This is what is happening with the deployment of air defense assets to Turkey:
Soldiers from U.S. Army Europe's 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command and 44th Expeditionary Signal Battalion, along with members of the 32nd AAMDC from Fort Bliss, Texas, are deploying to Turkey in support of NATO missile defense operations. ...
The 10th AAMDC will provide command and control for two Patriot missile batteries from the 32nd AAMDC.
I had wondered earlier if the decision to deploy Patriots from the continental United States was from a desire to keep the Europe-based unit intact and to make our deployment take longer to avoid making our European allies also deploying missiles look bad because they aren't as strategically mobile as we are.
Instead, aren't be making our Europe-based unit non-deployable by stripping the command and control elements? Sure, it can still provide defense wherever the batteries are deployed, but won't it be less effective as a whole?
Why not send 2 batteries from the 10th and the command and control assets from the 32nd in Texas? That way the Europe-based unit is still deployable (if smaller)?
Indeed, why not just send the whole thing from the continental United States to keep unit integrity intact? This is only a 400-man force being sent, after all. Why mash elements together for this deployment to a potential war zone? I'd be horrified if we can't find an air defense battalion in all of the continental United States that can't deploy a stripped down 2-battery force for deployment.
I'm not saying this makes no sense. The Army probably has good reasons for doing it this way. I just don't see what reasons there could be for a real-world deployment to a near-war zone rather than for a training exercise.
