What Would You Do?

By Armor Journal

Article published on: March 15, 2026 in the Spring 2026 issue of Armor

Read Time: < 1 mins

ARMOR magazine is excited to announce the restart of our “What Would You Do?” column, where we provide you with a scenario to challenge your tactical judgement skills. Each Spring issue of ARMOR magazine will contain a prompt with different tactical scenarios. The Fall issue will contain a selection of the responses received from readers as well as input from the Maneuver Captain’s Career Course, Chief of Tactics. The information provided in these columns is designed in a way to allow for use during Leader Professional Development (LPD) sessions. To be clear, there are no right answers. The intent is to facilitate discussion among the community.

SCENARIO. You are an armor company commander tasked to seize and hold a road-and-rail chokepoint that anchors the battalion’s axis through a rolling agricultural valley with scattered villages, woodlots, and metal-sided farm infrastructure. Battalion reports frequent first-person-view (FPV) drone strikes, loitering munitions probing logistics nodes, and bursts of GPS degradation. Your company team is reinforced with a mounted infantry platoon with mortar team support, a small electronic warfare (EW) support detachment, two counter-small unmanned aerial systems (C-sUAS), and a loitering munition section. Battalion can provide limited short-range air defense overwatch in windows, but not continuously.

Enemy forces include a reconnaissance troop equipped with Dongfeng CSK 131 armored reconnaissance vehicles and UAS capabilities active during the previous 24 hours; enemy 9M133 Kornet anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) have been fired from tree lines and upper stories along the valley floor; tank platoon equipped with Type 99A2 main battle tanks (MBTs) to the east. The enemy’s ability to find, fix, and strike is enabled by drones, rapid targeting, and spot jamming. The forces fight using doctrine as described in ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics.

MISSION. Armor company team seizes OBJ FORD NLT first light +2 hours IOT deny enemy access to the Battalion’s axis of advance. O/O be prepared for enemy counter attack.

Commander’s Intent: Broad purpose is to Deny enemy ability to consolidate gains and mass combat power in AO. Key tasks include rapidly seize terrain, deny enemy ATGM engagement area, posture to defeat enemy counter attack through zone, and prepare for follow-on missions.

Conditions representing the endstate: OBJ FORD free from enemy control, enemy unable to influence friendly forces, collateral damage to infrastructure minimized.

TASK. Review the scenario, read and understand the mission, then provide your response. Using the notional operational graphic in Figure 1, frame the problem, define your company team approach and create an operational concept to secure the chokepoint. Be sure to consider the mission, enemy, terrain, troops, time, and civil considerations (METT-TC). Consider and describe how you would employ sUAS, loitering munitions, EW capabilities, and combined arms integration to seize and hold the chokepoint against a drone-enabled enemy. Be creative in your approach, but ensure all responses are anchored in the appropriate doctrine.

Responses should be between 500-750 words and submitted as a .docx (MS Word) file no later than 15 JUL 26 to usarmy.benning.tradoc.mbx.armor-magazine@army.mil.

Figure 1. Notional operational graphics for use in tactical scenario.