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Armée de Terre - Recent Developments

The collapse of Soviet Union, and the subsequent decline of the Russian armed forces led to extensive changes in the French defense posture. One of key development was the adoption of an all-volunteer system of recruitment, unprecedented in the history of France since the Revolution. The elimination of the draft was part of the reorientation of the French defense posture away from the defense of French territory and toward "out of area" power projection. In process, the French army became a more homogeneous force than in the past.

The variety of security commitments, and the limits on French resources, had long mean the existence, not of a single cohesive military, but rather three separate forces: the all-volunteer component for overseas deployments (largely consisting of the Troupes Coloniales/Troupes des Marine, the Foreign Legion, and some Parachute formations), the heavy conventional maneuver forces of draftees for a European conflict with the Soviet Union, and the reserves. In the past, these three separate bodies displayed widely varying standards of training and readiness, and these disparities proved a major flaw in the French military organization. The weakness of reserve formations nearly proved a fatal weakness in 1914, and did prove so in 1940.

During the Cold War the French leadership relied on nuclear weapons rather than a massive conventional force for its security, these divisions persisted and were to some extent exacerbated by the high price tag of France's indigenous nuclear arsenal. In contrast to Great Britain, which bought ballistic missiles from the United States, French nuclear warheads were on French missiles. The difficulties in keeping the heavy conventional forces properly equipped in the 1970s and the 1980s were substantial.

The reduced military manned entirely by volunteers did not suffer from the defects of the Cold War army. Its 8 maneuver brigades (in addition to a large number of separate maneuver regiments and support brigades) were within France's abilities to maintain at high level of readiness with modern equipment. In addition, since the French Constitution placed severe restrictions on the government's ability to send draftees to fight in overseas conflicts, the creation of an all-volunteer force meant every unit in the French Army was eligible for overseas deployment. While the French force that participated in Operation Desert Storm was cobbled together from various volunteer elements of the French Army, an effective though imperfect solution, the professionalization of the French military will made such deployments much easier, particularly ones involving heavy forces which prior to the 1990s were largely manned by draftees (the one AMX-30B2-equipped battalion that took part in ODS had to be specially assembled for the mission).

The ability to send heavy forces overseas was exercised in May 2002 with the deployment of the 2eme Brigade Blindee to Ukraine, and November 2002 , with a smaller deployment to Qatar, exercises that appeared to have been rehearsals for the projected French military participation in the anti-Iraq coalition. Although a number of French ground and air units were alerted for such a mission in early 2003, subsequent political developments precluded French military participation in the Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, a French contingent consisting of Marine, Parachute, and mountain infantry units, as well as special operations troops of the COS and a Mirage-2000D squadron based in Turkmenistan, was active in Afghanistan since 2002. French forces have also remained active in peacekeeping operations in the Balkans and a number of civil wars in Africa, notably in the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone, and later Mali. French units were also deployed to Chad to protect refugee camps against attacks by the Sudanese military and militias.

Organizationally, the Armee de Terre discarded a permanent division-based organization (one might argue that the small armored divisions of the 1980s were little more than large brigades) and downsized to a force of 8 maneuver brigades (2 armored, 2 mechanized, 2 light armored, 1 airborne, 1 mountain), in addition to a variety of separate maneuver and support regiments. Division-level headquarters exist to coordinate multi-brigade deployments. The brigades themselves are not permanently constituted, and a deploying brigade is likely to have a mix of regiments different from its peacetime establishment. The order of battle also included one airmobile brigade (1 reconnaissance, 2 combat, and 1 transport helicopter regiments) and 1 artillery support brigade (2 MLRS regiments, 3 SAM regiments with Aster-15/30, Roland, and Mistral missiles). The French military leadership estimated it could deploy up to 3 full brigades simultaneously without disrupting the military's trainign cycle.

With Leclerc MBT procurement complete, a variety of additional new weapon systems were in the pipeline, including the VBCI infantry fighting vehicle to replace the AMX-10P and some VABs, the EBRC reconnaissance vehicle, Tigre/Gerfaut attack helicopters, and the FELIN suite of equipment for infantry soldiers.

During the program period, efforts were made to improve the protection of the onboard infantryman with the acquisition and initial set up of new infantry armored vehicles, the delivery of 272 VBCI (armored vehicles) to equip three regiments starting in 2006, along with a new order for 157 articulated tracked vehicles (VAC). In addition, the renovation of the VAB (armored vehicle) fleet, the delivery of five hundred additional light armored vehicles and the renovation of the AMX 10 RC tanks were maintained. In parallel, 14,000 units of the FELIN system were commissioned, equipping two-thirds of the units during this period.

With the delivery of the last 117 Leclerc tanks, the armored vehicle action capacity achieved a level tailored to the changing threats (eight groups of forty tanks on the line). The Leclerc / VBCI system restored the consistency of the components devoted to coercive actions which was lost when the AMX 10P became obsolete. The commissioning of the first "support-protection" version of the Tigre helicopters gave France a new capability to address future combat conditions.