How the Army will cut troops
The Washington Post got a look at the PowerPoint slides which details how the Army will slash troop strength over the next few years to get to the 450,000 number which has been mandated by the White House which wants to balance the budget on the back of our national security. The Post points out that number will bring troop strength to the lowest point since before the Second World War;
The most significant cuts will occur at Fort Benning, Ga., and Joint Base Elmendorf-Richard, Alaska, where the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, and the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, respectively, will be targeted. Each brigade combat team has about 4,000 soldiers, and will be reduced to a battalion of about 1,050, Army officials said.
The 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii will become a leg infantry unit, waving goodbye to their Stryker armored vehicles. Considering that the Pentagon’s focus is shifting to the pacific, that makes little sense. I think I’d rather face the Chinese hordes from inside an armored vehicle than from the bottom of a foxhole. Ask a Korean War veteran. The vehicles are being transferred to the National Guard’s 81st Armor Brigade Combat Team back on the mainland.
Fort Hood in Texas won’t have any brigade combat teams eliminated, but nonetheless will drop from about 37,475 soldiers now to about 34,125.
[…]
Significant cuts are also planned at Fort Bliss in Texas (dropping 1,219 soldiers to 25,146), Fort Bragg in North Carolina (cutting 842 soldiers to 38,830) Schofield Barracks (shedding 1,214 soldiers to 14,473) and Fort Stewart in Georgia (down 947 soldiers to 18,457)
The Pentagon is also planning on reducing the number of DoD civilians by 17,000, as well. The talk I’ve heard indicates that the 450k number won’t be the end of it. Folks at the Pentagon have been told to expect another loss of 30,000 troops. It isn’t just the White House to blame – Congress isn’t stepping up and doing their job to “provide for the common defense” like the Constitution tells them they should.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Army News
Does anyone realize how LONG it took to transform the 2nd Brigade (25 ID) INTO a Stryker Brigade?
No, GT, and they don’t care, either.
Actually, it’s still happening. Blue to green is still a work in progress, and a painful one at that.
Sir, the leaderless ones bent on leaving our country exposed to the threat of being overrun by the likes of the Jamaica Defense Force, could care less how much time or money it took to get the 2nd Stryker Brigade up to speed and efficiency. Tearing it down is simply easy money in their minds. Well until that is, they are needed on the Korean Peninsula for instance…again. If the clueless ones in the White House, Congress and Pentagon don’t think the Koreans, Chinese and every other potential enemy in the Pacific Rim aren’t watching this with bated breath and wetting their lips then they are ten degrees dumber than I had them pegged as already. The Koreans for instance, supported perhaps again by the Chinese, would love to see American legs hitting the coast lines with a little armor and air cover support. Obama wants to push hard into the Pacific Rim, the whys and whereofs I have yet to comprehend. But if he is going to do it without more than minimally supported ground forces, he’s going to be calling for a large supply of body bags.
Obozo wants to destroy the US, getting rid of high brass, reducing troops..may a tank drive up his ass when the SHTF!
Word brother, Word
Yes, and it haunts me. The 25th ID had 3rd BDE getting the snot beat out of ’em in Kirkuk around 05-07 time frame. I had just left there as part of TF Warrior (2nd BDE) with 1/21 IN. The army (small ‘a’ for emphasis) forgot to fill out an environmental impact study for the strykers in Hawaii. Well, long story short: we couldn’t train so we sat around with thumb-in-ass for almost a year while good men were in the fight, one that 2nd BDE had a hand in. After some bad losses DIV started to ask for skill level 1’s to lateral transfer to go help. If it wasn’t this freshly pinned buck’s life goal to get stripped to be eligible. CSM stepped all over me and put a wrench in the works, fml. I always asked wtf was the point putting those green tin cans on that hunk of near worthless red crap. We could have spent time humping that jungle and over those hills instead of getting tanker-lazy and we sure a F$&@ coulda been spun up to get down range, VICs don’t go bad in a year. But some egghead pentagon sh!tstain and his lapdog general just HAD to get 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team REDCON 1… To hell with you, you servile pencil pushing F$&@s.
I never understood why we needed an Airborne BDE in Alaska anyways. They aren’t going to do anything 2nd Battalion can’t take care of and with the 82nd on GRF, it seemed like a waste
From what I recall, having airborne infantry in Alaska was kind of a legacy of the Cold War. 6th ID’s mission back then was to defend Alaska against any sort of Soviet incursion. As you’ve probably noticed, Alaska is really big, so the fastest way of moving troops from one part of the state to another in a crisis situation would have been an airborne assault.
After the Cold War ended, the airborne element up there was retained (and in fact enlarged) because it constituted pretty much the U.S. Army’s only forced-entry capability forward-based in the Pacific theater.
The ABN Brigade in Alaska and Europe where establish so that each COCOM CDR (PACOM/EUCOM) would have a dedicated force already in theatre.
While the 82nd is technically “world wide” deployable, they where already committed to other CONPLANs outside of PACOM/EUCOM and were not available for employment.
Now, at least PACOM will be forced to do a brigades worth of missions with a BN task force.
Yanno, I’m beginning to realize that there are a couple of people I dislike even MORE than the Bernath crowd.
Seriously. And that’s saying something.
Boehner and company. May they reside in the afterlife with the DW’s and Bernath’s of the world…
Speaking as an IT project manager, they’re going about it backwards. You don’t randomly reduce resources, you evaluate your mission first, then scale resources accordingly.
I’ve yet to hear anything about a reduced mission to justify a reduction in troops. I read recently that we’re deployed in 133 countries. Why? Where are the plans and goals for that and how do resources meet that need?
I’m afraid I already know the answer…. there is no plan and no goals.
This is the Obama military. Mission last feelings first.
I know exactly where they can begin troop reduction. Officers that have nothing better to do than attempt ranger school 3 times….
You’ve hit the nail on the head, though there is a twist. While we as a nation haven’t reduced the missions, what we are doing is accepting increased risk in the costs (both $$, lives, and time) that accomplishing those mission will take.
Its actually a lie. We’ll agree to accomplish mission X, but we won’t place the appropriate amount of resources against it. Think of reducing the number of trucks in a fire house from 2 to 1. All is fine an good, unless you need that ladder truck you no longer have, and must wait for one from another station to arrive. As long as there is no fire, the public doesn’t care.
From the AMERICAN MERCENARY web site:
http://randomthoughtsandguns.blogspot.com/2015/07/yes-army-is-downsizing-no-it-is-not-news.html
Evidently the “Army is cutting 40,000 more troops!!!” is big news to people who have either the attention span and/or memory of a goldfish (or weren’t paying attention for the last three years). This is not news.
The first Army drawdown proposal that I read came in 2008, and we were cutting Brigades by 2012. Trust me, I know how much it sucks to be deployed in a war zone when your unit is put on the roster of Brigades being downsized. We called it our “Worldwide Farewell Tour.”
In 2013 the 420,000 Active Army by 2019 plan was put forth because Congress and sequestration. So despite social media blowing up about this “new, unprecedented!” event, it’s been in the works. Here’s a prediction. Everyone who is “shocked” about this is going to be “shocked” again in 2017 when the Army announces a 30,000 Soldier reduction to get from 450,000 down to 420,000.
The original drawdown was from 535,000 to 490,000 by 2015, 450,000 by 2017, 420,000 by 2019. That is a 30k to 40k reduction every two years. We generally have to recruit 80k per year to maintain readiness. So between reduced recruitment and more forced separations (we’ve been forcing people out through retention review boards and HRC announced it would use the “up or out” promotion system as a force shaping tool) we have been winding down.
The unspoken hope was that Congress would fix the budget problems and work with the military to keep some depth in the force. The 420,000 number has been out there for at least the last 2 years, so I have no idea why people are flooding my social media with the scheduled cuts:
http://archive.armytimes.com/article/20130918/NEWS05/309180028/Service-chiefs-Budget-cuts-put-troops-nation-risk
We must cut the horrible wasteful military spending so that we can provide for the needs of the less fortunate and “new Americans”.
I think I am coming down with the flu.
Just fucking brilliant! Absolutely stunning the amount of stupidity we recognize in the so-called “Leaders”of this once powerful country. Weaken our defenses to equal those of some third world country, say Africa for example. How long will it be before the damned idiots start publishing the names, addresses, and other personal identifying information for each and every person now serving our country? Not to forget the names, gender, and age of their dependents? How long before the BSC (Boy Scouts of China) are able to come at will and take over?
Folks, I’m telling you right now, best you start reading up on defenses created by the VC in RVN to self-protect. My guess is 60% favorable that I will leave this world early at the hands of invaders with two brain cells; which happens to be double the number in the empty skulls of our leaders. Add to that a 100% chance that I will not go down easy and compliant; there will be a price to pay with all I can inflict on those taking over and destroying us.
And look at what Dear Leader is doing to the Navy. The sea lanes will be unprotected and these assholes have not a clue what that means for our economy. Not one fucking clue.
You have it all wrong. If you cut back on combat ships and something happens, all you have to do is build new ones. It only takes 8 weeks, just like army basic training, and you have a ship ready to go to war. Same with troops. If you need troops, all you have to do is post a note on twitter, people show up at recruiters, get sent to basic for 8 weeks – even 6 weeks is okay – and you have a viable military force.
By the way, we don’t actually have to worry about this. We have this too-huge military and nobody starts wars anyway – that is no longer how we settle our differences.
You know that there are people all over the country who believe this.
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
Yeah, but we have all that stuff in mothballs that can be cranked up, rehabbed, refitted and sent back to sea.
If you watch “Chosin”, Korean War veterans went from the recruiting office to the ship and they did their boot camp aboard the ship on their way to the war. These days we can move troops by air, so basic training will be completed in even less time. The last line was sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell.
Oh boy! I can see it now. An R. Lee Ermey on-board every C-17!
Todays American public does not have the stomach to kick ass and break the fucking pencil to avoid taking names . Example: 9/11 – Did anyone see lines at the Recruiting Stations ? In the 60s the lines would have been hundreds of yards long with folks wanting to go “get some”.
Maybe we need to look at getting rid of some civilian jobs and using that money for the troops . A real novel idea would be Mess Sergeants , Cooks and troopies doing KP .
The last time that the Active Duty Army end-strength was below 450,000 was 1940:
269,023
Nice to know that the world has become a much safer place now where National Defense is no longer a priority.
Hey! The president has a Nobel peace prize, and he will give a speech. Problem solved.
i am disgusted with our conservative congress. I had high hopes for them but they have given in to the libs on everything. The liberals have had more go their way since loosing control of the house and senate than they did when they were in control.
“F” every one of them dem and rep. Time to fire them all and start from scratch.
Sorry for the grammar. Using a phone here and it’s a pain.
Well, at least Kelly Hill won’t be as busy.
Down loading our military personnel seems weird. I always thought that the more in uniform, the safer the people are. Yanking them out of the ME is good, but less in uniform doesn’t sit well with me. Doesn’t that also mean loss of jobs for military personnel?
Well there goes Kelly hill…. I was with 3/3 for oif 5.3 aka “the troop surge” haha. I wonder what the structure will be. Will they just have 1 battalion or just make all the batts the size of a company…
Army logic would dictate the latter. That way those battalion command slots are still available. One field grade and CSM are worth 1000 junior officers and lower enlisted. 🙂
If we cut the military, we can use even more money to pay for social programs like free phones, EBT, welfare stamps, free everything for people who will vote for us!
Fuck the deficit, that’s so out of control that the next guy can deal with it and when they blame me I’ll just continue to retort that it was Bush’s fault…
The LCS and F35 will cover any and all conflicts. knuckle draggers aren’t needed…
I’m waiting for shrillary to make an off-the-cuff gaffe caught on video and ‘shared’ everywhere, a little something that will send people straight to the other option. 🙂
Could we even move a striker brigade somewhere hot in the Pacific in a reasonable amount of time?
Problem will be the current model with contractor support playing a large role – what happens if you don’t totally control the battle space like in OIF/OEF?
Yeah a Powerpoint on the method they are using to make cuts can be fit on two slides, one named “Willy” and the other “Nilly”.