Quote Originally Posted by Infanteer View Post
Interestingly enough, there is a SAMS monograph on this:

http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cgi-b...ename=2612.pdf

Only had the oppurtunity to gloss through it, but it seems to point at keeping Divisions and eliminating Bdes?
Sort of.

At 5 BNs (3 x IN-although he calls them regiments- 1 x CSS and 1 x CS) and 4164 pax, his "small" division ("division-lite") is smaller than the "large" BCT I support. I guess its really just a matter of semantics.

I'd argue that it is also a rump organization, with markedly fewer CS enablers than most other US Army divisions, making it optimized for COIN & LIC, but not for MCO. A "division" with only 1 firing battery of 8 howitzers, 1 recon troop, etc, is hardly a division.

The author acknowledges that his organization is adapted for COIN, but his solution for expansion is that the DIV CG returns to 2*s, BCTs are added back into the structure (building a new staff echelon) and battalions return to fall under regiments (although his regiments are battalion sized). I think that this proposal eliminates a headquarters echelon now, but then proposed building 2 new ones for MTW. I'd prefer to retain the organization, and build more with mobilization. Then, we aren't all trying to work in unfamiliar organizations, we are just working at a higher echelon (of the same organization).