The Bradley MOS: Hope for the Armor Branch

In recent years, the United States Army has transitioned from Counter-Terrorism Operations to a huge focus on Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). One of these changes includes the reintroduction of an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty/Military Job) long forgotten that was taken away right before the start of the Global War on Terrorism: Bradley Crewmember (19C), or its old name Army Fighting Vehicle Infantryman (11M).

But why the switch from the Infantry Branch to Armor Branch?

You could say the Infantry Branch refuses to invest in developing leaders outside of the light individual and squad levels. You could also say that the Infantry Branch doesn’t want to make the necessary efforts to integrate vehicles into their formations.

Here’s the real truth:

The Infantry culture exists to reinforce the idea that the light infantryman is the final form of the fighting force. Just take a look at the “last 100 yards” that they use to brainwash every Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course (IBOLC) candidate with. They tell them that “nobody else can do what you do” and the last 100 yards are solely in the hands of the infantry. So you have General Officers in the Infantry whose career paths were solely Airborne or Light (10th Mountain or 101st) coming up and eventually being in charge of Armored Units and still acting as if they’re in Light Units and not utilizing the Armor in the battlefield.

Even when Airborne Infantry was at the pinnacle of their relevance (WW2), they still needed Patton’s Third Army (Armor) to bail them out. Just food for thought.

The elimination of the 11M MOS back in 2001 has left the Infantry Branch without a professionally trained mounted fighting force. Instead, the Infantryman was assigned as the jack of all trades of assignments: Stryker, Infantry, and Armored. Rotating between these 3 different types of units every 3 years. What the Military forgets is that this creates a Master of None.

Soldiers are not able to fully develop the specialized skills required to employ and maintain vehicles in direct combat scenarios. Despite this need for specialized skill training, the primary specialized training for the infantryman is only through tab or badge-producing functional courses focused on light team and squad level organizations.

The Armor Branch is the only branch within the United States Army that is dedicated to direct combat mounted warfare throughout all three brigade combat teams. Despite this focus on mounted maneuver, and the eight assignment oriented courses that produce specialized ASIs (Additional Skill Identifier) for the 19 Series (Armor), there is not an MOS for Combat Vehicle Crewman (Stryker/Bradley). The creation of a dedicated combat vehicle crewman MOS will directly address training and lethality gaps within the formations which will be vital during a near peer conflict.

Many people have continuously looked at the War in Ukraine as a perfect example of why there should be a focus on Bradleys and Armor. The War in Ukraine should not be a good indicator of what a modern war should look like. You have Armor in isolation getting hit by Anti-Tank Weapons Squads. Basically Armor becoming sitting ducks. Armor NEEDS Infantry Support: Basic knowledge since the invention of Armor.

What is really happening is that with the Army moving towards LSCO Doctrine, they’re pulling out their old dusty military history books and realizing that Bradleys helped win the Armor Battles during the Persian Gulf War. “If this worked against Saddam’s Military and has decent success in the War in Ukraine, then why are we not using this more?”

The real questions come to mind.

Will General Officers utilize this new MOS correctly? Will it go to waste and be underutilized? Will they learn from military history and become the greatest fighting force in the world once again? Or will they lose sight of how to become the greatest fighting force and fall victim to the greed of the military industrial complex?

Starting October 1, The Armor School at Fort Moore, Georgia will oversee the new 19C Bradley Crewmember military occupational specialty. This new field will include soldiers from the grades of E1 to E7.