Page:John Banks Wilson - Maneuver and Firepower (1998).djvu/249

 AN INTERLUDE OF PEACE Army Ground Forces added a replacement company to receive and process incoming personnel. One unit that did not survive the postwar revision was headquarters, special troops, because it was deemed unnecessary. A major general continued to command the division, and it was authorized two brigadier generals, the assistant division commander and the artillery commander. Regimental commanders remained colonels.

A controversial area that affected development of the tables for the infantry division was the postwar battlefield's greater depth and breadth, which increased the difficulty of conducting reconnaissance and intelligence collection. Ten airplanes had been assigned to the division artillery in 1943 and an additional three to the infantry regiments in 1945. In 1946 Army Ground Forces proposed assigning aircraft to the division headquarters and to tank and engineer battalions. The Army Staff endorsed the additional planes but wanted them pooled in one unit, except for those in the division artillery. Opposition to that proposal came from the Army Air Forces, which argued that all air units came under their jurisdiction. The Army countered that the National Security Act of 1947 authorized it to organize, train, and equip aviation resources for prompt and sustained combat incident to operations on land. Nevertheless the tables provided no aviation unit, but ten planes were assigned to the division artillery and eight to the division headquarters company.

The postwar armored division (Chart 24) retained the flexible command structure of the 1943 organization with three medium tank battalions, three armored infantry battalions, and three 105-mm. howitzer battalions, along with some significant changes. Army Ground Forces made the reserve command identical to the two existing combat commands, replaced the attached tank destroyer battalion with a heavy tank battalion, and added an antiaircraft artillery battalion, and a replacement company. Paralleling the infantry division, the military police platoon was expanded to a company and the reconnaissance squadron was redesignated as a battalion. A 155-mm. self-propelled howitzer battalion was added to give the division more general support fire, and, in the division trains, the quartermaster supply battalion, eliminated in 1943, was restored to transport fuel, provide bath and laundry facilities, and assume graves registration duties. Besides the field artillery's aircraft, ten planes were placed in the division headquarters company to serve division and combat command headquarters, the engineer battalion, and the reconnaissance battalion. The number of general officers was increased from two to three, a division commander and two combat command commanders. The commanders of the reserve command and the division artillery remained colonel billets.

Infantry and armored divisions were reorganized between the fall of 1948 and the end of 1949. Most divisions, however, never attained their table of organization strengths prior to the Korean War. Only the 1st Infantry Division in Germany was authorized at full strength. Strengths in other Regular Army divisions fell between 55 and 80 percent. In the National Guard the strength of the divisional elements varied, with some units being cut by individuals, by crews