Troop List

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

Yeah well WWII the US had planned on some 187 Divisions, but ended up with half of that since so many troops were needed for support roles.

A lot of that was Army Ground Forces desire to have the smallest, most combat effective division. Then grouping the extra units at Army/Corps level...too bad they didn't realize that once the ole fhit hit the san that the divisions would latch onto as many extra combat elements as they could get their greedy hands on. 1st Infantry Division, at one time had two tank bns, two tank destroyer bns, a cavalry sqn, three antiaircraft bns, two field artillery bns and a combat command from an armored division....maybe the stories about the Army consisting of the Big Red One and a million replacements were true!

S&T magazine, back in the SPI days, did a study and figured out that if the "extra" combat elements had been converted into divisions, that at least another 42 divisions could have been fielded. One thing was for sure....a lot of waste and duplicated effort went into fielding the WWII army.

[Abbott Shaull]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

A lot of that was Army Ground Forces desire to have the smallest, most combat effective division. Then grouping the extra units at Army/Corps level...too bad they didn't realize that once the ole fhit hit the san that the divisions would latch onto as many extra combat elements as they could get their greedy hands on. 1st Infantry Division, at one time had two tank bns, two tank destroyer bns, a cavalry sqn, three antiaircraft bns, two field artillery bns and a combat command from an armored division....maybe the stories about the Army consisting of the Big Red One and a million replacements were true!

S&T magazine, back in the SPI days, did a study and figured out that if the "extra" combat elements had been converted into divisions, that at least another 42 divisions could have been fielded. One thing was for sure....a lot of waste and duplicated effort went into fielding the WWII army.

I don't think any Division actually went into with just their authorize strength. Even when they units detached to others and if they were on the line, they had other units attached to replace them...

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by Abbott Shaull

I don't think any Division actually went into with just their authorize strength. Even when they units detached to others and if they were on the line, they had other units attached to replace them...

Actually, when the divisions didn't have their support elements, the "regular" divisions had been so stripped of any excess that when committed by themselves, the losses outstripped the ability of the division to replace. An example would be the 106th Infantry Division....only attachments it had was a towed tank destroyer battalion, and part of a antiaircraft battalion...and of course, it didn't help that they were grass green!

And then there was the practise by the veteran divisions of laying their hands on anything resembling an automatic weapon. The 2nd Infantry Division had an average of two BARs per squad, and there were some squads that had as many as 4 BARs and a bazooka, well above normal TO&E!! Not to mention helping themselves to German field phones, they were able to wire in every unit, right down to squad level...when the 106th took over the positions, they didn't have the sweet stuff...and it cost them dearly.