{"id":45557,"date":"2025-10-22T17:26:45","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T17:26:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/10\/22\/should-the-army-bring-back-the-pentomic-division\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T04:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T04:29:07","slug":"should-the-army-bring-back-the-pentomic-division","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2025\/10\/22\/should-the-army-bring-back-the-pentomic-division\/","title":{"rendered":"Should the Army bring back the Pentomic Division?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the late 1950s, when everyone expected World War III to go nuclear, the U.S. Army had to contemplate operating on a battlefield sprouting atomic fireballs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This put Army planners in a dilemma. Military theory said that forces had to be concentrated to overwhelm the enemy and achieve decisive results. Common sense said that massing troops would only present a juicy target for nuclear weapons. The Army ultimately settled on the Pentomic Division, which consisted of self-contained battalions that would assemble for operations and then disperse. Yet the idea proved so unwieldy that the Army soon discarded it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But 70 years later, the Army faces a similar dilemma. Instead of atomic bombs, the threat now comes from drones, as vividly demonstrated in the Ukraine war. To survive, Ukrainian and Russian forces have learned to operate in dispersed groups \u2014 sometimes as small as four to six soldiers \u2014 for fear of attracting the attention of a drone swarm. But lack of mass foregoes the possibility of decisive maneuver \u2014 and victory \u2014 and the conflict has degenerated into a grinding war of attrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A British expert has a solution: Resurrect the Pentomic concept. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSomething similar to the Pentomic structure may have something to teach in terms an answering the battlefield problems of today,\u201d wrote John Moore, a former British Ministry of Defense official, in a recent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benning.army.mil\/Armor\/eARMOR\/content\/issues\/2025\/Summer\/20250711%2520_eARMOR_Summer25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.benning.army.mil\/Armor\/eARMOR\/content\/issues\/2025\/Summer\/20250711%2520_eARMOR_Summer25.pdf\">essay<\/a> for the U.S. Army\u2019s Armor Magazine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The original Pentomic divisions were a response to the \u201cquantitative leap in firepower\u201d from nuclear weapons, Moore told Defense News. With modern armies facing drones, long-range missiles and sensors, the new Pentomic \u201cis posited on a similar response to firepower that in this case is in-depth, ubiquitous, pinpoint in accuracy and available day or night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMassing a larger number of men and materiel takes time,\u201d he said. \u201cYou will be spotted and attacked before you even reach the departure or jump-off point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/armyhistory.org\/americas-atomic-army-of-the-1950s-and-the-pentomic-division\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/armyhistory.org\/americas-atomic-army-of-the-1950s-and-the-pentomic-division\/\">Pentomic concept<\/a>, which governed U.S. Army infantry and airborne divisions from 1957 to 1963, replaced the triangular divisional structure of three regiments, with a five-sized organization. Pentomic divisions consisted of five battlegroups \u2014 equivalent to oversized battalions \u2014 with five rifle companies, a headquarters and support company and a mortar battery. But to create self-contained all-arms battlegroups, a plethora of support units were usually attached, including armor, artillery, engineers and air defense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Given 1950s technology, command and logistics proved overwhelming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOn the Pentomic battlefield, a CO could easily find himself with at least nine maneuver elements, well beyond the effective span of control for most colonels of the day,\u201d recalled the late U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth in his memoir \u201cAbout Face<i>.&#8221;<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moore envisions the New Pentomic \u2014 which he also calls \u201cPentomic v5\u2033 \u2014 as a company-level approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat formation size has enough combat power to achieve local success while having enough resilience to sustain combat for a useful length of time,\u201d he wrote. Battlegroups would be composed of companies that would assemble as needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dispersed, flexible companies would be less likely to be detected and attacked by drones, and could concentrate for attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the defense, \u201csuch a Pentomic structure has sufficient reserve potential to meet a range of attacks and will require increased effort by an attacker to neutralize a defense in depth and use that most precious of assets \u2014 time,\u201d Moore wrote. \u201cA dispersed Pentomic defense based on areas of concealment such as villages, towns, wooded and rough terrain can allow for gaps as these can be covered by precision fire at every level and improve unit survivability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moore believes that technology has improved enough since the 1950s that command and control of dispersed maneuver units is feasible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cEven the smallest unit has, through FPV [first-person-view] drone technology, the means of battlefield reconnaissance and precision strike,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhile distributed command systems have great resilience and an ability to jump echelons in terms of targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moore also sees the New Pentomic as a relatively inexpensive way that the U.S. \u2014 and NATO \u2014 can adapt to a changing battlefield. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt can be done cheaply as it is about structure, training and an attitude of mind,\u201d he told Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet history suggests that a Pentomic 2.0 would face many of the same challenges that doomed its predecessor. In the early years of World War II, the German blitzkrieg achieved remarkable victories, largely due to a doctrine that emphasized flexibility and expected commanders and soldiers to use their initiative. By 1944, heavy losses in experienced officers and NCOs led to increasingly rigid tactics. Similarly, in the early days of the 2022 Russian invasion, outnumbered but agile Ukrainian forces defeated clumsy Russian offensives. But heavy casualties have resulted in Ukrainian commanders reverting to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/ukraine-russia-army-soviet-5fa8e1c9?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAiCmnFNpuAMGGoLYkpxqJzNl5RzlgcfIg_QHF9FUAo8fLt5-okoUFi4&amp;gaa_ts=68dff875&amp;gaa_sig=bTvrHzBt1yPPq-NSAxQeE1CJ24j3P60ThboZEkxcwhmjz3KGdqkzaHQaLW5uwRDe08P50PaGisMAVpyZou1aGA==\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/world\/ukraine-russia-army-soviet-5fa8e1c9?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAiCmnFNpuAMGGoLYkpxqJzNl5RzlgcfIg_QHF9FUAo8fLt5-okoUFi4&amp;gaa_ts=68dff875&amp;gaa_sig=bTvrHzBt1yPPq-NSAxQeE1CJ24j3P60ThboZEkxcwhmjz3KGdqkzaHQaLW5uwRDe08P50PaGisMAVpyZou1aGA==\">rigid Soviet-style tactics<\/a> they were trained in before the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cUltimately, any success will depend on a high level of initiative and a willingness to gamble on success,\u201d Moore wrote. \u201cThis will have implications for training and leadership at every level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Decades after the Army abandoned the Pentomic concept, a defense expert argues such a concept may provide a solution to the battlefield problems of today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":87881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,160,29,14,36],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3415],"class_list":["post-45557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ausa-digital-show-dailies","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-land","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"KKWBCERZVFH2RFLAC3TLGZ7GQM","arc_canonical_url":"\/news\/your-army\/2025\/10\/22\/should-the-army-bring-back-the-pentomic-division\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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