183-520: 31°04′21″N 93°04′50″W / 31.072638°N 93.080635°W / 31.072638; -93.080635 Fort Johnson , formerly Fort Polk , is a United States Army installation located in Vernon Parish , Louisiana , about 10 miles (15 km) east of Leesville and 30 miles (50 km) north of DeRidder in Beauregard Parish . Named after New York soldier William Henry Johnson ,
366-598: A status quo antebellum. Two weeks after a treaty was signed (but not ratified), Andrew Jackson defeated the British in the Battle of New Orleans and siege of Fort St. Philip with an army dominated by militia and volunteers, and became a national hero. U.S. troops and sailors captured HMS Cyane , Levant and Penguin in the final engagements of the war. Per the treaty, both sides (the United States and Great Britain) returned to
549-567: A Continental Army Command (CONARC) post in July 1975 and became a Forces Command (FORSCOM) member. In the spring of 1976, the Infantry Training Center at Fort Polk closed its doors and ceased operations. The final chapter of the Vietnam War ended for Fort Polk. The Combat Engineer Battalion of the 588th lived on North Fort Polk, Louisiana. With the end of the Vietnam War, Fort Polk experienced
732-479: A battlefield. That theory of war also emphasised consolidation and recommended caution against overconfidence and ruthless exploitation. During the Sinai and Palestine campaign , operations involved some aspects of what would later be called blitzkrieg. The decisive Battle of Megiddo included concentration, surprise and speed. Success depended on attacking only in terrain favouring the movement of large formations around
915-561: A breakthrough of the enemy's line, units comprising the Schwerpunkt were not supposed to become decisively engaged with enemy front line units to the right and the left of the breakthrough area. Units pouring through the hole were to drive upon set objectives behind the enemy front line. During the Second World War, German Panzer forces used their motorized mobility to paralyze the opponent's ability to react. Fast-moving mobile forces seized
1098-405: A few dozen tanks. As the end of the war approached, Germany also experienced critical shortages in fuel and ammunition stocks as a result of Anglo-American strategic bombing and blockade. Although the production of Luftwaffe fighter aircraft continued, they could not fly because of lack of fuel. What fuel there was went to panzer divisions, and even then, they could not operate normally. Of
1281-634: A few months. The war remains the deadliest conflict in U.S. history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 men on both sides. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6.4% in the North and 18% in the South . Following the Civil War, the U.S. Army had the mission of containing western tribes of Native Americans on the Indian reservations . They set up many forts, and engaged in
1464-530: A functional area. However, officers continue to wear the branch insignia of their former branch in most cases, as functional areas do not generally have discrete insignia. Some branches, such as Special Forces , operate similarly to functional areas in that individuals may not join their ranks until having served in another Army branch. Careers in the Army can extend into cross-functional areas for officers, warrant officers, enlisted, and civilian personnel. Before 1933,
1647-630: A massive strategic air attack might hold out better prospects, but the topic was not explored in detail. A third relatively early use of the term in German occurred in Die Deutsche Kriegsstärke (German War Strength) by Fritz Sternberg , a Jewish Marxist political economist and refugee from Nazi Germany, published in 1938 in Paris and in London as Germany and a Lightning War . Sternberg wrote that Germany
1830-594: A military doctrine or handbook of the German Army or Air Force, and no "coherent doctrine" or "unifying concept of blitzkrieg" existed; German High Command mostly referred to the group of tactics as "Bewegungskrieg" (Maneuver Warfare). The term seems to have been rarely used in the German military press before 1939, and recent research at the German Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt , at Potsdam , found it in only two military articles from
2013-574: A modern Post Exchange, commissary, warehouses, classrooms, athletic complexes and improved gunnery ranges. Effective 21 March 1976, the 1st Battalion 61st Infantry was reactivated and once again assigned to the 5th Division at Fort Polk. In 1993, the Joint Readiness Training Center moved from Fort Chaffee , Arkansas , to Fort Polk, and once again, the post was called on to prepare soldiers for conflict. Each year, JRTC typically conducts several rotations for units about to deploy. During
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#17328559289032196-690: A month – known as battle assemblies or unit training assemblies (UTAs) – and conduct two to three weeks of annual training each year. Both the Regular Army and the Army Reserve are organized under Title 10 of the United States Code , while the National Guard is organized under Title 32 . While the Army National Guard is organized, trained, and equipped as a component of the U.S. Army, when it
2379-487: A new Army Command (ACOM) in 2018. The Army Futures Command (AFC), is a peer of FORSCOM, TRADOC, and AMC, the other ACOMs. AFC's mission is modernization reform: to design hardware, as well as to work within the acquisition process which defines materiel for AMC. TRADOC's mission is to define the architecture and organization of the Army, and to train and supply soldiers to FORSCOM. AFC's cross-functional teams (CFTs) are Futures Command's vehicle for sustainable reform of
2562-472: A predominantly combat support role. The army converted to an all-volunteer force with greater emphasis on training to specific performance standards driven by the reforms of General William E. DePuy , the first commander of United States Army Training and Doctrine Command . Following the Camp David Accords that was signed by Egypt, Israel that was brokered by president Jimmy Carter in 1978, as part of
2745-613: A role in the invasions of Grenada in 1983 ( Operation Urgent Fury ) and Panama in 1989 ( Operation Just Cause ). By 1989 Germany was nearing reunification and the Cold War was coming to a close. Army leadership reacted by starting to plan for a reduction in strength. By November 1989 Pentagon briefers were laying out plans to reduce army end strength by 23%, from 750,000 to 580,000. A number of incentives such as early retirement were used. In 1990, Iraq invaded its smaller neighbor, Kuwait , and U.S. land forces quickly deployed to assure
2928-705: A strategy of seizing the coastline, blockading the ports, and taking control of the river systems. By 1863, the Confederacy was being strangled. Its eastern armies fought well, but the western armies were defeated one after another until the Union forces captured New Orleans in 1862 along with the Tennessee River. In the Vicksburg Campaign of 1862–1863, General Ulysses Grant seized the Mississippi River and cut off
3111-466: A swift knockout to its enemies, which would lead to a long war. In the second article (1938), launching a swift strategic knockout was described as an attractive idea for Germany but difficult to achieve on land under modern conditions (especially against systems of fortification like the Maginot Line ) unless an exceptionally high degree of surprise could be achieved. The author vaguely suggested that
3294-529: A transition from an installation focused on basic and advanced individual training to that of the home of the reactivated 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized). Activated in September 1975, the division called Fort Polk home until it was inactivated in November 1992. The date of this inactivation, 24 November 1992, was exactly 75 years from the date of the original activation of the division on 24 November 1917. The division
3477-566: Is a coordinated military effort by tanks, motorized infantry, artillery and aircraft, to create an overwhelming local superiority in combat power, to defeat the opponent and break through its defences. Blitzkrieg as used by Germany had considerable psychological or "terror" elements, such as the Jericho Trompete , a noise-making siren on the Junkers Ju 87 dive bomber, to affect the morale of enemy forces. The devices were largely removed when
3660-561: Is based on each participating organization's mission essential tasks list and many of exercises are mission rehearsals for actual operations the organization is scheduled to conduct. JRTC scenarios allow complete integration of Air Force and other military services as well as host-nation and civilian role players. The exercise scenarios replicate many of the unique situations and challenges a unit may face to include host national officials and citizens, insurgents and terrorists, news media coverage and non-governmental organizations. The mission of
3843-468: Is especially true if the attacking formation lacks the reserve to keep funnelling forces into the spearhead or the mobility to provide infantry, artillery and supplies into the attack. If the defender can hold the shoulders of the breach, it has the opportunity to counter-attack into the flank of the attacker and potentially to cut it off the van, as what happened to Kampfgruppe Peiper in the Ardennes. During
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#17328559289034026-467: Is filled with dense, jungle-like vegetation, so this, along with Louisiana's heat, humidity and precipitation (similar to southeast Asia) helped commanders acclimatize new infantry soldiers in preparation for combat in Vietnam . This training area became known as Tigerland . For the next 12 years, more soldiers were shipped to Vietnam from Fort Polk than from any other American training base. For many, Fort Polk
4209-521: Is not in federal service it is under the command of individual state and territorial governors. However, the District of Columbia National Guard reports to the U.S. president, not the district's mayor , even when not federalized. Any or all of the National Guard can be federalized by presidential order and against the governor's wishes. The U.S. Army is led by a civilian secretary of the Army , who has
4392-511: Is one of the three military departments of the Department of Defense . The U.S. Army is headed by a civilian senior appointed civil servant, the secretary of the Army (SECARMY), and by a chief military officer , the chief of staff of the Army (CSA) who is also a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . It is the largest military branch, and in the fiscal year 2022, the projected end strength for
4575-399: Is proposed" , but in 2005 there were concerns of the post being "at risk", with a proposal to look at land expansion. In 2008 Fort Johnson began a land expansion plan. The plan calls for the acquisition of 100,000 acres for large JRTC maneuvers and live fire operations. This will be the largest land expansion since World War II, located south and southeast of Peason Ridge, and the first parcel
4758-670: Is that each brigade will be modular, i.e., all brigades of the same type will be exactly the same and thus any brigade can be commanded by any division. As specified before the 2013 end-strength re-definitions, the three major types of brigade combat teams are: In addition, there are combat support and service support modular brigades. Combat support brigades include aviation (CAB) brigades, which will come in heavy and light varieties, fires (artillery) brigades (now transforms to division artillery) and expeditionary military intelligence brigades . Combat service support brigades include sustainment brigades and come in several varieties and serve
4941-462: Is to break through an opponent's lines of defense, dislocate the defenders, confuse the enemy by making it difficult to respond to the continuously changing front, and defeat them in a decisive Vernichtungsschlacht : a battle of annihilation . During the interwar period , aircraft and tank technologies matured and were combined with the systematic application of the traditional German tactic of Bewegungskrieg ( maneuver warfare ), involving
5124-439: Is what I want – and that is what I will have". Guderian summarized combined-arms tactics as the way to get the mobile and motorized armored divisions to work together and support each other to achieve decisive success. In his 1950 book, Panzer Leader , he wrote: In this year, 1929, I became convinced that tanks working on their own or in conjunction with infantry could never achieve decisive importance. My historical studies,
5307-622: The Condor Legion . Guderian said that the tank deployment was "on too small a scale to allow accurate assessments to be made". (The true test of his "armored idea" would have to wait for the Second World War.) However, the Luftwaffe also provided volunteers to Spain to test both tactics and aircraft in combat, including the first combat use of the Stuka . During the war, the Condor Legion undertook
5490-594: The Afrika Korps , Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's troops who fought in North Africa. They were housed in a large fenced-in compound in the area now encompassing Honor Field, Fort Polk's parade ground. Finding themselves captured, transported across the ocean, and imprisoned in the middle of summer was made to hurt their spirits. In his book Up Front , author Bill Mauldin noted that it was more practical to ship prisoners to camps in
5673-523: The Battle of 73 Easting were tank battles of historical significance. After Operation Desert Storm, the army did not see major combat operations for the remainder of the 1990s but did participate in a number of peacekeeping activities. In 1990 the Department of Defense issued guidance for "rebalancing" after a review of the Total Force Policy, but in 2004, USAF Air War College scholars concluded
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5856-503: The Battle of Kursk , the Red Army used a combination of defence in great depth, extensive minefields and tenacious defense of breakthrough shoulders. In that way, they depleted German combat power even as German forces advanced. The reverse can be seen in the Russian summer offensive of 1944, Operation Bagration , which resulted in the destruction of Army Group Center. German attempts to weather
6039-530: The Battles of Sharon and Nablus (Battle of Megiddo). The British methods induced "strategic paralysis" among the Ottomans and led to their rapid and complete collapse. In an advance of 65 miles (105 km), captures were estimated to be "at least 25,000 prisoners and 260 guns". Liddell Hart considered that important aspects of the operation had been the extent to which Ottoman commanders were denied intelligence on
6222-614: The Brusilov Offensive . Later, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky (1893–1937), Georgii Isserson [ ru ] (1898–1976) and other members of the Red Army developed a concept of deep battle from the experience of the Polish–Soviet War of 1919–1920. Those concepts would guide the Red Army doctrine throughout the Second World War. Realising the limitations of infantry and cavalry, Tukhachevsky advocated mechanized formations and
6405-639: The Congress of the Confederation created the United States Army on 3 June 1784 to replace the disbanded Continental Army. The United States Army considers itself a continuation of the Continental Army, and thus considers its institutional inception to be the origin of that armed force in 1775. The U.S. Army is a uniformed service of the United States and is part of the Department of the Army , which
6588-551: The Luftwaffe flew some 300 sorties on 6 June. Though German fighter presence over Normandy increased over the next days and weeks, it never approached the numbers that the Allies commanded. Fighter-bomber attacks on German formations made movement during daylight almost impossible. Subsequently, shortages soon developed in food, fuel and ammunition and severely hampered the German defenders. German vehicle crews and even flak units experienced great difficulty moving during daylight. Indeed,
6771-613: The NATO Reforger 78 and 84 Exercise in Europe and the 1989 Invasion of Panama, known as Operation Just Cause . From June to August 1987 the 95th Division (Tng) conducted basic training exercises of approximately 600 recruits. During the stay of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), Fort Polk experienced a major building program that included new barracks, motor pools, 1000 family housing units, chapels, and dental clinics. The Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital, named after Stanhope Bayne-Jones ,
6954-681: The Netherlands and the United Kingdom , until the 1990s in anticipation of a possible Soviet attack. During the Cold War, U.S. troops and their allies fought communist forces in Korea and Vietnam . The Korean War began in June 1950, when the Soviets walked out of a UN Security Council meeting, removing their possible veto. Under a United Nations umbrella, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops fought to prevent
7137-544: The Regular Army (USA) was 480,893 soldiers; the Army National Guard (ARNG) had 336,129 soldiers and the U.S. Army Reserve (USAR) had 188,703 soldiers; the combined-component strength of the U.S. Army was 1,005,725 soldiers. As a branch of the armed forces, the mission of the U.S. Army is "to fight and win our Nation's wars, by providing prompt, sustained land dominance, across the full range of military operations and
7320-618: The Tiger tanks lost against the US Army, nearly half of them were abandoned for lack of fuel. German volunteers first used armor in live field-conditions during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). Armor commitment consisted of Panzer Battalion 88, a force built around three companies of Panzer I tanks that functioned as a training cadre for Spain's Nationalists. The Luftwaffe deployed squadrons of fighters , dive-bombers and transport aircraft as
7503-552: The guerrilla hit and run tactics of the communist Viet Cong and the People's Army Of Vietnam (NVA) . During the 1960s, the Department of Defense continued to scrutinize the reserve forces and to question the number of divisions and brigades as well as the redundancy of maintaining two reserve components, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve . In 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara decided that 15 combat divisions in
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7686-442: The 115th Combat Support Hospital include: general surgery, orthopaedics, podiatry, and physical therapy. Additional support for clinical operations is provided through a pharmacy, X-ray services, clinical laboratories, anaesthesia, and operative services. The 115th Combat Support Hospital is also staffed to provide medical command management and administrative support through an organic medical headquarters. During peacetime operations
7869-457: The 115th Field Hospital trains at the JRTC and Fort Johnson. As a deployable medical systems hospital with the most modern equipment available, the unit is capable of being deployed in an area of operations during a contingency, war or national emergency. U.S. Army Garrison provides installation support for all tenant units as well as JRTC rotational units. The Fort Johnson medical facility comprises
8052-573: The 1930s. Both used the term to mean a swift strategic knockout, rather than a radically new military doctrine or approach to war. The first article (1935) dealt primarily with supplies of food and materiel in wartime. The term blitzkrieg was used in reference to German efforts to win a quick victory in the First World War but was not associated with the use of armored, mechanized or air forces. It argued that Germany must develop self-sufficiency in food because it might again prove impossible to deal
8235-528: The 1937 bombing of Guernica , which had a tremendous psychological effect on the populations of Europe. The results were exaggerated, and the Western Allies concluded that the "city-busting" techniques were now part of the German way in war. The targets of the German aircraft were actually the rail lines and bridges, but lacking the ability to hit them with accuracy (only three or four Ju 87s saw action in Spain),
8418-688: The 1990s and the 1st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade , and the 162nd Infantry Brigade in the 2000s. Fort Johnson is now home to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division , 115th Combat Support Hospital , U.S. Army Garrison and Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital. The land that is now Fort Johnson is part of a region of cultural resources, including archaeological sites, historic houses and structures, and other sites of historical value. The U.S. Army has spent considerable time, effort, and money to find and inventory thousands of archaeological sites on Fort Johnson and
8601-477: The 1990s, Fort Polk based soldiers deployed to Haiti , Southwest Asia , Suriname , Panama , Bosnia , and other locations. Weather support for the exercise is completed by the units participating in the exercise in conjunction with the 26th Operational Weather Squadron . The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment arrived at Fort Polk in 1993 as the armored cavalry regiment of the XVIII Airborne Corps. Elements of
8784-437: The 19th century with the military technology of the interwar period. Modern historians use the term casually as a generic description for the style of maneuver warfare practised by Germany during the early part of World War II, rather than as an explanation. According to Frieser, in the context of the thinking of Heinz Guderian on mobile combined arms formations, blitzkrieg can be used as a synonym for modern maneuver warfare on
8967-460: The 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment would be transformed into an Infantry-based Stryker Brigade and move to Fort Lewis, Washington. The transfer of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk to Fort Lewis was completed in 2006. The 2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment was later moved to Vilseck , Germany. The Joint Readiness Training Center is focused on improving unit readiness by providing highly realistic, stressful, joint and combined arms training across
9150-584: The 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Benning. Upon completion of Operation Sagebrush, Polk was declared a permanent installation and the 1st Armored Division was reassigned from Fort Hood to the newly renamed Fort Polk to continue to test mobility and combat strategies for the nuclear age. The 1st Armored Division, with its modern M-48 Patton Tanks and new helicopters, remained at Fort Polk until June 1959, before returning to Fort Hood. In 1962, Fort Polk began converting to both basic training and an advanced individual training (AIT) center. A small portion of Fort Polk
9333-464: The Allies' 600 sorties, the Luftwaffe on average flew 1,500 sorties a day. On 13 May, Fliegerkorps VIII flew 1,000 sorties in support of the crossing of the Meuse. The following day the Allies made repeated attempts to destroy the German pontoon bridges, but German fighter aircraft, ground fire and Luftwaffe flak batteries with the panzer forces destroyed 56 percent of the attacking Allied aircraft, and
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#17328559289039516-517: The Ardennes. Since the French thought that the Ardennes unsuitable for massive troop movement, particularly for tanks, the area was left with only light defences, which were quickly overrun by the Wehrmacht . The Germans quickly advanced through the forest and knocked down the trees that the French had thought would impede them. The influence of air forces over forces on the ground changed significantly over
9699-460: The Army (HQDA): See Structure of the United States Army for a detailed treatment of the history , components , administrative and operational structure and the branches and functional areas of the Army. The U.S. Army is made up of three components: the active component, the Regular Army; and two reserve components, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve. Both reserve components are primarily composed of part-time soldiers who train once
9882-463: The Army National Guard members were considered state militia until they were mobilized into the U.S. Army, typically at the onset of war. Since the 1933 amendment to the National Defense Act of 1916 , all Army National Guard soldiers have held dual status. They serve as National Guardsmen under the authority of the governor of their state or territory and as reserve members of the U.S. Army under
10065-411: The Army National Guard were unnecessary and cut the number to eight divisions (one mechanized infantry, two armored, and five infantry), but increased the number of brigades from seven to 18 (one airborne, one armored, two mechanized infantry and 14 infantry). The loss of the divisions did not sit well with the states. Their objections included the inadequate maneuver element mix for those that remained and
10248-804: The Army Vision for 2028. While the Army Mission remains constant, the Army Strategy builds upon the Army's Brigade Modernization by adding focus to corps and division -level echelons. The Army Futures Command oversees reforms geared toward conventional warfare . The Army's current reorganization plan is due to be completed by 2028. The Army's five core competencies are prompt and sustained land combat, combined arms operations (to include combined arms maneuver and wide–area security, armored and mechanized operations and airborne and air assault operations ), special operations forces , to set and sustain
10431-556: The Army and the United States Congress to keep troop strength at full capacity despite looming defense cuts. Fort Johnson began as a base for the Louisiana Maneuvers in the 1940s. It served the 1st Armored Division in the 1950s, and became a basic training post during Vietnam War years of the 1960s and '70s. It hosted the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in the 1970s-1980s, and the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in
10614-478: The Battle of France in 1940, the 4th Armoured Division (Major-General Charles de Gaulle) and elements of the 1st Army Tank Brigade (British Expeditionary Force) made probing attacks on the German flank and pushed into the rear of the advancing armored columns at times. That may have been a reason for Hitler to call a halt to the German advance. Those attacks combined with Maxime Weygand 's hedgehog tactic would become
10797-642: The Bayne-Jones Army Community Hospital, the Wellness and Readiness Center, the Department of Behavioral Health and the United States Army Air Ambulance Detachment. The hospital is named in honour of Brigadier General Stanhope Bayne-Jones, a native of New Orleans, Louisiana. A bacteriologist and preventive medicine specialist, he achieved worldwide acclaim as the individual responsible for the control of typhus in Europe at
10980-569: The British preparations for the attack through British air superiority and air attacks on their headquarters and telephone exchanges, which paralyzed attempts to react to the rapidly-deteriorating situation. Norman Stone detects early blitzkrieg operations in offensives by French Generals Charles Mangin and Marie-Eugène Debeney in 1918. However, French doctrine in the interwar years became defence-oriented. Colonel Charles de Gaulle advocated concentration of armor and airplanes. His opinions appeared in his 1934 book Vers l'Armée de métier ("Towards
11163-402: The British were weakest to wear down their forces. Washington led victories against the British at Trenton and Princeton , but lost a series of battles in the New York and New Jersey campaign in 1776 and the Philadelphia campaign in 1777. With a decisive victory at Yorktown and the help of the French, the Continental Army prevailed against the British. After the war, the Continental Army
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#173285592890311346-405: The Canadian province of Upper Canada, British troops who had dubbed the U.S. Army "Regulars, by God!", were able to capture and burn Washington , which was defended by militia, in 1814. The regular army, however, proved they were professional and capable of defeating the British army during the invasions of Plattsburgh and Baltimore , prompting British agreement on the previously rejected terms of
11529-413: The Combined Arms)", known as Das Fug (1921–1923) and Truppenführung (1933–1934), containing standard procedures for combined-arms warfare. The Reichswehr was influenced by its analysis of pre-war German military thought, particularly infiltration tactics since at the end of the war, they had seen some breakthroughs on the Western Front and the maneuver warfare which dominated the Eastern Front . On
11712-433: The Eastern Front regularly slowed both sides) or extreme snow. Operation Barbarossa helped confirm that armor effectiveness and the requisite aerial support depended on weather and terrain. The disadvantages of terrain could be nullified if surprise was achieved over the enemy by an attack in areas that had been considered natural obstacles, as occurred during the Battle of France in which the main German offensive went through
11895-423: The Eastern Front, the war did not bog down into trench warfare since the German and the Russian Armies fought a war of maneuver over thousands of miles, which gave the German leadership unique experience that was unavailable to the trench-bound Western Allies. Studies of operations in the East led to the conclusion that small and coordinated forces possessed more combat power than large uncoordinated forces. After
12078-458: The French made attempts to reform defensive lines along rivers but were frustrated when German forces arrived first and pressed on. Despite being common in German and English-language journalism during World War II , the word Blitzkrieg was never used as an official military term by the Wehrmacht , except for propaganda, and it was never officially adopted it as a concept or doctrine. . According to David Reynolds , " Hitler himself called
12261-452: The German Army to achieve superiority at the Schwerpunkt , whether attacking or defending, to turn local success at the Schwerpunkt into the progressive disorganisation of the opposing force and to create more opportunities to exploit that advantage even if the Germans were numerically and strategically inferior in general. In the 1930s, Guderian summarized that as Klotzen, nicht kleckern! (roughly "splash, don't spill") Having achieved
12444-523: The Germans' air parity or superiority allowed the unencumbered movement of ground forces, their unhindered assembly into concentrated attack formations, aerial reconnaissance, aerial resupply of fast moving formations and close air support at the point of attack. The Allied air forces had no close air support aircraft, training or doctrine. The Allies flew 434 French and 160 British sorties a day but methods of attacking ground targets had yet to be developed and so Allied aircraft caused negligible damage. Against
12627-416: The Korean War. During the Korean War the 45th Infantry Division suffered 4,004 casualties; 834 killed in action and 3,170 wounded in action The division was awarded four campaign streamers and one Presidential Unit Citation. Most of the units who rotated through Camp Polk during 1952-54 were trained for combat by the 37th Infantry Division of the Ohio Army National Guard . Although the 37th Division itself
12810-413: The Mississippi River. The maneuvers gave Army leadership the chance to test a new doctrine that stressed the need for both mass and mobility. Sixteen armored divisions sprang up during World War II after the lessons learned during the Louisiana Maneuvers were considered. These divisions specialized in moving huge combined-arms mechanized units long distances in combat. On the defensive front, U.S. doctrine
12993-545: The National Guard, while all states maintain regulations for state militias . State militias are both "organized", meaning that they are armed forces usually part of the state defense forces, or "unorganized" simply meaning that all able-bodied males may be eligible to be called into military service. The U.S. Army is also divided into several branches and functional areas . Branches include officers, warrant officers, and enlisted Soldiers while functional areas consist of officers who are reclassified from their former branch into
13176-519: The North African, European and Pacific fronts. Soldiers at Polk participated in the Louisiana Maneuvers , which were designed to test U.S. troops preparing for World War II. Until 1939, the Army had mostly been an infantry force with supporting artillery, engineer, and cavalry units. Few units had been motorized or mechanized. As U.S. involvement in World War II became more likely, the Army recognized
13359-565: The ORC and ERC were combined into the United States Army Reserve . The Army of the United States was re-established for the Korean War and Vietnam War and was demobilized upon the suspension of the draft . Currently, the Army is divided into the Regular Army , the Army Reserve, and the Army National Guard . Some states further maintain state defense forces , as a type of reserve to
13542-587: The Opposing Force is handled by the 1st Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment (1-509th IR) . It is the job of the 1-509th IR to conduct combat operations as a dedicated, capabilities-based Opposing Force (OPFOR) to provide realistic, stressful, and challenging combat conditions for JRTC rotational units. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 36th Infantry Division was officially activated at Fort Polk in February 2014 as 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division , utilizing
13725-533: The Polish campaign, the performance of armored troops, under the influence of Guderian's ideas, won over a number of skeptics who had initially expressed doubt about armored warfare, such as von Rundstedt and Rommel. According to David A. Grossman, by the Twelfth Battle of Isonzo (October–November 1917), while he was conducting a light-infantry operation, Rommel had perfected his maneuver-warfare principles, which were
13908-629: The Professional Army"). Like von Seeckt, de Gaulle concluded that France could no longer maintain the huge armies of conscripts and reservists that had fought the First World War, and he sought to use tanks, mechanized forces and aircraft to allow a smaller number of highly trained soldiers to have greater impact in battle. His views endeared him little to the French high command, but, according to historian Henrik Bering, were studied with great interest by Heinz Guderian . In 1916, General Alexei Brusilov had used surprise and infiltration tactics during
14091-700: The Red Army began a secret collaboration in the Soviet Union to evade the Treaty of Versailles occupational agent, the Inter-Allied Commission . In 1926 war games and tests began at Kazan and Lipetsk , in the Soviet Russia . The centers served to field-test aircraft and armored vehicles up to the battalion level and housed aerial- and armoured-warfare schools through which officers rotated. After becoming Chancellor of Germany in 1933, Adolf Hitler ignored
14274-518: The Revolutionary War progressed, French aid, resources, and military thinking helped shape the new army. A number of European soldiers came on their own to help, such as Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben , who taught Prussian Army tactics and organizational skills. The Army fought numerous pitched battles, and sometimes used Fabian strategy and hit-and-run tactics in the South in 1780 and 1781; under Major General Nathanael Greene , it hit where
14457-644: The Southwest. Grant took command of Union forces in 1864 and after a series of battles with very heavy casualties, he had General Robert E. Lee under siege in Richmond as General William T. Sherman captured Atlanta and marched through Georgia and the Carolinas . The Confederate capital was abandoned in April 1865 and Lee subsequently surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House. All other Confederate armies surrendered within
14640-511: The U.S. in fall 2011. From 2016 to 2019, the "Patriot Brigade", as they are known, became part of the 36th Infantry Division ( Army National Guard ) as part of the Army's Associated Unit Pilot. The "Patriot Brigade" was the only Regular Army unit assigned to the 36th ID but returned to the 10th Mountain Division when the Army's Associated Unit Pilot ended. The 115th Combat Support Hospital traces its origin to Evacuation Hospital #15, originally organized at Fort Riley, Kansas on 21 March 1918. At
14823-460: The U.S. on otherwise empty troop ships returning from the ETO, housing and feeding them in the U.S. where escape was far less likely, rather than further burdening outbound cargo ships with provisions for prisoners in camps based in Europe. He added that American GIs resented the fact that German POWs were allowed to breathe the air in the U.S. while GIs were on the battlegrounds of a devastated Europe through
15006-534: The United States (the "Union" or "the North") formed the Union Army , consisting of a small body of regular army units and a large body of volunteer units raised from every state, north and south, except South Carolina . For the first two years, Confederate forces did well in set battles but lost control of the border states. The Confederates had the advantage of defending a large territory in an area where disease caused twice as many deaths as combat. The Union pursued
15189-405: The United States Army was maintained as a small peacetime force to man permanent forts and perform other non-wartime duties such as engineering and construction works. During times of war, the U.S. Army was augmented by the much larger United States Volunteers which were raised independently by various state governments. States also maintained full-time militias which could also be called into
15372-424: The United States aboard the "S.S. America" and was demobilized at Camp Lewis, Washington on 28 June 1919. Evacuation Hospital #15 was reconstituted as the 15th Evacuation Hospital in 1936, after having been organized as an inactive unit of the Regular Army on 1 October 1933. 115th Combat Support Hospital is a deployable medical unit that provides medical specialities to the battlefield. Medical specialties provided by
15555-423: The acquisition process for the future. In order to support the Army's modernization priorities, its FY2020 budget allocated $ 30 billion for the top six modernization priorities over the next five years. The $ 30 billion came from $ 8 billion in cost avoidance and $ 22 billion in terminations. The task of organizing the U.S. Army commenced in 1775. In the first one hundred years of its existence,
15738-551: The advance. The historian James Corum criticised the German leadership for failing to understand the technical advances of the First World War, conducting no studies of the machine gun prior to the war and giving tank production the lowest priority during the war. After Germany's defeat, the Treaty of Versailles limited the Reichswehr to a maximum of 100,000 men, which prevented the deployment of mass armies. The German General Staff
15921-491: The agreement, both the United States and Egypt agreed that there would be a joint military training led by both countries that would usually take place every 2 years, that exercise is known as Exercise Bright Star . The 1980s was mostly a decade of reorganization. The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 created unified combatant commands bringing the army together with the other four military services under unified, geographically organized command structures. The army also played
16104-633: The army began acquiring fixed-wing aircraft . In 1910, during the Mexican Revolution , the army was deployed to U.S. towns near the border to ensure the safety of lives and property. In 1916, Pancho Villa , a major rebel leader, attacked Columbus, New Mexico , prompting a U.S. intervention in Mexico until 7 February 1917. They fought the rebels and the Mexican federal troops until 1918. The United States joined World War I as an "Associated Power" in 1917 on
16287-709: The assets of the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division , which was inactivated. As part of the Army's transformation initiative, this organization was designed to create a highly mobile, lethal, and flexible combat unit to support the rapid buildup of combat power wherever needed across the globe. The structure of the brigade is modular and provides for organic infantry, cavalry, field artillery, maintenance, logistic and support capabilities. While stilled flagged as 4th Brigade, it deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom from 2006 to 2007 then again for Operation Iraqi Freedom from December 2007 to January 2009. The brigade deployed to Afghanistan in fall 2010 and returned to
16470-583: The attacks relied on speed and surprise, rather than on weight of numbers. The tactics met with great success in Operation Michael , the German spring offensive of 1918 and restored temporarily the war of movement once the Allied trench system had been overrun. The German armies pushed on towards Amiens and then Paris and came within 120 kilometres (75 mi) before supply deficiencies and Allied reinforcements halted
16653-550: The authority of the president, in the Army National Guard of the United States. Since the adoption of the total force policy, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, reserve component soldiers have taken a more active role in U.S. military operations. For example, Reserve and Guard units took part in the Gulf War , peacekeeping in Kosovo , Afghanistan, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq . [REDACTED] Headquarters, United States Department of
16836-455: The battlefield and tactical improvements in the British artillery and infantry attack. General Edmund Allenby used infantry to attack the strong Ottoman front line in co-operation with supporting artillery, augmented by the guns of two destroyers. Through constant pressure by infantry and cavalry, two Ottoman armies in the Judean Hills were kept off-balance and virtually encircled during
17019-453: The best co-operation between all arms, emphasis was placed on detailed planning, rigid control and adherence to orders. Mechanization of the army, as part of a combined-arms theory of war, was considered a means to avoid mass casualties and the indecisive nature of offensives. The four editions of Field Service Regulations that were published after 1918 held that only combined-arms operations could create enough fire power to enable mobility on
17202-512: The bridges remained intact. Allied air superiority became a significant hindrance to German operations during the later years of the war. By June 1944, the Western Allies had the complete control of the air over the battlefield, and their fighter-bomber aircraft were very effective at attacking ground forces. On D-Day, the Allies flew 14,500 sorties over the battlefield area alone, not including sorties flown over Northwestern Europe. Against them
17385-641: The building, as part of the September 11 attacks . In response to the 11 September attacks and as part of the Global War on Terror , U.S. and NATO forces invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, displacing the Taliban government. The U.S. Army also led the combined U.S. and allied invasion of Iraq in 2003; it served as the primary source for ground forces with its ability to sustain short and long-term deployment operations. In
17568-561: The campaigns of 1939–1941, involving the invasions of Belgium , The Netherlands and France and, by 1940, the term blitzkrieg was being extensively used in Western media. Blitzkrieg operations capitalised on surprise penetrations, such as that in the Ardennes forest, the Allies' general lack of preparedness, and their inability to match the pace of the German attack. During the Battle of France ,
17751-466: The combatant commanders for use as directed by the secretary of defense. By 2013, the army shifted to six geographical commands that align with the six geographical unified combatant commands (CCMD): The army also transformed its base unit from divisions to brigades . Division lineage will be retained, but the divisional headquarters will be able to command any brigade, not just brigades that carry their divisional lineage. The central part of this plan
17934-425: The command of Panzer divisions". Schwerpunktprinzip was a heuristic device (conceptual tool or thinking formula) that was used in the German Army from the nineteenth century to make decisions from tactics to strategy about priority. Schwerpunkt has been translated as center of gravity , crucial , focal point and point of main effort . None of those forms is sufficient to describe the universal importance of
18117-419: The conclusion of World War II. The Louisiana Army National Guard maintains a maintenance facility on Fort Johnson which services its major units such as the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and 225th Engineer Brigade . There have been several times when Fort Johnson was at risk of closing. In 2002 the Army stated a position of "No acquisition of land through purchase or withdrawal of public domain lands
18300-573: The conditions for a decisive battle ( Vernichtungsschlacht ). During the war, officers such as Willy Rohr developed tactics to restore maneuver on the battlefield. Specialist light infantry ( Stosstruppen , "storm troops") were to exploit weak spots to make gaps for larger infantry units to advance with heavier weapons, exploit the success and leave isolated strong points to the troops that were following up. Infiltration tactics were combined with short hurricane artillery bombardments , which used massed artillery. Devised by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller ,
18483-439: The course of the Second World War. Early German successes were conducted when Allied aircraft could not make a significant impact on the battlefield. In May 1940, there was near parity in numbers of aircraft between the Luftwaffe and the Allies, but the Luftwaffe had been developed to support Germany's ground forces, had liaison officers with the mobile formations and operated a higher number of sorties per aircraft. In addition,
18666-501: The deep penetrations and the bypassing of enemy strong points to encircle and destroy opposing forces in a Kesselschlacht (cauldron battle/battle of encirclement). During the invasion of Poland , Western journalists adopted the term blitzkrieg to describe that form of armored warfare. The term had appeared in 1935, in the German military periodical Deutsche Wehr ("German Defence"), in connection to quick or lightning warfare. German maneuver operations were successful during
18849-481: The duration of the war, but they understood the logic of keeping the POWs in the U.S. rather than in Europe. The POWs picked cotton, cut rice, and cut lumber. They also helped sandbag the raging Red River in the summer of 1944. Prisoners were not forced to work, and some refused. Those who worked earned scrip for their labor, with which they could buy such necessities as toothpaste or snacks at their own Post Exchange. From
19032-529: The early war period. Seeckt, who believed in the Prussian tradition of mobility, developed the German army into a mobile force and advocated technical advances that would lead to a qualitative improvement of its forces and better coordination between motorized infantry, tanks, and planes. The British Army took lessons from the successful infantry and artillery offensives on the Western Front in late 1918. To obtain
19215-601: The eight U.S. uniformed services , and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution . The Army is the oldest branch of the U.S. military and the most senior in order of precedence. It has its roots in the Continental Army , which was formed on 14 June 1775 to fight against the British for independence during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). After the Revolutionary War,
19398-622: The end of FY2017. From 2016 to 2017, the Army retired hundreds of OH-58 Kiowa Warrior observation helicopters, while retaining its Apache gunships. The 2015 expenditure for Army research, development and acquisition changed from $ 32 billion projected in 2012 for FY15 to $ 21 billion for FY15 expected in 2014. By 2017, a task force was formed to address Army modernization, which triggered shifts of units: CCDC , and ARCIC , from within Army Materiel Command (AMC), and Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), respectively, to
19581-556: The end of World War II until the early 1960s, the post was closed and reopened numerous times. During much of this time, it was open only in the summers to support reserve component training. Soldiers were stationed there temporarily during the Korean War and the Berlin Crisis . In August 1950, the 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard became the first unit to train at Fort Polk in preparation for
19764-439: The end to the practice of rotating divisional commands among the states that supported them. Under the proposal, the remaining division commanders were to reside in the state of the division base. However, no reduction in total Army National Guard strength was to take place, which convinced the governors to accept the plan. The states reorganized their forces accordingly between 1 December 1967 and 1 May 1968. The Total Force Policy
19947-404: The enemy became used to the noise after the Battle of France in 1940, and instead, bombs sometimes had whistles attached. It is also common for historians and writers to include psychological warfare by using fifth columnists to spread rumours and lies among the civilian population in the theatre of operations. The origin of the term blitzkrieg is obscure. It was never used in the title of
20130-453: The exercises carried out in England and our own experience with mock-ups had persuaded me that the tanks would never be able to produce their full effect until the other weapons on whose support they must inevitably rely were brought up to their standard of speed and of cross-country performance. In such formation of all arms, the tanks must play primary role, the other weapons being subordinated to
20313-479: The existing circumstances" as a response to operational challenges. In 2005, the historian Karl-Heinz Frieser summarized blitzkrieg as the result of German commanders using the latest technology in the most advantageous way, according to traditional military principles, and employing "the right units in the right place at the right time". Modern historians now understand blitzkrieg as the combination of traditional German military principles, methods and doctrines of
20496-443: The final German offensive operation in the west, Operation Wacht am Rhein , was planned to take place during poor weather to minimise interference by Allied aircraft. Under those conditions, it was difficult for German commanders to employ the "armored idea", if at all. Blitzkrieg is vulnerable to an enemy that is robust enough to weather the shock of the attack and does not panic at the idea of enemy formations in its rear area. That
20679-567: The following years, the mission changed from conflict between regular militaries to counterinsurgency , resulting in the deaths of more than 4,000 U.S. service members (as of March 2008) and injuries to thousands more. 23,813 insurgents were killed in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Until 2009, the army's chief modernization plan, its most ambitious since World War II, was the Future Combat Systems program. In 2009, many systems were canceled, and
20862-519: The forces that landed in French North Africa and took Tunisia and then moved on to Sicily and later fought in Italy . In the June 1944 landings in northern France and in the subsequent liberation of Europe and defeat of Nazi Germany , millions of U.S. Army troops played a central role. In 1947, the number of soldiers in the US Army had decreased from eight million in 1945 to 684,000 soldiers and
21045-649: The fort was renamed to honor William Henry Johnson , a World War I veteran from the New York National Guard unit known as the " Harlem Hellfighters ". It was previously named for Leonidas Polk , a Confederate general. Johnson was one of the first Americans to receive the French " Croix de Guerre ". He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the Medal of Honor. It
21228-582: The full spectrum of conflict. The JRTC is one of the Army's three "Dirt" Combat Training Centers resourced to train infantry brigade task forces and their subordinate elements in the Joint Contemporary Operational Environment. With great emphasis on realism, the JRTC Operations Group provides rotational units with the opportunity to conduct joint operations which emphasize contingency force missions. The JRTC training scenario
21411-661: The geographical status quo. Both navies kept the warships they had seized during the conflict. The army's major campaign against the Indians was fought in Florida against Seminoles . It took long wars (1818–1858) to finally defeat the Seminoles and move them to Oklahoma. The usual strategy in Indian wars was to seize control of the Indians' winter food supply, but that was no use in Florida where there
21594-466: The guidance would reverse the Total Force Policy which is an "essential ingredient to the successful application of military force". On 11 September 2001, 53 Army civilians (47 employees and six contractors) and 22 soldiers were among the 125 victims killed in the Pentagon in a terrorist attack when American Airlines Flight 77 commandeered by five Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed into the western side of
21777-429: The high command that every tank in the German armored force must be equipped with a radio. At the start of World War II, only the German Army was thus prepared with all tanks being "radio-equipped". That proved critical in early tank battles in which German tank commanders exploited the organizational advantage over the Allies that radio communication gave them. All Allied armies would later copy that innovation. During
21960-551: The inherent danger of the attacking force overextending its supply lines and can be defeated by a determined foe who is willing and able to sacrifice territory for time in which to regroup and rearm, as the Soviets did on the Eastern Front, as opposed to, for example, the Dutch, who had no territory to sacrifice. Tank and vehicle production was a constant problem for Germany. Indeed, late in the war, many panzer "divisions" had no more than
22143-424: The initiative, exploited weaknesses and acted before the opposing forces could respond. Central to that was the decision cycle (tempo). Through superior mobility and faster decision-making cycles, mobile forces could act faster than the forces opposing them. Directive control was a fast and flexible method of command. Rather than receiving an explicit order, a commander would be told of his superior's intent and
22326-411: The large-scale industrialisation that they required. Robert Watt (2008) wrote that blitzkrieg has little in common with Soviet deep battle. In 2002, H. P. Willmott had noted that deep battle contained two important differences from blitzkrieg by being a doctrine of total war, not of limited operations, and rejecting decisive battle in favour of several large simultaneous offensives. The Reichswehr and
22509-746: The last of the American Indian Wars . U.S. Army troops also occupied several Southern states during the Reconstruction Era to protect freedmen . The key battles of the Spanish–American War of 1898 were fought by the Navy. Using mostly new volunteers , the U.S. forces defeated Spain in land campaigns in Cuba and played the central role in the Philippine–American War . Starting in 1910,
22692-484: The major basis for responding to blitzkrieg attacks in the future. Deployment in depth , or permitting enemy or "shoulders" of a penetration, was essential to channelling the enemy attack; artillery, properly employed at the shoulders, could take a heavy toll on attackers. Allied forces in 1940 lacked the experience to develop those strategies successfully, which resulted in the French armistice with heavy losses, but those strategies characterized later Allied operations. At
22875-448: The need of the ground forces. In fact, far from it being a specialist panzer spearhead arm, less than 15 percent of the Luftwaffe was intended for close support of the army in 1939. Methamphetamine , known as "pervitin," use is believed to have played a role in the speed of Germany's initial Blitzkrieg since military success with combined arms demanded long hours of continuous operations with minimal rest. The concepts associated with
23058-687: The need to modernize the service. It also needed large-scale maneuvers to test a fast-growing, inexperienced force. That is where Fort Polk and the Louisiana Maneuvers came in. The maneuvers involved half a million soldiers in 19 Army divisions, and took place over 3,400 square miles (8,800 km) in August and September 1941. The troops were divided into equal armies of two notional countries: Kotmk (Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Kentucky) and Almat (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee). These countries were fighting over navigation rights in
23241-525: The onset of hostilities during World War I, the unit sailed aboard the "S.S. Mataika", departing the United States on 22 August 1918, and arriving in France 3 September 1918. Evacuation Hospital #15 earned a battle streamer for its participation in the Meuse-Argonne Forest offensive from 26 September 1918 through 11 November 1918. The hospital, having served honorably and proud during World War I, returned to
23424-451: The operational level. The traditional meaning of "blitzkrieg" is that of German tactical and operational methodology during the first half of the Second World War that is often hailed as a new method of warfare. The word, meaning "lightning war" or "lightning attack" in its strategic sense describes a series of quick and decisive short battles to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy state before it can fully mobilize. Tactically, blitzkrieg
23607-619: The penetration. Tank destroyers employed aggressive, high-speed hit-and-run tactics. The conclusion drawn was that tank destroyer battalions should be raised. Immediately after the war, the battalions were disbanded and the anti-tank role was taken over by the Infantry, Engineer, and Armor branches. While primarily a training facility, Camp Polk also served as a military prison for Germans captured during World War II. The first prisoners of war (POWs), who began arriving in Louisiana in July 1943, were from
23790-468: The post encompasses about 198,000 acres (309 sq mi). Some 100,000 acres (160 sq mi) are owned by the Department of the Army and 98,125 acres (153.320 sq mi) by the U.S. Forest Service , mostly in the Kisatchie National Forest . In 2013, there were 10,877 troops stationed at Fort Johnson, which generated an annual payroll of $ 980 million. Louisiana officials lobbied
23973-474: The post has been designated Fort Johnson-Vernon Wildlife Management Area . An estimated 700 to 750 feral horses roam training lands on and around Fort Johnson. The fate of the horses has been the subject of debate since the Army started removing them in 2017. United States Army The United States Army ( USA ) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces . It is one of
24156-494: The property owned by the U.S. Forest Service where the Army trains. Originally named after Confederate general Leonidas Polk , Fort Polk became Fort Johnson during a re-designation ceremony on June 13, 2023 in honor of Sgt. William Henry Johnson, a World War I Medal of Honor recipient from North Carolina who served in the 369th U.S. Infantry Regiment. Construction of Camp Polk began in 1941. Thousands of wooden barracks sprang up quickly to support an Army preparing to do battle on
24339-535: The protection of Saudi Arabia . In January 1991 Operation Desert Storm commenced, a U.S.-led coalition which deployed over 500,000 troops, the bulk of them from U.S. Army formations, to drive out Iraqi forces . The campaign ended in total victory, as Western coalition forces routed the Iraqi Army . Some of the largest tank battles in history were fought during the Gulf war. The Battle of Medina Ridge , Battle of Norfolk and
24522-604: The provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. Within the Wehrmacht, which was established in 1935, the command for motorized armored forces was named the Panzerwaffe in 1936. The Luftwaffe , the German air force, was officially established in February 1935, and development began on ground-attack aircraft and doctrines. Hitler strongly supported the new strategy. He read Guderian's 1937 book Achtung – Panzer! and upon observing armored field exercises at Kummersdorf , he remarked, "That
24705-441: The publications of Ferdinand Otto Miksche, first in the magazine "Army Quarterly", and in his 1941 book Blitzkrieg , in which he defined the concept. In September 1939, Time magazine termed the German military action as a "war of quick penetration and obliteration – Blitzkrieg , lightning war". After the invasion of Poland, the British press commonly used the term to describe German successes in that campaign. J. P. Harris called
24888-406: The regiment deployed to Haiti in 1995 in support of Operation Uphold Democracy and to Bosnia in 1996 in support of Operation Joint Endeavor . The 2nd ACR deployed to Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Djibouti in 2002 to in support of Operation Enduring Freedom , and then deployed in Iraq in 2003 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (now known as Operation New Dawn). The Army announced on 14 May 2004, that
25071-663: The remaining were swept into the BCT modernization program . By 2017, the Brigade Modernization project was completed and its headquarters, the Brigade Modernization Command, was renamed the Joint Modernization Command, or JMC. In response to Budget sequestration in 2013 , Army plans were to shrink to 1940 levels, although actual Active-Army end-strengths were projected to fall to some 450,000 troops by
25254-431: The requirements of the armor. It would be wrong to include tanks in infantry divisions; what was needed were armored divisions which would include all the supporting arms needed to allow the tanks to fight with full effect. Guderian believed that developments in technology were required to support the theory, especially by equipping armored divisions, tanks foremost, with wireless communications. Guderian insisted in 1933 to
25437-474: The role that his unit was to fill in that concept. The method of execution was then a matter for the discretion of the subordinate commander. The staff burden was reduced at the top and spread among tiers of command with knowledge about their situation. Delegation and the encouragement of initiative aided implementation, and important decisions could be taken quickly and communicated verbally or with only brief written orders. The last part of an offensive operation
25620-588: The service chiefs from each of the four military services belonging to the Department of Defense who advise the president of the United States , the secretary of defense and the National Security Council on operational military matters, under the guidance of the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . In 1986, the Goldwater–Nichols Act mandated that operational control of
25803-479: The service of the army. By the twentieth century, the U.S. Army had mobilized the U.S. Volunteers on four occasions during each of the major wars of the nineteenth century. During World War I, the " National Army " was organized to fight the conflict, replacing the concept of U.S. Volunteers. It was demobilized at the end of World War I and was replaced by the Regular Army, the Organized Reserve Corps, and
25986-456: The services follows a chain of command from the president to the secretary of defense directly to the unified combatant commanders , who have control of all armed forces units in their geographic or function area of responsibility, thus the secretaries of the military departments (and their respective service chiefs underneath them) only have the responsibility to organize, train and equip their service components. The army provides trained forces to
26169-470: The side of Britain , France , Russia , Italy and the other Allies . U.S. troops were sent to the Western Front and were involved in the last offensives that ended the war. With the armistice in November 1918, the army once again decreased its forces. In 1939, estimates of the Army's strength ranged between 174,000 and 200,000 soldiers, smaller than that of Portugal 's, which ranked it 17th or 19th in
26352-497: The spectrum of conflict, in support of combatant commanders ". The branch participates in conflicts worldwide and is the major ground-based offensive and defensive force of the United States of America. The United States Army serves as the land-based branch of the U.S. Armed Forces . Section 7062 of Title 10, U.S. Code defines the purpose of the army as: In 2018, the Army Strategy 2018 articulated an eight-point addendum to
26535-549: The standard support role in an army. The U.S. Army's conventional combat capability currently consists of 11 active divisions and 1 deployable division headquarters (7th Infantry Division) as well as several independent maneuver units. Blitzkrieg Blitzkrieg is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with artillery , air assault , and close air support . The intent
26718-443: The state militias. In the 1920s and 1930s, the "career" soldiers were known as the " Regular Army " with the "Enlisted Reserve Corps" and "Officer Reserve Corps" augmented to fill vacancies when needed. In 1941, the " Army of the United States " was founded to fight World War II. The Regular Army, Army of the United States, the National Guard, and Officer/Enlisted Reserve Corps (ORC and ERC) existed simultaneously. After World War II,
26901-527: The states of California , Nevada , Utah , Colorado , Arizona , Wyoming and New Mexico . The American Civil War was the costliest war for the U.S. in terms of casualties. After most slave states , located in the southern U.S., formed the Confederate States , the Confederate States Army , led by former U.S. Army officers, mobilized a large fraction of Southern white manpower. Forces of
27084-412: The statutory authority to conduct all the affairs of the army under the authority, direction, and control of the secretary of defense . The chief of staff of the Army , who is the highest-ranked military officer in the army, serves as the principal military adviser and executive agent for the secretary of the Army, i.e., its service chief; and as a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , a body composed of
27267-484: The storm and fight out of encirclements failed because of the Soviets' ability to continue to feed armored units into the attack, maintain the mobility and strength of the offensive and arrive in force deep in the rear areas faster than the Germans could regroup. Although effective in quick campaigns against Poland and France, mobile operations could not be sustained by Germany in later years. Strategies based on maneuver have
27450-525: The takeover of South Korea by North Korea and later to invade the northern nation. After repeated advances and retreats by both sides and the Chinese People's Volunteer Army 's entry into the war, the Korean Armistice Agreement returned the peninsula to the status quo in July 1953. The Vietnam War is often regarded as a low point for the U.S. Army due to the use of drafted personnel ,
27633-652: The term blitzkrieg (deep penetrations by armor, large encirclements, and combined arms attacks) were largely dependent upon terrain and weather conditions. Wherever the ability for rapid movement across "tank country" was not possible, armored penetrations often were avoided or resulted in failure. The terrain would ideally be flat, firm, unobstructed by natural barriers or fortifications, and interspersed with roads and railways. If it were instead hilly, wooded, marshy, or urban, armor would be vulnerable to infantry in close-quarters combat and unable to break out at full speed. Additionally, units could be halted by mud ( thawing along
27816-407: The term "a piece of journalistic sensationalism – a buzz-word with which to label the spectacular early successes of the Germans in the Second World War". The word was later applied to the bombing of Britain, particularly London, hence " The Blitz ". The German popular press followed suit nine months later, after the Fall of France in 1940; thus, although the word had first been used in Germany, it
27999-461: The term Blitzkrieg "a completely idiotic word" ( ein ganz blödsinniges Wort )". Some senior German officers, including Kurt Student , Franz Halder and Johann Adolf von Kielmansegg , even disputed the idea that it was a military concept. Kielmansegg asserted that what many regarded as blitzkrieg was nothing more than "ad hoc solutions that simply popped out of the prevailing situation". Kurt Student described it as ideas that "naturally emerged from
28182-480: The term and the concept of Schwerpunktprinzip . Every unit in the army, from the company to the supreme command, decided on a Schwerpunkt by schwerpunktbildung , as did the support services, which meant that commanders always knew what was the most important and why. The German army was trained to support the Schwerpunkt even when risks had to be taken elsewhere to support the point of main effort and to attack with overwhelming firepower. Schwerpunktbildung allowed
28365-463: The theater for the joint force, and to integrate national, multinational, and joint power on land. The Continental Army was created on 14 June 1775 by the Second Continental Congress as a unified army for the colonies to fight Great Britain , with George Washington appointed as its commander. The army was initially led by men who had served in the British Army or colonial militias and who brought much of British military heritage with them. As
28548-417: The total number of active divisions had dropped from 89 to 12. The leaders of the Army saw this demobilization as a success. In the Pacific War , U.S. Army soldiers participated alongside the United States Marine Corps in capturing the Pacific Islands from Japanese control. Following the Axis surrenders in May (Germany) and August (Japan) of 1945, army troops were deployed to Japan and Germany to occupy
28731-676: The two defeated nations. Two years after World War II, the Army Air Forces separated from the army to become the United States Air Force in September 1947. In 1948, the army was desegregated by order 9981 of President Harry S. Truman . The end of World War II set the stage for the East–West confrontation known as the Cold War . With the outbreak of the Korean War , concerns over the defense of Western Europe rose. Two corps, V and VII , were reactivated under Seventh United States Army in 1950 and U.S. strength in Europe rose from one division to four. Hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops remained stationed in West Germany, with others in Belgium ,
28914-452: The unpopularity of the war with the U.S. public and frustrating restrictions placed on the military by U.S. political leaders. While U.S. forces had been stationed in South Vietnam since 1959, in intelligence and advising/training roles, they were not deployed in large numbers until 1965, after the Gulf of Tonkin Incident . U.S. forces effectively established and maintained control of the "traditional" battlefield, but they struggled to counter
29097-527: The very same ones that were applied during the blitzkrieg against France in 1940 and were repeated in the Coalition ground offensive against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War . During the Battle of France and against his staff advisor's advice, Hitler ordered that everything should be completed in a few weeks. Fortunately for the Germans, Rommel and Guderian disobeyed the General Staff's orders (particularly those of General Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist ) and forged ahead making quicker progress than anyone had expected, on
29280-452: The war, the Reichswehr expanded and improved infiltration tactics. The commander in chief, Hans von Seeckt , argued that there had been an excessive focus on encirclement and emphasised speed instead. Seeckt inspired a revision of Bewegungskrieg (maneuver warfare) thinking and its associated Auftragstaktik in which the commander expressed his goals to subordinates and gave them discretion in how to achieve them. The governing principle
29463-445: The way "inventing the idea of Blitzkrieg". It was Rommel who created the new archetype of Blitzkrieg by leading his division far ahead of flanking divisions. MacGregor and Williamson remark that Rommel's version of blitzkrieg displayed a significantly better understanding of combined-arms warfare than that of Guderian. General Hermann Hoth submitted an official report in July 1940 which declared that Rommel had "explored new paths in
29646-435: The word Blitzkrieg , because it is a very silly word". In early January 1942, Hitler dismissed it as "Italian phraseology". In 1914, German strategic thinking derived from the writings of Carl von Clausewitz (1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831), Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (26 October 1800 – 24 April 1891) and Alfred von Schlieffen (28 February 1833 – 4 January 1913), who advocated maneuver, mass and envelopment to create
29829-417: The world in size. General George C. Marshall became Army chief of staff in September 1939 and set about expanding and modernizing the Army in preparation for war. The United States joined World War II in December 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor . Some 11 million Americans were to serve in various Army operations. On the European front , U.S. Army troops formed a significant portion of
30012-409: Was "the higher the authority, the more general the orders were"; it was the responsibility of the lower echelons to fill in the details. Implementation of higher orders remained within limits that were determined by the training doctrine of an elite officer corps. Delegation of authority to local commanders increased the tempo of operations, which had great influence on the success of German armies in
30195-468: Was abolished by the treaty but continued covertly as the Truppenamt (Troop Office) and was disguised as an administrative body. Committees of veteran staff officers were formed within the Truppenamt to evaluate 57 issues of the war to revise German operational theories. By the time of the Second World War, their reports had led to doctrinal and training publications, including H. Dv. 487, Führung und Gefecht der verbundenen Waffen ("Command and Battle of
30378-439: Was adopted by Chief of Staff of the Army General Creighton Abrams in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and involved treating the three components of the army – the Regular Army , the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve as a single force. General Abrams' intertwining of the three components of the army effectively made extended operations impossible without the involvement of both the Army National Guard and Army Reserve in
30561-662: Was at first very small and after General St. Clair's defeat at the Battle of the Wabash, where more than 800 soldiers were killed, the Regular Army was reorganized as the Legion of the United States , established in 1791 and renamed the United States Army in 1796. In 1798, during the Quasi-War with France, the U.S. Congress established a three-year " Provisional Army " of 10,000 men, consisting of twelve regiments of infantry and six troops of light dragoons . In March 1799, Congress created an "Eventual Army" of 30,000 men, including three regiments of cavalry . Both "armies" existed only on paper, but equipment for 3,000 men and horses
30744-402: Was based on two needs: the ability to defeat Blitzkrieg tactics; and how to deal with large numbers of German tanks attacking relatively narrow areas. As such, the maneuvers also tested the concept of the tank destroyer . In this concept, highly mobile guns were held in reserve until friendly forces were attacked by enemy tanks. Then the tank destroyers would be rapidly deployed to the flanks of
30927-429: Was built around the 1st Armored Division and an opposing force was built around the 82nd Airborne Division . U.S. Air Force bombers and fighter planes also participated in this exercise with powerful aircraft operating in the sky, stirring great interest among the citizens of the region. Also participating as part of the provisional army was the 15th Infantry Regiment (actually designated as 15th Infantry Combat Command) of
31110-459: Was flexible and could carry out both operational-tactical, and strategic bombing. Flexibility was the strength of the Luftwaffe in 1939 to 1941. Paradoxically, that became its weakness. While Allied Air Forces were tied to the support of the Army, the Luftwaffe deployed its resources in a more general operational way. It switched from air superiority missions to medium-range interdiction, to strategic strikes to close support duties, depending on
31293-436: Was no winter. The second strategy was to form alliances with other Indian tribes, but that too was useless because the Seminoles had destroyed all the other Indians when they entered Florida in the late eighteenth century. The U.S. Army fought and won the Mexican–American War (1846–1848), which was a defining event for both countries. The U.S. victory resulted in acquisition of territory that eventually became all or parts of
31476-399: Was not prepared economically for a long war but might win a quick war ( "Blitzkrieg" ). He did not go into detail about tactics or suggest that the German armed forces had evolved a radically new operational method. His book offered scant clues as to how German lightning victories might be won. In English and other languages, the term had been used since the 1920s. The term was first used in
31659-467: Was not sent to Korea as a unit, nearly every soldier was sent as an individual replacement. In 1955, the U.S. military conducted another large training exercise that covered a substantial portion of Louisiana. Named Operation Sagebrush, the focus of this exercise was to evaluate the effectiveness of military operations in a nuclear environment. The exercise lasted for 15 days with 85,000 troops participating. A provisional army, meant to represent U.S. forces,
31842-413: Was one of the U.S. Army installations named for Confederate soldiers recommended for renaming by the Congressional Naming Commission . On January 5, 2023, William A. LaPlante, the US under-secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment ( USD (A&S) ), directed the full implementation of the recommendations of the Naming Commission, DoD-wide. An area covering 105,545 acres (42,713 ha) within
32025-414: Was organized with two active duty brigades and a brigade from the Louisiana National Guard. From 1972 until 1987, Fort Polk hosted the 1st Battalion, 40th Armor Regiment. During that time 1/40th Armor participated in training exercises with the Louisiana Army National Guard and 5th Infantry Division units. It was part of the Rapid Deployment Force for the operations in Grenada, but was not deployed, instead it
32208-427: Was popularized by British journalism. Heinz Guderian referred to it as a word coined by the Allies: "as a result of the successes of our rapid campaigns our enemies ... coined the word Blitzkrieg ". After the German failure in the Soviet Union in 1941, the use of the term began to be frowned upon in Nazi Germany, and Hitler then denied ever using the term and said in a speech in November 1941, "I have never used
32391-528: Was procured and stored. The War of 1812 , the second and last war between the United States and Great Britain, had mixed results. The U.S. Army did not conquer Canada but it did destroy Native American resistance to expansion in the Old Northwest and stopped two major British invasions in 1814 and 1815. After taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, the U.S. Army seized parts of western Upper Canada, burned York and defeated Tecumseh , which caused his Western Confederacy to collapse. Following U.S. victories in
32574-481: Was provided in the form of the dive bomber and medium bomber , which would support the focal point of attack from the air. German successes are closely related to the extent to which the German Luftwaffe could control the air war in early campaigns in Western and Central Europe and in the Soviet Union. However, the Luftwaffe was a broadly based force with no constricting central doctrine other than its resources should be used generally to support national strategy. It
32757-441: Was purchased in 2012. Eminent domain is an option if needed. Fort Johnson issued a press release on 5 May 2014, that 32,500 acres of the targeted 47,500, out of the 100,000 approved, has been acquired. Fifty-four landowners are involved, twenty-nine residences, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers being the Army's real estate agent. On 12 November 2014, a grand opening for a new Fort Polk Commissary took place. On 13 June 2023,
32940-439: Was quickly given land certificates and disbanded in a reflection of the republican distrust of standing armies. State militias became the new nation's sole ground army, except a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point 's arsenal. However, because of continuing conflict with Native Americans , it was soon considered necessary to field a trained standing army. The Regular Army
33123-408: Was reassigned to the hills nol (German Defense Plan). In 1983, the 1/40 Armor took part in the Reforger 1984 exercises in Bavaria and two deployments to the National Training Center in 1984 and 1985. The 1/40 Armor was deactivated at Fort Polk in 1987. It was reactivated as the 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry at Fort Richardson in Alaska in 2005. While at Fort Polk, the 5th Infantry Division participated in
33306-523: Was the destruction of unsubdued pockets of resistance, which had been enveloped earlier and bypassed by the fast-moving armored and motorized spearheads. The Kesselschlacht ("cauldron battle") was a concentric attack on such pockets. It was there that most losses were inflicted upon the enemy, primarily through the mass capture of prisoners and weapons. During Operation Barbarossa , huge encirclements in 1941 produced nearly 3.5 million Soviet prisoners, along with masses of equipment. Close air support
33489-408: Was the only stateside Army post they saw before assignment overseas. Many soldiers reported to basic training at Fort Polk and stayed on post for infantry training at Tigerland before being assigned to infantry line companies in Vietnam . In October 1974, Fort Polk became the new home of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized), and basic training and AIT started being phased out. Fort Polk changed from
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