WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (AFP) - Two heavy army divisions of about 30,000 troops will pull out of Germany as part of a major realignment of US forces, and will be replaced with a Stryker combat brigade of 3,600, senior US defense officials said Monday.
The 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division return to the United States in 2006 at the earliest, to synchronize with a round of base closures in the United States, the officials said.
An official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said much of the projected 70,000-person reduction in US military forces overseas "will be embedded in the return of the two heavy divisions that are in Germany."
"Yes, heavy divisions are going to return from Germany but also, yes, very important to this, it is our plan that Stryker brigade go to Germany as well," he said.
Each division consists of about 15,000 soldiers. The 1st Infantry Division is deployed in Iraq.
Both tank-heavy divisions held the line against the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but have proved slow to deploy in fast-moving crises from the Balkans to Iraq.
The Stryker brigade, numbering about 3,600 soldiers, is a new unit consisting of wheeled armored vehicles designed to deploy quickly aboard C-130 aircraft. A US-based Stryker brigade is now in Iraq.
The Stryker brigade, which makes heavy use of data-links and other high technology, "is more relevant to the kind of challenges we see in Europe and beyond, than are the legacy forces that are there today," he said.
The United States also intends to maintain in Germany the US 5th Corps, which oversaw the two divisions, but make it more deployable, the official said.
It also plans to keep two F-16 fighter wings at Spangdahlem, Germany, and its logistics hub at the huge Ramstein Air Base, officials said.
"There will be training venues in Germany that are going to be very important in which rotational forces will train," he said. "So there will still be a very substantial ground presence in Germany."