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Put 600,000 people in one big group and nothing could possibly get done. Break them into small, easily-led groups and you can change the world.
This is our lesson for today.
Note: I will use infantry-formation numbers when quoting troop strengths. Some of the armor guys will look at these numbers and think, "hey! I only had sixteen people in my platoon!" Indeed you did, but if I say "an infantry platoon has fifty men, armor has sixteen, interrogation platoons are twelve people, the mess hall platoon has 25..." you'll be here forever reading this for no good reason.
The basic unit is the SOLDIER. A soldier can't do much alone, so we have to go to the next step...
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Soldiers are combined into SQUADS. An infantry squad consists of eleven men: two fire teams, which are a pair of two-man buddy teams with a sergeant as fire team leader, plus a staff sergeant as squad leader.
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Squads combine to form PLATOONS. You'll have four squads, plus a platoon leader (this is the typical first job for a new lieutenant), platoon sergeant (a sergeant first class), radio operator, medic and machine gun crew. Total strength, fifty men. All these people are Military Occupational Specialty 11B, Infantryman, or 11A, Infantry Officer. These days, the medic is almost invariably a Combat Lifesaver, who is a troop they sent to learn how to do basic trauma medicine. They do a good job at a much cheaper rate than sending someone to Fort Sam Houston for fourteen weeks.
Note: artillery calls its platoons "sections" and its platoon sergeants "section chiefs."
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There are five platoons in a COMPANY. This is typically three 11B platoons, a mortar platoon, and a headquarters platoon containing the arms room, supply room, orderly room (company clerk and training NCO), all led by a company commander (a captain), executive officer (a lieutenant) and first sergeant. Some companies have mechanics too. Total strength about 250. This is a "line company."
Note: there are two alternate names for the company. Artillery calls their companies "batteries" because their guns batter the enemy. Cavalry calls their companies "troops" because They Are Cavalry and Cavalry Is Different. (Cavalry officers still wear Stetsons--cowboy hats--with their dress uniforms. The crazy-ass cav colonel with the Stetson in Apocalypse Now was not out of uniform.)
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Five companies join to become a BATTALION. Headquarters and Headquarters Company includes the battalion staff, dining facility and motor pool. Add to that three line companies and one weapons company--also known as an antitank company. All this is commanded by a lieutenant colonel assisted by a major. Total strength: 1250.
Note: once again, cav is different: they say squadron instead of battalion.
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Three battalions are a BRIGADE. It is commanded by a colonel. These differ according to the kind of division you're in. A light division (anything but mechanized infantry and armored) has brigades comprised only of infantry. Heavy divisions use a two-and-one pattern: armored divisions have two tank battalions and one infantry, while infantry divisions have two infantry and one tank. They also have a large staff--especially in logistics. Division issues materiel to the brigades who issue to battalions. Total strength: maybe 4000.
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Let me throw one at you: the REGIMENT. If you're not in the cavalry, this is a ceremonial designation. (A cavalry regiment is what everyone else calls a brigade.) A soldier affiliates with a regiment and supposedly stays in it for life. He can also pick a regiment to affiliate with different from the one he serves in. Maybe his dad and the rest of his family were in the 327th Airborne Infantry Regiment, but the soldier is in the 187th Infantry Regiment. He can choose to affiliate with the 327th. (This isn't unheard of, although his battalion commander will probably try to talk some sense into him: the 187th has a history just as proud as the 327th.) Or maybe the guy is a liberal and knows the 20th Infantry Regiment's best-known action is the My Lai Massacre. Most support units are formed into corps, not regiments--there is a Military Intelligence Corps, for instance. When we became the MI Corps, we were told that16,000 MI soldiers weren't enough to form a regiment--strange indeed, since there are very few infantry regiments with that many troops in them. But it's their army.
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Three maneuver (infantry or armor) brigades form a DIVISION. There are ten divisions. Add to the three maneuver brigades an artillery brigade, aviation brigade, division support command, "bastard brigade" containing the military intelligence, signal, engineer and air defense artillery elements (it's called the bastard brigade for two reasons--there's no brigade commander, and the four battalions in it couldn't be more different), Air Force weather element and division staff. The staff has one more office--G-5, Civil Affairs. This is commanded by a major general. He has two brigadier generals to assist him, the Assistant Division Commander for Operations (who is in charge of the maneuver brigades, the artillery and the aviation) and the Assistant Division Commander for Support (who's in charge of everyone else). He also has a colonel as Deputy Commander.
The division commander normally wears two hats: division commander and post commander. If there's a lieutenant general on the installation, that general is post commander. He is assisted in this role by the garrison commander, who is a colonel.
There are six kinds of divisions. Strength depends on the division's type. A division is named for its major element at the formation of the unit--the 1st Cavalry Division was once a horse cav formation. In Vietnam they became an airmobile division and now they're an armored division, but they still wear the famous 1st Cav patch bearing the horse that's never been ridden, the line that's never been crossed and the yellow that speaks for itself. This explains why the 101st Airborne is still the 101st Airborne and not the 101st Air Assault.
The smallest division is the light infantry division--10,600 soldiers with two maneuver brigades instead of three.
Next is the Airborne Division at 14,000 paratroopers. They get away with it by foregoing equipment that can't be airdropped.
The Infantry Division has about 18,000 troops. A pure Infantry Division walks into battle; this formation is either nearly or completely obsolete.
The Mechanized Infantry Division has 22,000 soldiers and uses tracked vehicles. Most of the added troops are mechanics.
The Air Assault Division also has 22,000 soldiers, and aviation is the reason why.
Armored Divisions are as large as Mechanized Infantry divisions. Once again, mechanics are the padding.
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Three divisions make up a CORPS. Supposedly. XVIII Airborne Corps has four, V Corps had two, III Corps has three. A Corps owns the equipment that is too big, expensive or scarce to issue to a division. A Corps has Multiple Launch Rocket Systems. The logistical tail for that system is very long, and a division artillery commander wouldn't want to have to deal with it. Corps Artillery has a whole staff dedicated to MLRS. Strength of the corps depends on which one it is.
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Let's talk MAJOR COMMANDS. There are two kinds--area and functional. An example of an Area Command is US Army Europe. All of the soldiers in Europe who don't belong to another major command are under USAREUR. Functional commands, with one huge exception, are support commands. Example: the Army has buyers and they all belong to US Army Acquisition Command. No two major commands are the same size.
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What ARMY are you in? Most soldiers couldn't tell you--this is an area command with the exception of 8th Army. (There will be a whole block of instruction on the curious situation in Korea.) Unless a war breaks out in an army's area of responsibility, they have nothing to do. Which may explain why an Army headquarters in peacetime is about the size of your house.
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Past this, there is Department of the Army. It's purely administrative.
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