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56th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized, but did not see combat. The former brigade's cavalry regiments went on to fight in the Pacific and China-Burma-India theaters.

With ongoing manpower shortages, the Army continually examined the relationship between the total military force and the manpower pool available for military service. That relationship was constantly balanced against the manpower required to maintain the productive capacity of industry, which remained vital to the overall Allied war effort. As the war progressed, staff studies suggested that the number of divisions mobilized could be cut. Soviet armies had checked the German advance, and it appeared that the Allies would gain air superiority over Europe. Therefore, shortly before the invasion of northern France in 1944, the War Department approved a troop basis that contained 90 divisions rather than 100 within a total Army strength of 7,700,000. The French were to raise ten divisions, and the United States was to equip them, which created equipment shortages. That troop basis called for 1 light, 2 cavalry, 5 airborne, 16 armored, and 66 infantry divisions. With the inactivation of the 2d Cavalry Division in May 1944, the number of divisions in the troop basis was reduced by one and the number of divisions raised during World War II remained at eighty-nine. The decision to limit the number of divisions haunted War Department planners during the remainder of the war for they feared that mobilization had not gone far enough. Marshall, however, held to the eighty-nine divisions in the troop basis.