United States Army Forces Command - Overview

Overview

Using the Army Force Generation process (ARFORGEN), FORSCOM tailors the resources and training of its units to meet the specific and constantly changing requirements of combatant commanders and, when directed, of U.S. civil authorities. Those requirements range from preparing soldiers to fight on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, to providing relief to disaster victims. FORSCOM remains at the point of the effort to transform the Army into a more deployable and maneuverable lethal force. This shift to a modular force design increases the number of units available to support regional combatant commanders. It will expand the available force pool and mandate a standard set of force structures organized and equipped to be interchangeable.

The capabilities of the new brigade-level formations – armor, infantry, airborne, air assault and Stryker – ensure greater flexibility and enhance FORSCOM’s ability to deploy trained and ready forces quickly.

FORSCOM has major units located at 15 installations, including the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana. They present training scenarios constantly updated to reflect changing battlefield conditions and to incorporate lessons learned. Soldiers are presented with complex, cross-cultural challenges by large numbers of role players who act as combatants and foreign citizens. NTC and JRTC have urban combat landscapes and cave and tunnel complexes to simulate current and potential wartime environments.

As directed by law, and in accordance with the recommendations of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission, Fort McPherson, Georgia, closed and FORSCOM relocated to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. A new FORSCOM/U.S. Army Reserve Command Headquarters facility completed construction at Fort Bragg, in June 2011. Forces Command hosted an Army "Casing of Colors ceremony" on 24 June 2011 at Fort McPherson, and an "Uncasing of Colors" on 1 Aug. 2011 at Fort Bragg.