So here we are with an additional appendix that, like an all-inclusive resort's buffet, hopefully has a little something here or there for most interested parties to the latest chapter of
McGoverning. It's a lot to take in at one go so I've tried to provide some topic headers that may help folks page through and find items of interest. More generally, this pulls back the curtain a bit to show off the operating details of some
McGoverning subject matter that has mostly happened "off screen" from the master narrative. (Not unlike that Elections, Oscars, and Sports Oh My entry a little while back.) Feel free to browse - you
can read it straight through in a kind-of narrative form but it's meant just as much to be something where people can hunt and peek without needing to do the whole thing - and ask any quetions that crop up, or that seem pursuant to it.
Forces proposed in FY 77 Five-Year Defense Plan (FYDP)
Each year, the Department of Defense produced a five-year defense plan (FYDP) that described the force structure and composition that DoD sought five fiscal years (September
before the numbered year to September
of the numbered year) into the future. The Fiscal Year (FY) 1977 FYDP, produced in the spring and summer of 1976 for FY 77, reflected what the McGovern Pentagon wanted to see in place by the autumn of 1981. Some elements of that force, particularly in terms of organizational reforms, were in place already by the last year of the term George McGovern won in the 1972 presidential election. These figures reflect the legacy McGovern's senior national-security officials sought, on behalf of the White House, in the reshaping of America's defense structure and posture. At the same time, with the institutional optimism favored by administrations faced with reelection, they represented ambitions as well for a potential second term.
We'll take a short journey to reach those FYDP 77 figures, by way of some comparisons. A brighter spark with HTML than me might figure out how to make a chart with them in our humble and code-limited comments format - if so feel free to drop me a line by PM or in the thread. For now we'll take them one by one. Each chart will compare like with like in its categories.
(1)
Forces in Being, FY 73: The first chart enumerates forces that existed at the very start of the McGovern administration, in the FY 73 operating budget that covered the first seven-plus months of President McGovern's tenure. This gives us a picture of where things kick off
Category Number
ICBMs 1054
SSBNs/SLBMs 41/656
Bombers 540
Army divisions 13
Marine divisions 3 regular/1 Reserve
USAF tactical wings 22
Large-deck carriers 16
Attack submarines 78
Surface combatants 178
Amphibious ships 67
Division sealift 1+
(2)
The House View, FY 74 FYDP: These figures reflect the early "in house" proposals for the FY 74 FYDP from the uniformed hierarchy of the services, their opening bid if you will, aimed first at the outgoing Nixon administration then at the new crowd of civilian leadership who arrived in President McGovern's train. It reflects the aggregate proposals of the services for rebuilding institutional capital after the withdrawal from Southeast Asia.
Category Number
ICBMs 1054
SSBNs/SLBMs 41/656
Bombers 520
Army divisions 15
Marine divisions 3 regular/1 Reserve
USAF tactical wings 24
Large-deck carriers 15
Attack submarines 76
Surface combatants 200
Amphibious ships 67
Division sealift 1+
(3)
Campaigning for Alternatives: This set of numbers reflects the McGovern presidential campaign's Alternate Defense Posture, released in January of 1972 (with plans for full implementation by the 1975 calendar year if President McGovern were indeed elected) at the end of the fifty-eight page defense proposal, together with an itemized budget. This was the first shot across the bow from McGovernite reformers in the direction of the Pentagon's status quo.
Category Numbers
ICBMs 1000
SSBNs/SLBMs 41/656
Bombers 200
Army divisions 10
Marine divisions 2 regular/1 Reserve
USAF tactical wings 18
Large-deck carriers 6
Attack submarines 69
Surface combatants 130
Amphibious ships 56
Division sealift 1
(4)
Making the Sausage: This set of numbers represents the FY 77 FYDP approved by the DoD under the McGovern administration in the first half of 1976. It includes changes in strategic weapons numbers mandated by CART (the five-year end state for this FYDP would be FY 82, kicked off in September of 1981 by an administration definitively
after the McGovern White House even if it won a second term), firming up of reforms, cuts, enhancements, and compromises developed over the course of this presidential term (1973-77), and a structure coherence for the end products yielded by several contentious years of debate and haggling within and beyond the Pentagon.
Category Numbers
ICBMs 600
SSBNs/SLBMs 18/288
Bombers 200
Army divisions 12
Marine divisions 2 regular/1 Reserve
USAF tactical wings 18
Large-deck carriers 8
ASW carriers 6
Attack Submarines 78
Surface combatants 155
Amphibious ships 56
Division sealift 1+
Structural and Institutional Reforms
Unified Command Structure
Out of the McGoverners' love for what they considered pragmatic efficiency, one of the administration's higher priorities in defense policy was organizational reform. They carried this through on two main fronts: reform of the Pentagon's bureaucratic structure, and reform of the Unified and Specified Commands system.
At the level of the Department itself, the McGovern administration reordered its components into two broad categories. In one sorted category it put "tasks in common" that stretched across all the services and established a series of Under Secretaries to draw up and administer policy where those tasks were concerned. In another sorted category the administration put the uniformed services themselves, with a much more active (and activist) Deputy Secretary of Defense as the direct administrator, overseer, and referee above the services (and those services' civilian secretaries and uniformed commanders) with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the DepSec's military adviser and uniformed deputy.
(
NB: The "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff" box should in fact be offset, as a deputy to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, rather than in direct line above the service secretaries/chiefs.)
In the matter of the unified and specified commands, the 1973 Hoopes Commission report (named for Deputy Secretary of Defense Townsend "Tim" Hoopes) recommended cutting the number of commands from ten (in practice more like twelve, as much of the apparatus for at least two more commands had survived their termination in the 1960s) down to five. Over the next two years the Hoopes Commission plan was carried through and the modern Unified Command System that lasted from 1974 to 2006 took shape. The five commands were these:
United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM): Unified the elements of the nuclear triad, and the former Continental Air Defense Command, under one roof. Command of STRATCOM rotated between the Air Force and the Navy in turn.
United States Americas Command (USMERICOM): Responsible for operations throughout the contiguous Americas and the Caribbean basin, including "operational" units within the United States (military elements authorized to deploy on missions inside United States borders in support of civil power, as opposed to normal base operations or training.) Command rotated between the Air Force and Army in turn.
United States Atlantic Command (USLANTCOM): Responsible solely, but entirely, for operations on the high seas of the Atlantic, inclusive of Arctic and Antarctic waters, along with Atlantic islands such as Iceland, Greenland, other such Atlantic territories, and the Antarctic coast. Command of USLANTCOM was a Navy preserve.
United States European Command (USEUCOM): Responsible for US forces in Europe out to the Urals, inclusive of the Baltic and Mediterranean sea basins, and also continental Africa, the western Indian Ocean, and West and Central Asia to the western border and shores of India. Within EUCOM a permanent joint task force existed to take charge of operations outside NATO territory and the contiguous bodies of water, dubbed Joint Task Force Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (JTFMEAFSA). Command of EUCOM was an Army preserve vested in SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, within NATO) while command of JTFMEAFSA rotated between the Army and Marine Corps.
United States Pacific Command (USPACOM): Responsible for operations throughout the Pacific and its basins from the Bering Strait to the Antarctic coastline, the Pacific Rim, Southeast Asia, and the eastern Indian Ocean including India's national territories. PACOM was a Navy preserve.
Operational Equipment of the US Air Force under FY77 FYDP
(This gives a quick
precis of the major flying hardware the USAF would acquire and possess as of the FY77 FYDP model for procurement.
Total fleet numbers of different types of aircraft would of course include flight-training and weapons qualification squadrons, spare airframes, etc. The numbers readers can derive from the list below would be airframes officially assigned to active-duty squadrons.)
Bomber wings
B-52H 2 (of 36 aircraft each) (
NB: increasing the size of B-52 squadrons from 16 to 18 involved surprisingly complex processes for personnel assignments, small-unit rotations and tactics [moving from four flights of 4 in each squadron to six flights of 3], and readiness schedules)
B-1A 3 (of 24 aircraft each)
Tactical air wings
F-111 4 (of 72 aircraft each)
A-7D 1 (of 54 aircraft each, to be replaced by A-10s in 1982)
A-10 4 (of 54 aircraft each, rising to 6 by 1983)
F-4E 2 (of 72 each, to be replaced by A-10s and F-15s by 1983)
F-4G 2 (of 64 each)
F-15 5 (of 72 aircraft each, rising to 6 by 1983)
*Also one composite wing in Republic of Korea with one squadron each F-4E, A-10, and OV-10A
**Also five independent F-106 interceptor squadrons for North American air defense
Support air wings
RF-4C 2 (of 54 aircraft each)
EF-111 1 (of 72 aircraft)
OV-10A 1 (of 36 aircraft)
E-3A 1 (of 36 aircraft)
RC-135 1
TR-1A/SR-71/EC-135J 2 (each with 6 SR-71, 12 TR-1A [militarized U-2], and 6 EC-135J)
C-12 1 (of 36 aircraft)
C-14A 3 (of 48 aircraft each)
C-141 3 (of 48 aircraft each, to consist of "stretched" -141B models by 1981)
C-5 2 (of 32 aircraft each)
C-130H individual squadrons in Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), Philippines, and Alaska
VIP 1 (with VC-25 [Boeing 747], VC-137 [Boeing 707], C-9, and C-20 aircraft)
KC-135 6 (of 48 aircraft each)
KC-10 1 (of 48 aircraft each)
ARRS (Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service) 1 (four operational squadrons each with 4 HC-130P tankers and 6 HH-53 helicopters)
SOF 1 (four squadrons with, respectively, 6 MC-130E, 6 HC-130P, 10 AC-130H, and 12 CH-53H)
Various support and training squadrons including Northrop F-5 aggressor training squadrons, EC-130 and EC-135 electronic warfare aircraft, WC-130 and WC-135 weather surveillance aircraft, etc.
Air Force Reserve wings provided for in FY 77 FYDP
A-7D 2
F-4E 2
C-130H 3
C-141 2
KC-135 3
KC-10 1
*Also one squadron each of AC-130A and OV-10A
Air National Guard wings provided for in FY 77 FYDP
A-7D 4
F-106 1 (assigned defense of US airspace)
F-4C 1 (to be replaced by F-16A in 1981)
F-4D 2 (to be replaced by F-16A by 1984)
F-4E 4
OA-37 2
RF-4C 2
C-130E 2 (to be replaced by C-130H by 1984)
KC-135 2
Major Combatants of the United States Navy under FY77 FYDP
CVs/CVNs 8 (by 1980 to include three
Nimitz-class and one
Enterprise-class nuclear powered CVNs and four
Kitty Hawk-class conventionally powered CVs)*
CVSs 6 (
Iwo Jima-class landing platform, helicopter (LPH) ships converted to anti-submarine "sea control" role with Marine Corps AV-8A Harriers, anti-submarine helicopters of multiple types, and CV/EV-84 Puffin [Canadair Dynavert] vertical-lift radar early warning aircraft)
CGs/CGNs 16 (by 1981 to include two
California-class and six
Virginia-class nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers, all to be refitted with AEGIS radar during 1980s, and eight
Leahy-class guided missile cruisers)**
DDGs 63 (40
Spruance-class anti-submarine guided missile destroyers and 23
Charles F. Adams-class anti-air warfare guided missile destroyers;
Adams-class ships to be replaced by 24 DD-X [
Ticonderoga-class] large anti-air warfare destroyers during 1980s)
FFGs 52 (forty-six
Knox-class and six
Brooke-class guided-missile frigates, with construction on FF-X class to begin in 1980s)
PHMs 16 (
Pegasus-class guided missile fast hydrofoils, based in four squadrons in Florida, Sicily, Denmark, and Okinawa)
SSBNs 18 (nine Atlantic-based
Benjamin Franklin-class, and nine Pacific-based
James Madison-class SSBNs ,under CART end-state provisions, all armed with UGM-73 Poseidon C3 missiles)
SS/SSNs 80 (to include thirty
Los Angeles-class nuclear powered attack submarines by 1982)
LHAs 6 (all
Tarawa-class LHAs to be in service by 1982)
* By 1980, the McGovern-era DoD planned for a disposition of the Navy's "big-deck" carrier resources as follows. At Naval Air Station, Norfolk the service would base USS
Nimitz (having replaced USS
Independence in 1975) and USS
America. At Naval Air Station, Mayport (Jacksonville, FL) the Navy would base USS
Dwight D. Eisenhower (having replaced USS
Saratoga in 1977) and USS
John F. Kennedy. At Naval Air Station, North Island (San Diego, CA) they would base USS
Enterprise and USS
Constellation. At Naval Air Station, Alameda on the San Francisco Bay they would base USS
George Washington (replacing USS
Ranger in 1980) and USS
Kitty Hawk. The four retired
Forrestal-class carriers would form part of the higher-readiness components of the Reserve Fleet, as wartime loss replacement for the
Kitty Hawk/Kennedy-class carriers. With plans to cut steel for USS
Woodrow Wilson in the later 1970s, that fourth and final (under McGovern administration plans)
Nimitz-class carrier would replace USS
Enterprise in active service in the mid-1980s, with
Enterprise likewise transferred to the higher-readiness elements of the Reserve Fleet as a loss replacement for active CVNs.
** The McGovern administration chose ultimately to stop fighting Congressional plans to replace the
Leahys in the 1980s with a sub-class of the DD-X design, stretched to include command staff accommodations and function as a cruiser as a
Halsey-class of eight vessels adapted but separate from the
Ticonderogas, provided lead-in funds could be delayed into the late Seventies subject to contemporary review.
Structure of the United States Marine Corps under McGovern-era reorganization
While the Air Force actually took a larger overall reduction in personnel (up to thirty percent, at least two-thirds of that already programmed into Nixon administration force ceilings for the USAF), no branch of the Armed Forces faced more dramatic cuts than the Marine Corps, whose manpower dropped roughly twenty-seven percent (from just over 198,000 to a ceiling of 145,000) in the first two years of the McGovern administration. The drama stemmed from two aspects of the draw-down: first that the Corps historically had many friends on Capitol Hill who insulated the Marines from such outcomes, second because many of those old friends had joined with think tanks, retired officers, and serving four-stars in the other services to ask just what would keep the Marine Corps relevant on the battlefields of the post-Vietnam world.
Commandant Louis Wilson, together with a combination of uniformed and civilian reformers and political partners within the administration and in Congress, set himself to the task of mending the Corps' wounds and reframing its role for the future. Wilson did stand pat on two traditional rationales for the Corps: that it was the principal amphibious force of the US military, to whatever ends amphibious warfare might be put in the future, and also a principal crisis-response force for sudden emergencies. Beyond that Wilson chose not to waste a good crisis. More even than the Army, Wilson decided to use the major reduction-in-force to purge unfit or undesirable personnel. Wilson embraced, in a distinctively Marine Corps fashion, the methods and recommendations of the "organizational effectiveness" reformers who wanted a more reciprocal and communal approach to ground-level operations and decision making that could invest young, new marines in the institution: the Corps was a tight-knit and exclusive tribe already, Wilson's OE aides found language and logic to justify changes in terms of the health of the service and regeneration of its historic bonds. Wilson also used the Haynes Board, chaired by one of his trusted staff officers and geared to answer the pointed questions from outside reformers who saw little justification for the Marines in the present day, to alter force structures and doctrine so that the Corps would balance better between utility on "high intensity" armored battlefields and its historic crisis-response role. All this came together as the MARINE 200 program, a catchy monicker that linked the Corps' founding in 1776 to the Bicentennial that was all over America's public conversations.
Under MARINE 200 reorganization, Corps reorganized around:
- Three Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEFs, with restoration of the term "Expeditionary" in place of Vietnam-era "Amphibious" designation), two in the regular component and one in the Marine Corps Reserve, each MEF with one Marine Division, one Marine Air Wing, and one Force Support Command
- 1st Marine Division (of I MEF, serving as Fleet Marine Forces Pacific) includes four rather than normal three Marine infantry regiments; each Tank Battalion (one per division) increased in strength by one company over pre-MARINE 200 strength, each division now with two Tracked Amphibian Battalions (amphibious tracked landing craft) rather than one
- Each MEF to provide division- and Force-level command as needed to large operations; on a constant basis to provide one Marine Assault Brigade (heavy Marine brigade with full Tank Battalion minus one company and one Tracked Amphibious Battalion assigned to field a mechanized Marine brigade), one Marine Expeditionary Brigade (lighter force on the older Marine-brigade model, with one tank and one tracked-amphibian company each assigned), and a Marine infantry regiment plus necessary support forces to form and rotate three Marine Expeditionary Units (based on a Battalion Landing Team) through rule-of-three readiness cycle (one deployed, one training up, one reconstituting after deployment)
- This meant each of I and II MEF would provide (1) one Marine Assault Brigade force, (2) one Marine Expeditionary Brigade force as needed, and (3) three MEUs available
- I MEF stronger overall so that it could if needed provide a full division (three infantry regiments) for operations without compromising the MEU mission
- As of programs initiated in the FY 76 budget, by the late Seventies I MEF will maintain an Afloat Prepositioning Squadron of cargo ships moored at Saipan in the Pacific for 9th Marine Assault Brigade (formerly 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade), while II MEF will maintain a hardened Prepositioned Materiel Configured in Unit Sets (POMCUS) site in northern Norway for 4th Marine Assault Brigade (formerly 4th Marine Amphibious Brigade)
- Further amphibious and transport ships available to form up and transport an MEB each from I MEF or II MEF to operations when required
- Under MARINE 200 overall Corps regular-component strength reduced from c. 198,000 in 1972 to 145,000
United States Army Organization for the Volunteer Force Under ARMY 76
The Army was of course the largest of the services, arguably the most damaged by the Southeast Asian experience as well. It was subject to a mixture of public and inter-service disdain, congressional scrutiny, and significant cuts as the Army's end-strength ceiling dropped to 650,000 through agreement between the McGovern administration and a belt-tightening Congress. The Army's active component was circumscribed in other ways, as the Humphrey-Cranston Amendment to the FY74 defense appropriations bill largely backed the administration's play on root-and-branch Army withdrawals from South Korea and significant drops in forces deployed forward to Western Europe, and the administration dickered with force structures to eliminate the assignment of major Army formations (divisions, corps, etc.) to any specific missions on the Pacific Rim, an effort to "reorganize out" what McGoverners considered risky latent capabilities for large land wars in Asia.
At the same time, like the other services, the Army started to find its way. Senior commanders found ways to preserve contingency missions in theaters where the administration preferred to avoid direct assignments (Northeast Asia, the Philippines, Latin America, etc.) and so salvaged a path to expand the "tooth to tail" ratio in the smaller All-Volunteer Force to contain twelve active-component divisions rather than the ten first planned by the McGovern administration. This ended up reinforcing the United States' formal commitment to Europe, with the restructured III Corps taking up a conventional-force backstop role on the North German Plain and raising the official US commitment of active-component forces to NATO back to nine divisions in three corps. The service also found a path of least resistance by embracing the model set out by Under Secretaries for Policy, John Holum, and Intelligence, Robert "Blowtorch Bob" Komer, that centered defense of West Germany on large new prepositioned-equipment bases in West Germany and the Low Countries, dubbed Prepositioned Materiel Configured in Unit Sets (POMCUS), vast covered motor pools of heavy vehicles and equipment arrayed so that individual small units could find their gear on a map grid and drive it into the field, after they arrived at NATO airfields by air transit. Tied to this was the expansion of several stateside bases to take up forces redeployed from Europe, often chosen with political benefits in mind: notably Camp (now Fort) Stewart in Georgia, Fort Hood in Texas (already a massive facility), and Fort Polk in Louisiana, where base expansion became a public-works project that dovetailed with reconstruction after the 1973 Mississippi floods.
Two large changes internal to the Army's structure and ways of doing business also took hold. One was a cautious but deliberate embrace of the "Organizational Effectiveness" model for remaking officer-enlisted and command-small unit relations, for investing new volunteer recruits in the Army's culture and ways of doing business, and for vetting (sometimes subtly, sometimes not so) serving officers and senior NCOs for their facility at working with these new methods and relationships. The flagship OE project of the service was Gen. Bernard Rogers' enterprise with U.S. Army Europe, the front-line forces for the potential conflict that the Army deemed most important. In a zig-zagging line from former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird's proposals of 1970, the service embraced a "Total Army" model that, through the ARMY 76 program, integrated active, National Guard, and Reserve units at theater-army and corps level as semi-integrated layers of a wartime force. The total-force system would give the service some organizational depth in case of a major war and the ability to regenerate itself (through Guard and Reserve reinforcements, and Reserve training divisions that would ready wartime volunteers and Involuntary Ready Reserve personnel for action for six months, then flesh out as combatant formations themselves.) The leading uniformed light for that change, alongside Secretary of the Army Charlie Bennett, was Gen. Walter T. "Dutch" Kerwin, first as the inaugural commander of Army Forces Command (FORSCOM), later as Chief of Staff of the Army.
Through the ARMY 76 plan the service worked to improve the quality of its soldiery by (1) using major force reductions to "section out" low-performing, poorly skilled, even criminal personnel, (2) working to improve inducements and personnel quality through OE programs, and (3) streamlining its organization around a few key missions. At the same time the Army worked to identify and shepherd major procurement projects that would improve the service's capabilities in the field.
Theater-level Army Forces
United States Third Army (US Army MEAFSA) - Camp Darby, Livorno, Italy
United States Fifth Army (US Army Americas) - Ft. Sam Houston, TX
United States Seventh Army (US Army Europe) - Heidelberg, Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
United States Eighth Army (US Army Pacific) - Ft. Shafter, Hawaii
Corps level
III Corps (HQ: Ft. Hood, TX)
(III Corps major wartime mission to reinforce NATO's Northern Army Group [NORTHAG], with potential secondary missions to Northeast Asia or the Middle East only in the absence of a major conflict in Europe)
Regular-service element
2nd Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft. Lewis, WA; mechanized infantry, all at Ft. Lewis, with tenth maneuver battalion - armored - provided by US Army Reserve; Prepositioned Materiel Configured in Unit Sets [POMCUS] site at Grobbendonk, Netherlands)
1st Cavalry Division (Ft. Hood, TX; special organization with two brigades structured as armored cavalry regiments minus aviation squadron, and one organic attack-aviation brigade, all at Ft. Hood; POMCUS site at Monchengladbach, FRG)
2nd Armored Division (Ft. Hood, TX; armored, all at Ft. Hood; POMCUS site at Kaiserslautern, FRG)
3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Ft. Bliss, TX; corps armored cavalry regiment; POMCUS site at Garlstedt, FRG)
199th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Ft. Ord, CA; mechanized infantry, corps rear-area combat brigade; POMCUS site at Essen, FRG)
Corps support elements at these bases and Ft. Huachuca, AZ
National Guard element
40th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Los Alamitos, CA; from CANG except one armored battalion from NVNG)
49th Armored Division (Camp Mabry, TX; from TXNG)
81st Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate) (Seattle, WA; corps rear-area combat brigade, from WANG)
Corps support formations from across western United States
Reserve element
91st Infantry Division (HQ: Sausalito, CA)
95th Infantry Division (HQ: Midwest City, OK)
104th Infantry Division (HQ: Vancouver, WA)
Also corps-level Reserve support units, chiefly medical, engineering, and logistics
V Corps (HQ: Frankfurt, FRG)
Regular-service element
4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft. Carson, CO; mechanized infantry, all at Ft. Carson; POMCUS site at Gelnhausen, FRG)
8th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Bad Kreuznach, FRG; mechanized infantry, all based forward in FRG)
3rd Armored Division (Ft. Stewart, GA; most of division at Ft. Stewart less one armored brigade based forward at Kirchgoens, FRG; POMCUS site at Frankfurt, FRG)
11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (Fulda, FRG; corps armored cavalry regiment, based forward in FRG)
197th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate) (Ft. Benning, GA: mechanized infantry, corps rear-area combat brigade all at Ft. Benning; POMCUS site at Frankfurt, FRG)
Corps support units based forward in FRG, at Ft. Benning, GA, Ft. Sill, OK, and Ft. Jackson, SC
National Guard element
30th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Raleigh, NC; armored brigade from NCNG, mechanized infantry brigades from SCNG and TNNG, division support units from those states and VANG)
50th Armored Division (Trenton, NJ; one armored and one mechanized infantry brigades from NJNG, one armored brigade from VTNG [including one mechanized infantry battalion from NYNG], division support units from those states and DENG)
107th Armored Brigade (Separate) (Columbus, OH; converted from armored cavalry regiment, corps rear-area combat brigade, from OHNG)
Corps support units based in northeastern US
Reserve element
76th Infantry Division (HQ: Hartford, CT)
78th Infantry Division (HQ: Edison, NJ)
98th Infantry Division (HQ: Rochester, NY)
Also corps-level Reserve support units
VII Corps (HQ: Stuttgart, FRG)
Regular-service element
1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft. Riley, KS; mechanized, division at Ft. Riley less one mechanized brigade forward at Goppingen, FRG; POMCUS site at Mannheim, FRG)
3rd Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft. Polk, LA; mechanized infantry, all at Ft. Polk; POMCUS site at Schweinfurt, FRG)
1st Armored Division (Hanau, FRG; all based forward in FRG)
2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment (Nurnberg, FRG; corps armored cavalry regiment, all based forward in FRG)
194th Armored Brigade (Separate) (Ft. Knox, KY; corps rear-area combat brigade; POMCUS set at Nurnberg, FRG)
Corps support units based forward in FRG, also at Ft. Sill, OK, Ft. Devens, MA, and Ft. Drum, NY
National Guard element
30th Armored Division (Nashville, TN; armored brigades from TNNG and ALNG, mechanized brigade from MSNG, division support units from those states and ARNG)
35th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Ft. Leavenworth, KS; mechanized brigades from KSNG and NENG, armored brigade from KYNG, division support units from those states, MONG, and CONG)
32nd Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate) (Milwaukee, WI; corps rear-area combat brigade, from WING)
Corps support elements from the Midwestern United States
Reserve element
70th Infantry Division (HQ: Livonia, MI)
84th Infantry Division (HQ: Milwaukee, WI)
85th Infantry Division (HQ: Arlington Heights, IL)
Also corps-level Reserve support units
XVIII Corps (HQ: Ft. Bragg, NC)
Regular-service element
25th Infantry Division (Schofield Barracks, HI; "leg" infantry division, all based in Hawaii)
82nd Airborne Division (Ft. Bragg, NC; "TRICAP" airborne force with airborne, air assault, and organic aviation brigades; on duty as national alert force)
101st Airborne Division (Ft. Campbell, KY; "TRICAP" airborne force with airborne, air assault, and organic aviation brigades; assigned to provide airborne capabilities to conventional-warfare operations)
U.S. Army Special Warfare Command (Ft. Bragg, NC; two-star command in control of Army special missions units and training schools based variously in United States and overseas)
Corps support units at those bases, Ft. McPherson, GA, and Hunter Army Airfield, GA
National Guard element
38th Infantry Division (Air Assault) (Indianapolis, IN; two air-assault infantry brigades from INNG and one from ILNG, along with organic aviation brigade from ILNG and KYNG, division support elements from those states and OHNG)
42nd Infantry Division (New York, NY; "leg" infantry division from NYNG)
36th Airborne Brigade (Separate) (Houston, TX; corps reserve airborne brigade from TXNG)
48th Infantry Brigade (Mechanized) (Separate) (Macon, GA; corps rear-area combat brigade, from GANG)
Corps support units from southeastern United States
Reserve element
80th Infantry Division (HQ: Richmond, VA)
100th Infantry Division (HQ: Louisville, KY)
104th Infantry Division (HQ: Charlotte, NC)
Also corps-level Reserve support units
A note on Airborne Divisions: As part of ARMY 76, both the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions converted to a version of the "TRICAP" (TRIple CAPability) model. Thus altered the divisions included (1) one airborne-infantry brigade made of a brigade headquarters and four airborne battalion combat teams [ABCTs] (large battalions structured with three rifle companies, a headquarters company, a support company that included among other elements heavier weapons and an engineer platoon, and an organic battery of airborne artillery), (2) a heliborne air-assault infantry brigade structured like a Separate brigade (e.g. with organic artillery, engineering, combat support/logistics, etc., rather than elements detached from a divisional pool), and (3) an organic air assault aviation brigade with three large aviation battalions each of which combined attack helicopters with medium- and heavy-lift transport helicopters, along with a cavalry squadron armed chiefly with scout helicopters.
A note on Special Warfare Command: The principal elements of the downsized and reordered Special Warfare Command were a single (large company-sized) active-component Civil Affairs Battalion (to be reinforced by no less than five Army Reserve formations in the event of a major conflict) and three Special Operations Groups. The SOGs, which bore the identification and lineage of previous Special Forces Groups - 5th, 7th, and 10th - were amalgams of capability inside one structure. Each Group contained two active-component Special Forces battalions (with their mission defined more narrowly around three tasks: around unconventional - i.e. guerilla - warfare training and leadership, around human-intelligence collection, and around foreign military liaison in the field) each regionally-aligned, one National Guard Special Forces battalion that would serve as a reinforcement unit for the active-component battalions, one Army Reserve Special Forces battalion structured as a cadre and institutional training unit for wartime replacement personnel, one (company-sized) regionally aligned Psychological Operations battalion, and one large Ranger company (made up entirely of "tabbed" Ranger School graduates, with Special Forces-qualified personnel in leadership positions, assigned to special reconnaissance and direct-action tasks.) Each of these component elements was to be led by a lieutenant colonel, with the larger Group headquarters commanded by a full colonel. There existed also several special-qualification schools, and some independent force support units aligned to provide specialized service-support and logistics functions.
Special Independent Brigades
Regular element
56th Artillery Group (Schwabish-Gmund, FRG; control over three Pershing I field artillery battalions in FRG [to become two Pershing II and one Pershing I] and one security-force infantry battalion; also affiliated with 4th Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment as a Pershing I battalion in Republic of Korea)
172nd Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Ft. Wainwright, AK; trained for arctic operations, assigned wartime defense of Alaska and as US Army Pacific theater reserve; two arctic-infantry battalions, one independent armor company, one organic aviation company, and brigade support units at Ft. Wainwright; one airborne battalion combat team [ABCT] at Ft. Richardson, AK)
193rd Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Ft. Clayton, Panama Canal Zone; trained for jungle operations, wartime defense of Canal Zone; command slots structured to expand to division-sized command and support in wartime with assigned National Guard round-out units; two "leg" infantry and one mechanized battalions, one independent armor company, one organic aviation company, based variously in Canal Zone)
Berlin Infantry Brigade (United States Occupation Zone Berlin; three mechanized infantry battalions, one independent armor company, various support elements including Special Forces special detachment; assigned to supervise and defend US zone of occupied Berlin)
SETAF (Caserma Ederle, Vicenza, Italy; Southern European TAsk Force with airborne battalion combat team [ABCT] assigned to rapid-reaction role for US Army Europe, also artillery support elements assigned to dual-key nuclear forces with Italian, Greek, and Turkish armies)
National Guard element
29th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Honolulu, HI; from HING and one California-based US Army Reserve "leg" infantry battalion; assigned wartime defense of Hawaii and United States Territories in the Pacific)
34th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Mineota, MN; "leg" infantry brigade with organic armor battalion, from MNNG; assigned wartime reinforcement of Iceland)
53rd Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Tallahassee, FL; "leg" infantry brigade from FLNG with organic armor battalion, from FLNG; assigned wartime defense of Panama Canal Zone)
92nd Infantry Brigade (Separate) (San Juan, PR; "leg" infantry brigade from PRNG; assigned wartime defense of Puerto Rico and other United States Territories in the Caribbean)
116th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Richmond, VA; two "leg" infantry battalions each from VANG and MDNG and support units from both states; assigned wartime defense and security operations for District of Columbia)
207th Scout Group (Separate) (Anchorage, AK; long-range patrol formation assigned wartime defense of Alaska, from AKNG)
256th Infantry Brigade (Separate) (Baton Rouge, LA; "leg" infantry brigade from LANG; assigned wartime reinforcement of Panama Canal Zone)
Total ARMY 76 force contained in four Theater Army headquarters, four corps formations, and thirty-two divisions (twelve Regular, eight National Guard, and twelve Reserve.)