"The Imperial Army's reform will begin with reforming its organization. Among all Army units, the corps and brigade echelons will be abolished, with army groups, divisions, regiments, battalions, companies, platoons, and squads adopted directly!" Oscar said.
The previous structure had made the troops' command response exceedingly slow. Removing these two echelons would undoubtedly make the force structure somewhat flatter. As communications technology continued to develop, this would allow troops to react far more swiftly. This would be highly effective in future warfare.
The Imperial Army's generals did not object to this. They had long expected Oscar to do so. After all, the Imperial Army's 8th Army Corps was organized this way. It had previously abolished the brigade echelon; this time, they were taking it a step further and abolishing the corps echelon outright.
Besides, changing corps into army groups was nothing significant. It was merely a change of name; everything else remained the same.
Under the Army's new structure, one Imperial Army army group would consist of ten infantry divisions and one armored division. Including the other troops directly under the army group, its total strength would reach two hundred thousand men.
In that case, several of the Imperial Army's existing corps would have to be reduced. For example, the 1st Army Corps had a total strength of three hundred and sixty thousand men, while the 2nd Army Corps also had as many as two hundred and eighty thousand. The excess troops would all need to be cut.
However, under Oscar's reform plan, the Imperial Army would have a full twelve army groups, assuming those army groups were all at full strength. In other words, those twelve army groups alone would amount to as many as 2.4 million men. Compared with the German military's prewar standing strength, that was fully