Are Roundout Brigades a Viable Concept for the Future?

Abstract

In the 1970's, against the backdrop of post-Vietnam pressures and sentiment, a re-examination of the Total Army was conducted. One of the results was the birth of the roundout concept in which a portion of an active duty division's force structure is formed from reserve component units. A division commander, recently interviewed, pointed to the problem that our doctrine says nothing about how a two brigade division would fight. His roundout brigade does not deploy with him to his OCONUS wartime location but rather joins him later. The Army now has seven of its active divisions with roundout brigades. The temptation, in an era of shrinking force structure, is to roundout more of the force. This paper addresses the disconnect in Army doctrine versus the way roundout divisions fight, as well as addressing some of the concerns that may now make the roundout concept obsolete in the current and future environment.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 29, 1990
Accession Number
ADA223512

Entities

People

  • Ronald R. Rollison

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Active Duty
  • Army
  • Attack Helicopters
  • Battles
  • Classification
  • Command And Control
  • Deployment
  • Doctrine
  • Environment
  • Force Structure
  • Lessons Learned
  • National Guard
  • Organizational Structure
  • Training
  • United States
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Joint Military Operations and Doctrine.
  • Military Mobilization and Reserve Forces Studies.
  • Systems Analysis and Design