So we need at least 450,000 to man the force structure we plan?
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno said the Army’s minimum end-strength should be 980,000 soldiers, including at least 450,000 in the active component, 335,000 in the National Guard and 195,000 in the Reserve. The service requested authorization for almost 1.1 million soldiers, including 520,000 in the active component, 354,200 in the National Guard and 205,000 in the Reserve, according to fiscal 2014 budget documents.
But after more than a decade of ground operations in countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq, the service’s active-duty component is slated to shrink, possibly to as low as 420,000 soldiers over the next several years, under automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. Odierno said such reductions would make the military “too small.”
My admittedly amateur number crunching tells me that we could support 32 brigades with 420,000 troops on active duty.
But I may be assuming the brigades are smaller than they will be. I haven't seen actual organizations.
And it may be that we want to keep units over-strength so that normal attrition (illness, injury, leave, school, brig) keeps them at full strength.
And we may have added new capabilities (like Army drone units) that need more people from the initial wartime reorganization.
So while I figured we could get by with 420,000, I wouldn't say that Odierno is wrong about needing 450,000.
But either number shows that we really did streamline our military given that in 2000 we needed 520,000 to fully man a 32-brigade force (but only had 480,000).
And I can say that reading the comments of that article reinforces my commitment to no comments here. It's a big world and even if only a tiny proportion are idiots, they can quickly fill a page with idiocy.
