Russia is Abandoning Small Formations and Going Back to Stalin-era ‘Divisions’

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Military terms like platoon, company, battalion, brigade, and division may sound familiar, but do you know how many soldiers make up these units, and how they comprise one another?

In the realm of U.S. Army formations, different elements can perform different functions. But they all essentially look like this:

My division, the 101st Airborne, had approximately 18,000 soldiers.

Beneath that, the division had numerous brigades, each with 3,000 to 4,000 soldiers.

Each brigade had several battalions — these are typically the smallest independent units in the Army — with 500–800 soldiers each.

During the Global War on Terror, the Army created the BTG or Battalion Tactical Group (also known as a Battle Group or Task Force) which is still the same size as a regular battalion but has additional supporting units, assets, and capabilities necessary to accomplish a specific mission or task.

But the BTG is by no means a modern concept. The German Army in World War II often formed combined-arms battlegroups (“kampfgruppen”), as did the U.S. Army’s task forces — but usually, these were hastily assembled as commanders pieced together what remained of surviving units.