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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jjkirk who wrote (8436)	11/1/2001 7:07:15 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

My quarter is on the table...ante up and we shall see. But first we must understand the rules. In Hawk's post, he was referring to a brigade slice of the 101st...this is a one-third division slice...a much, much greater lift and logistic problem to sustain a force of this size than your "3+ battalions"...sounds to me like you are talking only straight-leg grunt battalions... hi jj, i will be happy to discuss the Table of Organization and Equipment (TOE) of any army unit with you. the 101st is about 14,000 men strong and it has 3 brigades...to say a brigade is 1/3 of the division strength is a common error but denies any support (aviation, artillery, medical, supply etc) units in the division strength figures. the support units can remain under division control or be temporarily attached to a maneuver brigade but thay are not part of the brigade TOE. my figure of 3 battalions per brigade is standard US Army configuration. actually i believe i said 3+ battalions to allow for combined arms teams such as those used by the 1st division in europe. in their case, a combined team of infantry and armor gives most of their brigades 4 battalions. as far as the 101st, the last time i looked they had 3 maneuver brigades of 3 battalions each. for example the 1st brigade of the 101st presently consists of an HHC company and 3 battalions, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of the 327th infantry battalions. they may or may not have support units temporarily "attached"...i.e., an aviation regiment. but they are not on the brigade TOE. i was around for the Army changeover from regiments to brigades...but the differences are not really significant. the USMC still uses regiments organized similarly to some Army brigades...for example, the 1st regiment of the 1st Marine Division consisted of 4 maneuver battalions...1/1, 2/1, 3/1 and the 1/4. if 1/4 is an armor unit...that is pretty close to a brigade organization from the 1st infantry division. now as far as your comment about legs...i find that pretty silly...goofy even. as a former paratrooper with many many years on status including static and halo, i realize that it is nearly always used to demean. i am not sure why you said it to me...but for the record, i have been on the ground with and near leg infantry, both Army and USMC. both units were outstanding in the woods. but it matters not, you will find the TOE of US Infantry divisions to be quite similar whether on jump status or not. now back to the original subject... you said...I'll double or nothin' my bet that no brigade, Army or Marine, can launch from a sea platform and operate and be sustained 700 miles inland without overland logistic support and lots of it. Ain't gonna happen! i'll take the bet. your mileage figures regarding geographical distances precluding support of a brigade just do not make sense to me. did you ever hear of gaudalcanal or iwo? there were no roads to send convoys down... khe sanh was supplied by air as were nearly all of the special forces camps in nam...several of them had 3 or more battalions. here is another one for you to consider...the Berlin airlift. all of the support for 1 1/2 million residents of west berlin was flown in for nearly a year. that included reinforced US Army, British, and French brigades (the equivalent of an entire division plus). and that was done with C46s and C47s. our current cargo aircraft carry 30+ times the load. i see that you are a Marine Colonel. i respect that. i salute you and thank you for your service. i do not know a lot about the USMC but i can tell you that the Army now has the ability to free wheel entire divisions around the world. it is amazing but true, and our adversaries are learning it the hard way. when the first brigade hits the ground, you can send my winnings to the USMC league Christmas toy program. unclewest

To: jjkirk who wrote (8436)	11/1/2001 12:32:48 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Jkirk... As a marine colonel you must be aware of the capabilities of a MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit).. usmc.mil I see little reason to doubt that a brigade of shooters and their immediate combat support elements, as well as artillery, could be inserted onto any particular airfield they so desired to occupy in Afghanistan. After all, this was the entire rational of building the Osprey (not that we have sufficient numbers of them as of yet). And a large majority of Marine helicopters are capable of aerial refueling, if necessary. Capture an airfield, suppress the AAA defenses in the area, and they could immediately commence flying in heavy ordnance and equipment. And I concur that we would not attempt to sustain such an operation solely from a carrier based logistic base. Couldn't be done. But since all we need to do is capture an airfield, like that nifty one the Russians built at Mazar-e-Sharif, and we can be using heavy lift assets to immediately sustain operations. And lest you doubt our capabilities, remember back to the Berlin airlift, when we supplied the needs of millions of people for over a year (granted the flight times were rather short but so are the quantity of people being supported). But I believe the strategy is to maintain this as an Afghan against Afghan struggle to the largest degree possible. The US cannot be seen as imposing an artificial political solution in the country, but needs to maintain its role as a facilitator towards creating a broad-based government for post-Taliban Afghanistan... But we also have our primary mission of capturing/killing OBL and destroying his terrorist network in the region. I hope the rumours that are being heard about internal fighting amongst the Pashtun tribes is correct. We need to help them dispose of the the more extremist elements who are inclined to support the Taliban. This is going to be a fairly long war.. I would suspect, without some progress on an internal overthrow of the Taliban, this could last well into next spring. It all comes down to the Afghani power brokers and how they opt to work things out, and whether US political pressures dictate we impose a political solution (however temporary), and putting the matter in the hands of the UN.. Hawk