You know, those numbers might not actually be published to the public. If that's the case then I might have broken a law or two. But I doubt that.
But, sorry, I can't offer any official source simply b/c I don't know any.
Figure 35 men per platoon, 4 platoons per company, 4 companies per battalion, 3-4 battalions per brigade, 3 brigades per division and you get somewhere around 50,000. Then take that and consider almost every unit is understrengthed...30,000 might be a little low but it is no more than 60,000 at full strength. But then again you still got all the armor and cav guys who go out and mix it up, plus artillery sitting in the rear. All those guys are still killing folks. So it's not like only infantry are the ones doing the deed. And with everybody being stop-loss'ed we're probably not losing too many folks to civilian life which might be keeping force strengths relatively high. The more I think about it, 50,000 infantry seems more likely *right now*. Though, in reality if the communists cam over the berm tomorrow, every able bodied male would be an infantryman on the spot. This is where our ghettos come to help us - as disturbed as that is to say.
The rest of the Army is all support - medical, transpo, intel, MP, chem, signal, etc. If you're not familiar with the Army branches look at that first and you will see all the combat arms versus combat support and service support.
In summary, the original point of my post was to show how under-strengthed we really are. The US's civilian leadership took us into a situation that we had not the resources for. 50,000 is a low number and that is the whole point. Most reporters and civilians think that we have 500,000 troops and we do, but less than a fifth are combat killers. That was the whole issue back during the cold war. Russia and China both out number us by huge odds, but back then neither of them had a way of delivering their troops to us so we were safe. There used to be an old axiom that the US doesn't pick a fight unless we out number them 3 to 1. Well old George W threw that out the window. Now we're in a fight with the rest of the world and what happens when we don't have the men to fight it out on the ground...we resort to more efficient means, i.e. NBC. But when we launch our first strike they come back with theirs. Hence the need for missile defense. Hence the importance of the laser in the original article. And everybody who's a player in the game already knows this. Hell, I'm a nobody and it seems pretty obvious to me. Of course I could be talking out my ass. So take it for what you want. I would just rather have more people understand what's really going on right now (in my opinion) b/c we're playing with fire right now while we're sitting on a powder keg, you know what I mean?
Sorry I can't provide accurate numbers. I just don't know of published sources.
I would try to check out any publications from Ft Benning Infantry School. All infantry are trained at Benning from buck privates to colonels. Perhaps you can dig up some numbers from them.
BTW, the active divisions are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 25th, 82nd, 101st ID's and the Armor divs I think are the 1st and 2nd right now. Not sure on the AD's.
An Infantry soldier is a solider with an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) beginning with the number 11, such as 11B or 11M.
There are 10 different divisions in the US Army as of right now. 8 are Infantry or "ID". The other two are Armor Divisions "AD".
For every infantry soldier there are *at least* 3 non-combat support troops within the division. This does not include all the support soldiers not assigned to a line unit. Plus you have Armor soldiers, Cavalry soldiers, Artillery soldiers, and Aviation pilots that all fall under the combat arms label. However, in the entire US Army there are only aprox 30,000 infantry soldiers. I promise...b/c I was one. Not every soldier is an infantryman.
But you are correct; this number does not include state militias. Also, note, there are almost no infantry soldiers in the federal reserves. I believe there are only two battalions in the federal reserves.
Actually it has nothing to do with the rifle. The 5.56 NATO round has a fully metaled jacket which means it doesn't mushroom out upon impact. Instead the bullet travels straight through the body causing less damage, effectively taking the troop out of combat without killing him. This was the purpose of fully-metaled jackets in the Geneva Conventions.
And the purpose of this laser is to destroy ICBM's in flight so that the PRC can't kill us. In case you were wondering they have over a million infantry troops. US has around 30,000. If they are ever able to bring those troops to land, we're fucked...in a word. They biggest sticks they have are thier NBC weapons mounted on ICBM's. We have to have a defense against them. This is what the freakin' laser beam is for.
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This app is an incredible waste of money...how is it different than using win+r or alt+tab or alt+space?
You know, those numbers might not actually be published to the public. If that's the case then I might have broken a law or two. But I doubt that. But, sorry, I can't offer any official source simply b/c I don't know any. Figure 35 men per platoon, 4 platoons per company, 4 companies per battalion, 3-4 battalions per brigade, 3 brigades per division and you get somewhere around 50,000. Then take that and consider almost every unit is understrengthed...30,000 might be a little low but it is no more than 60,000 at full strength. But then again you still got all the armor and cav guys who go out and mix it up, plus artillery sitting in the rear. All those guys are still killing folks. So it's not like only infantry are the ones doing the deed. And with everybody being stop-loss'ed we're probably not losing too many folks to civilian life which might be keeping force strengths relatively high. The more I think about it, 50,000 infantry seems more likely *right now*. Though, in reality if the communists cam over the berm tomorrow, every able bodied male would be an infantryman on the spot. This is where our ghettos come to help us - as disturbed as that is to say. The rest of the Army is all support - medical, transpo, intel, MP, chem, signal, etc. If you're not familiar with the Army branches look at that first and you will see all the combat arms versus combat support and service support. In summary, the original point of my post was to show how under-strengthed we really are. The US's civilian leadership took us into a situation that we had not the resources for. 50,000 is a low number and that is the whole point. Most reporters and civilians think that we have 500,000 troops and we do, but less than a fifth are combat killers. That was the whole issue back during the cold war. Russia and China both out number us by huge odds, but back then neither of them had a way of delivering their troops to us so we were safe. There used to be an old axiom that the US doesn't pick a fight unless we out number them 3 to 1. Well old George W threw that out the window. Now we're in a fight with the rest of the world and what happens when we don't have the men to fight it out on the ground...we resort to more efficient means, i.e. NBC. But when we launch our first strike they come back with theirs. Hence the need for missile defense. Hence the importance of the laser in the original article. And everybody who's a player in the game already knows this. Hell, I'm a nobody and it seems pretty obvious to me. Of course I could be talking out my ass. So take it for what you want. I would just rather have more people understand what's really going on right now (in my opinion) b/c we're playing with fire right now while we're sitting on a powder keg, you know what I mean? Sorry I can't provide accurate numbers. I just don't know of published sources. I would try to check out any publications from Ft Benning Infantry School. All infantry are trained at Benning from buck privates to colonels. Perhaps you can dig up some numbers from them.
BTW, the active divisions are 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 10th, 25th, 82nd, 101st ID's and the Armor divs I think are the 1st and 2nd right now. Not sure on the AD's.
An Infantry soldier is a solider with an MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) beginning with the number 11, such as 11B or 11M. There are 10 different divisions in the US Army as of right now. 8 are Infantry or "ID". The other two are Armor Divisions "AD". For every infantry soldier there are *at least* 3 non-combat support troops within the division. This does not include all the support soldiers not assigned to a line unit. Plus you have Armor soldiers, Cavalry soldiers, Artillery soldiers, and Aviation pilots that all fall under the combat arms label. However, in the entire US Army there are only aprox 30,000 infantry soldiers. I promise...b/c I was one. Not every soldier is an infantryman. But you are correct; this number does not include state militias. Also, note, there are almost no infantry soldiers in the federal reserves. I believe there are only two battalions in the federal reserves.
Actually it has nothing to do with the rifle. The 5.56 NATO round has a fully metaled jacket which means it doesn't mushroom out upon impact. Instead the bullet travels straight through the body causing less damage, effectively taking the troop out of combat without killing him. This was the purpose of fully-metaled jackets in the Geneva Conventions. And the purpose of this laser is to destroy ICBM's in flight so that the PRC can't kill us. In case you were wondering they have over a million infantry troops. US has around 30,000. If they are ever able to bring those troops to land, we're fucked...in a word. They biggest sticks they have are thier NBC weapons mounted on ICBM's. We have to have a defense against them. This is what the freakin' laser beam is for.