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Post by quincannon on Sept 11, 2013 8:13:15 GMT -6
That be the one. I think the one thing that aided in Bent's Forts demise was the Santa Fe cutoff, which ran south of the old trail and was much more a direct route. Riley and Leavenworth were originally built to guard the trail, some others as well but I don't remember their names.
There is another ruin of a fort, Fort Union on the old trail down in New Mexico, once the home of the Mounted Rifles/3rd Cavalry. It is well off the main highway, has a decent museum, but is otherwise nothing but a pile of old stones. It is located maybe fifteen miles west of I25 in the desert, just before you start climbing the mountains to go over to Santa Fe.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Sept 11, 2013 8:27:12 GMT -6
Chuck, Fort Bent looks in great condition, I can just see a Troop of Cavalry slowly marching out the Gates with sentries posted along the walls. linkIan.
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Post by quincannon on Sept 11, 2013 8:34:40 GMT -6
Ian: I don't want to rain on your parade but I doubt that a company of cavalry could be housed in Bent's Fort. It is very small, and reminds me of Fort Zinderneuf in Beau Geste. Most of the frontier forts, Phil Kearny being a notable exception were not surrounded by a log palisade or any other walls for that matter. They were just a collection of buildings that surrounded a parade ground, with the stables (if a cavalry post) being a little distance away. Even the stables were little more than a picket line at first, and the longer a post was occupied the more it was improved. Many of these frontier forts were only operational a few years, and when the need for them passed them by, they were abandoned.
In the U S Army of today the designation Fort means that the post is a permanent post. Camp is a designation that denotes a temporary status. Many of our permanent posts today stated out as Camps, including Carson near me. It did not become a fort until the early 1950;s although it was established in 1942. There are many others as well A.P. Hill, Pickett, Hood, Rucker, Benning, Bragg, Gordon, and many more. In addition many of the WWI camps were set up on property that was owned by the Army at established permanent military posts. Among these are Funston and Forsyth at Fort Riley, Doniphan at Fort Sill, Travis at Fort Sam Houston.
Travis is one that holds my interest. As you know my son and law is stationed at Fort Sam. The area Camp Travis occupied was outside the post cantonment area, but bordered it. In WWI is was a division sized collection of tar paper covered buildings. After WWI during the Roosevelt administration all that was torn down and very beautiful Spanish style buildings were constructed by the WPA (a Roosevelt New Deal project) The were all white (phony adobe) with red tile roofs, along one side of a huge parade ground, more than a mile long. When my son in law went down there they occupied temporary quarters while one of the regimental complexes of these buildings were completely gutted to the walls, and everything inside redone into a modern office building, while retaining the old look of a regimental barracks from the outside. Fort Sam is also notable for all the distinct periods of Army history being present in its building. There is the original quartermaster stockade (containing the Geronimo Tower), the Indian Fighting Army period, the 1920's-30's period, and the ultra modern of the new medical school complex. All existing side by side.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Sept 11, 2013 9:35:08 GMT -6
Just had a look at Fort Sam, and as you know it’s one of the oldest US Army bases in the states, even Eisenhower was posted there.
Fort Brent does look like a French Foreign Legion out post, and you could man the place with around 50 men, 10 on each wall, and a command/Supply and medical elements (another 10) and you are ready for anyone, well except the Berbers of course, I don’t think they made it that far west.
Ian.
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Post by quincannon on Sept 11, 2013 10:03:31 GMT -6
Fort Riley is another one of my favorites. Again the facilities there range from the Indian War period on to the mid 1970's that I have seen. I understand that in recent years a lot of new construction has been undertaken, and I would imagine that it probably now resembles Fort Carson.
Carson, of course does not date from that period, but I can tell you having first laid eyes on it in 1962, that the vet of World War II would not recognize the place. There may be one or two buildings from that area remaining, but in large part the new construction makes it look more like a college campus with tanks.
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Post by justvisiting on Jan 15, 2014 10:29:19 GMT -6
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 15, 2014 10:50:59 GMT -6
Hello Billy, nice to hear from you.
I go along with Fred’s data that the authorised TO&E was 70 men, and this was amended a few months after the BLBH to rise to 100 men per Company.
So my idea would be for a 70 man Troop (bear with me guys I am trying my best);
3 x Officers (one Captain, one 1st Lieutenant, one 2nd Lieutenant) 1 x 1st Sergeant 5 x Sergeants 4 x Corporals 2 x Trumpeters 1 x Wagoner 1 x Sadler 1 x Farrier 55 x Privates
Can anyone amend this?
Ian.
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Post by justvisiting on Jan 15, 2014 11:02:17 GMT -6
Hello Billy, nice to hear from you. I go along with Fred’s data that the authorised TO&E was 70 men, and this was amended a few months after the BLBH to rise to 100 men per Company. So my idea would be for a 70 man Troop (bear with me guys I am trying my best); 3 x Officers (one Captain, one 1st Lieutenant, one 2nd Lieutenant) 1 x 1st Sergeant 5 x Sergeants 4 x Corporals 2 x Trumpeters 1 x Wagoner 1 x Sadler 1 x Farrier 55 x Privates Can anyone amend this? Ian. Thanks Ian. Here is the link for the 1876 Army Register. freepages.history.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~familyinformation/armyregister1876.pdfThe regimental and company-level breakdown on men can be found on p. 261B. Other Army Registers are available at www.archive.orgBilly
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Post by justvisiting on Jan 15, 2014 11:03:23 GMT -6
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 15, 2014 18:23:43 GMT -6
What I really need to know is how the Company was organised, was it in two Platoons (did they actually use the term Platoon), and if each platoon was commanded by one of the Lieutenants and aided by a couple of Sergeants and two Corporals and one Trumpeter. Would the Company HQ contain the Captain, First Sergeant, and second Sergeant and the trio of specialists (wagoner, farrier and saddler). And finally how do you separate 55 men equally in sets of fours in two Platoons.
Ian.
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Post by montrose on Jan 15, 2014 18:33:20 GMT -6
You are confused on the term platoon. On a day to day basis, it didn't exist. It was a term for a detachment within the company. It was task organized, meaning the entity formed for a specific task and dissolved when task is complete.
The modern platoon is a standing unit, manned trained and equipped. It exists in unit TOE/MTOE.
So when Billy linked the Army Register and you see no platoons, that is why. Company was the lowest formal organization.
Note than units still made local exceptions. The 7th Cav band is not a TOE entity. It was formed out of hide by taking trumpeters away from the line companies to form a headquarters detachment. In other words, combat soldiers were taken away from the companies to form a vanity unit, at the direct cost of combat power.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 15, 2014 21:35:42 GMT -6
Ian: I olny recommend books that have passed the pull off the shelf at least ten times for reference test. In light of your question here and the ongoing conversation about combined arms on the other I want to recommend two book to you that I find among the essentials
"On Infantry" by John English - I think I have mentioned it here before so I won't elaborate.
Combined Arms Warfare in the Twentieth Century by Jonathan M House- House wrote the first edition of this while an instructor at Leavenworth. He later revised it, updating where necessary and had it published by the University of Kansas Press
Both should be available on Amazon. Both are well worth your time.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 16, 2014 4:26:29 GMT -6
Was there a big difference between the major European armies and the U.S. Army? If the Company was the lowest organisation then that means that all of the Troops were just in one group, no structure of squads of anything, where they grouped in sets of fours and was each formed by the same four Troopers? And how many of these sets of fours would be under the command of a Corporal? Would a line Sergeant command a squad of two Corporals and six sets of fours, this gets confusing I know, but would the Corporals be included in these sets of fours? When on parade or on campaign would the Company standard be carried by one of the line sergeants and would both trumpeters accompany the Officers or would they be included in a set of fours, and what about the three specialists, would they fall into a set of fours with the basic EMs? Why I tried to compare this TO&E with European Armies is the fact that they were more regimented, each man had his place/role, you started from a section/squad then to platoon and finally Company, just seems a little slap dash to me. Chuck, is this the one you refer by J. House? linkIan.
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Post by quincannon on Jan 16, 2014 9:46:10 GMT -6
Ian: As Montrose indicated the idea of a platoon in the U S Army up until the turn of the 20th Century was used as meaning something smaller than a company, to be used for a specific purpose but having no permanent organization or specific numbers or configuration attached to the meaning. The words detachment, detail, and platoon, were all thought to have the same meaning
You will recall Captain Brittles telling Lieutenant Cohill in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon to defend a river line. Cohill says 1st, 2nd and 3rd squads fall out. Brittles comes back and say - There are to many old married men in 3rd squad. Cohill comes back and says 1st, 2nd, and 4th squads. That is how platoons were thought of in that day, formed on the spot for purpose. Today of course we would say Cohill take your platoon and block that crossing.
I don't think the British Army ever paid much attention to platoons either until just before the First World War when you reduced the size of your battalions from eight to four companies and the companies made larger, necessitating the requirement for a formal subdivision of companies into platoons for control purposes.
That is the original textbook for Leavenworth version. The commercial version has been updayed a little. Either one will get the job done. The commercial version has much more professionally done graphics.
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Post by Yan Taylor on Jan 17, 2014 8:13:20 GMT -6
I think I owe the US Military an apology, I may have been a little rough on them from the 1876 era, with lack of training, launching a campagne will not enough horses to mount their troopers on, and so on and so on, but I take it all back because the way our Government treats our soldiers out there in Afghanistan is disgraceful, I know a few chaps who work for the “help for heroes’’ charity over in Widnes, they said that the amount of stuff that the soldiers families have to send out to their loved ones is ridiculous, basic stuff like soap, toothpaste and shampoo as well as food have to be sent over. There was a also a program on TV last week that mentioned about the British units in Helmand Provence having to lend stuff off the American Army, the US Guys call them the borrowers, so I will never take the US Cavalry to task again, because we are just as bad, well you could say that Cameron and his Secretary of state for defence are responsible.
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