RESHAPING AMERICA'S ARMY

Army, Mar 2005 by Lowe, Karl

Organizing and Naming the New UEy

There are currently seven types of Army divisions, broadly designated as heavy or light. Terrain and enemies do not neatly align with heavy and light, however, often requiring a mixture of both under the same command. Divisions' fixed structures frustrate flexibility and make it difficult to shift artillery, aviation, engineers, intelligence or logistics from one division to another to address changing conditions and opportunities. Just try taking some of "my" aviation to support an airmobile assault by "your" division.

In 1943, the Army solved inflexibility by making all corps alike, able to accept any mix of divisions and other forms of combat power appropriate to the mission. For example, XVIII Airborne Corps commanded one infantry, one airborne and two armored divisions in April 1945, a radical change from its all-airborne composition a month earlier. Its alteration on the fly was made possible by Lt. Gen. Lesley J. McNair's skip-echelon approach (Figure 2), which gave support responsibilities to field armies and divisions, leaving corps commanders free to concentrate on orchestrating tactical operations. If a corps' mission changed, its composition could change without disrupting support arrangements because most support was provided by higher echelons. There is logic in doing with the UEy what McNair did with the corps in 1943-standardize the headquarters, rename them and strip away all but their essentials to make them more agile.

If UEy are to become headquarters only, should they still be called divisions? Continuing to call them divisions is likely to handicap thinking about how to use them differently since they would still have armored, infantry, mountain, cavalry and airborne identities. Calling them corps would likely confuse their roles with those of today's corps. An alternative with some historical precedent would be to call them field forces and assign them the lineages and insignia of corps. Cascading lineages downward (Figure 3), maneuver brigades would be assigned the lineages and insignia of former divisions and historically independent maneuver brigades.

To manage the day-to-day training and employment of 43 to 48 active component UAs called for in the Army's plan, 12 active component field force headquarters would be about right, each commanding two to five UAs (Figure 4).

Consistent with the National Guard's expanded homeland defense role, 10 Army National Guard field force headquarters would replace eight existing division headquarters, aligning one with each Federal Emergency Management Agency region (Figure 5). They would serve as regional coordination centers for emergencies in the United States but would still have overseas contingency missions.

Two more field force headquarters could be formed by consolidating the Army Reserve's 10 regional commands and assigning them responsibility for training and mobilizing USAR units in areas corresponding to the current boundaries of the First and Fifth U.S. Armies (Figure 6).