Pentomic
/pɛnˈtɒmɪk/Military (originally and chiefly US ). Now historical
adjective
Of or belonging to an army divided into five ‘battlegroups’, intended to cope with the likely conditions of nuclear war.
- A Pentomic plan was adopted by the U.S. Army in 1956. The system of infantry battalions and regiments used during the Second World War (1939–45) and the Korean War (1950–3) was replaced by a structure of five self-contained forces of 13,500 troops each, capable of independent operations. The new divisions were lightly armed so as to form highly mobile units, supported by conventional and nuclear missiles. The Pentomic structure suffered from logistical difficulties, and was superseded in the early 1960s by the Reorganization Objective Army Division concept, which reinstituted infantry battalions as administratively and tactically independent task forces..
Origin
1950s; earliest use found in The Washington Post. Blend of penta- and atomic.