| Commander Usually a General (or Brigadier), who commands the formation. Chief of Staff The officer who runs the headquarters on a day-to-day basis and who often acts as a second-in-command. Generally known as the COS. G1 Branch Responsible for personal matters including manning, discipline and personal services. G2 Branch Responsible for intelligence and security. G3 Branch Responsible for operations, including staff duties, exercise planning, training, operational requirements, combat development & tactical doctrine. G4 Branch Logistics and quartering. G5 Branch Civil and military co-operation. There are different levels of staffs: S staff: battalion and brigade levels G staff: division and corps levels J staff: 'Joint' staff. Any time two or more services work together, a J staff is used to coordinate them. XVIII Airborne Corps and Army Special Operations Command use J staffs because they're so dependent on the Air Force. C staff: 'Combined' staff. Any time two or more nations' militaries work together, a C staff coordinates them. Now as to organization, and we'll use a division as our example. It gets more complex at corps level than I want to get into right now, but I can if someone asks. First is the division commander. This is always a Major General--a two-star. There are more major generals than we have major general slots. He has three officers who report to him: the Assistant Division Commander for Operations, the Assistant Division Commander for Support and the Chief of Staff. The Assistant Division Commanders are brigadier generals; the chief of staff is a full-bird colonel. The ADC(O) is in charge of the warfighters--the infantry, armor, field artillery, cavalry, engineer, air defense artillery and aviation assets. (Aviation USED to belong to the ADC(S) until someone happened to notice all the hardware hanging off an Apache...) In a lot of divisions, the ADC(O) owns the medical company too. The ADC(S) is in charge of all the combat support and combat service support elements of the division. (This doesn't mean the ADC(O) owns the infantrymen in an infantry battalion and the ADC(S) owns the cooks in the mess hall.) The Chief of Staff manages six officers: G-1 is personnel G-2 is intelligence. He controls two other officers: assistant G-2 for security and assistant G-2 for intelligence. In practice, the G-2 and not the ADC(S) owns the division Military Intelligence battalion. G-2 owns the division crypto bunker, where the encryption equipment is repaired. It's called a crypto bunker because it is always, no matter which installation you're on, in an ammo bunker. G-3 is the division operations officer. He's got four officers working for him. The first is the G-3 Operations Officer. He is in charge of warfighting. The second is the G-3 Plans officer, then the G-3 Training and G-3 Air officers. The G-3 Air is ALWAYS a pilot. G-3 is also in charge of ammunition. G-4 is logistics. He is in charge of all supplies except ammunition. G-5 is civil affairs. Unless you're in the 2nd Infantry Division, you will not find this element below division level. In the Second D, S-5 is an additional duty for some lieutenant in HHC. G-6 is new: Information Systems. Imagine the Geek Squad in camouflage uniforms. |
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