the 82nd. Everything from “Global Power — Global Reach” strikes by B-52s, B-1Bs, or B-2As to additional air superiority aircraft could be assigned to the mission, depending upon the requirements. Whatever is required, though, count on the USAF to find a way to get the airborne task force to the target, keep them supplied, and keep them protected.
Other Services: The Navy and Marines[51]
In addition to the Air Force, the services from the Department of the Navy can frequently provide aid and support for an airborne task force once it is on the ground. One of the most useful things that the Navy and Marine Corps can do for the 82nd is to relieve them. More specifically, they can bring in follow-on forces and supplies so that the 82nd can finish its job, be packed up, and sent home once those heavier and more suitable units arrive and take over. This is particularly critical in overseas situations like those encountered in the Middle East. Sometimes the help can come in the form of one of the Navy Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable) (MEU [SOC]). Another situation might have an airborne task force taking a port/airfield facility and holding it open for a Maritime Prepositioning Squadron (MPS) that can supply and equip a fly-in Army or Marine unit. Either way, the stores aboard the ships can be used by the airborne troopers to augment their own meager supplies. This is what happened when the 2nd Brigade troopers began to draw on the supplies of a Navy MPS from Diego Garcia in 1990. In addition to equipping a Marine regimental combat team complete with armor and aircraft, the MPS ships provided the airborne soldiers with everything from fuel and water to MREs.
National Agencies: Spooks and Support
You would have needed to be on the other side of the solar system to not know about the information revolution that has swept the planet over the last two decades. Since the creation of the first lightweight computers and satellite communications systems, the armed forces have developed an insatiable hunger for an ever-increasing flow of data about the battlefields they are on, and the world around them. In addition to civilian sources like CNN, MSNBC, SkyNET, and other worldwide news-gathering services, there are a variety of national agencies that can speed vital and timely data to an airborne task force commander.
Along with the signals intelligence of the National Security Agency’s fleet of electronic ferret aircraft and satellites, there is a new agency designed to support the warfighter in getting a proper flow of map and imagery data on the battlefield. Called the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), it is a conglomeration of the old Defense Mapping Agency and Central Imaging Office, with pieces from the National Reconnaissance Office, National Photographic Intelligence Center, and Defense Intelligence Agency. What this all means is that an airborne task force commander can now make just one phone call to get all of the photos and maps of a particular area that the troopers will require. NIMA specializes in rapidly generating maps and imagery of an area, and then quickly distributing the materials to the users. Sometimes, this will involve shipping several tons of maps and photos on pallets for the troops. Other times, the imagery may be transmitted via the Space Warfighting Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, through satellite links to a brigade or division TOC. However it gets there, though, the rapid flow of this data is going to represent a vital combat edge to the airborne warfighter in the 21st century.
Foreign Friends: Joint International Support
It’s nice to have friends, especially when they come from other nations. In the post-Cold War world, taking military action without at least one international partner is a good way to wind up on the losing end of an international embargo. If you doubt this, just ask General Cedras or Saddam Hussein. Today, American national leaders would generally never go into a crisis area without some sort of international consensus, and preferably a United Nations resolution or two. In addition, there are a few countries that can contribute forces to an airborne task force that could be genuinely useful. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Russian Republic are just some of the nations that would contribute airborne units of battalion size or larger to a U.S.-led effort. Along with airborne units, these same nations can also contribute airlift transport to the effort. For example, during Desert Shield/Storm, over a half-dozen nations supplied C-130 Hercules transports to the Coalition theater airlift pool. In the future, it is possible that you might see Russian Aeroflot 11–76 jet transports dropping supplies to an American airborne brigade in the field! Stranger things have happened in the last ten years, and one can only wonder what the next ten will show us in the way of coalition warfare. Like politics here in the U.S., international politics makes for strange bedfellows.
Building the All-American Team
Now that I’ve shown you all the building blocks of an airborne task force, let’s put one together, just the way the folks at the 82nd Airborne do it. The troopers of the 82nd, like most other units in the U.S. Army, fight in brigade task forces. These are units with between three thousand and forty-five hundred personnel, as well as the necessary equipment to accomplish their missions. The 82nd has the necessary units to form three such brigades, and this is how the division forms to fight. Normally, each airborne brigade task force is composed of the following component units:
• A brigade HHC.
• A parachute or airborne infantry regiment.
• A brigade support element composed of a forward support battalion.
• A battalion of M119 105mm howitzers.
• A battery of eight M 198 155mm howitzers from the XVIII Airborne Corps Artillery.
• An aviation component of two troops of OH-58D Kiowa Warriors, a company of UH-60L Blackhawks, and one or two EH- 60 Quick Fix helicopters.
• One company each of signals, engineering, military intelligence, and air defense personnel and equipment.
• Platoons of both military police and chemical troops.
• Other attached fire support and special operations units.
Each brigade is commanded by the colonel who runs the core airborne /parachute regiment. Put all these pieces together in the time-tested 82nd method, and you have a force capable of taking down and holding a variety of different targets. Some of these include:
• International airports and military air bases.
• Port, rail, and other transportation facilities.
• Oil drilling and production facilities.
• Bridges, viaducts, and road routes.
• Ballistic-missile, chemical, biological, or other weapons facilities.
• Refugee camps and other areas requiring peacekeeping and/or protection forces.
