What's in a Brigade?

• Author: Nichols, Charles
• Position: LETTERS - Letter to the Editor

In the August 2005 article, "Army Brigades Will Deploy With Hundreds More Trucks" National Defense reported that, "The plan is to morph the Army's 10 combat divisions into 77 self-deployable brigades."

That statement could be easily misunderstood by your readers. The soldier resources in the 10 active Army combat divisions are not sufficient to man 77 BCTs with 3,500 to 4,000 members per BCT.

The figure "77" comes from totaling the BCTs in the active Army component with the BCTs planned for the Army National Guard and Army Reserve.

An excellent source of information about the Army's restructuring plan is the Association of the U.S. Army's Torchbearer Special Report, August 2005, subject: "Active Component Division and Brigade Combat...