How to Fight the Cavalry Squadron and Win!

By LTC John Albert

July 1, 2025 | Armor, Summer 2026 Edition

Read Time: < 12 mins

Tactically speaking, cavalry squadrons have had it rough over the past fifteen years at the National Training Center (NTC). Since at least the return of the Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE) in the early- 2010s and the U.S. Army’s pivot toward large-scale combat operations (LSCO), cavalry squadrons have been expected to do the incredibly difficult task of collapsing the enemy’s prepared defensive security zone, across a brigade frontage, while providing sufficiently timely reconnaissance to enable the brigade scheme of maneuver. A daunting task, made more so by the economy of force nature of cavalry operations, the preeminence of the defense in the current character of warfare, the inexperience of troop commanders and platoon leaders in their first real (simulated) fight, a shortage of trained dismount teams, and a host of other factors challenging all U.S. Army units from personnel turnover to equipment maintenance. The result is that the squadron deploys three troops on-line with the tank company in depth, if it has not been designated as the brigade reserve, with an eye toward application at a to be determined decisive point. The opposing force (OPFOR) use terrain well, winning many crew vs. crew fights. Attempting to develop the situation as it is uncovered through reconnaissance, the disruption zone fight breaks down. Sections and platoons lose fights in detail. Confused by poor platoon reporting, troop commanders employ their mortars too late and ineffectively. The confused reporting echoes up the chain to the squadron main command post. The armor company is applied too late, too distributed, or at the wrong point. The squadron is defeated. The brigade lurches forward blindly. Nine more training days of leading with the chin. Rinse, Regenerate, Repeat…Rough!

It does not have to be so. Given the consistency with which phenomenal cavalry leaders have endured a similar learning experience to the one described above, it is likely time to examine how we employ the cavalry squadron to yield better battlefield results in environments similar to that replicated at the NTC. Given substantive battlefield challenges, higher echelons must adjust their expectations of squadron operations as the squadron itself adjusts its tactics to remain a relevant and positive battlefield force.

Challenges

First, it is important to acknowledge that the fundamental tactical orientation of armored forces is offensive. Existing to close with and destroy enemy forces in close contact through shock, firepower, and maneuver, the armored brigade combat teams (ABCTs) and heavy divisions exist to set conditions favorably through offensive action. Since all cavalry squadrons now reside in the ABCTs, offensive action is the primary reason for being and its default orientation. If offensive tactics are not successful then the squadron fails its purpose.

Several factors resident in the current character of war inhibit the squadron’s ability to fight offensively while using traditional schemes. Foremost, defense appears ascendant. With adversary anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) ranges exceeding 5km from stationary mounted and dismounted positions, the squadron’s organic Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFVs) and tanks struggle to close to direct fire range. When operating more traditionally, dispersed across the brigade frontage, platoons battle beyond supporting range of one another and are unable to gain fire superiority or develop the situation prior to becoming fixed or destroyed. Compounding the squadron’s offensive disadvantage, reconnaissance and strike unmanned aerial systems (UAS) range freely at echelon. More easily detecting forces on the move than those stationary and camouflaged, the defensive force more easily arrays and strikes high payoff targets to counter offensive squadron efforts. Favorable and obvious avenues of approach are slowed with minefields and obstacles canalizing movement and guiding offensive forces into prepared or hasty engagement areas. It is not surprising therefore, that the squadron and mounted offensive forces, more generally struggle in these conditions.

A traditional and historically correct adjustment to tactics sees the squadron employ dismount teams to pull mounted forces into favorable positions. Remaining distributed across a brigade frontage as an economy of force, the squadron largely dismounts to minimize the force with which it makes contact. If given a compliant OPFOR, this works well. But this tactic takes a lot of time. In that time, a less compliant adversary has shifted mid- and long-range fires and targeted his detect and strike UAS, massing effects and effectively countering the threat of a successful ABCT or division offensive.

Figure 1. Chart displaying how understanding of battlefield conditions aligns with the appropriate mission task for those conditions.

The squadron is stuck. To offset the enemy’s ability to mass operational and tactical fires, the squadron, and ABCT, must maintain a high tempo; driving it to operate more frequently mounted. But operating more mounted under current direct fire and observation disadvantages while continuing to disperse its strength across a brigade frontage leads to repetitive unfair and losing tactical engagements. Welcome newly minted cavalryman, John Yossarian!

Responses – Brigade and Division

Seriously addressing the reality of improving squadron performance requires changes to how the squadron is employed as a brigade or division element. At the higher level, several adjustments are required. Brigades and divisions must rethink squadron mission tasks, employ the squadron closer in time to main body line of departure (LD), and employ the squadron on narrower frontages to account for current battlefield conditions.

First, choosing the squadron’s mission should not be an afterthought or default to “conduct zone reconnaissance.” The mission chosen drives the squadron’s concept of employment. In situations where very little battlefield information is known, traditional zone reconnaissance and screen operations are warranted. These missions require the squadron to operate on large frontages. To ensure early warning and answer priority intelligence requirements (PIRs), the squadron spreads its combat power, operating at its most vulnerable for the current battlefield conditions. While these missions do enable the brigade or division to receive early warning and answer at least initial PIRs, they are very likely to lead to a squadron defeated in detail and unable to materially effect the battle. Further, while an enemy has heavy incentives to protect information, how likely is it that the brigade or division commander will be so completely ignorant of the situation as to require these missions to be assigned? Answer: not very likely given the current much more transparent battlefield.

So, a start in rehabbing the squadron’s fighting prowess is to take the most assigned missions and turn them into their least assigned missions. Banish squadron screens across a brigade frontage to those infrequent periods where the brigade must be in transition for 24-48 hours. Banish zone reconnaissance and assign specific, localized reconnaissance answered as area reconnaissance missions occurring as part of an offensive guard or attack operation. Alternatively assign those missions that produce a meaningful effect on the battlefield. Take advantage of increasing battlefield transparency and assign the squadron greater offensive and defensive guards, reconnaissance-in-force, attacks, and defenses. These missions enable the squadron to better mass effects and set specific, positive conditions for brigade success.

Second, the squadron should be called to operate more closely in time with the main body. Visions of the squadron operating 12 to 18 hours ahead of the brigade main body are not realistic given current battlefield conditions. The early deployment of the cavalry squadron provides information to the enemy commander as to friendly intentions, enabling him to array his forces in advance to counter the main body. Further, it permits the enemy to fight the brigade in detail, battling a quarter of the brigade’s maneuver combat power outside of contact with the main body. Likewise, demanding the squadron operate across the entire frontage guarantees it will fight as separated platoons, possibly as troops. Present everywhere, the squadron is very likely to have a meaningful impact nowhere.

Instead, ask the squadron to set conditions in tight coupling with the main body’s activity. This permits the squadron to share many of the cross-domain effects synchronized in time to enable the main body. Additionally, it minimizes the time the enemy commander has to understand the intentions of the friendly command and better enables the friendly brigade commander to take advantage of any fleeting opportunities presented.

Third, narrowly focus the squadron’s operations on a portion of the brigade’s frontage as often as possible. As with tailoring the mission for the squadron, the narrower the frontage a squadron is asked to operate within, the better able it will be to mass effects and achieve the commander’s necessary battlefield condition. Asking the squadron to operate across the brigade’s frontage guarantees the battle will be decided by section sergeants and platoon leaders in unfavorable individual engagements.

Responses - Squadron

As the brigade and division shifts their scheme of squadron employment to enable better outcomes, so to does the squadron need to shift its tactical scheme. Squadron tactical adjustments seek to achieve one objective – win more tactical engagements. Answering PIRs, providing early warning, or providing the main body a position of advantage - all are contingent upon the ability of the squadron to fight well. Thus, the adjustments to the squadron’s tactics take primary aim at optimizing employment of combined arms to overcome the challenge of the current battlefield environment.

First among the changes has been a long time in coming – make unmanned contact first. In the same way that the squadron enables the brigade to make decisive contact from positions of advantage, so to does making unmanned contact enable the squadron to develop the situation and fight from positions of advantage. Achieving this requires assigning a dedicated force to operate as an unmanned element as their primary duty. Operating the unmanned system, reporting, and coordinating with other unmanned and manned elements requires considerable practice. Operators need to practice search and attack methods that move from most likely to least likely enemy locations. Finally, to the extent possible, unmanned elements should concentrate to provide multiple redundant observation and strike assets operating in the same area. A dispersion of unmanned assets provides a feeling of coverage only and diffuses the impact possible.

Figure 2. U.S. Soldiers assigned to 2nd Battalion, 7th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division prepare ammunition for an M2 Bradley stress shoot training event at Fort Stewart, Georgia, April 30, 2026. (U.S. Army photo by PFC Jesse May)

Second, training and standard operating procedures (SOPs) must be built to standardize actions. Much of the beauty and allure of cavalry doctrine is in its ability to be flexibly applied across many warfighting variables. Commander’s reconnaissance and security guidance is an incredibly effective tool at giving capable subordinates the freedom of action to develop the situation in the chaos of combat. However, that very flexibility can become immobilizing to junior leaders developing the situation against a thinking enemy; with all of the friction of realistic battlefield conditions, for the first or second time in their career. Instead of maximizing flexibility, the squadron sets standardized criteria and trains to execute under those conditions. Set engagement criteria, weapons control statuses, and rehearsed actions enable platoons and troops to react more aggressively when in the shock of contact. Platoon, troop, and even squadron battle drills provide a framework enabling rapid action and a standardized form from which to audible as conditions change. Instead of focusing on all of the possibilities enabled through the elegance of cavalry doctrine, a successful squadron needs to focus on fundamentals and a set of standardized procedures.

Third, the squadron plans to win at and beyond the probable line of contact. While reconnaissance and security focus do frequently provide a geographical orientation of forces, many cavalry operations lack a clear area where the commander expects combat power to be focused. Focusing the squadron’s combat power at the probable line of contact brings together the focus of the combined arms plan to a discernable geographic area of the battlefield. The squadron plans to employ its full capability at the probable line of direct fire contact. The squadron plans to make unmanned contact ahead of the probable line of contact (PLC), employ fires to suppress and finish forces in direct fire range of the PLC, establish support-by-fire and attack-by-fire elements, and pass a decisive maneuver force at the PLC. Focusing on the PLC enables the squadron to be optimally postured to employ combined arms at the location most likely for meaningful contact to occur.

Figure 3. An M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle assigned to 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, engages an un-manned aerial system with its M242 25mm Bushmaster chain gun during Project Flytrap at Pabradė Training Area, Lith-uania, May 10, 2026. (U.S. Army Photo by SGT Max Elliott)

Finally, the squadron masses armor to win direct fire engagements. It may seem odd given the design and purpose of the cavalry squadron to make tanks the central element of squadron success. However, we have yet to invent and deploy a more devastating and overwhelming capability than massed tanks operating with combined arms effect. Thus regardless of the condition that must be set by the squadron, the massing of armor combat power in direct fire range of wherever that condition can be realized is essential. As with using the PLC to focus squadron planning and the massing of combat power, the squadron designates the location or the templated enemy force causing the passage of the armor force prior to making contact. This allows the armor force to be executing a plan while permitting the squadron commander to withhold the passage should conditions not be satisfactory or enemy forces be oriented in other ways than those foreseen.

Conclusion

As the U.S. Army’s first Transformation in Contact (TiC) ABCT at NTC rotation 26-02, 2nd ABCT, 1st Cavalry Division “Black Jack” and its organic cavalry squadron, 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment “Dark Horse” implemented the above adjustments and saw definitively positive battlefield and training results. The Squadron was enabled to set conditions which in turn enabled a very high brigade tempo and retention of the initiative. While the unit did receive additional technical equipment including UAS, counter-UAS (CUAS), and command and control (C2) systems for experimentation, the changes called for above and implemented at NTC 26-02 are primarily resource neutral and within the power of every ABCT and cavalry squadron to implement or adjust. It is time to think, operate, and fight a little differently to regain battlefield advantage. It can be done.