The US force structure

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RE:The US force structure 12/21/2003 10:15:17 AM

Hey Mike, The Us military is think so far out it is missing the present threat. It believes it can handle the present problem with present force structure. It does not want to spend billions on the Army knowing that they may have to close the posts after wards. It would take less than 25 billion to raise 20 light infantry Division in a year if they wanted to, and they know it. Sincerely, Keith

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Horsesoldier RE:The US force structure 1/31/2004 8:26:52 PM

>>The US says it doesn't need heavy divisions, then something will happen that will require them, like GW1-2 << When did the US say we didn't need heavy divisions? Rumsfeldian dreaming aside, the M1/M2 combo are slated to be in service until 2020, by which time who knows what warfare will look like.

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Horsesoldier RE:The US force structure 1/31/2004 8:27:28 PM

>>It would take less than 25 billion to raise 20 light infantry Division in a year if they wanted to, and they know it.<< Do they now?

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RE:The US force structure 2/1/2004 6:04:58 PM

Hey Horsesoldier, As many times as I have writen to the local congressman(Taylor 11th N.C. district) I should hope they know! Sincerely, Keith

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surprisemove RE:The US force structure 3/13/2004 5:20:04 AM

There is no way US DoD could RECRUIT 20 Light Divisions. Nor are they needed. The Napoleonic maxim of 'When the infanty is bad, field more artillery" still holds true. Not that the US infantry is bad, at least if the DoD will let soldiers serve more then 3 years in their units. The problem is that traditionally the US public handles casualties very badly, and casualties usually come from the infantry. Hence the US fields lots of artillery: conventional, armoured (called tanks), rotor equipped (called helicopter), wing equipped (called ground attack aircraft), high flying (called strategic bombers), and precision guided (called cruise missile). There are bigger artillery called strategic nuclear forces, but the US public is even more sensitive to these then to infantry losses...so they send in poor bloody infantry...hmmm...makes you think. Truth is, outside Europe, India and China, there are no challengers to the US force structure as it is now...so there is lots to stuff up by the politicans. Cheers

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Horsesoldier RE:The US force structure 3/13/2004 7:02:51 AM

>>The problem is that traditionally the US public handles casualties very badly, and casualties usually come from the infantry.<< No, the American public handles casualties just fine. Vietnam is usually trotted out as proof of this "American's can't stand to shed their blood" argument -- 58,000 dead Americans and a decade of war prove we don't have the stomach for a fight? There was an anti-war movement, of course, but did they ever succeed in dictating policy to the elected leaders of this country? Can they charitably be said to have represented the majority of Americans? The American political leadership, not the public, are sensitive to casualties -- a phenomenon most typical among leaders who have never served a moment in uniform. This sensitivity was carried to its logical, emasculated endpoint by William Jefferson Clinton. >>Hence the US fields lots of artillery: conventional, armoured (called tanks), rotor equipped (called helicopter), wing equipped (called ground attack aircraft), high flying (called strategic bombers), and precision guided (called cruise missile).<< Hmmm . . . no. Pure-infantry tactics in almost all environments were demonstrated to be non-viable about ninety years ago. The best infantry in the world is going to lose to a mediocre combined arms team that can out maneuver and out fight them.

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RE:The US force structure 3/13/2004 9:35:58 AM

Hey Folks, My requirement for 210,000 Lite infantry(lite security divisions(LSD)) is to cordon off a city or area after a terrorist use of NBCR weapon which if you say a contaminated area of 10km in radii you would require 12 BN which is 2 LID not counting a mobile reserve and relief troops which brings you to about 5 LID's. In short the need for additional divisions is not a combat requirement but a guard the spot requirement. Sincerely, Keith

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mike_golf RE:The US force structure 3/13/2004 10:42:26 AM

surprisemove wrote: "Hence the US fields lots of artillery: conventional, armoured (called tanks), rotor equipped (called helicopter), wing equipped (called ground attack aircraft), high flying (called strategic bombers), and precision guided (called cruise missile)." This is a fairly serious misunderstanding of the equipment being discussed and how it is doctrinally used. Tanks are not artillery, they are heavy cavalry. The purpose of a tank is not indirect fire, it is to manuever and defeat the enemy by shock effect. Now, if you look at the US plan in Iraq in 2003 you see them understanding this perfectly. 3ID was used as a cavalry force, they bypassed enemy static defenses and struck directly at the enemy's center of gravity, Baghdad. Helicopters are also not artillery. They are medium cavalry, and that is how the US uses them. Helicopter mounted infantry is analogous to mounted riflemen of the 19th century, and that is exactly how the US uses them also. Move the infantry to a strategic location, dismount and fight as infantry. Attack helicopters perform the medium cavalry mission, recon, screening, protect the flanks, deep strike. On the other hand, regardless of how the air force feels, I agree with you that CAS, strategic bombers and cruise missiles are just long range artillery.

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Polar RE:The US force structure/Terror Strike 3/25/2004 7:13:49 AM

Well, do you really think that such a strike is likely to happen? As I am informed correctly, use of fed troops in the homeland of USA is strictly VERBOTEN by your consitution/bill of rights. You could youse the national guard, but not the army. And spend 25 billion dollars a year for site conceilment? Use half for ACRs and Special Forces, half for Third World development funds and you don't have to seal off a nuked city.

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RE:The US force structure/Terror Strike 3/25/2004 10:18:13 AM

Hey Polar, the 20 billion is for initial training and new equipment after that the charge is about 2-3 billion yearly which is less than one precent of the US DOD budget yearly! Sincerely, Keith

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Carl D. RE:The US force structure-light security division 4/7/2004 9:36:53 PM

The use of light infantry for post WMD/Disaster recovery in the form as described by Keit as a light infantry/security division has some merit. By the nature of the mission envisioned for such an organization, besides the training for the infantry mission, the formation would need a higher level of NBC/HAZWOPER (Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response) training, EMS assets, engineers, urban search and rescue, military police, civil affairs, quartermaster and general combat support services. This combination of skill sets would also make such a unit very useful in constabulary/COIN operations. Attach an ACR, an independent aviation brigade, or some divisional artillery and armored transportation battalions with APC/IFVs and a tank battalion then with the theatre and mission appropriate support units, you have a very effective combat unit. As far as the restrictions to using federal troops in civilian situations, Posse Commitatus is satisfied if the force a) is state controlled National Guard, b) is Coast Guard controlled, c) is operating under a national state of emergency due to a declared state of insurrection or where the local authorities are determined to be unable to provide law and order. The current post-September 11th environments enhanced CONUS security focus imply that there is in fact a state of national emergency so use of federal military in a civilian post-WMD scenario I don?t think is really going to pose much of a problem with Posse Commitatus. The tasking for such a force almost demands that it be a reserve/national guard force. To have that many divisions sized formations CONUS based and primarily focused within CONUS as an active duty force, especially if there were a manpower issue as now exists with SWA and Afghanistan, there would be a hue and cry to deploy them, or parts of them right off. That being said, it must be understood that the size of the Army, and for that matter each of the other branches of the services, is based on authorizations and budgets reviewed and approved by Congress from input by the Executive Branch. Though I have seen some statements online that suggest that if the Army were to pull every person that is currently assigned to an administrative or logistics position stateside that could be done by either civil service or contractors and realigned the current commands to remove redundancy, they could free up another division of people. That is still a long way from 20 divisions worth of people. Since there is a probability that such a threat could involve more than one place, is 200,000 people a large enough force? A WMD/Disaster Recovery Force would need to be distributed nationally both by population density and degree of threat to a given metropolitan area, state or region. Between the need for such an asset to be rapidly deployable, the number of square miles to be covered and miles between possible areas of operation, is another rational to make this kind of unit from reserve or national guard units. Creating such a force in the traditional guise of the militia would allow for much more of rapid response to any emergencies without the overhead of larger bases as well as eliminating such bases as additional targets. So besides recruiting how else could such a force be developed? Consider, the 1792 and 1795 Militia Acts are still part of the Code of Federal Regulations. Under US law, the militia is defined as all able-bodied males between 18 and 45 years of age not currently in the active duty military, reserves or National Guard. This is the same system that the Finns, Israeli, Swedes and Swiss still use in one form or another. There is currently a bill in both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees sponsored by the Democrats on the committees called the Universal National Service Act of 2003. The bill provides for the universal conscription of all 18 year olds, both male and female, for two years of service in either the military, CONUS based security/safety or some yet to be defined alternative service. There would be no deferments and the bill also states that there would be no reserve requirement. This would mean, if implemented, that there would be an annual pool of about 4 million people with 8 to 10 million ?in service? at any given time. If this bill were amended to change the focus to more of a reserve force, I think that it might get some more traction. The latest changes that the Swiss have made to their force is to cut the obligation after training for an enlisted man to 260 days of duty or training from ages 20 to 30. After than any service would be based around civil defense duties. For a country of 7 million people, this allows for an on-call force of about 220,000 people, down from the 600,000 to 800,000 of the Cold War period where the age range was 20 to 45 in the armed forces and to 55 in the civil defense forces. There is also a portion of the annual intake of trainees that are allowed to fulfill their service obligation in one period of active duty along with the small group of professional full time service men. The idea behind these changes is to minimize the impact on the economy while freeing up funds for new equipment and technology. If the new Swiss program, Armee XXI, were implemented in the United States on top of the current professional volunteer force, you would have a pool of 40 million men and women or 20 million men available for emergency contingencies. In comparison, the old 1792 and 1795 Militia Acts, and the current legal definition of militia in the US means that there are about 50 million men who are part of the ?unorganized military reserve?. How likely is a return to some form of conscription in the US? If circumstances were only as they exist right now, there would be a large hue and cry with comparison ad nausium to Vietnam. If, on the other hand, an overt terrorist campaign were to start in CONUS, especially if it included mass casualty attacks over an extended period of time in a variety of metropolitan areas, then the possibility of some kind of conscription would become much more likely. Whether such a force?s primary focus was CONUS security and defense or had an ?expeditionary? component would be something that would need to be decided. One thing that becomes obvious from this kind of number exercise is that just from the standpoint of natural disaster recovery, such a large number of trained people would be a huge asset to any community and would likely save lives.

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RE:The US force structure-light security division 4/8/2004 12:41:55 PM

Hey Thanks Carl D., I would like to add that the Gen. Schoomaker change in brigade structure could reduce the number of LSD(LID) to ten with similar numbers of troops and a brigade per state, and I do not think getting 210,000 personel will require conscption of any kind. Sincerely, Keith

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surprisemove RE:Secret US armoured unit revealed 4/8/2004 10:11:08 PM

A Louisiana reporter revealed a secret US armoured unit now deployed to Iraq which suffered a casualty last week. link

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Carl D. RE:The US force structure-light security division 4/10/2004 3:09:05 AM

Keit, Your very likely correct in that recruiting 210,000 would not require conscritpion. I just thought that I'd bring up what's currently sitting on the shelf in the "Bill Mill". Considering the deployment rate of the active and reserve force now and what may be on the horizon, the old Cold War strength of 18 active divisions and whatever the number of ACRs from that time may well be the minimum needed. That would be about the additional 210,000 you suggest. For conscription to become politically acceptible today would require some real bad events stateside or elsewhere; nothing that anyone wants to see. The Swiss Armee XXI style system would at least minimize the impact on the public. Just my two cents. Carl D.

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RE:The US force structure-light security division 4/10/2004 8:01:45 PM

Hey Carl D., I think the US Army may need more divisions over the next ten years depending on the Iraq situation, but I believe that this force could come from the National Guard rather than the Regular force, but it requires the training of additional divisions and equiping them which would cost about $20 billion plus about 50 billion over ten years that it will take to put Iraq back togeather. Sincerely, Keith

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