robinro@ism.isc.com (Robin Roberts) (04/23/91)
From: robinro@ism.isc.com (Robin Roberts) >From: boebert@SCTC.COM (Earl Boebert) >Also, how does one properly expand the string 1/501 >(ABN) INF? I get the Airborne Infantry part, but from previous >postings on Army TO&E I can't tell whether the 501st is properly >referred to as a Regiment or a Brigade. Expand it as 1st Battalion, 501st Regiment. Officially the 82nd Airborne has three brigades labelled 1, 2 and 3. However it popular to use the World War II regiment numbers for the equivalent brigades for the historical tie-in. I believe those regiments were 501, 505 and 506. I will leave the description of the difference between regiments and brigades to someone with more courage than I. Robin D. Roberts { The Dread Pirate Roberts } robinro@ism.isc.com Usenet: ..!uunet!scorp1!roberts CompuServe: 72330,1244 GEnie: R.ROBERTS10 "Never do anything that you won't be able to explain to the paramedics" - Wook
zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) (04/23/91)
From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris) >From: robinro@ism.isc.com (Robin Roberts) >I will leave the description of the difference between regiments and brigades >to someone with more courage than I. I will take a stab at it. In the U. S. Army the difference is one of purpose. Regiments are standing organizations, all of the same arm of service (e.g. infantry, armor, artillery) and with all battalions equipped similarly. Training, administration and supply(ordering) are usually organized by Regiment. In the field the regimental organization is mostly non-functional, but on base it should be running things. Brigades on the other hand are the field HQs of the division. Brigades are supposed to be Ad-Hoc organizations tailored to the situation. With the idea being that that you can plug in any battalion from the division into any brigade (I believe a single Brigade HQ is supposed to be able to handle about 5 battalions). In practice, the brigade OBs tend to be fairly static at about 1/3 a division. A brigade usually differs in organization from a regiment in that it is composed of multiple arms of service. The brigade vs regiment distinction is most clearly seen in the Armored/Mech divisions where extensive cross attaching is done to make combined arms teams. In an airborne division where the majority of sub-battalions are essentially identical the distinction is less obvious. In an infantry based division with 3 brigades and three infantry regiments there is little prupose in exchanging a battalion from one regiment with that of another. In an armored division where there are two tank regiments and a mech infantry regiment making three brigades each with two tank battalions and a mech infantry battalion makes perfect sense, but regimental cohesiveness is now meaningless (for all three regiments). Non Cuniculus Est, Tom Harris [Paragraph breaks added. --CDR]