The UK’s Deep Recce Strike Brigade, old wine in new bottles?

The British Army’s Deep Recce Strike Brigade Combat Team (DRS-BCT) is seen as a modern solution for deep fires and reconnaissance in future conflicts. Yet, many of its structures and roles mirror the artillery-centric force deployed during Operation Granby in 1991. While the DRS-BCT introduces updated platforms and digital targeting, questions remain about mass, doctrine, and munitions. This article examines whether the brigade represents innovation – or a repackaging of old ideas.

When British and US forces deployed to Saudi Arabia in 1990 ahead of their operation to free Kuwait from Iraqi forces, they took with them the multiple launch rocket system (MLRS), something of an oddity at that time. Launching 227 mm M26 rockets loaded with dual-purpose improved conventional munition (DPICM) submunitions, a type of cluster munition, the MLRS attained something of a legendary status in the US military for delivering “steel rain”, a phrase used by a US artillery battery to describe themselves, rather than one used by Iraqi soldiers, according to a 2020 article published by the New York Times.^[1] In any case, the MLRS is emblematic of the ground-based firepower brought to bear during that war, which included helicopters in a ground-attack role and masses of artillery all supported by forward observers.

In the opening ground invasion phases of Operation Granby (the name given to the UK’s military operations in Iraq during the 1991 First Gulf War), the indirect fire of the Royal Artillery, which had been designed and refined for use against Soviet forces, delivered devastating overmatch against Iraqi units despite being dug-in. The result was that the armoured engagements that followed were very successful; the 7th Armoured Brigade travelled 300 km, destroying 90 Iraqi tanks with only two casualties and 15 wounded while the 4th Armoured Brigade destroyed 60 Iraqi tanks and lost ten men, mostly to friendly fire.^[2] In one engagement, gunners from the 2nd Field Artillery regiment engaged an Iraqi company in support of a Canadian detachment. “Good shooting…. target annihilated…many enemy dead……….Out!” the Canadian who called for the fire mission is reported to have said.^[3] Op Granby reflected the quintessential purpose of artillery in combined arms operations; destroy or suppress the enemy to preserve combat power in the lead armoured formations.

Fast forward to 2022, the British MoD launched the Future Soldier programme, which formally announced the Deep Recce Strike Brigade Combat Team (DRS-BCT); a brigade-sized structure that would accommodate the bulk of the British Army’s indirect fire capabilities, including its reconnaissance assets. It is expected to fight in the enemy’s deep areas, degrading their centres of gravity and setting the conditions for success for the rest of the deployed force. Specifically, it “will focus on the Army’s deep fight capabilities, combining deep fires with reconnaissance and the ability to integrate non-lethal effects. It will utilise enhanced fires systems to provide long-range persistent surveillance for the coordination of deep fires”, the Army explains on its website.^[4] The structure and the ambition for the DRS-BCT sounds innovative, but is it that different from its Gulf War predecessors?

 

Operation Granby: British order of battle

At the outbreak of the Gulf War with Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the Royal Artillery was configured for a large war with the Soviet Union in continental Europe. This meant three different types of artillery regiment providing fire support. Three field artillery regiments were expected to accompany each of the UK’s four armoured divisions and provide for their fire support needs; they were equipped with M109 self-propelled howitzers (SPHs) and FH70 towed guns, both in 155 mm, as well as the 105 mm Abbot SPH. There were also heavy regiments that were armed with the M110 203 mm (8 inch) heavy guns, which were nuclear-capable. The M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) – capable of being armed with either 227 mm rockets, or the 610 mm ATACMS tactical ballistic missile (TBM) – was also making its way into the heavy regiments, all of which were held in a central artillery brigade. Finally, there were nuclear regiments – by 1990 the British Army relied on the 50th Missile Regiment, armed with the MGM-52 Lance nuclear tactical ballistic missile.^[5] The aforementioned were highly capable units that trained more or less exclusively for war with the Soviet Union, which meant that divisional fire missions (three regiments or 72 guns firing on a target) were commonplace.

At the same time, the writing was on the wall for the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall had fallen in 1989, reunifying Germany one year later, and it became clear that the risks of conflict were subsiding. Technically, the Soviet Union would continue existing until December 1991, but that had not stopped the British Army from easing its levels of readiness and maintenance schedules. The result was that the Royal Artillery was forced to cannibalise vehicles and mix units in order to provide the forces necessary for Operation Granby.^[6] Six regiments were sent to Saudi Arabia to support the 1st Armoured Division, including:

• 2nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery (M109)
• 12th Air Defence Regiment RA (Rapier short-range air defence)
• 26th Field Regiment RA (M109)
• 32nd Heavy Regiment RA (M110)
• 39th Heavy Regiment RA (MLRS)
• 40th Field Regiment RA (M109)

There were also a range of reconnaissance elements integrated into the Divisional Artillery Group, including the 16th/5th Queens Royal Lancers (later amalgamated with 17th/21st Lancers to become The Queen’s Royal Lancers in 1993) that are now also a part of the DRS-BCT since becoming part of the Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth’s Own), in 2015. Those reconnaissance elements were primarily equipped with Scimitar tracked reconnaissance vehicles and their variants, and tasked with finding targets for the 32nd and 39th Heavy Regiments.^[7] It is also worth noting that the 4th Regiment of the Army’s Air Corps also deployed with two squadrons of Lynx and Gazelle helicopters armed with TOW anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). They were expected to support the deep battle along with the heavy regiments and reconnaissance elements; however, poor weather reportedly prevented the helicopters from doing so.

 

The aforementioned is quite similar to the order of battle for the DRS-BCT, which includes the following formations:^[8]

• Household Cavalry Regiment, Armoured Cavalry with Ajax.
• 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards, Light Cavalry with Jackal and Foxhound.
• The Royal Lancers (Queen Elizabeth’s Own), Armoured Cavalry converting to Ajax.
• The Royal Yeomanry, Light Cavalry Reserves with Jackal.
• 1st Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, Armoured Fires, to be equipped with RCH155 SPH and a squadron of Ajax-equipped troops.
• 3rd Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, Deep Fires with M270 MLRS.
• 5th Regiment, Royal Artillery, Surveillance & Target Acquisition with Taipan artillery-locating radars.
• 19th Regiment Royal Artillery, Armoured Fires with Archer SPH.
• 26th Regiment Royal Artillery, Deep Fires with M270 MLRS. Converted from 26th Field Regiment, which served in 1991.
• 101st (Northumbrian) Regiment Royal Artillery, Deep Fires Reserve regiment, will provide a formed MLRS battery to each of 3 RHA and 26 Regt RA.
• 104th Regiment Royal Artillery, Armoured Fires Reserves, will provide reinforcements to 1 RHA and 19 Regt RA.
• 100th (Yeomanry) Regiment, Reserve regiment providing joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC).
• 6th Armoured Close Support Battalion, Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
• 206th (North West) Multi-Role Medical Regiment.

The DRS-BCT is also expected to synchronise deep effects including those from the UK’s AH-64E Apache attack helicopter fleet, although the future of those aircraft is somewhat uncertain at present. Despite selection of the AGM-179 Joint Air-to-Ground Missile (JAGM) in 2021 to replace Hellfire, there has been little movement in terms of orders or further integration of the missiles into UK service.

Regardless, there are a number of similarities between the Divisional Artillery Group (DAG) from 1990–1991 and the DRS-BCT. The armoured artillery regiments will primarily support the close fight, offering fire support to the 12th and 20th Armoured Brigade Combat Teams, for example, much as the field artillery regiments did in the First Gulf War. Reconnaissance assets like The Royal Lancers will work with the 3rd and 26th Regiments Royal Artillery to find and strike targets at depth. The primary element that appears to set the DRS-BCT apart is that the 5th Regiment Royal Artillery, equipped with the Taipan artillery-locating radar, is included within its span of command. This adds to its organic target detection capabilities alongside the forward reconnaissance elements.

 

The Gulf War DAG did also include short-range air defence assets including the 12th Air Defence Regiment with Rapier and two air defence batteries that were tasked to support the two armoured brigades. It is likely that the 7th Air Defence Group would function in a similar way, providing an umbrella for the DRS-BCT and dedicated close support for the armoured brigade combat teams.^[9]

Overall, the structure of the DAG deployed by the British in Op Granby and the DRS-BCT is very similar, but what about the doctrine?

Artillery and the three battles

“A divisional artillery commander has three tasks, not two: Fight the Deep Battle, win the Counter Battery Battle, and resource the Close Battle. Because these are the three battles a Peer/Peer+ enemy will fight, these three tasks are set in stone. An artillery commander cannot opt out of any particular one…Forcing an artillery commander to choose which of the three not to fight, is as fatuous as forcing someone to choose between air, food and water.”

This quote is taken from an article published in the British Army Review in 2020 by Lt Col Matt Wilks, a gunner serving in the Land Warfare Centre at the time. The quote itself was provided by Lt Col Andrew Gillespie, who served as a battery commander in the 2nd Field Artillery regiment during the Gulf War. Lt Col Wilks continues in some depth on the divisional deep battle during the Gulf War stating: “The Operation Granby divisional deep battle sought to fix and defeat, by physical attack, enemy forces that could threaten the assaults taking place on initial divisional objectives,” he explains. The paper is set up to compare and contrast the previous approaches to deep battle with the contemporary edicts that focused on information manoeuvre.^[10]

“As such, it was fought relatively ‘close’. It was barely distinct from the close battle, except for its purpose and the nature of its resourcing: a formation recce regiment with an immense allocation of artillery and airpower,” Wilks continued. Indeed, the 1st Armoured Division was bolstered by air power and a US artillery brigade, which in effect meant the division was supported by a corps of artillery. This brought hugely destructive levels of firepower to the division’s operations. For one objective, Objective Brass, British armour was supported by three regiments of M109s, a sub-unit of the US brigade’s M110 and MLRS batteries, and two air sorties. All of this firepower was amassed and delivered onto a single objective, Gillespie wrote in his 2001 memoir.^[11]

 

The 1st Division fought its three battles in two stages; the deep battle was fought before the ground offensive began on 24 February 1991. It consisted of the well-known air strikes and what were known as ‘gun raids’. Artillery batteries would push forwards, beyond the berms protecting coalition troops in Saudi Arabia to engage Iraqi targets and then withdraw.^[12] This stage of the battle also included the counter-battery battle, and served to isolate Iraq’s frontline units. Just prior to the offensive, the coalition forces conducted a four-hour artillery bombardment against Iraqi positions, expending 90,000 rounds of ammunition. 24,000 of those rounds were fired by the 1st British Armoured Division.^[13] As the ground offensive got under way, the artillery switched to the close battle, eventually abandoning the deep battle altogether as there were no viable targets and the armoured offensive was moving too quickly. The two armoured brigades could initially only progress when properly supported with artillery to ensure minimal casualties, but were eventually delegated fire support and allowed to take greater initiative.

It is difficult to glean much about the doctrine that the DRS-BCT is expected to follow and how it will be deployed. This is partly because the formation only exercised for the first time in 2023, and has since been stripped of all of its AS90s, some of its M270s, and all of its original ARTHUR artillery locating radars, to equip Ukraine’s armed forces. The concept of employment has likely been written and tested in simulated form, and some elements – such as 19th Regiment RA with its Archer howitzers – have been tested in real-world training scenarios.

At least conceptually, it appears to have been difficult for British officers to agree on a definition for ‘the deep’. Ukraine’s strikes against Russian ammunition depots are often held up as an example of deep fires, and yet others refer to the deep as ‘anything beyond-line-of-sight weapons’. The DRS-BCT was originally expected to yield non-lethal effects, but it is unclear what is meant by that, or how it would happen.^[14] In theory, the DRS-BCT would likely support 3rd Armoured Division (3 Div) in much the same way that the DAG supported the 1st Armoured Division in Op Granby. The primary difference in a peer war is that the Royal Air Force would likely be extensively engaged in a strategic suppression/destruction of enemy air defence (SEAD/DEAD) campaign that would consume much of its resources and limit its ability to contribute to the deep or close battles of the land forces. This is an interesting tension within the UK’s planned Digital Targeting Web that will see sensors and shooters connected in real time. While it may be possible to achieve, the likelihood is that resources will be so limited, that the individual services may end up fighting their own individual battles, without wider support for a portion of time.

 

The equipment

This would perhaps be manageable if 3 Div and the DRS-BCT could put the same quantity of artillery into the field as the British division in 1991, but that is sadly not the case. As highlighted by Lt Col Wilks, the 1st Armoured Division had 60 155 mm guns and a regiment of MLRS at its disposal as well as masses of ammunition. The modern-day equivalent (assuming the regiments in question have guns) provides for 48 155 mm guns in two regiments, and two regiments of MLRS, potentially providing up to 54 MLRS in six batteries. The M270 as a platform is much the same as it was in 1991, albeit with some upgrades to improve their blast protection.

The primary difference is in the ammunition. The UK previously deployed with the US DPICM cluster munitions mentioned at the opening of this article, but decided to abandon their use after agreeing to dispose of the majority of its cluster munitions at the 22/23 February 2007 Oslo Conference on Cluster munitions, and later signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Dublin on 30 May 2008. Consequently, the UK’s forces are now reliant on the more accurate M31 GMLRS rocket, which is guided, but carries a 90 kg unitary warhead.^[15] Providing that it hits the target, it will have an effect. However, the rocket is known for ‘precisely missing’, whereby an error in the entered data can lead to a strike that technically follows the right pattern, but is in the wrong place. In contrast, the M270s deployed in 1991 could deliver area effects, with thousands of submunitions delivered over a wide area in a matter of minutes. The effect of these munitions has been hotly debated since 1991, but their impact in Ukraine – especially against deployed batteries of air defence systems and missile launchers – indicates that they are still an effective weapon. Without those M26 rockets, and even with double the number of launchers, the DRS-BCT would struggle to provide the level of fire support and suppression that the DAG did.

There is scope for some form of cluster munition, and that is in the procurement of the BAE Systems BONUS 155 mm artillery round, which deploys two sensor-fuzed munitions with explosively-formed penetrator (EFP) warheads. These rounds are reportedly effective in Ukraine and are expected to be procured to enable the 14 Archers in service with the 19th Regiment RA. Presumably they will equip the RCH155 once it comes into service, too. At present, the Royal Artillery has no armoured howitzers to compare with the M109s of the DAG, but it is expected to receive the RCH155, an artillery system based on the Boxer 8×8 wheeled armoured vehicle “in this decade”. The RCH155 will replace the AS90s donated to Ukraine and as a platform it appears to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, the L52 155 mm gun offers greater range than the AS90, but on the other, it is based on a wheeled platform that is unlikely to match the AS90 in terms of off-road mobility. It also has a crew of two, which has raised concerns around the stress placed upon an artillery crew during prolonged periods of combat.^[16] For comparison, the M109s deployed in Operation Granby had crews of 11.

 

The small and light Scimitar reconnaissance vehicles will give way to Ajax. At 38 tonnes, the Ajax is more than three times heavier than the upgraded Scimitar Mk 2, and five times heavier than the Scimitars that fought in 1991. However, its sights and potential for networked connectivity (assuming they can be equipped with high-capacity networked digital radios, which currently seems unlikely) offer significant advantages in that targets could be automatically logged and registered in FC-BISA, the Royal Artillery’s fire control system. Ajax also offers much better protection and firepower than the Scimitar, which, given its size, it will presumably need if detected on reconnaissance missions.

One element of the equipment that will really differentiate the DRS-BCT from the DAG is the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that it should gain access to. At present, there are two key projects; Project TIQUILA, which is procuring tactical drones used by 32nd Regiment RA, and Project CORVUS, which will replace Watchkeeper in the Land Tactical Deep Find (locating hostile units at relevant battlefield depths) role for the 47th Regiment RA.^[17] These assets will, in theory, significantly extend the reconnaissance reach of the DRS-BCT, potentially out to 150 km, depending on the efficacy of the enemy’s air defences. This would be critical to properly enabling the artillery’s deep battle in any meaningful sense beyond the extension of the close battle, as described by Lt Col Wilks in his 1991 review.

 

One last thing

Overall, it is probably reasonable to say that the old wine of Operation Granby has been given a new bottle, although that bottle should be significantly better-enabled. One glaring difference however, is in how the DRS-BCT is likely to be resourced. The British Army is newly focused on attritable strike systems to generate its combat power, but artillery ammunition remains an important component of a combined arms operation, suppressing and destroying enemy positions and formations, much as it did in 1991. This requires considerable magazine depth, which in turn requires very deep pockets. Precision fires, as embodied by the M31, are valuable tools, but they are not a replacement for massed artillery bombardments when it comes to minimising casualties. This is somewhat evident in Ukraine; drones, which are relatively precise, are able to locate and destroy individual vehicles and positions, but are not able to suppress an enemy throughout their depth so that a breakthrough can be successful. Perhaps this should be one of the cardinal takeaways from Operation Granby for the British Army: It should equip itself to fight a war with mass artillery fires, mass expenditure of ammunition, and mass use of loitering munitions. Ultimately, a war with Russia would come down to the ability to whittle down the first and second echelons of Russian troops, allowing the UK’s two armoured brigades to fight them in a much-depleted form, before squaring up to the third echelon (if it exists) in what is hoped to be an uneven fight. That will not happen without using a lot of ammunition, regardless of how smart and complex the concept of employment around the DRS-BCT might be.

Sam Cranny-Evans

Author: Sam Cranny-Evans is a consultant and journalist based in the UK. He specialises in land warfare and the technologies shaping the way armed forces fight. Sam previously worked at Janes and is a RUSI associate fellow.

^[1] A Myth That Won’t Die About a Gulf War Weapon, and Why It Matters – The New York Times

^[2] 30th Anniversary of the Gulf War – The Tank Museum

^[3] Target Annihilated | Gulf-war

^[4] 1 Deep Reconnaissance Strike Brigade Combat Team | The British Army

^[5] In-Depth Briefing #90: Lessons from the Cold War – CHACR

^[6] Gunners in the Gulf War 1991 – The Royal Artillery Museum

^[7] British Ground Force in the Gulf War, 1990-91 v.1.0 March 3, 2002

^[8] Future Soldier Guide

^[9] British Ground Force in the Gulf War, 1990-91 v.1.0 March 3, 2002

^[10] Firepower! Lessons from 1 (BR) Armoured Division’s Deep Battle

^[11] Andrew Gillespie, Desert Fire, The diary of a Gulf War Gunner, 2001.

^[12] Gunners in the Gulf War 1991 – The Royal Artillery Museum

^[13] Firepower! Lessons from 1 (BR) Armoured Division’s Deep Battle

^[14] Future Soldier Guide

^[15] Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) | The British Army

^[16] NEMESIS tracked howitzer breaks cover

^[17] Project Corvus, who will enter the fray?