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Union Blue, I was a hospital corpsman with the 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment in Vietnam.
The Marines did not have brigades. How big is a brigade?
bankerpapaw,
In my day, 1971-1991, a brigade could contain from 3,000 to 5,000 men, depending on the mission, type of equipment, etc.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Battalion
Regiment contains several Battalions.
Brigade contains several Regiments & battalions
Division... several Brigades
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Asked little bro that same question once, what he said I couldn't decipher. It seems that there is no longer a numerical value to a brigade or battalion. You might have a couple of hundred grunts and six or eight tanks and you're either a brigade or a battalion. Put together a group of whatever you'd like and you can call it whatever you'd like. I gave up with trying to figure out how many CW soldiers made a battalion.
By the way, the US Army finally kicked little bro out for the crime of being too old. (Well, he was, and his knees gave him away.) When he went out, he was among the very few highest ranked CWO. Asked him once why he didn't go for officer. Shane: you may fill in the blanks. I don't know what is the AF equivallent to an E-11 CWO, but you must have a pretty good idea. The colonels came to him and said, "Jim, what should I do now.?"
I would hope he expressed some advice very nicely, but being a peckish sort, like his older brother, I doubt it. I'll not go further into this speculation because it involves various obsenities which ought not be exposed to a general audience.
Oh. And hey. Am I proud of my little bro? Hooah!
ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Chief Warrant Officer = getting paid for what he really knows instead of what some silly jackass in DC thinks he should know... Seriously any CWO is expected to be the expert in his field and he usually is.
When I got out there were very few WO's in the USAF. The Army had a LOT, mostly in helo units IIRC.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
The thing about the CW that makes all this discussion of numbers somewhat nebulous is that they could sometimes lose as much as 30 per cent or more of a regiment's population in a single battle. At least in the Confederacy those troups couldn't be replaced with any degree of efficiency.
Question: Was the choice between battalion and regiment merely semantic in the civil war?
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
In the Civil War, the regiment was the basic building block, a ten company organization, as I'm sure everyone knows. In the infantry, battalions are supposed to be smaller than regiments and bigger than companies, but I've never heard of the title being used consistently. Even multi-company parts of a regiments are often referred to as "wings" not battalions. Yet the title battalion is sometimes used to describe sharpshooter units.
Was it an title for ad hoc multi-company forces operating independently? Was it a tactical title, as in "fire by battalion?"
Larry brings up an excellent point, the regiments were supposed to be near a thousand men, but in practice a half or third. Battle losses, disease, troops detailed to other duties meant less men on the firing line. The First Maine Heavy Artillery, combed out of its cushy job manning a Washington DC fort, (they had a very bad day at Cold Harbor), was enormous compared to the depleted veteran units along side it.
The Union army did a lousy job at replacing losses in its existing regiments, the governors preferring to organize new units(to appoint more officers). Did the Confederates organize them more effectively? I want to say yes, but I don't really remember.
The Regular Army employed Battalions very consistantly at the the time. But their Regiments were much larger and in reality very rarely was an entire Regular Regiment in the field at the same place.
A Battalion was a genereric term for any force larger than a Company and smaller than a Regiment.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
A Battalion was a genereric term for any force larger than a Company and smaller than a Regiment.
That's about exactly the way I read it and the primary reason there was a major in every regiment. ("Major. Round up two companies and take them around over there.")
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
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