Posted by: Alsadius
« on: December 27, 2019, 07:12:08 PM »
It's not strictly 21st century, but I have a copy of Tom Clancy's Armored Cav, which discussed an American armored cavalry regiment circa 1994 in pretty good detail. Here's the summary(with apologies to anyone who actually knows this stuff if I screw it up somewhere):
Combat Equipment
- M1 Abrams main battle tank: 120mm main gun, 3x machine guns as backup weapons.
- M2/3 Bradley infantry/cavalry fighting vehicle: 25mm cannon and 2x TOW missiles as main weapons, 1x machine gun. One version carries half a dozen soldiers, the other uses that space for extra kit.
- M113 armored personnel carrier: Carries 12 troops, 1x machine gun.
- M106: 81mm mortar version of M113
- M270 MLRS: Rocket artillery
- M109 Paladin: Self-propelled artillery
- AH-64 Apache attack helicopter: 30mm cannon, various missiles
- UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter: Mostly a transport helicopter, but can carry 2x machine guns, or even a few missiles.
- OH-58 Kiowa Scout/Attack Helicopter: Mostly a scout, but it mounts rockets or missiles for attack.
- Various infantry equipment (rifle, pistol, AT missile, AA missile, etc.)
Non-Combat Equipment
- Fox NBC reconnaissance vehicle: Scans for nuclear/biological/chemical attacks.
- M88 armored recovery vehicle: Picks up broken tanks and takes them back to the shop.
- M9 armored combat earthmover: It's a bulldozer.
- HMMWV: Variants do everything from carry guns to moving troops to acting as field ambulances.
- M1070/M1000 tank transporter: Moves tanks around outside of combat so they don't break down so much.
- M939 5-ton truck: Carries supplies
- HEMTT truck: Carries more supplies
Formations
All of these seem to be one to the regiment, except for the cavalry squadron, of which there are three. Note that the personnel counts are only provided for some of these, not all.
Regimental HQ:
2x Bradley, command configuration
11-15x APC, command version
"A number of HMMWVs"
Cavalry Squadron:
HQ Troop (2x Bradley, 6x command APCs, various unspecified support vehicles)
3x Cavalry Troop (see below)
1x Tank Company (see below)
1x Artillery Battery (see below)
Total: 53 officers, 339 NCOs, 499 enlisted = 891
Cavalry Troop:
HQ section (1x each Abrams, Bradley, APC)
2x scout platoon (6x Bradley each, each Bradley with 2x foot scouts on board)
2x tank platoons (4x Abrams each)
Mortar section(2x M106)
"12 supporting wheeled and tracked vehicles"
Tank Company:
HQ Section (2x Abrams)
3x tank platoon (4x Abrams each)
Artillery battery:
8x Paladin
8x Paladin-chassis ammo carriers
Air Cavalry Squadron:
HQ troop (3x Blackhawk, 3x EW-equipped Blackhawk, 1x Kiowa, "support element similar to its ground counterpart)
3x Aero Scout Troop (6x Kiowa, 4x Cobra slated to be replaced with Apaches)
2x Attack Helicopter Troopes (4x Kiowa, 7x Cobra slated to be replaced with Apaches)
1x Transport Helicopter Troop (15x Blackhawk)
Maintenance Troop (unspecified)
Support Squadron:
HQ troop ("a few trucks, and HMMWVs")
Medical Troop (8x HMMWV ambulance, 8x M113 ambulance)
Maintenance Troop (22x 5-ton tractors, 5x M88 recovery vehicles, 4x 5-ton wreckers, 3x M113 maintenance trucks)
Supply and Transportation Troop (33x 5-ton tractors, 26x 5-ton trucks, 22x HEMTT fuel tankers, 6x tank transporter)
Total = 802 personnel
Combat Engineer Company:
12x M113 APCs
6x M9 bulldozers
3x bridging vehicles
3x combat engineer vehicles (old tanks with bulldozer blades and "demolition guns")
6x 5-ton dump trucks
Various excavating and entrenching vehicles
Total = 220 personnel
Military Intelligence Company:
Unspecified equipment, 152 personnel
Chemical Company:
6x Fox
7x M113-based smoke generators
Various detection/decontamination equipment
Total = 78 personnel
Air Defense Section:
6x HMMWV-based AA vehicles (mounting missiles and a machine gun)
On top of this, some additional units are often provided from higher-level commands. Clancy gives the example of an armored cavalry regiment during Desert Storm that had attached a field artillery brigade, a helicopter battalion, a combat engineer battalion, a MP company, and a "personnel services company", and says it was more like a small division than a regiment.
This book is a bit more frustratingly incomplete than I recall, but it's enough to give a good sense of what the unit looks like even so. Or at least, I think it is.