The Art of Warfare Blogs: TAW Blogs

A Brief History of GRAW, TAW's Oldest Division

The Ghost Recon Division is the oldest Division in The Art of Warfare, it was the second Division to ever be accepted into TAW after the Delta Force Division.  It has been in continuous existence for over 11 years, and was formed shortly after Ghost Recon was release in 2001. 

Over the years throughout the various versions of the Ghost Recon Series, the Division has regrouped and remade itself coming out stronger than before.  Many people have contributed to the success and longevity of this very proud Division.

The GR Division leadership has undergone as much change as the GR Division itself, much of TAW's history was lost when we moved to the TAW.net 2.0, so with apologies for anyone missed, here are the previous Ghost Recon DC / DO teams  in approximate order:

Ironhead and ??  - December 28^th, 2005 to March 6^th, 2006

Ironhead and hOtDoG  - March 6^th, 2006 to February 11^th, 2007

TigerKille and Operator  - May 6^th, 2007 to November 20^th, 2007

Operator and Bagger -  November 20^th, 2007 to November 15^th, 2008

Bagger and Ranger - November 15^th, 2008 to June 22^nd, 2008

Bagger and ChicagoOne - June 22th 2008 to April 11^th, 2009

ChicagoOne and Hatchet - April 11^th, 2009 to January 24^th, 2010

Hatchet and SilentDeath - January  24^th, 2010 to November 14^th, 2011

SilentDeath and  Doc - November 14^th,2010 to June 19^th, 2011

SilentDeath and Johnsonn - June 19^th,2011 to October 26^th, 2011

DirewolfFive and MexicoBob  - October 28^th, 2011 to February 2^nd, 2013

MexicoBob and Goose - February 19^th,2013 to Present.

(Dates given were reconstructed from legacy importer system if you spot an error please contact DirewolfFive)

     The Division was first formed in November 2001 shortly after the release of

     The GR Division underwent many changes as the game went through various addons  and reiterations, starting with the Division's first restructuring with the first expansion to Ghost Recon released on March 27, 2002,  Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Desert Siege.

      The second restructuring of the division occurred in September 2002, when Ubisoft released

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Island Thunder on September 25, 2002.

     The third add-on for Ghost Recon, Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Jungle Storm was released in 2004 for the PS2 platform and we had to wait until 2006 for it to be ported to the PC.

     Meanwhile the division had to suffer  through the disappointment of Ubisoft's decision to release

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2, and it's expansion Summit Strike as an Xbox and PS2 only game.

     Then in 2007 we rejoiced again when on March 6^th 2007, Ubisoft rewarded it's loyal fan-base with the release of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2  (or GRAW 2), once again the Division restructured itself coming out of vanguard for an unprecedented fourth time stronger than before.

     Once again the members of the GR community had to suffer through the indignity of Ubisoft's decision to abandon the PC platform for consoles, with their release of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Predator  for the PSP on November 16^th 2010, and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wii for the Nintendo Wii at the same time. To add insult to injury Ubisoft released Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars for the Nintendo 3DO on March 27^th, 2011.

     The only thing that kept the GRAW community going during this time were the player created maps, mods and missions. Throughout this period the TAW GR Division led the way as the primary map and mod testers for the various mission and mod makers, including Bogie, John-TC02  and Splindicator A.K.A. Brettzie, author of Brettzie's weapon mod, the premier mission and content makers in the GR community.

     The GR Division could proudly boast that  two of the major players in the modding scene were it's members; Map and mission maker MexicoBob, and one of the premier mod makers Rahnman, father of Ranman's mod currently in version 4.01. TAW has continuously been a valued and respected member of the GR community throughout the GR franchises history.

     Finally in 2012 the long suffering GRAW community rejoiced in the release of two new PC titles,

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier (or GRFS) and Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online or (GRO). 

     This resulted in the split of the GR Division into 3 new Divisions which required a change in TAW Division naming policy allowing for four letter Division names. This resulted in the renaming of the GR Division to GRAW and it's new sister Divisions as GRFS and GRO.

  On October 28^th, 2011 the GR Division entered a time of crisis, due to a unfortunate series of events the GR Division lost it's game servers and the senior command staff was removed, also during this time the Division had dropped to only 12 active members. Due to the fact that there was no senior command staff and the member numbers had dropped below minimums, the Division was in danger of being sent to sentinel for disbandment.

     After a period of intense recruiting and restructuring, the GR Division had expanded to 32 members and was saved from being sent to Sentinel.

     After the division split into GRAW , GRFS and GRO, the newly renamed GRAW Division currently has 21 active members and is continuously recruiting new members. Practices are held  on our 32 player TDM server, and on the first, 32 player Co-Op server in GRAW history, at 22:00 EST Tuesdays and Thursdays for the North American Platoons, and 21:00 CET Saturdays and Tuesdays for the European Platoons.

Colonel MexicoBob

Division Commander

Sentinel Corps / 1^st Division

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2