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.The self-propelled howitzer a lightly armored, tracked vehicle was cre-ated to support rapidly moving armored forces.Lighter towed howitzersmore commonly support slower-moving infantry.The towed artillery piece,capable of being moved by helicopter or by truck, was well suited to the infan-try battles of Vietnam.Once a network of artillery bases was established, withinterlocking fields of fire, the mobility of the artillery piece became moot.Inthe expansive Iraqi desert, tanks would have quickly outrun the range of sup-porting artillery had not artillery been able to match the battlefield mobilityof armor.Combat engineers are within reach of the leading tactical forces or ahead ofthem.In the offense, they build bridges and breach minefields.In the defense,they emplace obstacles, including minefields, and prepare protective barriers.Observation and variants of utility helicopters are used for battle manage-ment.A light observation helicopter can be used for reconnaissance or fordirecting artillery fire.More exotic derivatives of the observation helicopter Army 77are heavily armed with rockets, missiles, and machine guns for the armedreconnaissance role and night operations.An army without fuel and food withers and dies.A number of helicopterand truck types move and sustain the force.Lift helicopters are capable of car-rying troops or medical evacuation litters, general cargo, or a towed artillerypiece or light armored vehicle slung beneath.Larger helicopters can quicklymove units between relatively secure places on the battlefield.The unglamor-ous wheeled vehicle provides the lifeline to the rest of the army.The numberof trucks and other wheeled vehicles in the Army are perhaps uncountable.Most are general purpose; some are specialized to carry fuel or heavy equip-ment such as a tank.Skilled use of combined arms is at the heart of the art practiced by today sarmy commander.Army attack helicopters and Air Force attack aircraft inte-grated into the combined-arms equation produce an extremely powerful andflexible capability.Nothing works unless everything works.Every function onthe battlefield is indispensable.The next section addresses the larger combined-arms formations of division and brigade and the reorganization of the purecompany and battalion into flexible combined-arms formations.MAJOR COMBINED-ARMS ORGANIZATIONSThe Army s fighting units contain combat, combat support, and combatservice support forces.An armor or infantry officer s first assignment is to leada tank or infantry platoon.But from there on, career progression for thosewho rise to the top of the Army requires alternating command and staff posi-tions in successively larger combined-arms organizations that bring togetherall the combat and support forces in the Army.Division is an Army touchstone.Division is purely tactical, as are its sub-ordinate units.A very small percentage of officers ever serve above the divi-sion level, and most officers understand their role in the context of division.The specified division types are armored, mechanized, infantry, light infantry,airborne, and air assault.A table of organization and equipment (TO&E) gov-erns the composition of each type.The armored and mechanized divisions arecalled heavy divisions.The other divisions are infantry-based divisions and arefurther distinguished by their principal mode of transportation.The types ofdivisions in the Army have been relatively constant since WWII,42 but theirinternal composition is continually reexamined.43 The appearance of the airassault division, based on the mobility of the helicopter, is one notable excep-tion; the lack of the post-WWII constabulary division is another.The DivisionDivision has its own assets, including a large staff, maneuver battalions,artillery battalions, aviation squadrons, combat support and combat servicesupport battalions, and brigade headquarters.Figure 3.1 shows the structure 78 Shaping U.S.Military Forcesof a notional army division.Combat support and combat service support bat-talions include military police, engineer, military intelligence, air defense, andmedical.The division commander ascends the ranks as an armor, infantry, or artil-lery officer.His coordinating staff is headed by a chief of staff, a colonel withbrigade command experience who supervises the staff through assistant chiefsfor personnel, G-1; intelligence, G-2; operations, G-3; and logistics, G-4.Each assistant chief of staff has a substantial staff in his or her service.Eachassistant chief of staff is a lieutenant colonel, but the G-3 is senior amongequals.He has commanded a maneuver battalion, is an armor or infantryofficer, and has excellent potential for career advancement.The special staffincludes functional expertise in fire support, engineering, transportation,communications, ordnance, and medical.44Brigade is a headquarters with commander and staff but no combat resourcesof its own.Brigade, commanded by a colonel, is a command echelon betweendivision and its battalions.Brigade staff is a scaled down version of divisionstaff.Rather than G-1 through G-4, brigade staff offices are designated S-1through S-4 with the same functional responsibilities as their counterparts atdivision.Three of the brigade headquarters are equipped to take on two ormore of the division s 10 or so maneuver battalions and the requisite support
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