Quote:
Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
When RDF was formed; they basically took the XVIII Airborne Corps, moved 6th Air Cav Combat Brigade over and added 1st Marine Division and 7th Marine Amphibious Brigade. The only "heavy" division was still the 24th MID.
The problem with RDF is that it was "rapidly deployable" but it had the offensive capability of the the New Orleans Saints at that time, in other words, NONE. As Desert Storm proved, the US was sweating bullets that Saddam would not decide to push into Saudi Arabia before 24th MID arrived and the only hope of ejecting the Iraqis out of Kuwait was to move VII Corps from Europe and bring it to the Persian Gulf. And until the "heavies" showed up, Saudi Arabia depended on Allied airpower and the infantry of 82nd/101st...
This is why there was such a push to deploy Stryker. I'm not defending the weapon system, but the concept is sound. The US needed a better means of ground power projection than foot infantry. But Stryker should have been used to replace the Light Infantry Divisions instead of gutting the heavy divisions.
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Yes depending on whose reports you look at, many of the division based in the US without forward deployed Brigade had round-out brigade while other places would lead one to believe that they may be a complete division sets. The only two exceptions were the 82nd and 101st even they had issues at time with troop strengths.
Little after this the 10th Mountain with two Brigade was raise too. The 2nd Brigade of it still was parked at Fort Benning getting certified and waiting for facilities at Fort Drum to be completed as late 1988. It was another Division that had round-out unit.
At the time the 9th Infantry Division was suppose to test various piece of equipment to provide something that had more bite than the Light/Airborne/Air Assault units provided, but not require the heavy lift that was needed to move an Mechanized/Armor Division.
Yeah 1991 only reminded the Brass why the 9th has wasted so much of the 80s looking at Combine Arms that gave the RDF plan something with teeth.
As for the 24th Mechanized Division, yeah they were technically part of the XVIII Corps, but it wouldn't take much to strip it of personnel to reinforce III Corps various divisions. Much like the remains of the 9th had done to them as they were being drawn downed for deactivation as well as the 6th and 7th Light Infantry Divisions were begin deactivated too.