What are those Battalion Battle Groups for ?

The minister of defense ( secretary of defense ) Sten Torgfors praised the Supreme Commanders during the "Defense and People" conference for his innovation to replace the Army with eight Universal Battalion Battle Groups (UBBG), which Sweden may use everywhere in the world. Those units are universal in a sense that they will be trained and equipped to act in any terrain and under any climate.

Torgfors refusal to carry arms when he was called up to serve in the military, left him without much understanding of military concepts such as what battalion is; not to mention the more abstract concept of UBBG. Thus, politicians who make defense decisions, on behalf of the people, really don't understand what ground defense capabilities their decisions will end up with. Politicians have been very keen in reducing the time it takes to mobilize troops ever since the Russian invasion of Georgia, and henceforward requested the defense forces to do something about the situation with very long mobilization time-frames ,which currently ranges between 90 days to 3 years. The supreme commander finally delivered a solution to reduce the time it takes to mobilize two UBBG. Torgfors was very pleased and full of joy. Well, instead of getting so excited, he should have asked himself what an UBBG really is and what sort of military units are needed to meet a military attack?

Sweden has since decided to produce eight UBBG and three brigade HQ units that are deploy able domestically as well as globally. The following diagram illustrates how it may look like when three UBBGs are formed into a temporary brigade.


Comparing this to a classic infantry brigade, there are three more head quarters and one more additional level of command. Supporting units including artillery are spread out and locked inside each UBBG, making it difficult to share them across the brigade. For example, in a classic brigade all three artillery companies (batteries) are organized into a battalion with the artillery command function integrated into to the brigade headquarters. This makes it possible to direct fire using all three batteries (twelve 15.5cms howitzers such as Haub77B or ARCHER) for the support of one advancing infantry battalion. However, in the new brigade formation only one battery (four howitzers), i.e., the one inside the UBBG, may be utilized for the support of one advancing battalion.

Hence, this is a very inefficient solution with too many headquarters and command layers, which results in redundancies, waste of personnel and a brigade much harder to command. Supporting functions such as artillery, logistics, air-defense, engineering, intelligence are utilized only at 1/3 of their combined potential compared to a normal brigade.

Each UBBG is said to be universal, which means that each unit is expected to be able to act in all sorts of terrains and climates. Nevertheless, in reality this means that they are not particularity good at any terrains and climates and may not, for example, carry out operation in the Swedish sub-arctic religion that normally light arctic infantry brigades (Norrlandsbrigad) use to be capable of.

In any case, Sweden will be attacked by divisions or not attacked at all. To meet divisions Sweden needs more than fifteen brigades that are specialized to operate in the subarctic region, along the coasts, on the plains, in the cities,etc. Upon this, Sweden needs division level units such as artillery regimens, engineering regiments, rangers battalions, air-defense regiments, logistics battalions, helicopter battalions. Thus, the solution from the Supreme Commander is not just poor, it is useless.

So why did the supreme commander propose this? Well, he has to present something that looks really nice that may mobilize quickly to keep his job, hoping that no one understands what Universal Battalion Battle Group really is.

Malin Lindqust (Tokyo/Japan)