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Old 11-10-2012, 07:35 AM
The Rifleman The Rifleman is offline
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Originally Posted by dragoon500ly View Post
GDWs approach also overlooked that the training divisions were exactly that, cadres to replace the existing instructors at the service schools with the mission of training draftees in the event of a war. So, taking a training division and converting it into a LID is simply gutting your training establishment, which would lead to problems with training the next batch of recruits. It was certainly not a well researched factoid.
Not so fast. First, look at the numbers. You've got 12 training divisions that were doing nothing but inital entry training (basic). Thats a lot of NCOs, and they were keeping the officer structure for it too. There were quite a few qualified captains and colonels that were doing all the administrative work and planning the logistics there. If you had 12 divisions, all active, all doing nothing but cranking out basic training recruits, you'd see a lot of opened reserve posts (which happened in the war on terror) like shelby, dix, attabury, so on. There are a lot more recruits coming then there are divisions to put them in.

Next, you have the historical context. During WWII, you have had systems where at the completion of basic, the trainees go off to war with the drill sergeants as their NCOs. That how the Marine Corps built up the 4th, 5th, 6th divisions. Even John Basilone declined to become an instructor, but still ended up training the soldiers he brought to Iwo Jima. The army did a similar tactic training for Vietnam. When the army needed to expand, the 4th took its soldiers before the even went to basic, and trained them right off with their own NCOs. Its important to note that the drill sergeants in these units come from different units then the instructors that teach the courses.

You've got to look at the strategic situation. There are school house units turning out basic trainees. Even every state from the National Guard has a "state military acadmey" or "regional training institute" that has instructors. What the army needs is more force structure. There just isn't enough manuver units without them. They are going to use that structure already in place to expand and put all those first sergeants, company commanders, majors and colonels to work.

Finally, you have the emergency situation with the invasion by mexico and soviet forces in washington state. Even the "school brigade" and the "cadet brigade" are formed. They are taking people right out of basic and sending them to war. Remove the LIDs and there is nothing to stop the invasions with.

As a side note to what started this thread, if the cold war had not ended and gone into our "alternate" T2K world, then the force structure would not have changed. I was a memember of the 26th ID in 1993 when it was closed, along with the 50th AD, and the units merged with the 42nd ID and the newly stood up 29th ID. If the cold war had not ended, the 50th AD and the 26th ID would not have been closed. The 46th ID that is stood up by the GDW staff is made up of historically 29th ID units.

The 46th Infantry division was only active a few years between wars in the 50s, and its units historically belonged to the 32nd ID out of Michigan. The army has a thing for history and would have stood up the 29th division from Virgina/Maryland for their own troops. The most simple way to correct this issue is to address the 46th ID as the 29th ID.
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