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I was listening to Lt. General Cody, G-3, USA testify to the HASC on C-SPAN.

They are adding three brigades this year; one in the 3rd Infantry, one in the 101st Air Assault, and one in the 10th Mountain. Three will be added the year after and four will be added the year after that. Then an assessment will be made to see how to go forward.

The cost in FY 05 will be $2.93 billion, of which $2 billion will be for equipment with the remainder going toward manning, training, and support.

The three types of brigades going forwad in the future will be Armor, Stryker, and Infantry. The size of these brigades in terms of personnel is set at 3,800 for Armor brigades and 3,300 for Infantry brigades (The Stryker brigade size was not specified).

The two manuever battalions in the brigade will have 4 companies, not 3 like in some of the old battalions. Plus, there will be a Recon/Surveillence/Aquisition Squadron in each brigade specifically designed in part to integrate joint fires and increase combat capability. Obviously, CSS and CS will be pushed down to the brigade level to make brigades more self-contained.

All the division headquarters will receive additional staff members and the divisions will be JTF-capable and able to handle up to 5 or 6 brigades. He said the division flag (or something close to that) will not matter as much in the future. Divisions will be C2 structures that will be given whatever combination of brigades are needed for a task. He used the example of the 82nd Airborne as constructed in Iraq. It's presently controlling a mech force from the 1ID and a cavalry force from the 3ACR in addition to its paratroopers.

Cody seemed impressive. I wouldn't be surprised to see him with a top position in a few years.

And I am starting to like the ideas of Schoomaker and Rumsfeld. They have some valid points I think. Congress is constantly fixated on end-strength, end-strength, end-strength as a solution to relieving the stress of the force. I'm fine with increasing the number of personnel as truly needed but it's hard to see force levels as the only way to reduce stress on the force.

First, the number of personnel trained in each of the MOSs has to be balanced relative to the post Cold War era demand for each of the MOSs while retaining enough capability at every MOS to meet any contingency. They are increasing the number of Policeman and Civil Affairs soldiers so that the same limited number of units don't get called up repeatedly and instead the demand is spread over a greater number of units. They can't be dumb about it and convert, for instance, too many artilleryman to high-demand MOSs, but I don't think they will and we'll still retain enough battalions to shell the crap out of anybody we want.

Second, after that, the active and reserve component mix has to be balanced, moving some units from the reserves to the active component or vice versa.

Third, reorganize the formations to be more efficient and modular, like with these new brigades. The new brigades reduce the personnel to capability ratio, adjust the force structure with the way forces are typically deployed and used, make the Army more flexible, and increase interoperability between the AC and RC.

Fourth, I think they need to further refine the way troops are deployed and namely, think ahead and add predictability to the process. In other words, develop strategies to meet the demand placed on the Army by combatant commanders and at the same time be able to tell individual brigades that its members will get xy leave/training time followed by yz amount of time during which they are ready to serve as part of a rotation force for an existing operation or are on call to respond to contingencies. Include in this process the National Guard Enhanced Brigades as a reduced readiness augmentation force and rotational base. Obviously overload or emergency situations disrupt the plan but it should be flexible enough to recover after those situations pass and in all other situations it makes sense both in terms of adding predictability for the soldiers and their families, and aiding planners since they'll have in essence a very large, well thought out chart created in advance that shows them how to respond to demand in a very structured, deliberate manner.

Overall, I think what they say makes sense and I think they are doing a good job (they do need to add a stabalized .50 cal to the Stryker though


Edited by - ViperTTB on Mar 12 2004 3:17 PM