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[two-brigade] force, but the organization, training, and deployment had to be incremental to allow the Royal Thai Army to recover from the deployment of one brigade. In addition, he held that it was impractical to attempt to raise a force of 15,000 or larger because of the probable attrition of the training base. In forming the Royal Thai Army Volunteer Regiment, the Thai Army had drawn 97 percent of its men from existing units, despite the talk of maximizing the use of volunteers. There was every indication that it would follow the same pattern in providing additional forces to South Vietnam. Such a draw-down by the Royal Thai Army of its limited number of trained men was acceptable for a force of 5,000 and marginally acceptable for 10,000, but unacceptable for a force greater than 10,000.

With these comments as a basis, Admiral Sharp went back to the Joint Chiefs with his recommendation, which stated:

"Present negotiations with the Thais have centered around a deployment of a total 10,000 man force. CINCPAC concurs that this is probably the largest force the Thais would provide without incurring an unacceptable sacrifice in the trained base of the Thai Army and accepting more than undue risk insofar as the Thais' ability to effectively counter the present insurgency."

Concurrently, General Westmoreland was being queried on the ability of the United States to support the various troop levels under consideration. In making this appraisal he assumed that MACV would have to provide maintenance support for all new equipment not in the Thai Army inventory and all backup support, including supply distribution, transportation, and service functions, the Thais would handle. In considering the various force levels he envisioned a brigade-size force (5,000 men) that would be attached to a U.S. division for support. As such, the support command of the parent U.S. division would require a minimum augmentation of 50 men to provide for the additional maintenance requirements. Attaching a force of 10,000 men or more to a U.S. division would be impractical. A U.S. support battalion–approximately 600 men, including a headquarters company, a maintenance and support company, a reinforced medical company, and a transportation truck company–would be required for direct support of a Thai force of that size. A Thai force of 15,000 to 20,000 would also need a special support command, including a headquarters company, a medical company, a supply and transport company, and a division maintenance battalion. The estimated strength of this command would be