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From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: 82nd Airborne nomenclature
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.054520.18682@amd.com>
Date: 23 Apr 91 16:43:23 GMT
References: <1991Apr23.053523.23050@amd.com>
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From: zonker@ihlpf.att.com (Thomas M Harris)


>From: robinro@ism.isc.com (Robin Roberts)
>I will leave the description of the difference between regiments and brigades
>to someone with more courage than I.

I will take a stab at it.  In the U. S. Army the difference is one of
purpose.  Regiments are standing organizations, all of the same arm of
service (e.g. infantry, armor, artillery) and with all battalions
equipped similarly.  Training, administration and supply(ordering) are
usually organized by Regiment.  In the field the regimental organization
is mostly non-functional, but on base it should be running things.  

Brigades on the other hand are the field HQs of the division.
Brigades are supposed to be Ad-Hoc organizations tailored to the
situation.  With the idea being that that you can plug in any battalion
from the division into any brigade (I believe a single Brigade HQ is
supposed to be able to handle about 5 battalions).  In practice, the
brigade OBs tend to be fairly static at about 1/3 a division.  A
brigade usually differs in organization from a regiment in that it is
composed of multiple arms of service.  

The brigade vs regiment distinction is most clearly seen in the
Armored/Mech divisions where extensive cross attaching is done to make
combined arms teams.  In an airborne division where the majority of
sub-battalions are essentially identical the distinction is less
obvious. In an infantry based division with 3 brigades and three
infantry regiments there is little prupose in exchanging a battalion
from one regiment with that of another.  In an armored division where
there are two tank regiments and a mech infantry regiment making three
brigades each with two tank battalions and a mech infantry battalion
makes perfect sense, but regimental cohesiveness is now meaningless
(for all three regiments).

Non Cuniculus Est,
Tom Harris

	[Paragraph breaks added.  --CDR]