Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/183

 PRELUDE TO COMBAT and therefore easier to handle. Command and control had replaced road space as the basic factor behind divisional size. Constant changes were destroying those goals. McNair advised Marshall that the division should have a maximum of 15,000 men with the arms being fixed accordingly and that it should not be increased in size at the insistence of arm-conscious chiefs. His view did not prevail. Hodges won the armament battle, and a cannon company became a part of each infantry regiment.

The addition of regimental cannon companies was not the only change in the infantry division. To increase artillery firepower, the tables provided twelve rather than eight 155-mm. howitzers and eliminated the 75-mm. guns, which had been assigned to tank destroyer units, as antitank weapons. To protect the division from hostile aircraft, the number of .50-caliber machine guns rose from sixty to eighty-four. Improved reconnaissance capabilities were also added to the infantry division, with ten light armored cars replacing the sixteen scout cars in the reconnaissance troop. In the infantry regiments themselves, intelligence and reconnaissance platoons replaced intelligence platoons.

The GHQ maneuvers of 1941 had also revealed a need for more trucks in the division. McNair, however, believed that the suggested number of trucks was excessive, requiring too much space on ships when sent overseas. Although the number of trucks was cut at his insistence, the division still had 315 more vehicles under the 1942 tables than those of 1940. Finally, the new tables split the division headquarters and military police company into two separate units, a headquarters company and a military police platoon. These changes together added about 270 men to the division (Chart 15).

Modifications continued even after publication of the new tables of organization for the infantry division. Army Ground Forces withdrew the small ordnance maintenance platoon from the headquarters company of the quartermaster battalion and reorganized the unit as a separate ordnance light maintenance company to improve motor repair. After this change, food and gasoline supply functions became the responsibility of the regiments and separate battalions in the division, and the quartermaster battalion was reduced to a company to provide trucks for water supply and emergency rations and to augment the division's ability to move men and equipment.

The cavalry division retained its square configuration after the 1941 maneuvers, but with modifications. The division lost its antitank troop, the brigades their weapons troops, and the regiments their machine gun and special weapons troops. These changes brought no decrease in divisional firepower, but placed most weapons within the cavalry troops. The number of .50-caliber machine guns was increased almost threefold. In the reconnaissance squadron, the motorcycle and armored car troops were eliminated, leaving the squadron with one support troop and three reconnaissance troops equipped with light tanks. These changes increased the division from 11,676 to 12,112 officers and enlisted men.