DoD Announces Force Adjustments

"Force Adjustments?"

Published on May 9, 2007 By pseudosoldier In Current Events

Yes, "force adjustments." Stressing that this is not related to "that surge thing we did," the Department of Defense announced yesterday the identities of the next 10 brigade combat teams that will deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. These units consist (or will consist, if they become fully staffed) of approximately 35,000 personnel (where have we seen that number before?) and deployments of these units will begin in August 2007 (which falls earlier than beginnings of some previous rotations, bringing this set of deployments closer to the start of the previous set, allowing for more overlap).

Up until this official announcement, all I had to go on for the impending deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was RUMINT (Rumor Intelligence, basically hearsay). Now I can point this out to specific people to inform them that, undoubtedly, they will be in Iraq well before me.

The impact of pushing the start of these rotations closer together means even more for the extended time frames of the rotations. As it stood with the 12 month (projected) rotations, you'd have very little overlap with the units you replaced and the units that replaced you. This hand-off time turns out to be key in providing continuous operations in the region, so they would extend the hand-off time which either shortens your time at home station or extends your rotation. Conceivably, this is a compelling reason to extend the deployment times, as then they might still keep the soldiers home for a full year's stabilization.

But if they do an even greater overlap for hand-off (or just pack the theater full of troops), they nullify the benefits that they might garner from the extended rotation time. (This doesn't even address a point that our own Texas Wahine has brought up, that if a soldier PCSes (changed duty stations) after a deployment, he could wind up in theater again well before the one year projected stabilization. This was something that I noted way back in 2001 with the deployments to Afghanistan necessitating the unit specific stop losses.)

Anyway. The announcement is out there, along with an announcement today Link posting the next two units to go to Afghanimastan. Oddly, the 101st ABN DIV is listed as sending its 4th Brigade to the 'Stan, but the official 101st web page Link only lists three brigades. (Seriously.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed herein do not reflect upon my superiors, the Army or the military service. They might not even be mine... or are they?
Additional Disclaimer: Some words in quotes within this article are not actual quotes.

Comments

pseudosoldier

on Jun 03, 2007

The 4th Brigade of the 101st Airborne is actually referred to as the 506th Regimental Combat Team... the unit has kept its Regimental affiliation for traditional purposes.

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