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| Army Reorganizes to Modernize |
| 2005-07-28 |
| WASHINGTON -- Army bases in Texas, Colorado, Washington, Kansas and elsewhere will gain thousands of soldiers as the military brings home 50,000 troops from Germany and Korea and reorganizes into a force designed to better fight modern battles. The shifts will mean upheavals for many soldiers and their families in the coming years. But Army officials said Wednesday the effort will mean over the long term that families will move less often. Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, said it was the biggest change in the Army since the beginning of World War II. Ray Dubois, a special assistant to the Army secretary, spoke of the "true cornerstone of Army transformation in the 21st century." The army is rebuilding around 43 ground combat brigades, each with between 3,500 and 3,900 troops. The goal is to have the brigades operate far more independently than existing ones, which rely heavily on their larger division structures to function in a war zone. Divisions were set up to do battle with an enemy such as the Soviet Union. The new brigades will function in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The restructuring takes place as the Pentagon withdraws tens thousands of troops from their Cold War homes in Germany and South Korea. Many units from Germany are going to Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Riley, Kan. In some case, the troops will go to other bases and change units. The new brigades are built around one of three designs: * light, primarily infantry. * Stryker, built around the Stryker armored vehicle. * heavy, which have tanks and armored infantry carriers. That compares with 13 designs among the 33 old Army brigades, each with between 3,000 and 5,000 soldiers. Some the changes are under way; others will not be completed until 2009. Some troops will go with their unit and change their home base; others will change units but stay at the same base; and some units will rotate to Iraq or Afghanistan, then change their designation and home base when they finish. Under the reorganization: * Fort Bliss will be home to the 1st Armored Division, amounting to four brigades and a division headquarters. A division headquarters will have about 1,000 troops under the Army's new design. The unit is primarily based in Germany. Some other Bliss troops, trained in anti-aircraft weaponry, are set to move to Fort Sill, Okla., under the base closing process now under way. Including these moves, the base will have a net gain of about 18,300 soldiers between 2003 and 2011, according to calculations by the Army. * At Fort Hood, Texas, the 4th Infantry Division will move two brigades, plus its headquarters, to Fort Carson, Colo. The third brigade of the 4th Infantry Division will change shoulder patch and join the 1st Armored Cavalry as its new, fourth brigade. The 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment will move from Carson to Hood. The III Corps headquarters, about 1,000 troops, will stay at Hood. Army spokesman Paul Boyce said Hood will have gained a net 700 soldiers between 2003 and 2011 under the military's current plans. * Fort Lewis, Wash., now home to two brigades, will add a third, and all will become part of the 2nd Infantry Division. The fourth brigade of the division, plus its headquarters, will remain in Korea. The Army is negotiating to move I Corps headquarters, also at Lewis, to Japan. Lewis is expected to grow by 11,300 soldiers by 2011, the Army said. * Fort Riley will be home to most of the 1st Infantry Division, three brigades and the headquarters. Much of that unit has been based in Germany. A brigade of the 1st Armored Division, now at Riley, will move to Fort Bliss. Riley will gain 9,400 soldiers, Boyce said. * Fort Carson, Colo., will be home to the entire 4th Infantry Division, four brigades plus a headquarters. Many of these units are coming from Fort Hood. One brigade, formerly part of the 2nd Infantry Division based in Korea, will come from Iraq. Carson will grow by 8,200 soldiers. * Fort Drum, N.Y., is adding a new brigade to the 10th Mountain Division. Drum will have grown by 6,300 soldiers by 2011, Boyce said. * Fort Knox, Ky., will add a fourth, new brigade from the 1st Infantry. * Fort Bragg, N.C., will add a fourth, new brigade to the 82nd Airborne Division, already stationed there. * Fort Polk, La., will lose the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment to Germany, where it will become the sole ground combat brigade stationed there. A fourth brigade of the 10th Mountain Division is standing up in its place. * Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, will gain about 3,700 troops under the 25th Infantry Division by 2011. * Fort Richardson, Alaska, is adding a brigade under the 25th Infantry Division, which is headquartered in Hawaii. That will leave only three ground combat brigades permanently stationed overseas -- one in Korea, one in Germany and one in Italy. The Army will also break up its 5th Corps headquarters in Europe, Cody said. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #14 Some other Bliss troops, trained in anti-aircraft weaponry, are set to move to Fort Sill, Okla. This sorta doesn't make sense. If the Patriot is being evolved to an anti-theater ballistic missile system from its anti-aircraft design, you have to train which means live fire. At least at Bliss/Macgregor/White Sands you have the range to do it, to include target launch from an old ammo storage site near Gallup NM. They've been shooting across NM already. Heck of a lot of open, unpopulated space there. Don't know if the citizens [and asshat anti-military folk and their judicial sympathizers] are going to be happy have missile intercepts and debris drops in their neighborhood of southern OK, northern TX. |
| Posted by: Elmaitch Unomort5930 2005-07-28 20:25 |
| #13 We were doing some of this back in 91-93 in the 101st. The artillery and airdefense was tasked at Corps level, along with engineers. The units were "assigned" as the mission dictated. For instance, a airfield defense would not get artillery, but maybe a company of stingers and some vulcans. A line unit would get some of each and a unit behind the lines would get mostly artillery support (along with CAS). This let units that are not using their support, like artillery to "loan" their assigned units to other units that were being overrun and were in range of the artillery, but could switch back at a moments notice. I don't know the details of how it worked, but from the grunt's point of view, it worked very well. We were never without anything, except hot food. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-07-28 17:26 |
| #12 From then Secty of the Army White re: the Apache raid on Saddamn's Medina division: think the conclusions are, if you fly over a known area of enemy concentration and you don't do anything from a combined arms perspective to prep that area, you're probably going to get your butt shot off. |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-07-28 14:01 |
| #11 Keep the names... . I can't help but keep thinking about that Apache Raid at the beginning of the war. Less than steallar has I recall. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-28 13:36 |
| #10 think the Light/Stryker/Heavy works well in maybe 85% of the cases. But how will the 82nd and 101st be labeled? As "Light?" I suppose the 101st could simply be Light that happens to have a lot of air transport assets to it. But the 82nd is unique. ummm.... I have an idea.... Hey Fred man! Is it time to break up jumping divisons? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-28 13:34 |
| #9 faster, please |
| Posted by: docob 2005-07-28 13:20 |
| #8 Regardless of whether this will make the military more efficient and better prepared for present and future challenges (I think it does, but I am far from a military expert), there IS one undeniable upside: the military brings home 50,000 troops from Germany and Korea |
| Posted by: docob 2005-07-28 13:19 |
| #7 The article does get it wrong in one respect: there will be airmobile brigades (101st Airmobile Division), and Airborne (82nd ABN Div and the Sky SOldiers of the 173rd), and of course the Rangers will retain the Regiment, and the Special Forces will retain their structure. So the article, intrying to simplify things for the general puyblic glosses over a LOT of detail that you and I could use to make sense of things. The primary unit of manuever remains the battalion, the primary unit of tactical execution remains the company. Those will likely never change. Cross attachment remains a normal practice, to form company "teams" or battalion "task force", so thhhis is mainly about making strategic commandable units a bit easier to handle and transport. As for the smaller size, most of the "new style" light brigades no longer have much organic MP, artillery or anti-aircraft support. ANd the stryker bridgaes have a littl less of it than the heavy brigades. This kind of unit (artillery, ADA) gets cross-attached per mission needs. I am unsure where that falls - at division, or up at corps. But you can bwe the heavy brigades hold a ton of the stuff. As an example, you dont need artillery in Iraq, you do need it in Korea or for China. Artillery units in Iraq are being turned into MP units. Their tubes are back in the US while their soldiers are getting on-the-job training in patrolling and counter-insurgency operations. So yelling about how this screws up artillery or other branches is irrelevant -- the combat we are in is already forcing the "destruction" of air defense, artillery and other units. This re-org simply codifies what has been goign on in Afghanistan and Iraq. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2005-07-28 12:41 |
| #6 A little more info here |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-07-28 12:11 |
| #5 I'm tied up today, but if y'all go read the various docs at the DOD transformation site you might get a better feel for what is in fact being done and why. Lots of threads combine to make these changes: mobility, unit rotation (i.e. a guy stays with his unit longer, family gets more stability), technologies such as Future Combat Systems and a whole lot more. Doctrinal changes, equipment (some of which has been field tested in Iraq and Afghanistan), BRAC reorg .... and figuring out how to have a single multi-service force that can take on current and future (perhaps totally new) missions that range from stability and sustainment ops (peacecreating/keeping) to that China problem. I don't know if it's the right move, but it certainly hasn't been done casually or without great thought about what and why. |
| Posted by: rkb 2005-07-28 11:59 |
| #4 I'd have to see more details before I know if I like this. Just before WWII, the Army had a big reorganization, introducing 2 concepts: one that worked, and one that didn't. The one that worked was Modularization. We made a "standard" infantry battalion, regiment, and division. Ditto for armor. If you commanded the 92nd division, you knew that it had exactly the same TOE as the 3rd division. (Many other countries, notably Germany, did not do this.) The one that didn't work was Pooling. A division was stripped down to the minimum components that it needed to perform all missions. All the support units were sent up to Corps or Army level, which then assigned them as needed to a unit to perform a given mission, then took them away again. This meant that the tanks and TD units, for example, didn't form a long-term relationship with their associated infantry. Instead, you got assigned a bunch of people you never had seen before and were expected to smoothly coordinate with them. Eventually, higher command would unofficially "marry" support units to divisions, allowing them to integrate into the command. OK, 65 years later. I think the Light/Stryker/Heavy works well in maybe 85% of the cases. But how will the 82nd and 101st be labeled? As "Light?" I suppose the 101st could simply be Light that happens to have a lot of air transport assets to it. But the 82nd is unique. Will the mountain brigades merely become Light? Or will they be Light, with special training? That means we no longer have 3 types of brigades, but 4 or 5. A generic Light will no longer be substitutable for a Light-with-mountain-training brigade. (Let alone a Bud Lite.) That can be worked out, though. My bigger problem is who gets artillery and engineers and other support units? Will each brigade get, say, one battery of artillery, one company of engineers, one company of AA (besides Stingers), one company of heavy AT (besides Javelins)? Or will we go back to the pooling days? I would like to follow up more. I am going to do some searching around to see how much is publicly available. If anyone else can find some detailed descriptions, please post in the comments or at least send an eMail to My address. |
| Posted by: Jackal 2005-07-28 11:42 |
| #3 The size of the brigades bothers me. They are about 1/2 the size of the cold war brigades. If they include engineering, recon, etc, then the line units are really small. This might work in a guerrilla war, but will be a disaster if we have to fight the Chinese. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2005-07-28 11:09 |
| #2 Looks like they'e reinventing the squre division. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-07-28 10:58 |
| #1 This is going to take some serious 'splainin. For example, are major non-organic units, such as Engineers, going to be reorganized into separate Brigades, or be broken up into Battallions attached to combat Brigades? Other CS and CSS branches can only operate with minimum sized units, so how will they be integrated? Either you have Brigades that are far less than organic, or you have the majority of a combat Brigade being non-combat support. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-07-28 10:21 |