US Divisions in Germany
Have you backed REFORGER on Kickstarter (it’s fully funded and live until Monday 21st July - shameless plug over) but unsure where your plucky US force fits into a wider WWIII?
Want to add some esprit de corps (or esprit de division) to your new Cold War US forces? This blog post has you covered.
WWII wargaming has the great benefit of involving renowned units remembered from legendary actions which we can use to add some character and historical authenticity to our tabletop units. I’m thinking of the Big Red One, the 101st Screaming Eagles, the Desert Rats, the Black Bull - the list goes on and on.
With a little digging and research their descendants (or maybe reincarnations - many of them are the same divisions!) have the potential to add the same flavour to our Cold War forces.
A quick disclaimer from the offset - this won’t be an in depth analysis and won’t include any in-depth ORBATS useful for strategic level wargaming! It’s intended to be an initial, pencil-sketch overview of the US Army in West Germany in the 1980s for skirmish wargamers who want a better understanding of the context for their Cold War Gone Hot.
In the 1980s, US Army Europe (USAREUR) was made up of two Corps in West Germany:
V Corps: Fought its way from France into Germany in both the First and Second World Wars. In the 1980s they were tasked with defending the “Fulda Gap” - a strategic lowland strip and suspected focus of any Soviet invasion offering the shortest route from the Inner German border to the Rhine.
VII Corps: Stormed the beaches of Normandy alongside V Corps and then, during the Cold War, protected their Southern flank facing the Czechs.
V Corps ORBAT (only units stationed permanently in West Germany)
V Corps consisted of:
3rd Armoured “Spearhead” Division
8th Infantry (Mechanized) “Golden Arrow” Division
11th Armoured Cavalry “Blackhorse” Regiment
VII Corps ORBAT (only units stationed permanently in West Germany)
VII Corps consisted of:
1st Armoured “Old Ironsides” Division
3rd Infantry (Mechanized) “Rock of the Marne” Division
2nd Armoured Cavalry “Second Dragoons” Regiment
REFORGER Units - III Corps, 4th Inf. Division and 1st Inf. Division
It’s worth noting that there are two divisions I’ve omitted from that list. 4th Infantry (Mechanized) “Ivy” Division from V Corps and 1st Infantry (Mechanized) “The Big Red One” Division from VII Corps. These were REFORGER units, stationed in the US but with their heavy equipment stored ready for them if they were called on to reinforce their Corps as part of the REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) programme.
In addition, US III Corps was similarly prepared to reinforce NORTHAG with one brigade stationed in Germany and the remainder ready to redeploy using the REFORGER programme. This brigade’s role was to secure the airfields needed for REFORGER to succeed or form a blocking force towards the Inner German Border as needed based on the situation should war break out.
XVIII Corps ORBAT (only units capable of rapid deployment to West Germany)
While not a REFORGER unit, the XVIII (Airborne) Corps was capable of rapidly redeploying its light divisions within as little as 10 days. These were the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles” Division (an helicopter air assault unit), the 82nd Airborne “All American” Division (a traditional parachute unit) and - from 1986 - the 10th Mountain Division (with mountain and arctic warfare skills making it ideally suited to fighting much farther North in Denmark and Norway).
Rough distribution of V and VII Corps divisions within West Germany
For now we’ll focus on the troops most likely to bear the initial brunt of any Soviet attack - V and VII Corps. Their Armoured and Mechanized Infantry divisions differed in composition far less than their Soviet equivalents. Both contained a fairly balanced mix of tanks and infantry fighting together in combined arms “teams”.
From the mid 1960s to early 1980s, the divisions of V and VII Corps were organised based on the ROAD (Reorganization Objective Army Divisions) system. Armoured Divisions had 6 armoured and 5 infantry battalions while Mechanized Infantry Divisions had 4 armoured and 6 infantry battalions.
After the Division 86 reorganisation (occurring gradually from approx. 1982 to 1986) this was adjusted so that Armoured Divisions had 6 armoured and 4 infantry battalions while Mechanized Infantry Divisions had 5 armoured and 5 infantry battalions.
Under ROAD and Division 86, the infantry and tank battalions were allocated, based on mission requirements, to one three combined-arms Heavy Brigades. Within each brigade, the infantry and tank battalions would then swap companies, becoming combined arms Battalion Task Forces. These Task Forces would then swap platoons between their constituent infantry and tank platoons to create company sized Teams (e.g Team Yankee from the novel by Harold Coyle) which could then be reinforced by battalion support assets. These teams were typically either a tank-heavy (3 tank platoons supported by 1 infantry platoon) or infantry-heavy (3 infantry platoons supported by 1 tank platoon).
US Army Field Manual FM 71-123, Figure 3-85 A Tank-Heavy Company Team comprised of two Abrams tank platoons and a Bradley mechanized infantry platoon.
The beauty of wargaming these units during the 1980s is that the long transition from ROAD to Division 86 means that you have a good degree of freedom in mixing and matching older and newer kit to create a force with the equipment you find most interesting. The newer Abrams and Bradley AFVs were sent to all four of the Armoured and Mechanized Divisions in V and VII Corps over the course of the ‘80s but the older M60 and M113 remained present in both to the end of the Cold War:
M60 and M113 teams were the standard before the 1980s right through to at least the middle of the decade.
Abrams and M113 teams were not uncommon in units transitioning to Division 86.
Abrams and Bradley teams were the ideal pairing under Division 86.
M60 and Bradley, anecdotally, seems relatively unlikely as transitioning units received the Abrams before Bradley or both at the same time.
Hopefully that gives you a useful high level context of the situation and systems your Cold War skirmish forces exist within and gives you an idea of how you can use that to add some historical flavour to your force creation and scenarios.
As a final disclaimer - I’m not an academic historian, this is a compilation of useful and apparently informed information I’ve been able to source while researching for REFORGER. If you think I’ve got something wrong and have a better source please get in touch and let me know!
And a final reminder that REFORGER - a Cold War US Army Kickstarter - is live on Kickstarter until Monday 21st July. It funded in minutes and unlocked 27/28 Stretch Goals in only 3 days so it contains pretty much everything you’ll need to field a US Army Company Team in 15mm, 20mm or 28mm.
Click here to back REFORGER on Kickstarter.
Cheers,
Steffan
