When I heard the term “battlegroups” being used to describe forward forces in Eastern Europe, I, like many others, was thinking, “how big is that?”
Here’s the Wikipedia description:
“A battlegroup (British/Commonwealth term) or task force (U.S. term) in modern military theory is the basic building block of an army's fighting force. A battlegroup is formed around an infantry battalion or armoured regiment, which is usually commanded by a lieutenant colonel.
“The battalion or regiment also provides the command and staff element of a battlegroup, which is complemented with an appropriate mix of armor, infantry, and support personnel and weaponry relevant to the task it is expected to perform.
“The organization of a battlegroup is flexible and can be restructured quickly to cope with any situation changes. Typically, an offensive battlegroup may be structured around an armored regiment, with
“In support would be a reconnaissance troop, a low-level air defense detachment, an anti-tank section, engineering detachment, and artillery support.
“Battlegroups are often subdivided into company groups (called ‘teams’ in the U.S. Army) consisting of a single infantry company supported by a tank troop and various other support units.”
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The basic concept is to mix tanks and infantry. Tanks protect infantry from other enemy tanks and infantry protect tanks from enemy infantry.
These battalions, which is what they are, are not self supporting. They need a logistics tail to keep them supplied with food, fuel, ammunition and spare parts. Yes, tanks break down! Tires go flat, etc.
How they mix in artillery will be another interesting thing that we likely won’t get the details on. Artillery is a supporting element, just like combat engineers (my first assignment as an airborne, ranger infantryman lieutenant was as an engineer platoon leader).
The rotation of these forces to Europe will be another complicating element for the Army. I’ll blog on that later.
