Army to Reactivate 11th Airborne Division

[quincannon]

Sometime this summer the Army will reactivate the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska. Presently Alaska is the home to two brigades of the 25th Infantry Division, whose headquarters are in Hawaii. This move makes sense in that it will ease command and control, and provide an additional maneuver unit of action for the emerging Pacific Rim strategy currently being developed. Keep in mind that despite the name a modern U S Army division headquarters battalion is capable of exercising command and control over varied types of maneuver brigade combat teams. Presently of the two brigades in Alaska which will be the basis for the 11th one is airborne and the other Stryker. My suspicion is that the Stryker brigade will give up its Strykers and become light, and the Stryker equipment set will go somewhere else, perhaps to reequip the light brigade of the 25th in Hawaii. The other 25th Division brigade is already equiped with the Stryker. Stryker seems to fit in better on the Pacific Rim than some of our heavy stuff, although Mike might want to comment on that. 

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Mike doesn't really give a crap about what a division is names, so long as the 1st Infantry Division and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment are the last two named units in the Army.
Mike thinks the US Army is overbalanced to Infantry:
Infantry Brigade Combat Teams: 33 - 33%
Stryker Brigade Combat Teams: 9 - 15%
Armor Brigade Combat Teams: 16 - 27%
Cavalry Regiments: 0 - 0% (Note: Real cavalry Regiments. Not a unit with a cavalry name that is really a motorized infantry Brigade (2nd and 3rd Cavalry Regiments) or one that is an understrength Armor Brigade Combat Team serving as a vitally needed Training Aid (11th ACR).

SBCTs are pieces of Dung; their sole redeeming factor is you can tell them to dismount and leave their vehicles behind and fight as dismounted Infantry. They are as difficult and costly to deploy as an ABCT or an Aviation Brigade.   They should be dehorsed, the equipment given to the ARNG, and all armor should be in the active component. Perhaps we need Armored Transportation Battalions to motorize any infantry battalion.  (Pentomic Battlegroups have these and the USMC has a similar unit for amphbious assault.)

IBCTs are underarmed. They do not have enough anti-tank weapons to do what the Ukrainian Infantry is doing to the Russians. This will get alleviated somewhat if/when we field a new light tank. 105mm guns can still take out a lot of tanks although the vehicle will not stand up well to 120-125mm APFSDS-T. I would suggest they should have a forth battalion of 2 light tank and 2 mech, mounted in M113s or maybe (perish the thought) Stryker Target Vehicles. Their cavalry troops should be in real vehicles, not HMMWVs or other trucks or dismounted.

ABCTs are powerful, but we have to get them there. We cannot get a significant force anywhere in less than 6 months. If anything, things have gotten worse since Desert Storm. ABCTs have 6 tank companies and 4 Infantry Mech Companies. They at least need to be balanced at 6 and 6. But I am actually more prone to believe they should perhaps be 3 or 4 and 9. We were always short infantry. To compensate for fewer tank companies we should return to the 5 tank tank platoon.

SBCTs would be good for controlling part of the Southern Border, just like IBCTs would work well in other parts. ABCTs not so much. Fortunately, almost alone among nations, the US has no hostile nations on our borders. The people who are coming up from South America (and somehow getting there from other places) just want what Western Europeans wanted when they invaded the Continent starting in 1492: Room, Resources, Jobs.

Chuck and I talk about forming Battlegroups again. By this we do not mean the Russian Battalion Task Group, which is a response to a force structure that is too large, does not take into account their manpower or their ability to fund the force for equipment and training and a desire to keep a lot of generals and their 'heritage' intact.

Each Corps, except maybe the I corps, needs a real old style Cavalry Regiment. The Corps Commander currently does not have independent means of gathering information or providing security to the Corps. Divisions all need a cavalry squadron, but they need not all be very heavy, just not mounted in trucks or wheeled vehicles without protection, high mobility, and heavy firepower. Cavalry should have better mobility and lethality than a single army formation of the same time.

Anyone who thinks we need massive armor forces in the Pacific is bonkers. However, I think there would be value in replacing the Stryker Target Vehicle with the USMCs Amphibious Target Vehicle so we can at least make amphibious assaults with them if necessary. But anyone who thinks airborne, air mobile assault, or amphibious assaults are sort of bonkers. Not saying they are not useful in some instances, but like Normandy and Okinawa? Not so much.

The Army needs to reacquire its Coastal Defense and Air Defense Mission. We have little or no ability to engage ships that encroach upon our territories in the Pacific or to protect our ports and airbases. We should establish a chain of multi-functional brigades spread out over our Pacific States and territories from American Samoa up to the Aleutian Islands. We need to develop shipping, perhaps submersible, to get forces where we want them. If you don't think people will shoot down unescorted airplanes flying troops over the ocean to somewhere or attack unescorted Cargo ships carrying stuff somewhere else, you are foolish. We depend on a secure port and and secure airfield to get forces into a theater. We need multi-domain artillery brigades which can provide support to maneuver forces, anti-ship/amphibious capability, and air/missile defense. They should also have CYBER and some other capabilities.

While I feel for Ukraine, they, Finland, Sweden, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Greece, and maybe Poland should not be part of NATO. They should form their own alliance, under a separate unified command to deter Russia from acting up. NATO can cooperate with them. NATO should reduce its foot print and perhaps be done away with, to be replaced with a European Army.

The US and Canada should have a reciprocal alliance with each other and with the EU and maybe with the nations in Eastern Europe, at least for training and equipment, if not for assistance when needed.

The Pacific is our problem, and we should cultivate improved relationships and forces with Australia, Japan, and other nations in the region to establish our own Island chain to deter China.

[quincannon]

When I get you started, no one can ever say you do not complete the mission Mike.

About the only thing we are in complete agreement with are your comments concerning the Pacific Rim, although I do not believe China is as big a threat as you do. Competitor yes. Big threat no. They have no real ability to project power eastward, and at present are contained by traditional enemies in that direction. Don't think China wants to take India on either. They are sneaky little devils though, and they will continue their campaign of economic entanglement in Africa and elsewhere. They need watching, but watching is not fearing. Only a complete dunce or Douglas MacArthur would consider war on the Asian mainland. That is a loser from Jump Street.

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Thanks Chuck. I don't really think China is the problem people think it is. We are in competition. But they bear watching, so we need a big stick and we should talk quietly. There is no way we should invade the continent of Asia (which includes, in case anybody cares, places like South Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, etc.).

[quincannon]

Concur.

The only place we are obligated to fight in the countries you mentioned is South Korea, but I expect South Korea to bear the lions share just as they did in 1950-53. Most people will dispute that, but it is nevertheless as true as Bugs Bunny's big ears. Most people are usually wrong anyway. They are more convinced on what pop culture says, rather than the truth. We need to make sure that the SK's have what they need, and support them in any way we can.

Vietnam is not a problem. It was of course, but the smart political stand is to steer VN to be part of the containment force keeping China in check, easpecially in the greater South China Sea basin. Our trade with VN is growing daily, which bodes well for an ongoing friendly relationship.

No, Peckerwoods, before you great unwashed that dwell in the last century say it, I do not give a rat's ass as to what their government calls itself. There are no communists, only capitalists, who hide their capitalism under a phony mustashe, a wig, and dark glasses. Get over it, and do business.

In case some of you stuck in the past don't understand what I just said, I believe that democracy is on the march, a march forward, never backward. That may be hard to understand for some of you stuck in white supremacy, replacement theory, and generally a don't give the other guy an even break, because they might take what you think is yours. Democracy takes centuries to take hold and mature. Democracy does not happen overnight. You cannot wish it upon a people who have absolutely no historical underpinnings. We in the west are fortunate in having the Greeks, the Magna Charta, and the Age of Enlightenment in our historical makeup. Others, less fortunate do not. So then, it is my position that we not label something as bad, when those we label do not fully understand what good is. To make this very clear, I don't care how a country is governed at the moment. I care about how a country is governed five hundred years from now. You don't change their ways at the point of a gun. You change their ways with trade and open communications. You fight when it is necessary to preserve your own values, but it really does not matter if whom you are fighting call themselves communsts or Mother Teresa's convent of nuns. All that matters is if whom your fighting present a clear and present danger to our country, democracy itself, and the set of values that we hold dear, and inviolete. 

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To be clear, I was trying to point out that in spite of MacArthur's declaration to never fight a war on the continent of Asia, we have done so: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Mostly, largely unsuccessful in coming to political settlements which we supposedly went to war about.

[quincannon]

You were quite clear. Those decisions though were, with the exception of Korea, decisions made on the basis of we can change the frigging world by force of arms. That's why we were unsuccessful. We can't.

Two of our best allies today, Germany and Japan, became that way, not because we beat the snot out of them, but rather because of the Marshall Plan for one, and the enlightened respect for Asian culture for the other. We gave them the means to rebuild their own societies. That's how you make friends and allies, not with the bayonet.

The notion of fighting on the Asian mainland is for the crimanally insane and Douglas MacArthur. The rest of us, those who can read and heed history's lessons, know better. Don't know where you got the idea that Douglas did not want to fight in Asia. Don't think the facts support that. He is the one who crossed the 38th Parallel. He is the one who wanted to bring in the Nationaist Chinese Army to fight in Korea. He is the one who wanted to use nuclear weapons against China. Let me rephrase what I said - Fighting on the Asian mainland is for Douglas MacArthur, and others who are equally criminally insane.

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I believe it was a quote of his, if so he got victory disease and lost his senses. If not, the same. The cause may have been worthy, but our policy was confused at best.

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More news.

So they will likely convert the SBCT to an Air Assault Brigade: www.military.com/daily-news/2022/05/18/new-army-11th-airborne-division-gets-stand-date-force-outline.html.

Where will the aviation assets come from from this new division. Already we are stretched so thin that the National Guard Divisions do not have attack helicopters. A typical Aviation Brigade can move 1 battalion at a time to do air assaults, even in divisions with ABCTs.

The Stryker Target Vehicles? Spare parts. Maybe they could be converted to robotic vehicles to use for tank gunnery?

They say forming a new division will give the unit its own identity.  This was the same rationale used in the 80's to form the 6th ID which persisted till after Desert Storm.  (My brigade had a battalion from the 6th in our NTC Rotation in 1992, along with two of our own battalions (3-37 Armor and 1-16 infantry) and TF1-635 AR (CAARNG) in 1992.  Then they did away with it.  While I don't care what the name the division, here we go again.

Why don't we bring back one of the Alaskan Scout Brigades?

In addition, a little known fact is the Army and Air Force cannot move the whole 82nd Airborne Division at one time.

The Ready battalion (whether it is in Fort Bragg, Italy, or Alaska) can move and probably be in position in 24 hours.
The rest of the Ready Brigade may be able to be in position in 96 hours.
It takes at least 30 days to move the rest of the 82nd Airborne into position.
The 101st cannot self deploy.

Currently the USAF has:
228 C-17s (more than they want to have); they can go anywhere with aerial refueling.
52 C-5s.  A C-5 can carry one tank (two in an emergency), 2 BFV, and 2 Strykers.  They can go anywhere with aerial refueling.
190 C-130H.  The Stryker was supposed to be designed to be carried in one, but in practice it can't, and when it is, the thing has a very limited range.  C-130Hs cannot be refueled in flight.
136 C-103J.  Ditto with above.  However, they have the piping to for aerial refueling, but not the receptacle.  The European versions can be.  Brilliant!

Perhaps in Europe, the A-400M can be used.  There are 111 of them in service, but not concentrated in one place and the Europeans might want to use them for something.

I am not able to quickly find the number of helicopters the US has, the number below may be total production. (CORRECTED)

CH-47:  1200 442 with a range of 264 Miles.  Except for SOF aircraft cannot be refueled.  Cannot even get out of Alaska or Kentucky.
UH-60:  2625 1443 with a range of 363 Miles.  Except for SOF aircraft, cannot be refueld.  Cannot go very far.  For long deployments, they have to be carried in C-5s or C-172.  The 1st Aviation Brigade took over a week to get from Fort Riley to Fort Irwin when it provided support to my brigade for our NBC rotation in 1992.
AH-64:  2268 792 with a range of 298 Miles.  Cannot be refueled in the air.

In addition the US Army has not more than 37 C-212s 7 C-27 Spartans (a C-121 derivative) which look kind of like a baby C-130 with two engines.  They have some other 2 engine fixed wing aircraft, normally found in Theater Army Aviation Brigades and have limited range and payload.  The USAF goes berserk when the Army tries to get them.

As of 2008, a "Heavy" Army Aviation Brigade consisted of:

Command Aviation Company:  8 EUH-60L
Heavy Helicopter Comapany:  12 CH-47
Air Ambulance Company:  12 HH-60M
Assault Company:  3 x 10 UH-60M for a total of 30
Attack Helicpter Company: 6 x 8 AH-64D for a total of 24.

The Aviation Brigade of the 101st has more UH-60s, maybe a 1 or 2 extra UH-60 battalions and perhaps more CH-47s.
National Guard "Expeditionary" Aviation Brigades may have another UH-60 BN and no Attack Helicopters.

A Stryker Brigade was supposed to be deployable within 96 hours, but as it turns out, it never could be done because of competing demands for other needs.  I calculated back in the early "aughts" that it would take every C-5, C-17, and C-141 we had to do it.

To be fair, the helicopters can be equpped with fuel bladders (CH-47) and external tanks, but that limits their abiilty to carry troops and weapons.

AH-64s are only present in the Active Army, to the best of my knowledge.
I don't think there are any UH-60/CH-47 available to stand up a new aviation brigade, so expect the Guard to get robbed or maybe divisions which are basically mechanized.  AH-64s will get reduced in some units to provide a capability to the 11th.

Our industrial base is so poor that we will probably have to steal helicopters from other units to equip the 11th Aviation Brigade and make up the production over time.  In addition, we have developed of sending equipment in use in the Army to our "allies" when they need them.  (We will probably do this with Poland).

So, to summerize, we can really only move 1, maybe 2 airborne battalions at a time and it takes 96 hours to move a brigade.
The Air Assault Brigades can only deploy in a 300 mile radius around their base and have to be transported by air or by long deployment flights.  They are not normally transported on Aircraft Carriers or Amphibious Assault Ships because there are no available decks, the aircraft are not treated for salt water corrorsion, their electronics are not resistant to high power radar fields in the way that Navy and USMC aircraft are, and most Army pilots could probably take off from a carrier, but don't know how to land.  The USMC would go bonkers at using their ships to move Army Troops anyway.

So, forming the 11th Airborne Division with 1 airborne division and 1 air assault division will not result in a larger, more deployable force.  It will force a competition for helicopters, and you can bet the USAF will not increase the number of transport aircraft to get the 82nd, 11th, and 173rd anywhere.  Allocation of aircraft is done by the Combatant Commander anyway.  We should never have left the USAF go and they deserve what they get with regard to the Space Force.  Nor does it increase the combat capability of the US Army since we will not add any units.  In fact, the combat power may shrink a little because the SBCT is more powerful than an Air Assault Brigade and has more people.

The situation probably will not measurable improve even with the fielding of our new helicopters.  Perhaps we should buy more watercraft and get our own C-130s instead?

Just sayin...

[quincannon]

Despite the points you made Mike which are all valid as far as I can see, I am very pleased (in fact over the moon) that the 11th Airborne will be reactivated as a light configured division. Joe Swing is smiling in Airborne Heaven, and the adoption of Joe Swing hats in the division I suspect are under consideration at this very moment.

At this juncture the division will be in effect a theater defense division for Alaska, and that will continue for the foreseeable future. Why they need a division there is above both of our pay grades, and I am just reluctant to comment, but that does not mean I do not have an opinion, that is best left unexpressed until I learn more.

Where I think you may have jumped the rails is that you are still considering an airborne division in its Normandy, and Holland role, a time which, in my view, has long passed into history. That's not an uncommon conception though. Today the "airborne" title means that it can move faster strategically, than its heavier counterparts. Not fast enough for my liking still, just faster. We looked at the same set ofstragic movement issues with the light division back in my day. We came up short then, not in the ability to move which we largly solved, but in the amount of combat power on the ground when we got there. Much has changed though since we drew up those tables in 1984. We can do much better today.. I will still that I could put a 1984 light in any patch of woods you care to name and beat the snot out of an armored division. Problem is that light divisions don;t always have a conveinent patch of woods to fight in.

You are a wargamer. Configure your counters to reflect a 1984 light, put them in the Ardennes and send Sixth SS Panzer Army against them. That would be one I would like to watch, or better yet play the light side.

There is one thing we can both readily agree on here, that being the addition of a deployable division headquarters and headquarters battalion, instead of some TDA "do nothing and have no role when the baloon goes up" headquarters. . We need about four more, maybe five. 

Sidenote: Lucia di Lamb Chop (Lammermore) is the opera this Saturday from the Met. A friend of mine from Church, my usher partner, is attending in person, lucky girl. I will be all ears from 11:00 til 2:00

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I don't understand the Joe Swing reference and am too lazy to look it up.

If it just deployability, there is no essential difference in equipment between an "infantry" battalion, and "airborne infantry" and an "Air Assault infantry" battalion. Granted, Airborne units - probably at the brigade level, have some uses such as airfield seizure and all infantry units in the army can do air assaults. In the 11th ACR in my day the cavalry troops and yes, EVEN THE TANK COMPANY, did air assaults. (The tank company only for dismounted patrols along the border trace - I did three as I recall and one as a cavalry platoon leader.)

I think the 7th has transitioned to a deployable headquarters, but perhaps not. I think we need more divisions, not division headquarters. We have more "Armies" then we do "Corps". Stupid. And a one Corps Army is not an Army.

That is cool for your partner.

Tonight, the cool thing is the hopeful launch of the Boeing Starliner capsule to supplement the Dragon II. Boeing is having real problems lately. I will be interested to see if it goes off. I will most likely take a little trip down to the river and watch.

[quincannon]

Joe Swing was the 11th ABD commander from activation in 43 until the division moved from Japan to Campbell in 49. A very long tenure for a division commander. The hat was one Swing designed. It is similar to a patrol cap, but a bit more stylish.

We are not going to get more brigades, but we do need a few more division headqurters battalions. That's why I advocate doing away with Guard division headquarters, and reducing all active divisions to two brigades a piece. Use the Guard brigades as associates of RA divisions. Associates, not round outs, mind you. There is a difference. No Guard brigade should be organizationaly intermingled with an active division. That defeats the purpose of both organizations.

Yes, I envy her Met performance, but I think she was looking forward to New York Cheesecake more than the Met, and I am not sure I do not agree. The two things I miss most about the East Coast are ethnic, and seafood. If you grew up on the East Coast, Colorado is a cuisine wasteland. They can't even make decent cheese steak out here. The altitude screws up the bread for some reason, that I have tried to understand for thirty years and failed. Pat's or Gino's in Philly, or in a pinch Captain Harvey's in Dundalk. And don't get me started about a crab cake sandwich. I may use foul language.

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May 19, 2022 16:25:22 GMT quincannon said:

We are not going to get more brigades, but we do need a few more division headqurters battalions. That's why I advocate doing away with Guard division headquarters, and reducing all active divisions to two brigades a piece. Use the Guard brigades as associates of RA divisions. Associates, not round outs, mind you. There is a difference. No Guard brigade should be organizationaly intermingled with an active division. That defeats the purpose of both organizations.

I don't get why you want more division HQ, we don't need more generals; we need more infantry in ABCTs.  I disagree that a 2 BDE division is robust enough to fight.  Doing away with GD division's may make sense.

Obviously I am missing something here.

[quincannon]

Well with 30 give or take RA brigades we could field fifteen RA, two brigade divisions. Then with 20 to 25 Guard brigades of various types as associates of these fifteen divisions, the number of brigades that these fifteen divisions could control is in the 55 brigade range. The whole ball game changed when the Guard (and Reserve) transformed from Christmas help to an operation reserve.

No matter how good a Guard division headquarters is, and some are much better than others, they cannot substitute for the day to day preparation that an active division can accomplish. They were never intended to be that ready, and getting a division headquarters up to speed is much harder than getting a brigade headquarters ready for a fight. It's a Guard thing. The lower you go in echelon the easier it is to get a force ready to fight. You need six months to a year to get a division headquarters ready for its designed command and control role in an active theater, or at least that is what my experience tells me.

The division of today, is more akin to the corps headquarters of WWII and up until about 2000. After 2000, we are better off having divisions that are capable of C&C over various types of brigades, in the way that the WWII corps would control an AD, and a couple of ID's. Type divisions are things for our grandfather's generation. They are no longer viable or necessary. Just keep the names for the old school ties they represent, but make the function something worthy of the 21st Century

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Hmmmm.

I agree, the further up you go the Guard chain, the potentially worse the unit is. Artillery seems to be the big outlayer there. They appear to be consistently good.

I always though any division could control any brigade; we just seldom did it. I think I see a two brigade division, like trying to box with only 1 arm or 1 leg....You need everything to make it work.

Also, what would happen in practice to me, is brigades would get stripped from some of the HQ and then they would receive an have to assimilate various Guard divisions. Not wrong and perhaps not any worse than what we do now.