New US squad vehicle makes dent in mobile combat brigade

An Infantry Squad Vehicle carries a Tactical Electronic Warfare System – Infantry during the 101st Airborne Division's training rotation at Fort Johnson, Louisiana. (Janes/Meredith Roaten)

The US Army's new Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) is making it easier for small units to be on the go, but the army is still learning how to use the new equipment, service leaders told Janes during one of the first major training rotations to feature the vehicle.

Soldiers drove the ISV over the wooded and swampy terrain of Fort Johnson, Louisiana, for an August training rotation. The ISV enabled soldiers to drive and ditch, and “has significantly changed our ability to move the mobile brigade combat team around the battlefield”, Major General Brett Sylvia, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division, told reporters on 22 August.

He described a moment from the 101st's Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at Fort Johnson where soldiers in ISVs presented multiple dilemmas for the opposing force.

Instead of executing a positional defence where soldiers would be defending from a fixed location, they executed a mobile defence, Maj Gen Sylvia said. The opposing force “had to piecemeal the introduction of [its] own combat power … because [the enemy] knew that the strike brigade out there had the capability to rapidly reposition its forces and execute that”, he said.

Survivability

The army has found “the right platform” in the ISV, but units are still struggling with the transition from mounted to dismounted, Colonel Matt Hardman, commander of operations group, told Janes in an interview on 22 August.