# Plan to shift tanks to Benning from Knox unveiled



## big bad john (13 Sep 2006)

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2101900.php

Plan to shift tanks to Benning from Knox unveiled

By Matthew Cox
Staff writer


FORT BENNING, Ga. — Senior leaders here unveiled plans for making room at the home of the Infantry for Army tankers.

“This will be one of our biggest challenges as we put the spotlight on Fort Benning,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody told soldiers at the Infantry Warfighting Conference yesterday . Cody was one of several Army generals who discussed how the Army plans to move the Armor Center and School from Fort Knox, Ky., to Benning over the next six years to create a “maneuver training center of excellence.”

  
The $1.3 billion effort is among the wave of sweeping changes announced last year during the Base Realignment and Closure process.

It promises to transform the face and terrain here with massive military construction that’s required to support the influx of vehicles the Armor Center needs to train tank and cavalry forces.

Maj. Gen. Robert Williams, the chief of armor at Knox, plans to relocate 934 vehicles, including 247 M1 tanks and 154 Bradley fighting vehicles used for cavalry scout training.

“That’s a 238 percent increase in the number of vehicles that have to be taken care of here at Fort Benning,” he said during his speech at the conference. That means new ranges, wash rack facilities, maintenance centers and motor pools that must be built here in addition to new housing and barracks .

The environmental impact study is scheduled to be complete by October 2007 and the “majority” of construction should be finished by 2010, Williams said.

Benning has already started making changes to its courses of instruction to prepare for the change, said Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, chief of infantry here.

The captains career courses taught at Benning and Knox now have become the Maneuver Captains Career Course, Wojdakowski said, describing how half of Benning’s students go to Knox and half of Knox’s students come here for the course. In addition, the Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course just started following a similar path here and at Knox, he said.

Despite the new changes facing each training center, Williams said it is crucial that both cultures remain “very mindful of each other’s identity.

“It’s important that the infantry remain the infantry and the armor remain the armor,” he said. “We are going to be a better force when we get the armor and the U.S. cavalry and the infantry here together.”


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## geo (13 Sep 2006)

well.... 
Ft Benning is already the home of the Infantry
by bringing in the Armor, they are consolidating a Combat Training Centre....
something like we intended with CTC Gagetown


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## tomahawk6 (13 Sep 2006)

This is old news. Everyone see's the handwriting on the wall- this move will essentially merge the armor and infantry branches. A move that I have favored for sometime. Recently DA announced that infantry and armor LTC's will compete for heavy/stryker and infantry battalion commands.


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## Infanteer (13 Sep 2006)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> This is old news. Everyone see's the handwriting on the wall- this move will essentially merge the armor and infantry branches. A move that I have favored for sometime. Recently DA announced that infantry and armor LTC's will compete for heavy/stryker and infantry battalion commands.



We've discussed the same idea around these parts on multiple occasions - it's an idea I'm generally in favour of.  LCol Dave Banks wrote an interesting article in the Army Journal a while back that expounded upon the idea.

http://www.army.forces.gc.ca/caj/documents/vol_07/iss_2/CAJ_vol7.2_07_e.pdf


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## tomahawk6 (13 Sep 2006)

It will drive the traditionalists a bit crazy. ;D


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## Infanteer (13 Sep 2006)

tomahawk6 said:
			
		

> It will drive the traditionalists a bit crazy. ;D



That's what we're all about here....


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## geo (14 Sep 2006)

.... this ties in everything about Assault Troop taskings going to the Infantry & Anti tank going to the Armd..... Pioneer going to the Sappers & Mortars to the Arty....

One big happy family ?


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## sigpig (14 Sep 2006)

Who will protect all the gold from Goldfinger now?

I toured the Patton Museum when I lived in Louisville. Great place to see for a former armour soldier. How badly will this affect the local economy?


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## tomahawk6 (14 Sep 2006)

Knox is getting the 3d brigade 1 Infantry Division relocating from Germany. The rest of the division will be at Ft Riley.


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## geo (14 Sep 2006)

T6
Uhh... how large a force will the US maintain in Germany


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## tomahawk6 (14 Sep 2006)

A stryker brigade 2d Cav, 173d Abn Brigade and support /training units.


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## geo (14 Sep 2006)

Hmph..... a shadow of time past when we stood against the Red tide.

The good old days?/!


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## tomahawk6 (14 Sep 2006)

There is no threat to Europe that the Euros cant handle.


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## geo (14 Sep 2006)

too true.
they rolled up the sidewalks to CF Europe a long time ago
T'was only a matter of time.


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## tomahawk6 (14 Sep 2006)

The bottom line is that with very few allies the uS can no longer afford to have troops sitting on garrison duty. In Korea we will only have 1 brigade. We can surge if necessary.


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## geo (14 Sep 2006)

yeah..... resources have gotten stretched to the limit
after the peace dividend which followed the fall of the wall...


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## tomahawk6 (14 Sep 2006)

Going from 18 divisions to 10 was way too much because the OPTEMPO was high. The unist that were left were under strength.


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