Bob Scales

Stories by Bob Scales

‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops

‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops
‘Bob, How Do We Bottle This?’ Making Infantry As Good As Special Ops

Our elite close combat forces are outnumbered. As a national priority we must increase the numbers of those capable of doing these hazardous jobs by transferring the skills of JSOC warriors to Army and Marine conventional infantrymen.

Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’

Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’
Mattis’s Infantry Task Force: Righting ‘A Generational Wrong’

Retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales is the former commandant of the Army War College, a Vietnam veteran (and recipient of the Silver Star for valor) turned military historian and futurist. He’s also one of the fathers of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force to reform the infantry. In this op-ed, Scales goes…

Battle For Army’s Soul Resumes: Lessons From Army After Next

Battle For Army’s Soul Resumes: Lessons From Army After Next
Battle For Army’s Soul Resumes: Lessons From Army After Next

History never repeats, but it often rhymes, and a wise man listens to the echoes. Today, the Army is exploring a new concept of future combat called Multi Domain Battle, which calls for small, agile units designed to overwhelm the enemy with coordinated actions not only on the land, but in the air, on the sea,…

Bring Back Artillery Submunitions; Russian Threat Too Great

Bring Back Artillery Submunitions; Russian Threat Too Great
Bring Back Artillery Submunitions; Russian Threat Too Great

Bob Scales has run a lot of war games. I covered him doing them back in the late 1990s. Plus he’s held a lot of the most important jobs in the Army, including at the Army’s home of artillery, Fort Sill. He was around when the battle was on to ban landmines, which bear many similarities…