Ukrainian Corps

MilitaryLand.net on Twitter (X) stated last week that “The Ukrainian Army is reportedly planning to establish up to 20 Army Corps, including the 3rd and Azov Corps, with each corps consisting of at least five brigades.”

Now, this would imply that there are 100 Ukrainian brigades. At the start of war in February 24, 2022 Ukraine had mobilized around 25 maneuver brigades. They also had 9 artillery brigades and 2 in reserve (see pages 66 – 76 in The Battle for Kyiv for a listing of them). The does not count National Guard, Territorial Defense or Foreign Volunteers. By the end of May they had mobilized at least 13 more maneuver brigades. So by the summer of 2022 they had at least 49 brigades (including artillery). 

If I look at Militaryland.net now I can count 103 units labelled as brigades: 3 tank brigades, 46 mechanized brigades, 3 heavy mechanized brigades, 3 assault brigades, 2 mountain assault brigades, 3 motorized brigades, 2 jaeger brigades, 1 presidential brigade, 10 artillery brigades, 1 artillery recon brigade, 1 missile brigade, 2 rocket artillery brigades, 4 territorial defense brigades, 1 unmanned strike aviation brigade, 4 army aviation brigades, 4 marine brigades, 2 marine artillery brigades, 1 airborne brigade, 3 airmobile brigades, 5 air assault brigades, 1 air assault jaeger brigade, 1 air assault artillery brigade). This does count air defense and coastal defense missile and artillery units.

There are four operational commands (east, north, south and west)

Now, the structure of battalions reporting to regiments/brigades reporting to divisions reporting to corps reporting to armies date back to the Napoleonic Wars. This is kind of been the structure of most militaries over the last 200 years. There has been a push in recent time to eliminate the division and to go straight from brigades to corps. Not exactly sure what is gained by this, but for smaller armies it makes some sense. Ukraine does not have a small army.

In comparison, the U.S. had thirteen divisions (10 Army and 3 Marine). The U.S. Army has four active corps (I, III, V and XVIII Airborne). It has six armes (1st, Central. North, South, Europe and Africa, and 8th (Korea)). Only one is an actual field army. This Army structure had never made a lot of sense to me. The Marines also have two corps headquarters (I and II MEFs)

P.S. Just to clarify, the U.S. Army has had a total of 260 four-star generals in its history. In wartime, we had one during the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), three during the Civil War (1861-1865), three during WWI (1917-1918), 16 during WWII (but 11 were created in 1945, so only 5 for most of the war). We currently have 11 four-star general in the U.S. Army.

For the record, over the decades I have met 11 of them, starting with William C. Westmorland. 

The U.S. Marine Corps has had 75 four-star generals in its history. The first in March 1945 during WWII. There are currently three serving.

Basically, the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps has one four-star general for each division. 

P.P.S. I did send this out for comment before posting it, and Ivan Torres (Jomini of the West) added: 

“The “corps” are actually divisions, even though they will be labeled “corps.” The test bed was the Voron Group, which has been operating in the Lyman area since last year. The Voron Group is a National Guard “division” comprising three brigades (including Azov). I’m unsure what “division” enablers were assigned to them, if any, since enablers are more dispersed than maneuver units. The command relationships and battlefield management functioned well enough for the General Staff to replicate it across the ground forces. However, it likely succeeded because the National Guard has a better leadership caliber than the regular army (this observation comes from sources on the ground; take it as you will). “