Regimental combat team

A regimental combat team was a provisional major infantry unit of the United States Army during the Second World War and Korean War. The regimental combat team, or "R.C.T.", was formed by augmenting a regular infantry regiment with smaller tank, artillery, combat engineer, mechanized cavalry, reconnaissance, signal, air defense, quartermaster, military police, medical, and other support units to enable it to be a self-supporting organization in combat.

World War II

World War II RCTs were generally of two types: (1) temporary organizations configured for the accomplishment of a specific mission or series of missions, and (2) semi-permanent organizations designed to be deployed as a unit throughout a combat theater. An example of the latter is the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

Regimental combat teams combined the high cohesion of traditional regimental organization with the flexibility of tailored reinforcements to accomplish any given mission. Believing that future battlefields would be dominated by tactical nuclear weapons, the U.S. Army broke up its infantry regiments in the mid-1950s and formed "battlegroups", four or five of which composed a Pentomic infantry division. Although the Pentomic structure was deemed a failure, reorganizations in the 1960s (ROAD) replaced the infantry regimental combat teams with brigade combat teams that were modeled after the World War II combat commands employed by U.S. armored divisions. As a consequence, infantry battalions that were formerly grouped into regiments were scattered among the new brigades with a consequent loss of unit cohesiveness and unnecessary complication of unit traditions that related both to the old parent regiments and to the new brigades.

War on Terror

The concept of the RCT was resurrected by the United States Marine Corps for its portions of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns in the Global War on Terror.

This modern iteration is a modular unit. The headquarters element of one regiment is deployed to serve as a command element. Various subordinate units are then operationally attached to the command element that may or may not be organic components of the regiment.

ee also

* Combat command