Reconstitution
of the US Army
Once upon a time when the Third Reich
was young, an enterprising journalist published the complete Order of Battle
and mobilization plans for the Wehrmacht.
Himmler had him kidnapped and interrogated as to leads and sources. His answer was open source, from local papers
citing who was being assigned where. He
was warned and let loose
The same use of open sources (OSINT)
is available on LinkedIn. The individual
profiles of the members who have a direct or indirect connection with the
Services, particularly the US Army show that the Army is in the process of
reconstituting its forces to face a new revised and more dangerous array of
threats. Far from the rotational
mini-brigade expeditionary model, the new models is restoring the Theater,
Corps and full divisions to full capacity.
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| Projected penetration of Soviet Forces as a model of high speed mechanized warfare |
In addition, references in
discussions show that the field artillery and air support are being reunited,
and the logistics reconstituted under the command of the commander’s intent
rather than an acquisition manager’s contract.
The sources are links to a new family of DOD doctrinal publications.
Assignment
Algorithms
Some of that which points to this
reconstitution is indicated by the assignment of officers to “targeting” and logistics assignments at corps and higher. This restores what was once called the Air
Ground Operations Center at the old Corps and suggests that a restoration of
COSCOM and DISCOM may be under way.
There are many references of officers and enlisted to I, III, and XVIII Corps
when up until now did not exist, even called defunct, on Wikipedia. The repeated reference to Theater suggests
that the _COM (CENTCOM, etc.) may be replaced by the new Theaters (XXXXX).
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| The type of war fighting done right |
That a major reconstitution program,
normal at any military level after a battle, is not being accompanied by
marching bands, cheer leaders, and sonorous intonations from the pompous and egregious
is significant. The most likely outcome
is that these new Theaters will be aligned to a specific piece of the world. That raises the questions of how will the
order of battle for these new corps and theaters be constituted.
The
Capstone Mission
That which tied unit cohesion to
combat mission prior to Transformation was the link between units of all
components of the Services and Components into what were called “Capstone
Missions” and “Capstone alignments” that brought myself as a battalion
commander in contact with the Canadians on my left flank in NORTHAG near where
two Roman legions were slaughtered….the Teutoberger Wald. The Capstone program
was the result of a Congressional mandate that insisted that each and every
unit must have real world mission in order to be funded. I was at the Congressional House Senate
Conference Committee when it was agreed upon.
The Capstone program tying battalions
like mine to places in Germany was sabotaged, and a new order of nonsense was
sent in harm’s way. This is what is
being fixed.
Un-dropped
Shoes (organization and training)
As such several un-dropped shoes
remain. The reality of major commands
expected to move or stay in one piece calls for a deletion or elimination of
rotational assignments and training. The cost in the degradation of mid and
senior level tactical competence in the most recent unpleasantness due to the
repression of the chain of command from three stars to three stripes under
Transformation and ARFORGEN must be addressed.
The biggest shift in staffing a large
force from existing subordinate elements excludes rotations of units, and
reinstitutes more individual replacements along with a system to do so. The individual rotation programs of all wars
up to and including Vietnam was costly in terms of the FNG getting killed too
quickly which increased the need for more FNG’s (Funny New Guy). The existing members of the FNG’s unit do not
like to befriend one who is about to die, until he has not. Thus the skills of
the Good Old Boys are not passed on to the FNG which increased the mortality
rate.
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| As close as one can get without being thre |
The one stellar thing attributable to
the rotational modular brigade was and is extraordinary unit morale, which
after a decade of rotations, is still high.
A balance between the casualty rates, low in this war, must be developed
to retain unit identity to enhance cohesion.
The draftee conscript army only works on home turf or next door,
otherwise cohesion suffers. The US Army
at the end of the Vietnam War was one step away from mutiny. The classic work on the Disintegration and
Cohesion of the Wehrmacht showed that as long as the primary group is intact,
and a sense of identity with the homeland was maintained, no amount of
inducement by propaganda worked.
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| The Eastern Front |
The German Army in WW 2 used
replacements from the same part of Germany to units also raised from
there. Thus the FNG factor was
reduced. Similar efforts have been done
in the British Army through their regimental system which the regiment is the
base from where units and personnel were deployed and to where they returned.
One way to restore cohesion is to
base replacements through training establishments aligned with specific units
and specific areas, like regional or states. The application of All Source
Training which includes a training establishment that uses the Chain of Command
in each and all training exercises.
Those units and activities can be geographically close to the unit base,
or be able to move to the unit.
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| The one on the left, then, was when I took the picture in Vietnam |
That which is not physically present
in the task organization up two and down two and sideways, must be represented
or replicated. That includes units on
the flanks, sides and in support.
The hardest part of training army
tactical units is the absence of things that go boom anytime of the day or
night, as in field artillery and air support, and in the open. And done off post as well as on. Perhaps some form of noisy drone system could
provide the audio visual once “shot out” is shouted out.
An All Source Training establishment
would rely on visual reality in a major way. It could establish local training
centers where a wandering reserve or Guard officer, could plug into an ongoing
“war” as a “replacement”.
An All Source training establishment
would focus on the echelon of command (Corps, Division, Brigade, etc) not the
branch or specialty (as is planned today).
Individual and collective training must be done in context of all the
other players or participants being there.
The 75th
Training Command Model
The model for echelon of command
level focused training is based on the model used for decades at the 75th
Maneuver Area Command (now the 75th Training Command) based on my
experience there in the golden days of yesteryear (1979-1983) when command post
exercises were the domain of “battle boards” of acetate, green tape and grease
pencil. Communications was by wire. This
process was automated about the time I moved on with Battle and from their
website:
“The 75th Training Command prepares
large military units for deployments and other missions, by conducting live and
virtual scenario-based training, while mentoring senior leaders on effective
organizational decision-making….the Training Command now offers virtual and
gaming formats. Whether stateside or deployed to a combat zone, military
commanders do not lead their units in a vacuum.
Each commander carefully selects, mentors and
oversees a team of supporting staff that manages critical areas including
personnel, logistics and operations.
A commander's ability to keep the troops safe
and accomplish the mission is directly related to the professionalism,
competence, and teamwork of those staff leaders.
And while the 75th has predominantly supported
Army units in the past, the command now provides similar high quality training
to other military branches, non-military agencies, and partner nation military forces.”
Those in the 75th have
historically been savvier about higher echelon operations than the Combined
Arms Center at Ft Leavenworth and logistics than Ft Lee. This is due simply to
the extended and repeated use of “All Source” inputs and outputs in the form,
format, and content of information from outside the unit. Those giving the exercises gain more than the
exercised. This also was an excellent
resource for the development of real world mission awareness.
The fly in the soup is the old
concept of micromanagement from on high of the details of individual and small
unit training including what is called Military Occupation Specialty (MOS)
which is used to build empires on high ground and sap the purity and essence of
unit combat readiness. If MOS training
is that important to Personnel on High, it should be separately funded from
unit readiness.
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| Taken in 1924 |
The
Tactical Shape Shifters
These are transitional
times in which the old and the new intermix. There is nothing new under the
sun, but a lot of weird stuff keeps cropping up. The factors of METT-TC with a
minor adjustment (adding technology to one of the “t” and replacing the C with
Culture), remain constant over time, except technology and its effects on the
rest. The largest change in the tactical
milieu in the last 4,000 years is the effect of the bullet and fragment storm
that broke first in the Crimean War and came to fruition in Flanders in WW 1.
The same alternatives
exist historically when technology affects the means of mayhem, hence the
Tactical Imperative and the Tactical Milieu that are the shape shifters.
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