Massive Cuts to Army Force Structure

Marauder06

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10+ brigades gone. And this may be just the start.

http://www.stripes.com/army-cutting-combat-brigades-at-10-us-bases-1.227473#.Ucm1UtyyUFU.twitter

WASHINGTON — The Army on Tuesday announced major force structure cuts that will drop the number of brigade combat teams from 45 to 33, saying further shrinkage of the federal defense budget would require even deeper cuts and further lessen the Army’s combat power.

The Army previously announced it would reduce its end-strength from its current level of 541,000 to 490,000 soldiers by 2017 under the $487 billion of spending reductions mandated by the 2011 Budget Control Act, but until Tuesday had only announced it was cutting two brigades in Europe.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said Tuesday that another 12 BCTs would be inactivated. Meanwhile, the number of maneuver battalions per brigade would be increased from two to three, and each brigade would be assigned more engineers.

The Army said 10 combat-ready brigades would be cut from 10 Army installations: Fort Bliss, Texas; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Campbell, Ky.; Fort Carson, Colo.; Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort Hood, Texas; Fort Knox, Ky.; Fort Riley, Kan.; Fort Stewart, Ga.; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash. Another two BCTs used for soldier training will also be cut, officials said.

The Army was working early Tuesday to notify Congress of the planned cuts, an Army official told Stars and Stripes.

The Army has 45 brigade combat teams. Officials have been reorganizing the Army into fewer brigades in order to concentrate more infantry units in each brigade. A brigade has roughly 3,500 people.

Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, said last year that the Army could shrink from the current 45 combat to 33 if plans that called for increasing maneuver battalions from two to three and increasing brigades’ engineer headcounts were put into action.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the BCT cuts, on Tuesday quoted a defense official as saying the brigade cuts were made after “a deliberate review,” but the scope of the reductions show how much budget cuts are hurting the Pentagon and military readiness.

The cuts to be announced this week are likely the first round for the Army. They don’t take into consideration the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, which are set to reduce military spending by an additional $500 billion by 2022.

Officials said if the sequester remains in place or isn’t modified by Congress, the Army will need to consider further, deeper cuts to its force structure that could reduce the number of soldiers to well below 490,000.

Following the announcement, Odierno will visit some of the Army bases hardest hit by the cuts, officials said.
 
- How many of these are the 4th BCT added to each division due to Iraq?
- Only two INF BN's per BDE was the norm?
-When did that change and
- That brings it back to what it used to be: 3 manuever elements.
- Adding additional engineers? I guess RCT's and IED's have influenced our thinking. I hope we aren't fighting the last war with these changes....we're pretty good about that.
- It sounds like (my impression is), given the addition of 11 and 12 series to a BCT, that the support slices will take the largest hit. As a support guy and fobbit I'd like to say "ABOUT BLOODY TIME!" Problem: are those cuts realistic or is G-1 looking at contractors as the stop gap solution (going on over a decade now...some "temporary" fix)? There is too much dead weight hanging around bases like BAF and KAF and I'm sure Iraq had the same issue.

Now the issue is will the cuts be smart (dropping some of the turds we kept in due to Iraq)?
 
Notice no flag positions are on the chopping block. Says something about Army priorities.
Reed
 
I recently read in article in the Armt Times that had a break down of costs for both maintaining and deploying active duty troops vs reserve/guard troops.

Significant savings for using reserve/guard over active duty. Will be interesting to see the impact of that.
 
I recently read in article in the Armt Times that had a break down of costs for both maintaining and deploying active duty troops vs reserve/guard troops.

Significant savings for using reserve/guard over active duty. Will be interesting to see the impact of that.

Significant savings of money during peacetime, the cost is bodies during the next war. :(
 
I recently read in article in the Armt Times that had a break down of costs for both maintaining and deploying active duty troops vs reserve/guard troops.

Significant savings for using reserve/guard over active duty. Will be interesting to see the impact of that.

Impact: none. The use of the Reserve Component is too political or else more Guard/ Reserve troops would have deployed over the last decade. You know I'm a Guard guy, so this isn't a slight on those who were deployed, but the reality is that same units barely did anything. FL has two with one deployment each and both weren't until 2008 or so.

We were always told that the Guard wouldn't be a replacement depot for the AD side, that we'd fight as a BN. At least one deployment of 3/20 didn't conform to this and they augmented 3rd Group

The use of the Reserve Component is very political. They weren't used in Vietnam for that reason alone and their use during the GWOT was limited.
 
Impact: none. The use of the Reserve Component is too political or else more Guard/ Reserve troops would have deployed over the last decade. You know I'm a Guard guy, so this isn't a slight on those who were deployed, but the reality is that same units barely did anything. FL has two with one deployment each and both weren't until 2008 or so.

We were always told that the Guard wouldn't be a replacement depot for the AD side, that we'd fight as a BN. At least one deployment of 3/20 didn't conform to this and they augmented 3rd Group

The use of the Reserve Component is very political. They weren't used in Vietnam for that reason alone and their use during the GWOT was limited.
While this may be true for SOF components and later in the war, from '03 to at least '05 NG and reserve units were anywhere from 30-60% of the deployed total and NG combat arms unit had there own battlespace that they would be completely responsible for. By '08 they seemed to have lost this for the most part and were used as augments and for strictly force-pro roles. As much smack as we talk about the Guard, their numbers, success rate and casualty rate was equal or better then the active duty units during this early period, much to my surprise.
Reed
 
While this may be true for SOF components and later in the war, from '03 to at least '05 NG and reserve units were anywhere from 30-60% of the deployed total and NG combat arms unit had there own battlespace that they would be completely responsible for. By '08 they seemed to have lost this for the most part and were used as augments and for strictly force-pro roles. As much smack as we talk about the Guard, their numbers, success rate and casualty rate was equal or better then the active duty units during this early period, much to my surprise.
Reed

I'm going to need to see some citations to support that statement, it doesn't jibe with what I saw on my seven deployments. In each instance, National Guard units were far less capable than their direct active counterparts, SOF or conventional. Some small Guard units were very good, but you don't win wars at the tactical level.

Also, low casualty figures are only an indicator that the unit was successful in not getting its troops killed or wounded, it doesn't necessarily mean that the unit contributed meaningfully to the overall war effort. To win at the strategic level, you have to put your troops in harm's way. And when that happens, the unit takes casualties. If the goal is to not get people killed, then for example a National Guard division can take over for an active duty unit in... I don't know let's just say Mosul. Then they button up in hard sites, do cursory patroling, and in general practice risk aversion. There you go, lowest casualty figures of any rotation in that area before or since. Meanwhile, their battlespace becomes infested with bad guys, making it even harder for the active duty unit that comes in to replace the National Guard one. This may be one of the reasons why they were relegated to supporting roles later in the war.
 
Significant savings of money during peacetime, the cost is bodies during the next war. :(

Politicians/DoD/(not fully ready to say Pentagon, but...), won't care about that until after the fact. Money is the issue here, and that's sadly the bottom line until surpassed by blood.

I keep thinking back to the US Military going to Southern Africa circa 1980 - 1983 to look at V hulled vehicles and deciding they didn't need them...

A numbers crunch on how many lives that would have saved in Iraq would be saddening/maddening...



Impact: none. The use of the Reserve Component is too political or else more Guard/ Reserve troops would have deployed over the last decade. You know I'm a Guard guy, so this isn't a slight on those who were deployed, but the reality is that same units barely did anything. FL has two with one deployment each and both weren't until 2008 or so.

We were always told that the Guard wouldn't be a replacement depot for the AD side, that we'd fight as a BN. At least one deployment of 3/20 didn't conform to this and they augmented 3rd Group

The use of the Reserve Component is very political. They weren't used in Vietnam for that reason alone and their use during the GWOT was limited.

Not disputing you at all, but again, do you think this is going to be a factor when the talking heads look at the accounting papers and see how many billions of dollars they could save?
 
Not disputing you at all, but again, do you think this is going to be a factor when the talking heads look at the accounting papers and see how many billions of dollars they could save?

I do. In addition to Vietnam, Rumsfeld's stupid ass tightly controlled the activation of RC units. In part because he didn't believe a lot of troops were necessary for the Iraq invasion and in part because the activation of RC troops around Christmas 2002 would cause problems. Real or not, the political spector of activating RC soldiers is a concern in Washington.

I specifically omitted the Air Guard because they are probably the world's largest, most expensive individual augmentee program. I'm sure some squadrons deploy as a unit, but most parcel out their airmen on a volunteer status and the AD is left to backfill those positions which the AG cannot/ will not man.
 
Roger.
Whatever happens it's going to suck.

When I first read the paper on the RC cost savings, my mind immediately thought about the war of 1812...
 
- How many of these are the 4th BCT added to each division due to Iraq?
- Only two INF BN's per BDE was the norm?
-When did that change and
- That brings it back to what it used to be: 3 manuever elements.
- Adding additional engineers? I guess RCT's and IED's have influenced our thinking. I hope we aren't fighting the last war with these changes....we're pretty good about that.
- It sounds like (my impression is), given the addition of 11 and 12 series to a BCT, that the support slices will take the largest hit. As a support guy and fobbit I'd like to say "ABOUT BLOODY TIME!" Problem: are those cuts realistic or is G-1 looking at contractors as the stop gap solution (going on over a decade now...some "temporary" fix)? There is too much dead weight hanging around bases like BAF and KAF and I'm sure Iraq had the same issue.

Now the issue is will the cuts be smart (dropping some of the turds we kept in due to Iraq)?


and this is why the US is always accused of fighting the last war/conflict until we're 1/2 way through the latest one... realignment based on where we were, not on what we expect to happen.

...and so it goes.
 
Impact: none. The use of the Reserve Component is too political or else more Guard/ Reserve troops would have deployed over the last decade. You know I'm a Guard guy, so this isn't a slight on those who were deployed, but the reality is that same units barely did anything. FL has two with one deployment each and both weren't until 2008 or so.

We were always told that the Guard wouldn't be a replacement depot for the AD side, that we'd fight as a BN. At least one deployment of 3/20 didn't conform to this and they augmented 3rd Group

The use of the Reserve Component is very political. They weren't used in Vietnam for that reason alone and their use during the GWOT was limited.

Not totally true.

ANG units rotated in/out of S. NV with F-102 providing Air Defense, and later on some support missions.
AF Reserve units flew cargo runs along with AD.
IN NG Ranger Co was activated, and did 12 months 'in the box"; IIRC a WV NG Artilllery unit also went in.

Reserve/NG wasn't used much and that it one of the (stated) reasons we went with the Total Force concept.

I can say Air Reserve and Guard units have been there early on in everything we've done since Vietnam.
 
Reserve/NG wasn't used much and that it one of the (stated) reasons we went with the Total Force concept.

I can say Air Reserve and Guard units have been there early on in everything we've done since Vietnam.

You proved my point though I wasn't totally clear or correct. A handful of Guard units being sent to S. Vietnam can fly under the radar. Activating brigades changes the political dynamic. When you look at the number of forces deployed to S. Vietnam compared to the RC forces left in the states and those activated vs. those who weren't...the numbers aren't even close.

And yes, Air Guard units were involved early on...but not the entire unit. I know quite a few "units" which deployed, but they were more of a task force or ad hoc scenario than an entire squadron, group, or wing. Some of that is the nature of the AG mission, we can't expect the Air Defense Sectors to pack up and deploy (though some of their support slices have). I'm speaking mainly for the rest of the Air Guard: ATC and ACS squadrons, Combat Comm, even the -130 squadrons. You can't send all of your security forces because then you have to move airmen from other bases to cover the one left behind. So, some units can't deploy as a whole, and others simply don't. 180-day deployments and AG airmen are dividing that up into 30 days here, 90 days, 60 days...whatever. While that's the system, that's why I made the comment I did: they are mostly individual augmentees.

Guard units used in Vietnam:
http://www.ngef.org/index.asp?bid=48

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_State's_National_Guard_units_served_during_the_Vietnam_War

From the first link:
The following units were not deployed to Vietnam; however, large numbers of Guardsmen were levied and sent as individual replacements to RVN:

That's not the way the Guard was designed. Whether we agree with it or not, the Guard isn't designed to form a pool of individual replacements.

Of course, then you have units like FL's 53rd Infantry BDE which had to strip qualified 11B's from other units (even secondary MOS') to meet required manning levels for at least one of its deployments.
 
Also, low casualty figures are only an indicator that the unit was successful in not getting its troops killed or wounded, it doesn't necessarily mean that the unit contributed meaningfully to the overall war effort. To win at the strategic level, you have to put your troops in harm's way. And when that happens, the unit takes casualties. If the goal is to not get people killed, then for example a National Guard division can take over for an active duty unit in... I don't know let's just say Mosul. Then they button up in hard sites, do cursory patroling, and in general practice risk aversion. There you go, lowest casualty figures of any rotation in that area before or since. Meanwhile, their battlespace becomes infested with bad guys, making it even harder for the active duty unit that comes in to replace the National Guard one. This may be one of the reasons why they were relegated to supporting roles later in the war.

Are you going to tell me with a straight face after seven deployments that you did not see a large number of AD COC's state their mission as, or act as if their mission was "to bring everyone home"?
Reed
 
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