The Cellular Regiment: An Ecological Systems Take On Military Organization

Incorporating lessons from the Ukraine War to develop a capabilities-focused systems design for a modern ground force.

This post lays out the basic design for a combined-arms military formation rooted in hybridizing the capability approach with ecosystems ecology.

The Ukraine War has, like most major conflicts, put numerous theories about warfare to the test - and found many wanting. US intelligence and military experts believed that Kyiv would fall in days; they widely spread this argument in the weeks before Moscow launched its all-out invasion, effectively writing Ukraine off.

In doing so they enabled a political decision made at the highest levels to not intervene or send more substantial military aid in a serious effort to deter Putin. Being proven wrong by the Ukrainian people’s ferocious resistance has forced a serious rethink of longstanding assumptions about the best way to conduct operations on the modern battlefield.

While war never changes, warfare is constantly evolving as warriors adapt to the challenges of their age.

Most defense forces and military organizations around the world are no longer optimized for the stresses they must be able to endure going forward. Military science no less than any other field is prone to groupthink and cultural bias. And in military affairs, getting theory wrong can cost a lot of people their lives.

In this, defense policy is just a more extreme case of other varieties. Intended to produce distinct and measurable outcomes, policy theory is ultimately tested by its real world ability to inform efficient and effective action. Those organizations better adapted to the environment tend to persist, and if it changes, they must cope or fail.

To carry out complex actions across space and time when people are involved requires developing rules of organization and behavior that all participants can refer to. This doctrine generates a common language, which is a powerful thing. However, fatal misconceptions about warfare can become baked into practice if insufficient vigilance is maintained - to the point that military theorists are prone to misunderstand the way of war they know best as the only legitimate one.

Though it might seem strange to most folks versed in military history and practice, a strand of policy thought derived from feminist international development theory offers a powerful insight into the best possible answer to the eternal question of how to build adaptive capacity into a group of any size. This is simply the ability to - the OODA loop enthusiasts in the crows will appreciate this - observe a change in the environment, orient the group properly to meet the challenge, decide on a course of action, then, well, act.

As an aside, I actually hold that Boyd got it right when he initially stuck to three steps, the OOD part. Action in any reasonable model is presumed - it’s the output of the whole thing, best treated as part of it own separate loop. But that’s an ivory tower style argument not worth carrying out here!

So: the Capabilities Approach, largely pioneered by political philosopher Martha Nussbaum and Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, is a useful tool for understanding economic development from the grassroots level. It holds that people are intrinsically self-motivated to act on the world in order to meet a range of needs, ranging from basic survival to abstract stuff like self-actualization. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a good way to visualize how these needs tend to take precedence: it’s important to remember, however, that people can pursue multiple needs at once. Needs are also filtered through everyone’s cultural habits - not all foods are seen as equally healthy from place to place, for example.

Practically speaking, this paradigm argues that you get the most out of people by encouraging them to self-organize and pursue goals they adopt as intrinsic to their identity, then empowering them with the resources they require to accomplish their goals. Leadership, in this frame of thinking, is just a function of the broader organism any team forms as it comes together, acting as a self-aware organ that tries to steer all activities towards a future purpose.

The capabilities approach represents an odd echo of the German military paradigm much copied around the world, whether it is referred to by the term Mission Command or the original German Auftragstaktik and Fuhren mit Auftrag. Though I’ve never seen evidence that Sen or Nussbaum ever read Clausewitz or Guderian - frankly speaking academics in their fields tend to look down on the writings of military theorists for cultural reasons - the systemic approach favored by these thinkers share similar origins.

In many ways both scholarly communities are themselves partial descendants of general systems theory, which also helped give rise to the concept of ecosystems in environmental sciences. This area of thought is useful when thinking about military organization because ecosystems are filled with adaptive organizations, just like battlefields, and so these exhibit similar patterns and tendencies.

Below I lay out a model design for a combined-arms formation developed by applying a kind of cellular approach to the problem of creating a robust yet adaptable military formation. This is an esoteric topic and I’m far from an expert on comparative doctrine, so this is just a starting point focused on the next decade or so, as drones become as common in armies as rifles.

One consequence of the rapid progress in artificial intelligence research may soon be the appearance of Chinese formations built according to lessons learned in intensive, realistic wargames. When you can simulate thousands of engagements in a single model run - provided the model is sound - more efficient ways to organize and train military forces may emerge.

Whether this or some other new way of putting units together, change is coming in the realm of military affairs. Here’s hoping the often cloistered community of defense experts opens up and embraces the potential of open-source thought before someone’s fancy new AI does.

Building Block - The Line Company

One of the core challenges in military affairs is bringing enough combat power to the places it can be best put to use at the right moment. There is an art to this that can only be learned through experience, which is the real reason why military personnel wear rank insignia.

This need not, as in most traditional military organizations, signify any kind of intrinsic authority. Just experience anyone in a position of responsibility ought to pay close attention to, as it is through bitter failure that the most important lessons learned.

A big lesson that a lot of ruscist officers learned the hard way in 2022 was that all it takes to get your whole too-densely-packed armored company killed is a single spotter transmitting a coordinate to an artillery system hidden somewhere in range. Accurate strikes now come down on personnel within minutes or even seconds of a target being spotted, and the ubiquity of drone based surveillance means that the entire battlefield can be monitored by anyone coordinating operations. Drones sized just right to slip over the front lines unnoticed to blow up unsuspecting targets in areas thought secure are another feature of the landscape.

Anyone on the front line now has to assume that if they are seen, it is only a matter of time before someone tries to kill them. The more people and vehicles are in one place, the more attractive a target they become - and the faster they get noticed.

If you move, you’re out of cover and risk drawing fire. If you shoot, you’re spotted and will also likely come under attack. But staying in any one place too long means that you had better be good with multi-spectral camouflage and decoys, because algorithms that look for the tiniest change or lack thereof between image sets will eventually spot anything unnatural that sticks around a place.

To survive on the modern battlefield requires working in the smallest possible group that still carries sufficient firepower to win most fights it might get into. This group must have comprehensive capabilities, that is, the ability to operate to some degree in every domain the enemy can use to do it harm - air, electromagnetic, whatever.

It pretty much has to function like a cell facing a hostile environment. Cells in biology and systems science are defined by a membrane that protects some inner machinery from the outside world. Cells come together for mutual support, forming larger structures that allow for some cells to specialize in certain functions supportive of the broader organism thanks to their position behind the barrier against the outside environment provided by the organ wall.

The basic element in the modern military organism is the Company, a grouping of around 100 individuals divided into five Sections each containing two 10-person Teams. Each Team has one combat duty vehicle and one utility support vehicle assigned, the specific types depending on their job. This ensures mobility as well as storage for three days’ worth of basic supplies along with the standard ammo loadout.

Two Teams being grouped together in a single Section ensures that one can cover the other by laying down fire while the other moves, or keep watch while its partner rests or carries out other work. The rule of two applies within teams as well when they split into smaller groups during active combat, which is likely these days when everyone can shoot at targets out to the edge of their line of sight. If forced into close combat teams of any specialty will split into two four-person fire teams backed by a two-person command element - the US Marine Corps view of every individual being a rifleman is hard-won wisdom worthy of emulation. This ad-hoc split into two fists supported by a controlling element is also replicated in Line Companies, the most common type.

Line Companies are the tip of the spear, so to speak, containing Sections equipped and trained to hold a patch of dirt against hostile forces several times their size. They are combined arms formations with an Armor section, a Scout section, and three Infantry sections, 100 personnel fielding a total of ten armored vehicles and ten mine-resistant optionally-crewed trucks.

Infantry sections ride in armored fighting vehicles, wheeled or tracked, that come equipped with autocannons, grenade launchers, and anti-tank missiles. In the future these will all be placed on a remotely controlled turret, with the crew of two and eight dismounts sitting together in an armored compartment at the rear, behind the engine block and turret to maximize survivability. The job of the vehicle is to get near the front lines and allow the dismounts to enter cover before they assault their target. The IFV serves as a fire support platform and rally point for evacuation, but the infantry teams lead attacks, usually by infiltrating as close to the target as possible before calling down fire support until it’s smashed, at which point they move in to mop up.

Armor sections are the heavy hitters, able to survive hits and fight on to form a spearhead for the infantry on the assault or cover their retreat during active defense operations. Active protection systems to protect against missiles are a must, and probably mine-clearing dozer blades too. A crew of three will be located in an armored compartment behind the turret and engine with enough spare room for a casualty on a stretcher. To reduce weight the tank will focus armor protection on the crew compartment and front of the turret and hull, putting ammunition in the remotely controlled turret which can be readily replaced if destroyed so long as the crew can bring the vehicle back to base.

Scout sections operate a modified version of the infantry fighting vehicle that trades most weaponry for an extendable sensor mast containing multi-spectral sensors and launchers for short-range surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles. These vehicles will have enhanced communications suites and electronic warfare systems sufficient to cover the immediate area around their company, plus a complement of drones for surveillance and direct attack work. Dropping from eight to six dismounts who split into two or three teams of 2-5 scouts, depending on the mission, leaves room for the drone complement and its associated gear while giving the team a real punch if forced to engage in direct combat.

A Line Company will spread out across a section of front 1-2km wide and deep, defending that area or screening one around twice as large against weaker opposition. Within this area anything that flies, drives, or walks can be engaged from multiple firing points and a fist of 4 vehicles can push forward a kilometer to strike enemy positions while being covered by the others.

Line Company spread out south of Robotyne. S for scout, A for armor, I for infantry. 2 vehicles at each location. In Ukraine, fighting positions are usually in tree lines - the main cover.

All armored vehicles and probably most utility vehicles that go anywhere near the front have to carry anti-drone weapons, ideally a semi-autonomous machine gun in a remote turret with an AI employing optical tracking to pick out the small profile of a fast-moving drone. Local level electronic-warfare systems switched on whenever they move seems likely too, as losing a drone’s control signal on approach to a target likely leads to a miss.

With tanks requiring only three active crewmembers, 7 can always remain behind with the Company’s utility vehicles. Two scouts from each team will join them, creating a pool of 18 bodies to guard and operate the trucks, depending on staffing levels. These will be held in a park behind the front to ferry supplies to their comrades deployed in fighting positions and help the teams evacuate the area if their vehicles are damaged or destroyed and have to be abandoned.

Line Companies will not be expected to operate without additional support - their focus will simply be on the area they can control. Within it they are meant to operate independently, all attached support expected to defer to their mission plan. But just as one kind of cell can’t perform every function without becoming vulnerable to a specialist focusing on only one, Line Companies are not expected to defeat every threat, particularly enemy artillery or high-flying jets. These must be avoided or their attacks endured until support can be dispatched from other cells.

Four Line Companies and a Line Support company will group together to form a Battle Group, with three Battle Groups joining to comprise the frontline component of the Regiment.

A Line Support company offers niche capabilities to a Battle Group that military types once liked to call force multipliers. Each will have five Sections, no two with quite the same role, each allocated two armored support vehicles and a pair of utility vehicles.

A Pioneer section hosts combat sappers, specialists with mine clearing gear and equipment for digging fighting positions as well as pulling damaged armored vehicles back for repair. They ride on combat engineering vehicles with sufficient armor to survive artillery bombardment and mine-clearing charges; ideally also a demolition cannon firing thermobaric rounds out to a few kilometers.

The Mortar section offers prompt local fire support, mounting automatic 120mm mortars on armored personnel carriers with a 5-6km effective range - sufficient to respond to calls for support from several Line Companies working in the same area. While scout sections will always maintain a signal connection to heavier fire support, there is often no substitute for rapid fires delivered by an organic support unit. These days precision and speed matter more than density of fire, so even a small mortar team that can shoot and rapidly move is invaluable to have at hand.

Signals is the section tasked with operating surveillance drones, electronic warfare emitters, and handling network management for the Battle Group. They travel in armored personnel carriers augmented with additional power generators, maintaining the secure tactical network and shared battle map. Another key task is providing broader electronic warfare coverage and higher-quality drone surveillance from larger units than used by the individual companies, one of which is always airborne to monitor the battlespace, weather permitting.

The SHORAD section provides short range air defense with a combination autocannon and missile system relying on optical and thermal passive sensors. These fire missiles with a range of around 12km that are intended to take down attack helicopters as well as larger drones. The cannons can handle smaller drones and even cruise missiles that come within 2-3km - helicopters and jets too, if their crews are unwary.

And finally, Medical sections focus on battlefield evacuation to triage centers behind the lines during a fight. They also cover planning activities and coordination between companies, serving as the Battle Group leadership team. As prompt medical response requires a high resolution picture of the battlefield at all times, this is the single best-informed section in the entire Battle Group. It is also fitting that leaders who plan poorly experience the consequences firsthand.

Together the five elements of the Battle Group can hold a frontline zone 5-6km wide and deep or screen double that area. This gives its components - 50 armored vehicles, 50 utility vehicles, and 500 people, remember - at least 25 square kilometers to disperse across while still keeping close enough to offer mutual support. A single Company can in theory simultaneously strike up to a dozen advancing enemy vehicles before they are able to disperse or respond, making it possible to conduct a kind of almost guerilla style warfare meant to attrite and weaken hostile formations before one or more Companies goes on the attack to finish it off and seize ground.

While concentrations within this area will of course vary depending on the needs of the moment, an enemy shooting blindly at a 1km grid squares after coming into contact with a leading Line Company or Battle Group will only be able to reliably suppress a small fraction of the Company’s combat power at once, and then it will pay the price when counter-battery fire strikes back.

Having four Companies in each Battle Group allows for two to be on the front lines at a given time, with two others positioned a couple kilometers and in relatively less danger but still close enough to participate in active operations during intense phases. This allows two Companies to work together just like a pair of teams in a section, one moving to strike the enemy while the other offers covering fire and pins down potential reinforcements. If overwhelmed this pair can fall back, pulling any pursuers into a trap launched by the others. Companies will rotate personnel between the first and second defense lines every few days to spread out the workload, allowing half the personnel a bit of rest.

Area assigned to a Battle Group centered on Robotyne. L1-L4 indicate Line companies, Spt is the Line Support company. Note that L2 or L1 could work together to advance several tree lines southwest of Novoprokopivka without over-extending the line.

Just like the Line Companies that comprise it, the Battle Group is means to exert control over a distinct geographic area defined by the range of its reach. Joining four identical Companies allows a Battle Group flexibility and makes it robust, incorporating the organic ability to rest elements as the situation permits. It is not, however, intended to tackle long range artillery or jets sending precision weapons from a great distance. For that, it needs higher-order support.

The Combined-Arms Regiment

To provide capabilities that would make management of smaller formations too complex, the three Battle Groups of the Regiment will be joined by three other Groups: Fires, Defense, and Headquarters.

The Fires Group, as the name implies, is where the Regiment’s artillery resides. Though even my own prewar thinking wanted to place artillery teams at a lower level, the fighting in Ukraine has shown that the logistics requirements of heavy artillery necessitate a separate formation.

In addition, the disconnect between spotter and shooter is now so extreme that it is fair to say that fire support operates kind of like a market. Teams on the line send requests for fire as they see targets. The job of the Fires Group is to figure out what requests have greater priority then deliver the goods.

Their work is done well behind the front both because they have the range to support allies from a greater distance and also the danger of being seen and hit with drones or counterbattery fire if they are less than 10km from the front. Working in a zone set back from where the Combat Groups operate, elements from the Fires Group rove between shooting points and ammunition dumps to avoid being tracked down by hostile artillery or drones.

This Fires Group is broken into five companies: three Gun, one Rocket, and one Fires Support. Gun and rocket units will have the same structure, just different kit, the rockets also having the ability to launch short-range ballistic missiles.

All Four Fires Companies will have five sections: three Weapon and two Support. Each Weapons section will have two mobile guns or rocket launchers and two mine-resistant trucks armed with anti-drone weapons. The Support sections will be equipped with artillery support vehicles to carry ammunition and spare parts and their own trucks which will similarly double as anti-drone platforms. Each Fires Company will have a total of 6 SPGs or MRLS, with a grand total of 18 of the former and 6 of the latter across the Fires Group.

The Fires Support Company includes 3 counterbattery sections that use radars to spot incoming hostile fire and triangulate their firing point, a SHORAD section for anti-drone support, and a depot section that helps coordinate logistics. Ideally the frequent movement of small quantities of ammunition from the Regiment level to section depots in the field will become increasingly handled by drones or robots, as these can be made to move in highly irregular patterns to avoid giving hostile spotters a trail to follow.

Where the Fires Group strikes at the enemy on their side of the lines, the Defense Group focuses on making the battlefield as inhospitable to the enemy as possible. This is the home of combat engineers along with other rear area support elements that keep the forces on the line in action, like mid-range air defense. The Defense Group enables the Line Companies to operate under an air denial bubble, harden and hide their positions, and breach the enemy’s.

I take an expansive view of the term engineer, and so break the Defense Group’s three Engineer companies into different roles: Mobility, Field, and Signals. Each has the same structure, with three Line Engineer and two Engineer Support sections. Line sections operate tracked armored personnel carriers that can operate near the front and transport dismount teams and equipment. Support sections host the big specialty equipment. Like all units in the field, anti-drone machine guns and jamming systems have to be included in each section, if not throughout the full inventory.

The Mobility Engineer company supports offensive moves across minefields and water barriers. Depending on the present need it can deploy bridgelayers or heavy mine clearing vehicles: naturally they also pull double duty reclaiming disabled ones. Working closely with the Pioneer teams attached to each Line company, the Mobility company can substantially augment a Battle Group on the attack. Naturally, it is quite capable of improving defensive positions too.

A Field Engineer company’s job is to act as the friendly side of the front line’s adjunct to the Mobility Engineers’ work. With heavy digging equipment and remote minelayers, it works to make portions of the landscape as inhospitable to the enemy as possible. Able to augment a Battle Group under the direction of local Pioneer and Signals teams, these are the people who show up to build reinforced fighting positions suitable for tanks and dismounts. Camouflage, concealment, and decoys are essential specialties.

The Electronic Engineer company focuses on that all-important emerging domain where invisible signals fly. Their role is to create a secure communications and electronic warfare bubble, negating the enemy’s similar systems to the degree possible. Because of the power required by broad spectrum emitters capable of controlling the electromagnetic domain across a broad area and their vulnerability to attack, you have to dedicate teams to keeping the infrastructure intact. This is where cyberwarfare work is mainly done, ensuring that friendly networks are not compromised and meddling with the enemy when the opportunity arises. They augment the Signals sections in the Line Companies as needed, especially on the cybersecurity front.

Like the Fires Group, the Defense Group tends to break into smaller task-focused teams in the field, sometimes working under the direction of Line Companies under fire. The two share overlapping zones, so care must be taken to ensure that the target density does not get too high in any area. In addition, the power output of many engineering systems going forward can be expected to climb, with the first directed-energy weapons deployed - if these ever prove cost-effective and reliable - likely attached to vehicles capable of lugging around large power generators.

This is part of the reason why the Defense Group is the ideal place to house the Air Defense company. Fielding three Air Defense sections boasting mid-range SAMs with a 20-30km range, the six systems of the full company can shut down the airspace over the entire Regiment and even defend it against incoming precision weapons. Backing up the shooters are two Support sections with missile reload and radar vehicles, ensuring that a single high fidelity radar is available at all times to monitor the local airspace.

Finally, the Defense Group has a dedicated Defense Support company. It comes with SHORAD and field depot sections - the latter meant to maintain a stockpile of engineering equipment near the front - we well as three medical sections to handle evacuation of casualties pulled out from the battle zone.

The Headquarters Group is pretty much the heart and brain of the regiment, the home for all of the essential metabolic services that make a modern combined arms formation go. Situated well behind the front, this Group has five companies:

Logistics - a hundred people dedicated to making sure that supplies get where they need to go from a network of distributed depots. Ideally they are assisted by many robots and drones in the near, as robot supply trucks are probably the lowest-hanging fruit on the applied combat AI tree. Their vehicles are all focused on moving stuff around, including the Regiment’s tanks.

Maintenance - like Logistics, if you don’t have the right people and infrastructure in place to handle this your pretty army isn’t going anywhere for very long. And combat is hard on gear, so anything that can be repaired in the field needs to go to these folks. Naturally their equipment is focused on moving heavy things around, so their vehicles tend to be pooled together with those of the Logistics and other HQ companies to produce a pool of prime movers sufficient relocate full Battle Group in a single movement.

Security - Put more than about two people together, and at some point you’ll need MPs. They do double as handy rear-area security, though, for when miscreants are too busy fighting to make trouble. Equipped with armored trucks, mostly lending many of these to other companies while personnel guard depots and run checkpoints along major roads.

Command - this is the planning and administration cell for the entire Regiment. Handles the flood of information passing between units and across levels, covers personnel issues, collates intelligence and decides the Regiment’s objectives. Naturally, it’s also the company responsible for allocating resources and making executive decisions when different units disagree on next steps. Also maintains the primary triage centers and field hospital, stabilizing personnel until they can be evacuated to a fully equipped facility in secure areas.

Drone - ten teams, each fielding a high endurance drone with the ability to fire small air-to-surface and (ideally) short-range air-to-air missiles. Two to five will stay airborne at all times, weather permitting, to monitor and support each Battle Group. Also integrates with the air defense network, creating a three dimensional picture of the battlespace.

All told the full force establishment comes to 3,000 personnel, 300 armored vehicles, and another 300 utility vehicles of various types and a whole lot of drones.

Full Regiment deployed near Huliaipole, illustration. Groups would be more spread out in reality, but the idea is there. Each Battle Group has 4 Line Companies and a Line Support company.

It’s an adaptable, modular force designed to keep most of its enemy fixed in place and susceptible to constant draining strikes. It tries to fight by slowing down any enemy movement while maneuvering key elements into position to inflict maximum casualties. A thrust into the enemy’s territory is mounted whenever and wherever they appear to be weak, giving their units in contact no rest or peace. Movements come in short, sharp bursts across a broad area, a rising torrent disrupting enough of the enemy’s to allow a vanguard Battle Group to make a push that splits the enemy’s forces into pieces, destroying them each in turn.

A single Regiment isn’t meant to fight a war or even campaign alone: three need to be grouped together and backed up by three support brigades to maintain control over a 100km-200km chunk of front in a single coherent system. For a sense of scale, a country like Ukraine would need at least twelve of these Divisions to properly secure its entire border with Moscow’s empire - this is the level where it makes sense to guarantee comprehensive air cover and house services like deep maintenance, warehousing, training, and the other big picture stuff.

One support brigade consists of light infantry who are used to secure supply lines and habitations behind the front lines and handle relations with the local population. These are typically not front-line troops and lack armored vehicles or heavy weapons, but as Ukraine has shown a unit of this type can do damage even to professional regulars under the right conditions.

A second is an Aviation Regiment with a squadron of 12 crewed multi-role combat jets, another squadron operating uncrewed multi-role drones, and three rotary wing squadrons with a mix of attack and transport helicopters. It’s also the home of a long-range surface to missile battery of the Patriot of SAMP/T class, plus a special forces company for irregular operations and rescue of personnel cut off by the enemy.

A final support brigade serves as a garrison formation that doesn’t go near the action but generates a steady stream of replacement personnel and supplies. Home base, in effect.

Going back to the Regiment level: for reference, this scheme means that each would field 24 tanks, 96 IFVs, 18 SPGs, and 6 MLRS, plus half a dozen mid-range SAM launchers and 10 SHORAD systems along with another hundred or so armored support vehicles. That puts them in the same class as a Ukrainian brigade like 47th Mechanized or 82nd Air Assault, which are currently fighting Putin’s elite airborne troops in Robotyne and Verbove as Ukraine’s summer campaign intensifies. In theory, one Division would match or exceed the combined strength of all the Ukrainian brigades working to expand the breach in the Surovikin Line right now.

It’s a scheme worth testing, at least - if there’s any software out there that can do this, leave a message in the comments! Or if some of the folks who have served at NTC in Fort Irwin know of some papers that have tested this concept, that’s be great as well.

I know there’s a community of military organization nerds out there who love playing with org charts, so anyone with a mind to is free to leave a comment. I’m not great at moderating, but if independent discussions get going I’ll be fascinated to come back in a few weeks to see where they wind up.

And feel free to share this piece - it’s open-source military doctrine, nothing to be locked up in the Ivory Tower. If the theory works, it works. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. Either way, I’d really like to know - and, of course, why it does or doesn’t.

It’s hard to kill the science bug once you’ve caught it, what can I say?

Thanks for reading!