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Army Units

I hope ya'll don't mind my tutorials on things military. It occurred many people don't understand the structure of the Army at all and the movies often portray things so incredibly wrong that civilians get a distorted view of things. So, I decided to give you a breakdown of the Army's structure. I broke this down into regular Army and Special Forces, because they are different.

Regular Army
Fire Team: 3 -5 usually led by a Corporal or Sergeant.

Squad: 6 - 11 people usually led by a Sergeant or a Staff Sergeant. In an armor unit this would be one MBT.

Platoon: 25 - 50 people usually led by a 1st or 2nd Lieutenant (A very young and new officer) with a Sergeant First Class as his senior NCO. Armor would 3-5 MBTs.

Company: 100 - 300 people and usually led by a Captain although a high speed 1st Lieutenant might be in charge. Army would be 10 to 17 MBTs. The captain has a 1st Sergeant as his senior NCO.

Battalion: 400 - 800 people usually led by a Lieutenant Colonel. He has a staff of Captains and Majors each with a different function, like the S3 Operations Officer, S2 Intelligence Officer, S1 Personnel Officer, etc. Armor would be over 50 MBTs. He has a Sergeant Major as his senior NCO.

Brigade: 2,000 - 3,000 people usually led by a Colonel. He has a staff of Lieutenant Colonels and Majors each with a different function, like the S3 Operations Officer, S2 Intelligence Officer, S1 Personnel Officer, etc. This is often a combined arms unit with mechanized infantry and armor put together except in the case of special divisions like the 82nd Airborne Division, which infantry and artillery only. Armor would be hundreds of MBTs. He has a Sergeant Major as his senior NCO.

Division: This is a fully integrated team of units that supports itself. It has all the branches. It is usually led by a Major General (Two stars) and has a staff of Brigadier Generals (One star), Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels who are the G1, G2, G3, G4 etc.. A division is anywhere from 11,000 to 18,000 people.

Corps: A Corps is led by a Lieutenant General (Three stars) and has two to five divisions in it. It is task organized depending on the mission. It has a huge staff of officers to conduct planning and many independent support units like artillery and aviation units. It's generally 35,000 to over 100,000 strong.

Army: An Army is two or more Corps and is always task organized depending on mission. As large as the Corp's support is, the Army is larger. An Army is led by a senior Lieutenant General or a General (Four stars).

SF will come in the next post.

Units Army

Then you have the MPs They fit into most of this but depending how they are organized at a post level you could have anywhere from a company to a full Battalion. Usually the Battalion in the Military police Corps is led by a full Colonel. I have not been on a base that has more than a full Division but I am sure there is some here and there. A three man team in the MPs has the firepower of a full platoon of infantry. There is usually four three man teams in each squad of MPs to give you the idea of the combat MP numbers.

Army Units History & Civil Business Politics

As promised Army Special Forces configuration. Now, this has changed slightly from my time but it is basically the same. If you compare to the regular Army units above you'll note that these have a much higher rank structure. That is due to the specialized nature of their mission. They require a more mature soldier that already has a base in Army tactics.

Special Forces Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA): 12 soldiers with a Captain in charge. This is the basics combat element and is set up to be able to operate independently in a variety of missions. The Team Leader is a Captain, the Team Warrant Officer is a WO from WO1 to CW4, although is usually a CW2 or 3 (This is what I was when I got out), The Operations/Team Sergeant is a MSG (Same as a First Sergeant above but gets the Master Sergeant moniker because he isn't the top NCO of a company), the Assistant Operations and Intelligence Sergeant is usually a Sergeant First Class (SFC), 2 x Weapons Sergeants (One is usually an SFC and the other is either a Sergeant (SGT) or Staff Sergeant (SSG)). These guys are master of virtually any firearm in existence, 2 x Engineering Sergeants (One is usually an SFC and the other is either a Sergeant (SGT) or Staff Sergeant (SSG)) these guys can build a bridge or blow one up, put in a well, or destroy a railroad yard, 2 x Medical Sergeants (One is usually an SFC and the other is either a Sergeant (SGT) or Staff Sergeant (SSG) these guys are skilled at keeping people alive and are virtually PAs, and 2 x Communications Sergeants (One is usually an SFC and the other is either a Sergeant (SGT) or Staff Sergeant (SSG)) these guys know how to set up a HF or SATCOM site and can communicate virtually to anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world. All of them are expert at moving quietly, hand to hand combat, combat with a knife, climbing and rappelling, shooting, outdoor survival in multiple terrains, and a host of other skills. These teams have various missions, Military Free-Fall (MFF) Team, Combat Diver Teams / SCUBA Teams, Mountain Team, Mobility / Mounted Team

Six ODAs make up an SF company led by a Major and the senior enlisted is a Sergeant Major. There is a support element to help lead the OBAs. This is called an ODB. It is 11 people strong. Total with ODAs at full strength is 83 people.

Three SF companies make up an SF Battalion. It is led by a Lieutenant Colonel and has a Command Sergeant Major as the senior enlisted. About 350 people with supporting companies.

Three SF Battalions make up an SF Group although now I believe they have added a fourth battalion per group. This is led by a Colonel with a Command Sergeant Major as the senior enlisted. There are about 2,000 people in an SF group.

The five SF Groups (1st SFG (A), 3rd SFG (A), 5th SFG (A), 7th SFG (A), and 10th SFG (A)) make up U.S. Army Special Operation Command led by a Major General (Two stars). He has a Command Sergeant Major as the senior enlisted. I'm not sure what the number is now.

Units Army

This is very interesting to learn. Thanks for putting in the time to type this up. So the last update was for army special forces. This confuses me. Is the army special forces Green Berets or rangers? I've always heard people talk about them and the rangers.

Units Army

Army SF wears the green berets. Rangers are SF units but they have a different mission. They wear a tan beret. They will come with a future update. SF soldiers and Rangers each have different tabs to denote them. That'll come in a different thread in the future… stay tuned boys and girls.

Army Units

I never did like the military changing all units to the beret. I liked knowing who the better trained units were by looking at the fact they wore a beret. Now almost everyone wears a beret and to me that takes the special-ness from them.

Army Units

Yeah, and the fact they took the black beret from the Rangers was a kick in the you know what. Many of us that could wear a beret started wearing our patrol caps instead as an act of defiance. Then one day an order came down from Chief of Staff of the Army himself ordering all special units to cease and desist. We were not happy.

Army Units Politics Business Civil & History

Army Rangers are the other side of Special Forces. These people are trained to be used as an assault force, as an elite light infantry force, or as a special equipment recovery force. They are set up similar to conventional units.

Fire Team: 4 people led by a Corporal or Sergeant.

Squad: 9 people usually led by a Sergeant or a Staff Sergeant. In the rangers there is a machine gun squad consisting of a squad leader and three M240 machine gun crews of three men each. This squad can act on its own to provide heavy sustained fire or teams may be dispatched to the other squads.

Platoon: 40 people led by a 1st or 2nd Lieutenant with a Sergeant First Class as his senior NCO. Three rifle squads and a MG squad.

Company: 160 people and led by a Captain although a high speed 1st Lieutenant might be in charge.

Battalion: 600 people usually led by a Lieutenant Colonel. He has a staff of Captains and Majors each with a different function, like the S3 Operations Officer, S2 Intelligence Officer, S1 Personnel Officer, etc.

Ranger Regiment: There are three Battalion in the Ranger Regiment, of which we have one. It is led by a Colonel. He has a staff much like that of a regular army brigade.