v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Zerxes Bhagalia) (11/16/90)
From: v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Zerxes Bhagalia) I have been looking through the various force listings, and have been perplexed by the confusing specifications of the various units. Please post the definitions and distinctions for the following military terms. Army Corps Division Regiment Brigade Battalion Company Squad Infantry Mechanized Infantry Armored Infantry Airborne(prefix appended to above terms) Artillery Mechanized Infantry Armored Artillery Cavalry Mechanized Cavalry Armored Cavalry Air Cavalry Airborne(prefix appended to above terms) +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | -------------- | | "He pulls a knife, _-------------_______________ Zerxes Bhagalia | | you pull a gun. ____________-------------____ V064LNEV | | He sends one of yours ________________------------_ UUCP: @UBVMS.cc.buffalo | | to the hospital. ______________-------________ BIT : @UBVMS.bitnet | | you send one of his ___________-------___________ State University of | | to the morgue." ________-------______________ New York at Buffalo: | | That's the American _------------________________ Aerospace Engineering | | way, and that's how ____-------------____________ Computer Science | | you get Hussein. _______________-------------_ Business Administration | | - Malone : Sean Connery [The Untouchables] -------------- | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
jepullia@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (John Pulliam) (11/17/90)
From: jepullia@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (John Pulliam) >From: v064lnev@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (Zerxes Bhagalia) > >Please post the definitions and distinctions for the following military terms. > >Army -- Two or more Corps under a single command. Size varies widely. >Corps -- Two or more Divisions under a single command. " >Division -- Three or four Brigade-sized units under a single command. Has often been called the building block of the modern combined arms armed forces (lowest level at which all combat, combat support, and combat service support units are integrated into a team, highest level which has an established and relatively permanant table of organization and equipment). The US has a number of different types of divisions (different equipment, personnel, tactics, organization). Sizes (# troops) range from 10,000 to 20,000 depending on type. >Brigade -- Three to five (normally three in maneuver units) Battalions under a single command. A "Brigade slice" is an infantry or armor Brigade with its portion, or "slice," of the Division's artillery, engineer, etc. assets. When a Brigade takes its slice of support with it, it becomes an effective combined arms team all by itself (but still tied to the Division through its logistics tail). Sizes of Brigades vary anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 (or more?) soldiers. >Regiment -- In the US Army (with exceptions, as below), this is no longer a true, combat-functional unit designation. Don't get me wrong, regimental designations are still widely used. All combat units (Infantry, Armor, Cavalry and Field Artillery, at least) have regimental designations, or names, as well as their brigade/division designations. For instance, the 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division is composed of three of the four battalions of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment. The regimental system _is_ functional for personnel assignments: soldiers are assigned under the regimental system (once you have become a member of a regiment, you won't leave that regiment until you "outgrow" it by gaining too much rank in your specialty to have a slot there any longer -- at least that's the plan 8-). By and large, regimental affiliations today have more to do with history/tradition/espirit de corps than they do with fighting battles. In short, be aware that regiments and regimental designations exist, but pay more attention to what brigade/division designation the unit has if you want to keep clear track of it (this won't work if you're getting into an in-depth study, but from your question, I suspect you are not). Regiments vary widely in size; anywhere from 1,000 troops to tens of thousands (remember, honorary designations exist). NOTE: the Cavalry and Rangers are exceptions to the above; they use regiments as actual fighting units. For them, "Regiment" roughly follows the above description for "Brigade." >Battalion -- three to six companies under a single command. Like the brigade, can receive (more limited) "slice" of support units and fight as a combined arms task force. Size: from 300 to 800 (or more?) >Company -- three to five platoons under a single command. Can operate alone, but in the combat arms is more effective as part of the battalion maneuver/defense plan (in some branches, like the Engineers, companies habitually operate "sliced out" to a maneuver brigade, or on their own at a large job site). Size: from 100 to 300 troops; 100-150 is most common. Platoon -- (you left this one out) three squads under a single command. Can operate alone for _very_ limited periods of time (measured in hours or days, not weeks). Size: 30-45 soldiers. >Squad -- Smallest integral unit in the US Army (some would add the fire team, which is half a squad). One squad leader (staff sergeant=E-6), two fire team leaders (sergeant=E-5 or corporal=E-4), and anywhere from four to eight soldiers (privates and specialists). Total size: 7 to 11 troops. To help illustrate this "chain" effect a bit better, here are the _normal_ ranks of units' leaders (note: as for the above unit size explanations, there are exceptions to the following): Army - General (4-star) Corps - Lieutenant General (3-star) Division - Major General (2-star) Brigade - Brigadier General (1-star) in combat, Colonel in peacetime Regiment - (Cavalry and Rangers) Colonel Battalion - Lieutenant Colonel (with Sergeant Major) Company - Captain (with First Sergeant) Platoon - Lieutenant (1st or 2nd "john") (with Sergeant First Class) Squad - Staff Sergeant That's one dimension of army units, SIZE. Another dimension is ROLE/DUTIES: >Infantry: ground-pounders, grunts. Soldiers who fight largely with small arms (rifles, machine guns, anti-tank weapons). Infantry is further divided into Mechanized, Motorized, Light, Air Assault, Airborne, and Ranger. Mechanized: fights out of (or inside of 8-) armored personnel carriers like the M113 and M2 Bradley. Much on this in earlier posts. Motorized: gets to the battle in wheeled vehicles (trucks), but fights like light infantry once there. Some experimentation in recent years with dune-buggy-style mounted weapons systems, but that experiment (the 9th Inf Div) is being deactivated (except for one brigade?). Light: straight-leg. Doesn't have any kind of "taxicab", does it all on foot. Called "light" because of its greatly reduced lift requirement for deployments (much fewer ship/plane loads required to "get them there"). Air Assault: light infantry whose unit organization of equipment includes a _lot_ of helicopters; consequently, the air assault is considered highly "tactically" deployable, able to be moved very rapidly around the battlefield. Airborne: light infantry which is "strategically" deployable, as its soldiers are all airborne qualified (i.e., qualified to jump from a/c using parachutes). Other branches also have airborne troops (combat engineers, artillery, military police, even armor!). The only units capable of "forced insertions" into hostile and landlocked territory, the airborne is considered a quasi-special operations force (not as much so as the special forces and rangers, though). Ranger: (only one regiment = three battalions of these guys in the US Army) special operations force used for particularly difficult or sensitive missions. Trained to fight like any of the above except mechanized. All these "types" of infantry are actually types of infantry divisions (or, for the Rangers, regiment). As you can see, the division truly is the "building block" of the army. A single infantry soldier may very well serve tours in more than one of these types of unit, or even all six (given that he has the proper qualifications: airborne school, ranger training, etc.) >Artillery: arty, cannon-cockers. These units provide indirect (big gun) weapons support to the infantry and armor. They are divided based entirely on what type of equipment they have: self-propelled (howitzer mounted on an armored chassis) supports armor and mech infantry units; towed (gun mounted on a "trailer" which is pulled by another vehicle, usually wheeled) supports light, air assault and airborne units, MLRS (multiple launch rocket system) supports all the above, is normally a Corps-level asset. As mentioned earlier, these units can be further sub-divided into airborne, air assault, or "leg" based on their soldier's qualifications and the divisions to which they are assigned. They are also sub-divided by the sizes of their guns (105mm, 155mm, 8"). >Cavalry: units with the traditional cavalry missions of scouting, screening, delaying, providing economy of force so that armor/infantry can be massed elsewhere. These are the guys who "attempt to do everything with practically nothing." As such, they are an elite in their own way (or at least in their own minds 8-). Kind of tough to describe the role of the Cavalry in a single paragraph; read about Jackson's campaign in the Shenandoah (sp?) Valley during the Civil War to get good insight into what it means to be "Cav." Because the Cav mission can be accomplished with a variety of equipment (helicopters, tanks, APCs, etc.), this semi-branch (actually, part of the armor branch) can be sub-divided based on its prime movers: Cav with helicopters is Air Cav; Cav with tanks and APCs is Armored Cav; Cav with horses is (besides dead meat 8-) traditional Cav (to my knowledge, the only traditional Cav unit we have is a pomp and circumstance show unit, not intended or used to fight for real). There are other types of units you didn't ask about: Armor, Aviation, Special Forces, Air Defense Artillery, Engineers, Military Police, Signal, Medical, and on and on. Since you didn't ask, I won't tell. 8-) This turned into a magnum opus rather quickly; sorry to drag it out. Hope this helps. John Pulliam