US OOB forTwlight 2000

[dragoon500ly]

Don't know if this has been addressed before, but I thought it worth bringing up. Accordng to the American Vehicle Guide, several National Guard brigades were formed into divisions (yes, I'm picking on the 44th Armored Division).

According to the ROAD and Division 86 background, the independent armored, mech infantry and infantry brigades are assigned rear area security, corps reserve, and economy of force operations.

The whole point is that these brigades would have been assigned to various corps, not grouped into an ad-hoc division.

comments?

[Legbreaker]

Anything is possible. Plans don't usually last much longer than the time it takes for the ink to dry.
Just because something is intended to happen doesn't mean it actually does.

[dragoon500ly]

all to true, however, the independent brigades do have a purpose, which clumping them into a division negates. There is also a maxim that units that don't train together, don't fight well together. The Pesian Gulf Two had a division cavalry squadron that was downgraded to armored HMMWVs and was reinforced two weeks prior to the start with an armor company attachment. The AARs that I've seen have all pointed out that the tankers didn't work well with the cavalry scouts.

[Legbreaker]

While this is true, once the nukes flew it really wasn't going to matter. Warm bodies in uniform would be needed everywhere and what they were tasked for pre-nuke wouldn't be anywhere near as much of a consideration as simply flying the flag and showing some form of organisation to the panicked civilians.

Then when Mexico invades (supported by the Soviets) anyone able to hold a rifle will be needed, again regardless of pre-war planning. Who could have envisaged Mexico crossing the border? What General would have risked their careers during a large scale European/Asian war to even so much as propose leaving significant numbers of troops in the US "just in case"? History may have proved them right, but...

[Adm.Lee]

Were the "new" divisions formed before, or after, the nukes started? I could easily see the Army figuring they were heading into a full-on conventional war between late '96 and into '97, and taking the time to form a division HQ and support troops, then tying them together with existing NG brigades and reserve service units. If the brigades have trained together, then that's at least halfway to an effective division, and there should have been attempts to have the divisions train together before heading across the Atlantic.

According to USAVG, the 44th had 2 months+ between formation and deployment. I'd bet the brigades had been federalized and had some refresher training before then, and more time for training together before shipping out.

Anyway, as far as rear-area jobs for independent units, I'm sure that SACEUR worked out that the Germans were going to handle most rear-area jobs, and he needed heavy divisions up front more than armor in the rear.

[Matt Wiser]

The NG was federalized in Fall '96, so when the decision is taken to form the new divisions, their components are already on active duty. SACEUR needs more divisions at the front lines than he needs rear-area security (which the Germans and Dutch are providing). Remember that in wartime, no plan survives first contact, so when it was becoming obvious that new divisions were needed, fast, the decision was made to form them out of existing ARNG brigades.

[dragoon500ly]

The independent brigades were always intended for economy of force operations or to be used to reinforce a division for a specific task. They were to be treated as corps-level assets, the same way that the field artillery brigades were, that something extra that a corps commander could through in...

In the 1985-1990 timeframe, the Army deployed one infantry brigade (Berlin), one understrength infantry brigade (Panama), one infantry brigade in Alaska (this was being used to form up the 6th Infantry Division), a air cavalry combat brigade (Ft Hood, Texas), one armored brigade (Ft Knox, Kentucky), one mechanized infantry brigade (Ft Benning Georgia). For the Regular Army thats 6 independent Brigades supporting 12 active Divisions.

For the National Guard, the picture is 9 infantry brigades (2 are roundout), 6 mechanized infantry brigades (3 are roundout), and 3 armored brigades (1 roundout). A total of 12 brigades (6 more are roundout), supporting 10 reserve Divisions.

The Army Reserve deployed 1 mechanized and 2 infantry brigades.

While a independent brigade can be used to form a division, the process still took two years before the 6th Infantry was up and running and one of its brigades was still a National Guard roundout brigade, ditto with the 10th Mountain Division.

Forming up brigades into ad-hoc divisions, doubtful that it could be done within canon timeline. It would be more likely that as the various brigades were federalized, that they would be shipped to Korea, Persian Gulf, Germany and Canada and used in their doctrine roles until losses had mounted to such an extreme that the brigades would be either broken up as replacements, or plugged into existing divisions, allowing the division to "mothball" a brigade and reinforce the remaining brigades.

[Legbreaker]

I think you'd be amazed at how fast things can move when there's nukes flying about....

[Webstral]

Any old group of troops can be thrown together and called a division. A combat-capable division is specialized creature. Like any living thing, a division requires the availability of certain nutrients. A division headquarters contains certain specialists without whom the operations of the division are negatively affected entirely out of proportion to the numbers of the specialists. In WW2, it took the US Army a year to build a new division from scratch, while the component regiments required a fraction of that time.

That much being said, I agree with Leg that niceties of TO&E go out the window once the mushroom clouds start forming. A two-star or senior one-star gets put in charge and is handed an inadequate bag of C3I troops with the instructions to make the godamned best of it. Perhaps some of the corps-level C3I folks are reassigned to the new division. In any event, we are talking about a world war leading to a nuclear war. Despite the tendency of peacetime militaries to demand that circumstances adapt to military bureaucracy, once the balloon goes up reality intervenes quickly.

There is another good reason not to have a basket of separate combat brigades reporting directly to a corps headquarters. Commanders can only juggle so many balls effectively. Napoleon's armies enjoyed many of their early triumphs because he instituted the division level of command; he had subordinate commanders controlling brigade-sized units instead of managing them all himself or creating a number of ad hoc and differently sized commands. The same rules apply today.

Webstral

[dragoon500ly]

All valid arguments; I'm just pointing out that the US Army of the 1980s/90s had a plan to use divisions and brigades for specific purposes. I don't believe that divisions would have been formed from the independent brigades. Too many were tasked with specific missions, reinforcement of Korea, deployment to Alaska in case of invasion, at least two of the National Guard brigades had defensive missions in case of war with Mexico. And so on.

Simply plugging three Natonal Guard brigades from as many different states, calling it a armored division and then tossing it into the hell of Central Europe in the middle of WWIII, is, in my own opinion, just asking for a diaster.

[Legbreaker]

...tossing it into the hell of Central Europe in the middle of WWIII, is, in my own opinion, just asking for a disaster.

Which is exactly what the world was dealing with at the time.

[Rainbow Six]

Whilst I realise that it was impossible to cover every unit, I always found it a bit odd that the US Army Vehicle Guide overlooked the 177th Armoured Brigade.

[HorseSoldier]

The whole point is that these brigades would have been assigned to various corps, not grouped into an ad-hoc division.

comments?

Honestly, I suspect it was purely an administrative decision on GDW's part to reduce the work load and length of USAVG. It makes for kind of a dogs breakfast -- besides the SIBs and SABs intended for action as independent units, they also misdirected some round out brigades (10th Mtn/27th Inf Bde) and ignored some wartime missions entirely (one of the USAR combat brigades was supposed to garrison Iceland).

Though it could be worse -- they omitted the entire Bundeswehr reserve component . . .

(Entertaining bit of trivia -- way back when I first enlisted on the reserve side of things, I was assigned to the unit that USAVG identifies as being reflagged during the war as E/44th Cavalry Squadron (Composite). So USAVG depicts one of "our" LAV-25s -- I always thought the Confederate battle flag was likely, and spent more time than was appropriate speculating on which TC would have earned the "Rusty Butt" nickname . . .).

[Rainbow Six]

Though it could be worse -- they omitted the entire Bundeswehr reserve component . . .

Not just the Bundeswehr, they also missed out the entire British Territorial Army as well. I appreciate there is much, much more information available today than there was then but the British Army orbat they did publish has quite a few inaccuracies in it.

[dragoon500ly]

That's the part about GDW that I was always disappointed in. I've always felt that the RPG side of the house did not benefit as much as the wargaming side did insofar as the background research.

Which just means that crusing the links and seeing what my fellow gamers come up with is so intresting!

[Legbreaker]

Well it is a game that was written by US citizens and aimed at a mainly US market. Other countries probably weren't all that much of a priority during development.
It's a bit annoying now, 25 or so years later, but back then that was more than enough material to run a damn fine game.

[Adm.Lee]

Though it could be worse -- they omitted the entire Bundeswehr reserve component . . .

Given that one of their other products was the excellent Third World War series of boardgames, I found this odd, too. But, TWW also ignored the Bundeswehr reserve units, while Victory Games' NATO did not.

[dragoon500ly]

What amuses me is that, at the time, you could get a lot of information on the NATO reserve system fairly cheaply. I own a copy of NATO Armies of the Central Front and its a highly detailed look at all of the NATO countries except for Greece, Turkey, Italy and Norway. Not as detailed as I would like for the TO&Es, but still an excellent source book for the division/brigade level.

My troop commander happened to see me reading this one night on CQ and pointed out something that I found intresting, He had served as an assistant Military Attache in Moscow and he stated that the best collection of NATO information he had ever seen could be found at local bookstores, highly detailed right down to battalion-level TO&Es. However, any info on the Russian military was as almost impossible to find.