Field ArTillery - US Army Center Of Military History

248 The OrganizaTiOnal hisTOry Of field arTillery
strength of 1,125; more importantly, the three units could field the same number of
missiles as the regiment. On balance, the two plans exhibited other variations, but
both followed the basic prin ciples of pooling and consoli dating functions wherever
pos si ble. 8
PENTANA
The decision by Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor to abandon
the ATFA plans in April 1956 shifted support to another study then being prepared
by CONARC. Officially titled “Doctrinal and Organizational Concepts for Atomic-
Nonatomic Army During the Period 1960–1970,” the CONARC plan was more
commonly referred to by the acronym PENTANA—the first four letters for the
new division’s five subordinate elements and the last three for its atomic-nonatomic
configuration. In planning the PENTANA army, CONARC relied upon numerous
other studies previously prepared by Army Field Forces, the Army War College, the
Command and General Staff College, and John Hopkins University’s Operations
Research Office. As proposed, and eventually known by General Taylor’s coined
term, a pentomic organization with a pentagonal structure and an atomic capability
was to replace the triangular division. Its five small semiautonomous combat, or
battle, groups were to be capable not only of rapid and effective concentra tion for
an attack and rapid dispersal but also of operating independently for long periods
of time on the battlefield. For direct support, each group was to be authorized an
artillery battery that had five sections for sustaining the five infantry companies; each
section was to contain two “moritzers” (conceived as a cross between a mortar and
a howitzer), two light guided missiles, and two forward observer parties. For more
general support, the divi sion was to be authorized an artillery battalion that consisted
of a command and service battery, two antitank-antiaircraft missile batteries, a light
surface-to-surface guided missile battery, and two boosted rocket bat teries. 9
Although the PENTANA division was conceived as a dual-purpose division,
it was organized for operations on what Army planners visualized as the atomic
battlefield. The domination of nuclear warfare by the Air Force and Navy at the
expense of the Army’s ground com bat troops had been a long-standing area of concern.
Thus in a revised version of the PENTANA division, pub lished in 1957, each
battle group still had one artillery battery but in addition had one antitank platoon
(eight light antitank guided missiles in four sections) and two close-support platoons
(each with four self-propelled moritzers). The divisional artillery battalion had three
general-support batteries and one antitank battery. Because the group’s close-support
8 Ibid.; Rpt, CGSC, 16 Sep 1954, sub: General Concept of Organization of Nondivisional Combat
Support Units, Project ATFA–1, CGSC files and copy in CMH files.
9 Study (abridged version), HQ, CONARC, 1 Dec 1955, sub: Doctrinal and Organizational Concepts
for an Atomic-Non atomic Army During the Period 1960–1970, copy in CMH files (hereinafter cited
as PENTANA Army Study); Draft App. C of PENTANA Army Study, Encl to Ltr ATSWD–G 322/4
(Army), HQ, CONARC, 28 Oct 1955, sub: PENTANA Army, copy in CMH files; Maxwell D. Taylor,
Swords and Plowshares (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1972), p. 171.