Recently reading the headlines about Band of Brothers coming from HBO tho Netflix and it got me thinking:
– how does the US military divide up it’s soldiers? (Eg regiment vs troop vs platoon vs squadron)
– are there different rules for each branch of the military?
– I’ve only ever heard of the 101st airborne division but not other ones… Was there a 100th division? 99th division, etc? Why is the 101st so famous?
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1. The division depend on the type of unit and the time period. But at the time of WW2 an infantry Regiment was made of 3 Battalion (Winters was made acting Battalion Commander during the show). Each Battalion had about 3 Company, each company was made of 3-4 platoons, each platoon was made of several squads. We are talking her about the main combat unit, sometime they will have additional supporting unit. For example, an Infantry regiment have 3 Infantry Battalion, but also an artillery, an anti-tank and an service company as support as well as a Medical detachment. In operation they might have additional unit attached temporary to it. For example, maybe the commander of the Regiment could temporary receive the command of a Tank company to help him do an attack on a village.
Squadron and Troops are the equivalent of Company and Platoon, but for armored unit.
2) That’s way too vague of a question, but yes some rules are the same, some are not.
3) The US consider their airborne division as Infantry and are numbered as such. The US 99th Infantry Division fought at the battle of the Bulge, they went through some tough shit there in the Northern side of the campaign. The 100th also fought in Europe, 3 member of that division received the Medal of honor.
Why the 101st is more famous? Well of the 5 airborne division of the war, only two remain. The 82nd and 101st. Those two divisions arguable seen the most actions of the Airborne division during WW2, both had more casualties than any of the other 3 airborne division. More casualties mean more bloody history and the fact that they existed almost continuously since WW2 make it a lot more easy for them to be known to the public.
So why the 101 is more well known than the 82nd? Hard to say. Maybe the name 101st Screaming Eagle sell more than the 82nd All American? Maybe there was just more stories written about the 101. Maybe because the 82nd was deployed along the Cambodian border while the 101st had unit in the Task Force Oregon and Tiger Force and they were involved in the invasion of Southern Laos. All operations that would put them in the news more often.
In the Gulf War the 101st was the first unit to shoot, and they also made the deepest air assault operation in history, both of which were highly published event in the media, more so than the contribution of the 82nd. At the start of Afghanistan the 101st deployed their 3rd brigade as the first conventional unit to fight in the war and they were a bit part of operation Anaconda, during that time the 82nd was send across different missions so not a lot of talk about the division itself was in the media.
It seem that the 101st just have a more regular presence in the media for a long time after WW2.
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