Downsized

America's ground forces will take a hit in the budget:

The Army would shrink by 80,000 soldiers, from 570,000 today to 490,000 by 2017. That is slightly larger than the Army on 9/11.

The Marine Corps would drop from today's 202,000 to 182,000 — also above the level on 9/11.

If memory serves me, we had about 470,000 (480,000-my memory did not fully serve me) pre-9/11 and that was insufficient by about 40- or 50,000 to fully man our force structure of 32 combat brigades. I expected we'd lose some troops but hoped to retain something on the order of 520,000 to at least fully staff the pre-war Army (while painfully aware that we are not yet "post-war," although the reductions won't fully take effect until 2017--unless more cuts are heaped on top of this one).

This means that the Army's 45 brigades will shrink by 8 to 13:

The U.S. Army plans to slash the number of combat brigades from 45 to as low as 32 in a broad restructuring of its fighting force aimed at cutting costs and reducing the service by about 80,000 soldiers, according to U.S. officials familiar with the plans.

Officials said the sweeping changes will likely increase the size of each combat brigade -- generally by adding another battalion -- in an effort to ensure that those remaining brigades have the fighting capabilities they need when they go to war. A brigade is usually about 3,500 soldiers, but can be as large as 5,000 for the heavily armored units. A battalion is usually between 600 to 800 soldiers.

Keep in mind that right now, our brigades have two line battalions with a third small "recon" battalion (a really light targeting and surveillance outfit) instead of the older "triangular formation of three line battalions. So adding a battalion just gets us back to what we had per brigade pre-9/11 rather than representing an advantage over the older brigades.

Although the brigades may be bigger if the battalions are retaining their new organization of 4 line companies per battalion (that is, a heavy battalion now has 4 companies--2 armor and 2 mechanized infantry) rather than the older triangular structure of 3 line companies per battalion. Or are we not just shrinking the Army but reorganizing root and branch one more time?

Personally, I'd rather have more of the two-battalion brigades than fewer three-battalion brigades. German practice in World War II showed two-battalion regiments worked just fine in conventional warfare. And since we have apparently assumed we won't be fighting insurgents anymore, why do we need beefed up brigades? And if we do need beefed up brigades, we do have the Army National Guard which could contribute battalions to active brigades.

I need a lot more details. Hopefully, Strategypage will address the questions that the press won't even think to ask.