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2023-07-18 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Army Shift from Brigades Back to Divisions Raises Concerns Among Retired Generals

[MIL.com] Change is afoot in the Army: Divisions are returning to prominence.

From recent reporting to rumors and offhand comments made during briefings, an image is beginning to emerge of the Army of the future. Bursting with enablers and officers, full general staffs, additional brigade and battalion headquarters with more staff, and funding, the divisional headquarters may soon replace brigade headquarters as a unit's heart.

That would mark a big change from the past 20 years. During much of the Global War on Terror, or GWOT, the action downrange in combat and at home in garrison was at the brigade combat team, or BCT, level. For the overwhelming majority of veterans in Iraq and Afghanistan, "division" was a combat patch, a notional way of organizing brigades.

Posted by Besoeker 2023-07-18 04:06|| || Front Page|| [16 views ] Top

#1 “We trained hard—but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we were reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing, and what a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while actually producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
― Petronius Arbiter

Posted by Besoeker 2023-07-18 04:09|| 2023-07-18 04:09|| Front Page Top

#2 Rubbish. Those same retired generals if they were still on active duty would be going right along with this like a bunch of Col Klinks. "Ahh, yes, sir/ma'am.". "Ahh, y-yes, sir/ma'am.". "My thoughts exactly, sir/ma'am."

Posted by DooDahMan 2023-07-18 05:46|| 2023-07-18 05:46|| Front Page Top

#3 ...One of the first rules of the military: if you can't fix the things that truly need fixing, fix something that doesn't really matter.

Mike

Posted by MikeKozlowski 2023-07-18 06:59|| 2023-07-18 06:59|| Front Page Top

#4 Interesting that the basic independent maneuver unit at the end of the Gulf war mimics the same form of the RCT at the end of WW2.

Posted by Procopius2k 2023-07-18 07:28|| 2023-07-18 07:28|| Front Page Top

#5 Just a note for those who haven't been paying attention. It's a bean counters. If you have BCT/RCTs you need full support personnel for each. If you have a division of three maneuver brigades, the support ratio will cut back to 2/3rds of what you need in support personnel. In other words, instead of having a mechanic for each of those brigades which would be a total of 3 for three independent brigades, the division will only get 2 instead to support their three brigades.

Posted by Procopius2k 2023-07-18 07:34|| 2023-07-18 07:34|| Front Page Top

#6 New "leadership" structures must have new and innovative ideas. If not new and innovative, then simply different than.... the last guy.

The doctrine and OER bullets will never say "prudently returned to a former" tactic and method. It will say "General Tentpeg brought about innovation and change."

Posted by Besoeker 2023-07-18 07:58|| 2023-07-18 07:58|| Front Page Top

#7 I suggest we remain an army base after George McClellan as kind of the Maraschino cherry on this ice cream Sunday of stupid.

Posted by Super Hose 2023-07-18 08:48|| 2023-07-18 08:48|| Front Page Top

#8 Big Army is kind of late to the reawakening that the Global War on Terror, which drove force structure changes for multiple theater units facing highly mobile, lethal but rarely static, less-than peer combatants has been replaced with the need to fight China. The dreaded land-war in Asia looms as a greater risk and, at the rate we are wrecking our Class V stores, USN and military ethos/culture, domestic military employment against foreign and invading land forces seem to now be more than mere hypotheticals. Beyond my wildest imaginings of even ten years ago....

Posted by NoMoreBS 2023-07-18 12:31|| 2023-07-18 12:31|| Front Page Top

#9 I look forward to the deployment of Assault Brigade El Salvador.

Posted by Rex Mundi 2023-07-18 18:30|| 2023-07-18 18:30|| Front Page Top

07:28 Besoeker
07:17 Bobby
06:46 Airandee
06:35 Grom the reflective
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06:08 NN2N1
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06:03 Frank G
05:58 MikeKozlowski
05:48 Anon1
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04:34 Grom the reflective
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04:27 Whiskey Mike
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