Estonian support, integration with host nation supply chains ultimately reduces the ‘British Island’ inside Estonia approach. Potable water from the municipal system, bulk diesel where contracts and law allow, rations and field feeding after the first days, civilian recovery out of contact, medical handover to Estonian Role 3, and warehouse space all contribute. Stores caches, large and small, urban and rural, will be identified within the Information Group model. Where applicable, these caches are buried or disguised.

Movement. Theatre lift uses in-service Support Vehicles, contracted civilian heavy lift, rail where it remains, and Estonian movement if available. Formation distribution uses Support Vehicles, JCB Fastrac with hooklift and side-lift trailers to match Estonian and Finnish practice, the formation’s own utility vehicles, and, for the last mile, the same UGV and heavy-lift drones already in the groups.

Equipment support. About 120 UAS and 100 UGVs sit across the groups, not counting expendable types treated as ammunition. Sensors, plant, and compute add to that. Many systems are attritable, but they still need support. Repair is by module swap and enabled by condition monitoring, not component-level work at forward locations.

Medical support. JSP 950 remains the planning framework: enhanced first aid within ten minutes, enhanced field care within one hour, damage-control surgery within two hours. Enhanced first aid stays with units. Role 2 is a semi-mobile and underground facility. Role 3 is Estonian and NATO. Casualty evacuation is a light ambulance, UGV, or heavy-lift drone where available.

Battery and power. The demand on charged batteries to maintain operational tempo is large enough to be a problem in its own right. Published US Army RAS brigade estimates (500–900 kWh/day), USMC EABO battalion estimates (400–700 kWh/day) and British RAS Pathfinder studies (600–900 kWh/day if scaled) are reference points, but with many more UAS and UGV, 4 MWh per day is an upper planning figure for the Light Strike experiment design and would be refined by detailed design and experimentation. During 24 hours continuous use, the brigade UAS and UGV teams will need to swap nearly 500 large batteries that weigh approximately 13 tonnes in total, consuming approximately 2.2MWh. Generators/Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and forward battery swap as far forward as possible is the default, but generators and charging systems in the sustainment group will also be used, with the same deception and displacement discipline as command nodes, focusing on acoustic, thermal and emissions management from diesel generators.

The Sustainment Group is formation CSS only. First-line support stays in the groups. It is a lean composite RLC / REME / Royal Army Medical Service regiment, not a copy of 6 Regiment RLC plus a close-support REME battalion plus a medical regiment. 

Sustainment Group: Organisation

RLC holds supply and transport, REME holds equipment support, the Royal Army Medical Service holds medical care.

Headquarters and Support Squadron: Command, movement planning, a movements-control troop, a cache-control element and a small operations cell. An Estonian Host Nation Support cell coordinates commercial procurement, infrastructure contracts and with the Kaitseliit districts for cache security, deception and despatch riders if the network degrades. 

Power Troop: Manages batteries as a commodity class, holds Battery Energy Storage Systems, runs forward swap-out, and operates alternate bulk-charging sites. The composite squadrons hold a local charging set. This troop owns the Clock A and Clock B energy plan.

Composite Logistics Support Squadron x2: Each squadron holds three supply and transport troops, an equipment-support and workshop troop, and a recovery detachment. The squadron headquarters is the hub for detached Light Aid Detachment (LAD) sections across the formation. Transport is Support Vehicles, UGVs, and Fastrac with hooklift and side-lift trailers. Recovery is crewed and uncrewed. Each squadron holds a local Battery Energy Storage System and treats batteries as a commodity class.

Medical and QM Squadron: Disaggregated Role 1 and Role 2 Light Manoeuvre (R2LM) medical support, CASEVAC and preventative health, built to JSP 950 clinical standards. It’s built around a mobile Damage Control Surgery Team, casualty evacuation sections and Combat Welfare Teams (CWTs). R2LM works from vehicle-mounted surgical modules or spaces of opportunity found through the Estonian liaison cell, enough surgical intervention to stabilise a casualty for onward movement. Evacuation uses low-signature, hybrid-propulsion vehicles and UGVs to pull casualties from the point of injury with as little acoustic and thermal signature as the terrain allows, with telemedicine where the network supports it. QM and Services Troop works with regional civilian clinics, municipal health centres and private agricultural sites to run secure rest areas for longer tours: hot showers, dry kit, and a hot meal.

Summary

Light Strike Increment 1 breaks from 24 Airmobile Brigade and from the 2018 and 2022 Light Strike articles in one basic way: it stops treating territory as the thing to hold and treats disruption as the thing to deliver. 

Sensors, precision fire and information fusion do the work after engineers have shaped the ground. 

A small counter-attack force continues the pummelling whilst the Firepower Group resets for Round 2.

It does this with a light footprint.

Increment 1 is a supporting formation for a UK reinforcement role behind the Eastern Flank Defence Initiative. It has three fights, seven groups, one infantry battalion and a fire plan that can destroy a first grouping of 50 to 70 armoured vehicles only if shaping works and the missile hit rate stays in the planning band. 

It cannot meet a second echelon without reload under observation or a larger ready load.

Light Strike Increment 1 carries risk.

• Novelty; training will be resource intensive because many of the concepts will be new, and it has little ability to maintain permanence through unit rotation. It could be perceived as the same ‘glass cannon’ as 24 Airmobile Brigade. Even with a conservative approach to equipment selection, much of the Increment 1 equipment and communications/IT is simply not yet in service.
• Dismounted infantry lacks mass; limited resilience and small group infiltration would stretch them thinly, and there is no consideration of the friction imposed on Light Strike by displaced persons or the need for security checkpoints in a likely operational scenario. There is no reserve component.
• The second echelon problem; A determined enemy may push through loss of the first echelon, catching us reloading. The second echelon with no reload activity volume test case fails without more resource.
• Air defence and mines; There is no medium-range air defence, relying on NATO fast air or host nation systems. The Engineer Group assumes mines are back in service, politically sensitive.
• Extensive uncrewed systems dependency; despite their maturity, do not exist at scale in the British Army.
• Power; Battery and power management will require a new approach across the entire force.
• Host nation dependency; there is a dependence on the host nation for support and the practical command integration with NATO, Estonia, and JEF is not defined.

But, it is an honest attempt at seeing things differently whilst recognising the inherent limitations of this sensor first, firepower heavy approach.

I hope you found this article interesting.

As always, see you in the comments.