Hey Folks,

The US Army National Guard should reorganize it forces and reduce the number of combat division to 5 and the number of combat brigade to 25 with each brigade consisting of special reinforced bn 3. This would allow the three cav squadrons/bn to replace the infantry force in each brigade. This would be ideal for emergency responce to natural emergencies such as hurricans, though it would remove the M1 tank from the Guard inventory.

Sincerely

Keith

Keith,

The Army National Guard have two missions, a Federal Mission and a State Mission. 

 

The Federal Mission: 

"To maintain properly trained and equipped units, available for prompt mobilization for war, national emergency, or as otherwise needed."

 

The State Mission:

"Provide trained and disciplined forces for domestic emergencies or as otherwise required by state law"

 

I personally believe the first part of the Federal Mission is THE most important, nothing should be done which in any way detracts from the combat capabilities of the Guard.

Soldier skill as high as you can and then simulate the unit exercises if you can't foeld train as muck as yopu'd like.

 

Use any excuse [natural disaster] to LOGex

 

TRAIN those  staffs via computer supported simulation constantly and give them the NTC experience with a rotation at least ONCE every year where they can partner with an active staff and co-work wuith an active dutry unit in the training rotation.

 

The problem is not that we train too little.We don't train enough.

 

And get theArmy a better rifle and machine gun while you are at it.

 

Herald

Soldier skill as high as you can and then simulate the unit exercises if you can't field train as much as you'd like.

 

Use any excuse [natural disaster] to LOGex

 

TRAIN those  staffs via computer supported simulation constantly and give them the NTC experience with a rotation at least ONCE every year where they can partner with an active staff and co-work with an active duty unit in the training rotation.

 

The problem is not that we train too little. We don't train enough.

 

And get the Army a better rifle and machine gun while you are at it.

 

Herald

You are correct that most Army National Guard brigades--even the enhanced brigades--are not able to maintain the level of skill that active army units maintain. Nevertheless they are a lot more skilled than a bunch of conscripts pulled off of the street and rushed through training. If crap really hits the fan and we need more forces than the active duty Army can provide it is a heck of a lot better to have poorly trained Guard to call up and run through refresher training to bring them up to speed than to have to conscript civilians and make soldiers out of them.

 

Abandoning the Guard system as we know it would be to also abandon our entire concept of global projection of force. It is absolutely vital to this mission that Guard units be equipped to a similar standard as active duty units. In fact a HIGHER proportion of Guard units are heavy units than in the active duty Army, and those units that are light in the Guard are generally Enhanced Brigades which have higher training budgets. (These light Guard units are among the most commonly deployed guard units to boot. Oregon has such a light infantry unit and it was deployed to Kosovo more than once) This is because high standards for training are much more vital to the survival of a light unit, and the key feature of light units is their deployability, which is low for Guard units anyway so it doesn't make sense to equip Guard units for light missions in general. On the other hand, large numbers of heavy units are critical to fighting a high intensity war. That is what the Guard is for. While disaster recovery and national security are important roles there are cheaper ways to address this than the Guard system.

 

Despite whatever you may think of the US National Guard system, it is widely considered to be a superb system in the international community and would be much more widely immitated if it were not for the relatively high cost of maintaining it. In addition Guard units can have some advantages over active Army units because unlike active duty troops who are constantly rotated, personnel in National Guard units often stay together for a long time and can develop strong unit cohesion. They will definitely have stronger unit cohesion than a bunch of constcripts. Also it should be noted that while increasingly advanced weapon systems such as Paladin and networked forces are best used by fully trained troops, they also help mitigate the performance penalties incurred due to lesser training. When the 81st Brigades 2/146 FA fielded the Paladin it dramatically improved the units performance. I'm sure we weren't as sharp as an active duty Paladin unit but is was dramatically better than it had been when using M109A5s

Hey Folkas,

 

I was thinking of reorganizing the Guard so each state has its on reinforced bn this require 25 brigades and I needed to reduce the number of division and increase the number of brigade in division to 5. there would still be about 100,000 cav troops which I figured would be better than a bunch of infantry thus the force would have 25 bn of M-3 bradley that would join active duty light infantry to porvide combat fire support. this of course depends on what we have available as far as equipment

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith

What's wrong with the FN MAG / M240?
 

I want BETTER.

Herald

link

well folks,

 

what do you think of a force of 25 brigade with two LCBA ( armored Humvee/MRAP) and one HCBA (M-3). the LCBA would go one to a state and the HCBA would be assigned across state lines or in bigger states. The LCBA would have an infantry company and a air cav unit for security and surveillance and search and rescue.

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith

The guard system is constitutionaly mandated and serves a very important role.  The positive reasons for maintaining the status quo have already been mentioned.

The guard is the army theres one name tag and it says U.S. ARMY dont join the guard if you dont want to be in the army.but theres always the salvation army or civil defense. thats more your speed if you dont want tanks in your unit.