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| Home Front: Tech |
| New American Combat Brigades |
| 2005-09-09 |
| September 9, 2005: Despite the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army is going through a major reorganization, and moving a number of units around. The new organization makes the brigades, not the divisions, the primary combat unit. The new brigades have more support units, and can be sent off to fight by themselves. In the past, doing this involved quickly adding a lot of support units to the brigade. But the new organization makes small support units part of the brigades, and, more importantly, the brigades train using these support units and learns to work well with them. The divisions still exist, but operate more like the corps has for the last two centuries (coordinating the actions of a few divisions and only having a few support units under its command.) Divisions now have four of the new brigades, but can control more (or less) in action. Each of the new brigades (or BCTs, for Brigade Combat Teams) has 3,500-4,000 troops (depending on type). There are three types of BCTs; light (infantry, including paratroopers), heavy (mechanized, including tanks) and Stryker (mechanized using wheeled armored vehicles.) During this reorganization, which will be completed next year, the army will end up with 43 combat brigades, instead of the current 33. This is done by reorganizing the combat units of each division into four brigades, instead of the current three. There are several independent brigades as well. New weapons and equipment (especially satellite based communications and battlefield Internet software) enable the army to get the same amount of combat power brigade, using fewer combat troops. The army is also transferring over 40,000 people from combat-support jobs to the combat brigades. The actual number of infantrymen and tanks won’t change, but the number of communications, maintenance and intelligence support will. For example, increased use of robots, sensors and computerized vidcam surveillance systems makes it possible to do the same amount of work in combat, with fewer troops. A lot of these new ideas, and equipment, is being tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most of these items work well in combat. The new BCTs will be stationed in these bases: Fort Benning, Ga.—1 BCT Fort Bliss, Texas—4 BCTs Fort Bragg, N.C.—4 BCTs Fort Campbell, Ky.—4 BCTs Fort Carson, Colo.—4 BCTs Fort Drum, N.Y.—3 BCTs Fort Hood, Texas—5 BCTs Fort Knox, Ky.—1 BCT Fort Lewis, Wash.—3 Stryker BCTs Fort Polk, La.—1 BCT Fort Richardson, Alaska—1 BCT Fort Riley, Kan.—3 BCTs Fort Stewart, Ga.—3 BCTs Fort Wainwright, Alaska—1 Stryker BCT Schofield Barracks, Hawaii—1 BCT, 1 Stryker BCT Fort Irwin (National Training Center), Calif.—1 BCT (minus some units) Korea—1 BCT Germany—1 Stryker BCT Italy—1 BCT As part of the reorganization, some 60,000 troops will be brought home from overseas bases (mainly in Europe, but also in South Korea,) The new brigades are designed, and trained, to quickly move overseas to a new hotspot. For that purpose, equipment for one or more BCTs is stored in potential hotspots (Kuwait, the Pacific, on ships). With these prepositioned equipment sets, all you have to do is fly in the troops, and then you have a BCT ready to go, all in a few days. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #6 Ah, but that's a different style of conflict. If an enemy has such air superiority, or can willfully drop a missile on your pre-positioned equipment, then sending a combat brigade forward is moot anyway. There will be combat brigades, no doubt, that *do* take their own equipment along, just for such an eventuality, such as airborne brigades. Remember that pre-positioning should not be seen as vital, it should be seen as a convenience. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-09-09 16:35 |
| #5 I recall the Soviets were going to use persistent nerve agents. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-09-09 14:39 |
| #4 an enemy destroying pre-positioned equiptment would be an air force general's dream - bomb's away from altitude |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-09-09 12:49 |
| #3 Destruction isn't as easy as all that. The US is quite good, as these things go, in storing materiel so as to minimize destruction by fire or explosion. (Even a properly arranged company motor pool has five or six different safety points for storing apart things like compressed gasses, paints, oils and greases, etc.) Vehicles are not fueled and are motor parked, so how do you destroy a bunch of big piles of steel? Munitions are stored in seperate bunkers and away from weapons. POL is the easiest to destroy, but it is expended so quickly that it is never taken for granted under any event. (Note: it is almost comic to ask for directions at a POL storage point during a high alert. They get downright testy.) Within a storage area are lots of internal fences, which could slow down a saboteur a LOT. And these places also have armed security personnel who are quick with a radio to call for back-up. Pre-positioning has been around for a while. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-09-09 12:25 |
| #2 The pre-positioned supplies could be destroyed, sure. Then the US would be forced to divert the troops coming in to another location until replacements could be found. I can't imagine anyone would send the troops into a fight if the equipment wasn't there. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2005-09-09 11:01 |
| #1 I've always wondered if it would be possible for an enemy to destroy the pre-positioned equipment in a theatre, thus diminishing the combat power of the US forces that were supposed to use the equipment on arrival in-theatre. Wouldn't the troops have to hold out with what they brought along until a new equipment set arrived? Imagine, for example, North Korean special forces destroying the equipment set for a BCT that is designated to arrive in South Korea just after an invasion. |
| Posted by: Jonathan 2005-09-09 10:25 |