Regimental combat team

A regimental combat team, or RCT, is a provisional infantry-centred formation used by branches of the United States armed forces, built by adding combat, combat support and service support units to a regular infantry regiment. The United States Army adopted the idea just before World War II as the infantry counterpart to the armored forces' combat command. A typical wartime team combined an infantry regiment with a field artillery battalion, an engineer company, a medical company and a signals platoon, and it could be tailored to its mission with tank, tank destroyer or anti-aircraft elements. It was usually led by the regiment's colonel. Teams were widely used in World War II and the Korean War, among them the 187th Airborne and the largely Japanese-American 442nd, and the Army dropped the concept when it adopted the Pentomic structure in 1957. The Marine Corps still uses regimental combat teams.