NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC:
One complaint I have about war here is that many players don&t seem to know army organisation. The standard organization I seem to see is a listing of X amount of men in tanks, x amount of men with rifles, etc.
IMHO, you can do better than that. The US didn*t send 100,000 random men to Iraq. They sent organized units - divisions, brigades, regiments, and so on.

So here is a simple primer with links to help folks:

Combat Formations:
Corps - in essence, the largest military unit (yes there are larger - armies, army groups, etc. but for my purposes here, the largest.) A corps consist of several divisions and the associated and attatched combat, combat support, and support units. US corps are commanded by Lieutenant Generals.

Division - A division is between 3 and 5 regiments or brigades, or between 8 and 12 battalions, a few artillery battalions, and a number of other combat, combat support, and support units. Divisions are supposed to be self supporting units. The US feilds 10 divisions, each having roughly 15,000 to 18,000 troops. US divisions are commanded by Major Generals.

Brigade/Regiment - Brigades and regiments are variants on the same organization. They consist of a number of battalions, usually 3 to 5. They may be part of a division or an independent force. Manuver brigades are the key fighting forces of the division. Brigades and regiments generally have a rough strength of 3-5000 men. A brigade or regiment is commanded by a Colonel or occassionally a Brigader General.

Battalion/Squadron - Squadrons are cavalry (armor and air cavalry may be included) and battalions are all other units. A battalion consists of 2-5 companies and a headquyarters company/element. Battalions generally consist of one type of unit (infantry/armor/cavalry/artillery/?). They are generally the smallest unit that is at all capable of sulf supporting action. Battalions usually consist of several hundren troops and are commanded by a Lieutenant Colonel.

Company/Troop - Companies consist of 2-5 platoons plus a small headquarters. They are commanded by Captains. They range from 50-200 men. Troop is the term for an armor of cavalry company. Infantry comapnies often have 3 plattons plus a heavy weapions platoon, with mortars and heavy MGs.

Battery - The most basic artillery unit (beyon individual gun crews). Batteries consist of 4-8 guns (or a similar number of other weapons). They are commanded by a Captain.

Platoon - Platoons consist of 2-5 squads or crews. They are commanded by Lieutenants with a Sergeant as second in command (who arguably does the greater amount of the actual day to day leadership...). Infantry platoons generally have 3 rifle squads and a heavy weapons squad equipped with the haevier MGs.

Squad/Team/Crew - These are the smallest elemental units. A squad is 8-12 men, commanded by a Sergeant. Squads may be split into fire teams of 3-5 men. Teams are small groups of specialists, such as fire support teams and surveillance teams. Crews are vehicular crews.


Thus end part I, as my bed time is well past, and I have to be awake in less than 7 hours to go teach English to a bunch of kiddies. There will be more to come on this subject....
Meanwhile, those who wish can find morew at these links:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/index.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/index.html

Note the above is base on the US army. I haven*t served, so there may be minor discrepancies. Any corrections welcome.

In addition, any of these units can also be reinforced, which means with a little more than the standard amount that it has...

Daistallia, another confusion is that in the US army a standard division can have from 3,000 to 16,000. You need to also put up some numbers about that...

Good post, Daistallia.

And as for an example:
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82207

I say it again: good post. Players need to organize their assets. Prevents a lot of confusion later on.

It also makes having a huge military something of a headache. :wink:

But of course everyone should organise what they have. When I field a few divisions and start moving my armored battalions forward after bombarding with the arty batteries it's cheap to see the enemy go "OK I MOVE 1,000,000 TROOPS TO KILL U" or something.

If no one states that they have anything even resembling groups, I tend to assume they're just operating in a huge, undisciplined mass and line up my machine guns appropriately.

Bah! Organization? Who organizes? Thow 'em to the meat grinder! We'll bury the enemy under a mountain of bodies! :twisted: :P :wink:

Bah! Organization? Who organizes? Thow 'em to the meat grinder! We'll bury the enemy under a mountain of bodies! :twisted: :P :wink:

Which worked ever so well for Iran in their war with Iraq in the 80's.

I realize that you're probably speaking with tongue fixed firmly in cheek, but human wave attacks are rarely effective against a modern military. Don't get me wrong, human waves can be effective, they're just hideously expensive in lives and equipment- so much so that a "successful" attack could cost more than the objective is worth.

Toward the end of WWII, the Japanese essentially used human wave assaults (called Banzai charges) against their US and Australian opponents. These attacks almost always failed (charging straight into machine gun fire is rarely survivable), and- even when succesful- left the surviving attackers far too few to resist the inevitable counterattack.

The Soviet tactics in that war were some of the few examples of effective human wave attacks. Zhukov and his fellow generals stopped the Nazi advance through the USSR by essentially piling up walls of dead Russian soldiers to slow the Wermacht down long enough for reserve troops to arrive from farther east. Once the Russian factories started cranking out enough rifles, tanks, and ammunition for their troops, though, the Soviets began being thriftier with the lives of their troops.

As long as you don't care that you're slaughtering an entire generation of your own people, and outnumber your enemies by 20:1 or better, and have comparable weapons technology ... it can work.

But there's no guarantee that it will work, and the cost frequently far outweighs the gain.

A couple of other little matters that most non-military people fail to understand.

1- "Nah, no tanks for me. A movin' foxhole attracts the eye."
Tanks are rarely used alone. Tank units unsupported by infantry are usually slaughtered by enemy infantry- either directly (by dropping satchel charges onto the exhaust manifolds, shooting missiles into treads and drive wheels, etc), or indirectly (by calling in air and artillery strikes, for example). The whole purpose of Mechanized Infantry units is to allow infantrymen to keep up with the armor when they aren't under fire. Once the balloon goes up, the infantry ditch their vehicles and move on foot along with the armor.

Artillery and TacAir help as well. Using artillery preparation on the area you're attacking (to kill some enemy troops and force the rest to keep their heads down), along with TacAir to shoot up enemy antitank weapons and enemy armor all are designed to get the tanks and their supporting Infantry up close and personal with the enemy forces defending the objective. This is called a Combined Arms assault. The Soviets were very, very good at this. The current US Army doctrine uses a variation of this with more emphasis on precision weapons and greater mobility, but it is essentially a Combined Arms Assault.

2- If the enemy is in range, so are you.
Let me introduce everyone to something called counter battery fire. As a unit advances toward their objective, enemy artillery fire begins to drop all around the unit, forcing the infantry to stop advancing and take cover. The tanks do the same thing, because without their infantry support, they're too vulnerable. The attack stalls.

The armor and supporting infantry could just soak up the rain of steel from the sky and advance anyway, but most of them would probably be casualties unless the bombardment eases up. If half your troopies are dead or wounded, you proabably won't be able to take the objective. Even if you did take it, you'd probably be too shot up to hold it against a counterattack.

Counter battery fire is the answer. Friendly aircraft can spot the enemy artillery positions, or counterbattery radars can track the incoming rounds back to their source, and friendly artillery can start attacking the enemy guns. TacAir can also jump in on the fun. Once the heat is off the ground troops, they can resume their advance with a greater chance of making it to the objective in a sound enough condition to do some good when they got there.

3- Veterans
Most Western militaries rely on long-service veterans to provide the core leadership and maintain the traditions of the service. Officers- especially at the platoon level- are usually 22 year-old college graduates with a lot of memorized data, but no experience. This is where the platoon sergeant comes in. Most of the things the new Lt. has read about or studied, the sergeant has already done- many times. Junior officers (in Western militaries) are expected to learn how things really work from his Top Soldier.

The Soviet Union was organized very differently. Enlisted personnel were all conscripts, most of whom were trained to do exactly one job (take this wrench and turn that valve when I tell you to). Since all enlisted personnel were only in the Army for four years (there was no provision made for voluntarily re-enlisting ) it was considered a waste of time and money to give recruits better training. Things as simple as reading maps were all considered to be Officers' work.

This is not to say that the Red Army was composed of low-grade morons. The average Soviet recruit was probably better educated his average American counterpart. The officers who survived WWII were the men who set the traditions for the military Juggernaut of the Cold War, when those same men were promoted to ever higher rank.

Those traditions of the Red Army were forged in World War II (the Great Patriotic War), when men were drafted, given a uniform and (possibly) a weapon, and marched straight up to the front. Under those circumstances, there was no time for training. If the soldier lived long enough, he would learn what he needed to know on the job. This attitude persisted in the High Command for decades after the war, leading to the Red Army's weird (to Western eyes) organization.

In Western armies, the Squad Leaders (usually Corporals) have a great deal of authority over their squad, and report to the Platoon Sergeant. The Platoon Sergeant reports to the Platoon Leader- who is a junior officer nominally in command but in reality being trained by the Sergeant in the fine art of Leadership. Even at the Company, Battalion, Brigade, and Divisional level, senior enlisted personnel (mostly Sergeant Majors) are assigned to the Commanding Officer to provide the CO with the benefits of many years of service. Many officers under fire have often drawn strength from the presence of the seasoned veteran who can supply experience and steady support, because he's been there before.

Sergeants (and their Navy equivalents- the Chief Petty Officers) also provide the critical link to the traditions and institutions of the military for the new recruits and junior officers alike. This continuity ensures that lessons learned in the past are not forgotten in the future. It also provides the Service with a large pool of men (and women) who are not particularly dazzled by the new Lieutenant's high Grade Point Average and concentrate instead on getting the job done.

That last point is critical, because in Vietnam, for example, the two people most likely to get killed in combat were the newest recruit and the junior officer. With the Platoon Leader out of the picture, the Platoon Sergeant was capable of carrying on with the mission and keeping the platoon alive.

Tagged.

Hmm, well you get into a weird problem with this statement
The average Soviet recruit was probably better educated his average American counterpart

Which is likely true, however...the bottom of the barrel also applies here. The U.S. did have a minimum level test to get in. I'm not sure about the Soviet Union, although I have a feeling you got both the cream of the crop and the dreges of the barrel together. So in many ways the average was close...it was just a broader spectrum with Soviets...

I'd like to add a quick point, if I could:

Special Forces troops are terribly represented here on NS.

It seems that at leat 50% of the people who post militaries in RP threads or "show-off" threads don't have a clue what SF is or what it does.

Anyone else noticing this?

About ten minutes ago, I saw someone commit "200,000 special forces troops armed with AK-47s" to a campaign :x

Can you explain this to the community? (I willingly defer to an English teacher any day)

Depends on 'special forces' concept.

Is a 'U.S. Ranger' special forces personel. Ranger school is really a small force operations school. There are commanders of artillery batteriest that have passed Ranger School.

Which is likely true, however...the bottom of the barrel also applies here. The U.S. did have a minimum level test to get in. I'm not sure about the Soviet Union, although I have a feeling you got both the cream of the crop and the dreges of the barrel together. So in many ways the average was close...it was just a broader spectrum with Soviets...

I am just going by the relative quality of education received in both countries. American standardized test scores have been slipping for decades, and American schools don't arrest the parents if the child skips school. The Soviet Union had a great many flaws, but they made damned sure that their kids learned math and foreign languages, and managed to get as close to total literacy as humanly possible.

Furthermore, during most of the Cold War the US was relying on a conscript military as well. Anyone with certain highly-prized skills, a lot of money, or relatives with political pull got out of the Draft, and US courts were routinely offering felons the option of prison or the Army. Accordingly, the overall average Soviet recruit was probably better educated (excluding such obvious Soviet weaknesses as history, geography, and biology) in the important stuff (math and reading) than the average US recruit.

The inclusion of that statement was intended to show that Soviet soldiers were not stupid (as was widely believed in the US), but rather that their cultural conditioning pre-disposed them toward an officer-heavy military organization fond of centralized decision making- as a contrast with Western armies.

I'd like to add a quick point, if I could:

Special Forces troops are terribly represented here on NS.

It seems that at leat 50% of the people who post militaries in RP threads or "show-off" threads don't have a clue what SF is or what it does.

Anyone else noticing this?

About ten minutes ago, I saw someone commit "200,000 special forces troops armed with AK-47s" to a campaign :x

Can you explain this to the community? (I willingly defer to an English teacher any day)

A lot of the problem is the definition of "Special Forces". The term is so badly misused that I generally refer to it as "Special Farces", especially in that most of the people blathering about them on end are 12 years old (hence never having served in the military) and have less than no idea what they're talking about.

Technically, Airborne troops are SF, as are the Rangers (using familiar US units as examples). The Pentagon tends to define Special Forces as small units trained in non-linear combat. This is exceedingly broad, and in no small part repsonsible for much of the confusion.

Every nation has an elite group of specially-trained troops for special circumstances. The Russians have their Spetznatz, the Brits have the SAS, etc. In general terms, these units have a great deal in common (highly motivated, elite, and lethal small units capable of extended independent operations outside of "normal" combat situations). Most of these units also attract the very cream of the crop from the nation's "standard" military organizations, and routinely reject at least 75% of these applicants during training for one reason or another.

That last is the reason why Special Forces units tend to be small groups- only a quarter (at best) of the qualified applicants graduate from the rigorous training. If your military has 800,000 people in it, only a small percentage (probably 20%, but I lack definitive data) are even eligible for Special Forces. That's only 160,000 troops. Only 40,000 of those (at most) will pass the harsh selection criteria of the unit. All of the above numbers are hopelessly optimistic, because it assumes that everyone eligible for the program applies, which is certainly not the case. The real numbers would be far less.

Any unit could be defined as "Special Forces", provided it was capable of activities outside the normal scope of military operations. So if someone were claiming that 200,000 "Special Forces" were being used, someone else could reasonably assume that they are "Special" because of the fact that they're armed with AK-47s, or perhaps they are all left-handed. If there are more than a few hundred of them (IMO), then they are no longer "Special".

Looks pretty good.
If you're as crazy as me, you can make up your own table of organization.
Mine goes up to brigade size. And is not final.

I do have large units of special forces. They wouldn't normally be used in large units, but if I have to occupy a postion VERY VERY quickly (if I had to capture an important city when the enemy is only one day away, for example), I'll send in a large group of special forces.

this was really helpful, thanks a lot.

It should also be noted that in special forces the basic operating unit is the team or firesquad (depending upon the mission, group history and dogma, and the skill of the individual operators).

LRRP teams (which patrol secretly deep behind enemy lines, often operating for up to two weeks without contacting the 'home base') consist of between 4 and 8 men, but rarely more than that as a larger group is harder to hide and, if problems happen, are more likely to have people that survive to fall into enemy hands.

Some special operations missions, however, only require a two-man team. This would be when a sniper/spotter crew are deployed to carry out an assassination or to designate targets for aerial or artillery strikes and even this mission is exclusively for veritably elite soldiers (SEAL snipers and a very select roster of other specialty-within-specialty groups).

-----------

Now, as for Rangers and the Green Berets (and, in part, the Marine Corps' SOC MEUs). These are what I'd call "effectively trained soldiers." While the soldiers of these units (numbering, generally, in the few thousands) are 'elite' when compared to General Infantrymen, they are viewed by more specialized Special Operations Forces as amateurs.

It should be noted (if anyone actually reads the /book/ Blackhawk Down) that Delta Force, SEAL, and other special operations personnel (often called ‘Operators’) find great faults in the inexperience and (comparative) inability to operate effectively. Now, this isn’t to say that an Airborne Rangers company isn’t made of great soldiers, it is simply to point out that there are scales to special forces.

Yes, the larger groups are ‘Special Forces’ but that does not mean that they are equal with the smaller ‘Special Forces’ groups.

-------------------------------

On Rankings in Special Forces Groups

Larger special forces groups will tend to have the same rankings of the basic soldiers, even though the soldiers have passed through specialty-training programs, and officers will likely be either of the normal rank or a rank higher than might be found in the basic infantry groups.

This changes, however, in smaller special forces groups. Often, the Operators within the group have already achieved a high rank in another branch or part of the military or they have achieved goals and taken on responsibilities that standard soldiers were not. Yet, one problem arises in groups where the different soldiers have come from different units. Two soldiers of equal skill and responsibility might have different rankings in their old system. To amend this situation (and to show the skill of the Operators) it is often found that special forces soldiers have higher rankings than in other groups.

Instead of a platoon being lead by a Lieutenant, with various Sergeants to guide the teams, the platoon would be lead by a Major or Captain (sometimes even higher ranking officers are in charge). This effect is exaggerated by the fact that most leaders of special forces groups will command only a few hundred, instead of several thousand, men. For this reason, a commander of a specific Special Forces group will likely bear the rank of General, on par with commanders of much larger conventional forces.

For the connection between rankings, group commands, and hierarchy in the standard military, GlobalSecurity delivers as per usual:
http://globalsecurity.org/military/intro/org.htm
http://globalsecurity.org/military/agency/index.html
(The second link covers specific branches of the US armed forces in depth)

For other forces:
(Israeli Special Forces, all levels): http://www.isayeret.com/units/guide.htm
(Israeli General Forces): http://www.idf.il/english/organization/organization.stm
(World Special Forces, w/Focus on US forces):
http://www.specialoperations.com/default2.html
(World Special Forces, w/Focus on US forces):
http://www.specwarnet.com/



-------------------------------

A note on Counter Battery Fire.

Modern Counter Battery radars (stocked by the US, Britain, Israel, Germany, and other 1st-rate military technology centers) have the ability to mark, identify, and issue exact coordinates for enemy battery positions even before the enemy round has hit the ground. Computer-guided artillery stations will return fire before the enemy round strikes and often allows for one shot—one kill abilities. This allows advanced artillery units to not only engage, but destroy enemy artillery emplacements before the enemy artillery operators can do anything about it.

The power and importance of counter-battery radars and fire has been proven in modern warfare very recently.

When Iraqi artillery batteries engaged US army artillery batteries during the drive to Baghdad, Iraqi batteries were able to fire off an average of two rounds (firing one directly after another, at top manual reload speed) before their batteries were destroyed by American return fire. The Iraqi soldiers had to guesstimate the position of US batteries and then tried to ‘walk their way onto target’ (an old artillery technique that has been made obsolete by such counter-battery actions). The US artillery commanders had a lock on the exact position of the enemy batteries after the first volley and were firing onto the target before the second round came in…often far off of his own position.

The development of effective counter-battery capabilities (with the advanced use of helicopters and aircraft), a new doctrine for artillery (termed ‘Shoot-and-Scoot’) was developed. Shoot-and-Scoot is based on the idea that a mobile artillery system would have target locations (collected from various sources, both live and pre-programmed) recorded in on-board computers. The battery (mounted on a tank or heavy truck chassis) would stop, set itself up, and fire in a minute or two (advanced systems in less than 30 seconds). The system then moves to another location and prepares to fire again. This way, enemy return fire lands in an empty position.

The MLRS was basically designed with Shoot-and-Scoot in mind. It’s systems were designed to receive target data, launch several rockets at one location, rotate, re-launch, rotate, and re-launch until rockets had been exhausted. Then, accompanying vehicles would use a crane to lift replacement pods (each pod carrying 6 standard MLRS rockets or one Tactical Land Attack Missile (TLAM)).

Now, not all artillery units are equal. The current long-range (shell) artillery has a maximum (publicly known) range of between 40 and 45km, but most units have less range than that. New artillery systems (sometimes using rocket boosters or glide-wings) seek to press farther into enemy lines. The power of the MLRS is that it can use submunitions to saturate an enemy-held sector from far beyond the range of conventional artillery systems. Recent MLRS rocket-upgrade programs have addressed adding guidance units to the rockets (which previously just followed a ballistic path) so that they can target areas even more effectively. The main problem with an MLRS-only artillery group is that the MLRS rockets are not very effective at removing point-targets, cannot (currently) be guided by laser designators in the field, and cannot be used (effectively) against many permanent structures.

One recent trend has been to integrate various air-based and sea-based weapons systems into ground systems so that the power of a naval or aerial strike can be launched well inland and without other (expensive to operate) units. This is an efficient and cheap way to add capabilities to cheap ground units (such as the HMMWV).

I reversed the direction of this trend a while back by adding navalized MLRS batteries to ground-bombardment vessels (ground-to-sea). This allowed these units to neutralize attempted enemy mass-landings on friendly shores or to clear enemy shores of obstacles to friendly assaults. Air-to-air missiles (such as the AMRAAM) are being fitted onto mobile HMMWV platforms for use against enemy aircraft, among other projects.

I am also divising my own system...my large ass military is a pain to organize. As far as artilery, FW uses MRLSs only.

*sigh*

I had typed up a nice post on what my position on the Rangers is (including the disdain they were shown, according to Mark Bowden of BHD fame) but the forums ate it :x

So to say what I can remember - I would not put Rangers and Delta/Green Berets in the same category, but like you said, it's mostly 12-year olds who make that mistake. I agree.

Rangers are in a sort of limbo. They aren't in the ame league as Delta or SEALs or what have you, but they are a better-trained unit than regular grunts. I prefer to think of them as Airborne light infantry (which, actually, is what they are).

It has everything to do with numbers. The people I'm mostly talking about are tiny little nations who claim to have trained rediculous numbers of "elite" or "crack" (their words, not mine) troops, and it makes me laugh because truly elite units are tiny and can't be thrown around like regular infantry.

Another great example of this was someone who claimed to have a division made up entirely of 3,000 snipers. I don't need to even start talking about how foolish this is - we all know why.

I've seen many people do this:

"I am sending a 24,000 troops army along with 6000 [insert name here] heavy tanks!"

...Or something like that.

No artillery? No infantry fighting vehicles? Not even some Avengers? Enough to say, the force is doomed.

Aye, I've seen people wanting groups of nothing but snipers *shudders* and am prone to just sluffing off when it comes to troops and organization... However I'm going to state how I organize things here so that I can, hopefully, get some advice or at least have someone tell me that it is a first.

My most basic unit is a legion... I will try to never deploy less.
Each legion is made up of:
18,000 marines
3,000 snipers
1,600 scouts
2,000 heavy weapons specialists
900 troll combat cars
1,500 Spider APCs
180 ogre main battle tanks
40 macro main battle tanks

I know the numbers there are somewhat depressingly low, namely in the number of tanks and the total lack of air and artty support. However I am not insane enough to not have that taken care of. I can attach any number of support groups, each of which contains a certian number of extra tanks, artty, or aircraft. On another note I am developing towed artty, and will be worked that into my legions ASAP.

Let the insults or notations on massive flaws begin.

Aye, I've seen people wanting groups of nothing but snipers *shudders* and am prone to just sluffing off when it comes to troops and organization... However I'm going to state how I organize things here so that I can, hopefully, get some advice or at least have someone tell me that it is a first.

The all sniper army is one of those things that will get completely smeared attempting to take on a reasonably well put together army.

My most basic unit is a legion... I will try to never deploy less.
Each legion is made up of:
18,000 marines
3,000 snipers
1,600 scouts
2,000 heavy weapons specialists
900 troll combat cars
1,500 Spider APCs
180 ogre main battle tanks
40 macro main battle tanks


This is almost exactly what my OP was about. (almost, because you have at least organised it to a reinforced division level). :D

I know the numbers there are somewhat depressingly low, namely in the number of tanks and the total lack of air and artty support. However I am not insane enough to not have that taken care of. I can attach any number of support groups, each of which contains a certian number of extra tanks, artty, or aircraft. On another note I am developing towed artty, and will be worked that into my legions ASAP.

Let the insults or notations on massive flaws begin.

Help is here. No insults. Ignorance of such matters isn't a crime. :D (I a quite positive each player here could teach me something about which I am completely ignorant. See also my request to Evil Overlord on Naval Organisation, a subject on which I am still quite ignorant.)

Advice:
Support is needed. Who will feed your troops? Who will treat the woundeed? Who will provide the tons upon tons of ordinance, fuel, and other more mundane stuff your troopies will require in the field in order to operate at any level. AFV crews are needed. From what you have posted, it appears that you have 22,600 riflemen plus 2000 machinegunners. Scout cars, APCs, and tanks require dedicted and trained crews.

Cut the snipers to 100-200, and re-name them as a Legion Scout/Sniper company. (Sniper teams make excellent scouts and recon/intelligence elements. In fact this is why the USMC snipers are SCOUT snipers!)

Decide what you want the legion to be: armor, infantry, cavalry, some other mix. What you have now sounds like a heavily reinforced marine infantry division (assuming that all those marines aren't simply intended to be combat riflemen...)

An example of a possible organisation (note - you can call it whatever appropriate name you want, but because I'm not too familiar with the legion/cohort system, I'll give exampls in standard terms, see above .):
Padmasa Marine infantry legion:
3 Mechanised Rifle Infantry Brigades of 5000 men (the number of Spider APCs depending on exact under organization, but should be roughly 250-300 per brigade)
1 Armored Brigade of 3000 men (180 ogers, 40 macros)
HQ and support element: (includes legional scout/sniper company of 200)
Should be at least brigade strength (I suggest 5000). Attatched artillery, air defense, combat support, etc. units will be required for any sort of functionlity, although at least some of these will be included in the HQ/Suppt. element.

Total: 23,000 men, plus attachments

wow...thats amazing..oh yeah a squad is also refered to as a 'Section' in a lot of countries. Apart from that minor thing left out I am very impressed.

Something else people always seem to forget when sending in their 10,000 men is the fact that they need to get food and ammunition somehow, therefore they need a logistics train therefore they also need a whole bunch of trucks. Usually when I deploy I deploy logistical divisions at the same time.


I think Naval Organisation is quite a bit more arbitrary. I believe traditionally speaking it is divided into fleets depending upon geography or purpose and individual battle groups are put together haphazardly depending upon which ships were needed and which were available. OF course these days the USA and others have standard sizes for these.

I havn't read this all, do we have aircraft organisation in here?

Toward the end of WWII, the Japanese essentially used human wave assaults (called Banzai charges) against their US and Australian opponents. These attacks almost always failed (charging straight into machine gun fire is rarely survivable), and- even when succesful- left the surviving attackers far too few to resist the inevitable counterattack.


*cough* there were plenty of Brits, Indians and New Zealanders in there as well

OOC: (for some reason - poor typing skills anyone? - that came out as OICW at first... :shock: Other military geeks will get that one...)
Anyway, AFAIK, airforces tend to follow the army model more closely. However, i cannot speak authoritatively on the subject...

*scratches head* now I can't remember where I got this, I think it could be RAF, but like I said I can't remember. Anywat the way I'm organising is:

12 planes = 1 squadron
5 Squadrons = 1 Wing
5 Wings = 1 Group
full number of Groups = Command

Command represents the equivalent of a Corp. Mine are divided into 4 Commands, Fighter, Attack, Bomber and Maritime.

As far as the USAF, Im sre that even a single plane can be an entire sqaudron. I dont know too much else, except it goes like this: (I think...even though my dad was in the AF I dont know for sure...sad huh?)

Sqaudron
Group
Wing
Airforce

In my military, things are divided like so:(support vehicles arent listed...too long a list)

Group(12 men)
Basic rifle sqaud of 12 M-16A2 armed men. Can be armed with an APC or IFV

Heavy Group(12 men)
same as above only with heavy MGs.

Force(60 men)
3 groups and 2 heavy group

Lance(crews...forgot crew for each)
20 M1A3
10 M270 MLRS
5 M2
5 M3
various support vehicles

Heavy Force(crews+support crews+1200 men)
1 Lance
20 Forces

Cohort(crews+support crews+4800 men)
4 Heavy Forces

Throng(crews+support crews+ 19,200 men)
4 Cohorts

Legion (crews+support crews+ 96,000 men)
5 Throngs

Thanks, changes will of course be made. I am working on support as we speak, and had in fact been working on getting med crews and supply vehicles from my millions upon millions of support groups!

As to snipers, I myself don't like using the traditional sniper deployment and while I wouldn't mind trying it... it's just not my style. But there are notations that must be made first fr you to understand my reasoning.

1. Futuretech, I use it in the form of Powered troops, dropships, and new weapons.

2. My sniper regiments have effectively become anti-tank squads. More than half of them are using a 20 mm Guass "Rifle" making light armor a nothing agianst them and making tanks fear to turn or pop a hatch.

3. That futuretech I use allows me to deploy a lone sniper instead of the standard two man team. However when I use snipers they are usually for taking out a commander at distance yet still from within my ranks, slowing an enemy armor push, or just sowing chaos from extreme distances.

Well, that's why I don't really want to cut the numbers but I will listen and if you have good advice I will of course use it and even change my system.

My basic legion has changed only a little, and I am still considering trying your more conventional sniper tactics and numbers...
Each legion is made up of:
18,000 marines
3,000 snipers
1,600 scouts
2,000 heavy weapons specialists
1,000 combat engineers
1,000 Invader ATVs
900 troll combat cars
1,500 Spider APCs
10 dragon command cars
180 ogre MBTS
40 macro MBTS
250 (yet undesigned towed artillery piece)
100 Gallant IDMWP (light artty)
100 Black Rider Self-propelled Artillery
80 heavy dropships (mostly just for helping to haul supplies)
10 gunboats
20 combat dropships

However here is what I really need advice with. I am not a soldier, and as such have NO IDEA what sort of baggage train/ the size of the baggage train I'll need.
Support train with each legion:
800 medics
3,000 mechanics/drivers/pilots
1,800 supply vehicles (yet to be designed)

Currently, I'm too busy to work on dividing it up into cohorts however I will do so later tonight when I actually have time to do the math ect. ect.

Thanks, changes will of course be made. I am working on support as we speak, and had in fact been working on getting med crews and supply vehicles from my millions upon millions of support groups!

As to snipers, I myself don't like using the traditional sniper deployment and while I wouldn't mind trying it... it's just not my style. But there are notations that must be made first fr you to understand my reasoning.

1. Futuretech, I use it in the form of Powered troops, dropships, and new weapons.

2. My sniper regiments have effectively become anti-tank squads. More than half of them are using a 20 mm Guass "Rifle" making light armor a nothing agianst them and making tanks fear to turn or pop a hatch.

3. That futuretech I use allows me to deploy a lone sniper instead of the standard two man team. However when I use snipers they are usually for taking out a commander at distance yet still from within my ranks, slowing an enemy armor push, or just sowing chaos from extreme distances.

Well, that's why I don't really want to cut the numbers but I will listen and if you have good advice I will of course use it and even change my system.


Snipers are a form of special forces. They require extensive training. Having 10+% of your regular forces as special forces, plus whatever other SOFs you want, will mean that you have x number of designated marksmen, at best. Designated marksmen are your better riflemen in your regular formations, possibly armed with slightly more accurate rifles than the standard issue.

Snipers can work individually, however it is much, much, much easier and more efficient to work in two man teams. In a two man team, one man is the spotter, who seeks targets and the other man is the sniper who kills the targets selected by the sniper. Two pairs of eyes will always be more effecient than one pair. Individual snipers will tire quickly , no mater what tech you are using (tech prolonging wakefulness and alertness will absolutely have negative effects - as arguably already seen in fighter pilots in Afghanistan....) . Furthermore, advanced tech weapons will be countered by advanced tech armor.
Finally, to repeat what I said above, snipers should really be intelligence/scout forces. Yes, they can take out high value targets, but that really should not be their mission.

My basic legion has changed only a little, and I am still considering trying your more conventional sniper tactics and numbers...
Each legion is made up of:
18,000 marines
3,000 snipers
1,600 scouts
2,000 heavy weapons specialists
1,000 combat engineers
1,000 Invader ATVs
900 troll combat cars
1,500 Spider APCs
10 dragon command cars
180 ogre MBTS
40 macro MBTS
250 (yet undesigned towed artillery piece)
100 Gallant IDMWP (light artty)
100 Black Rider Self-propelled Artillery
80 heavy dropships (mostly just for helping to haul supplies)
10 gunboats
20 combat dropships
However here is what I really need advice with. I am not a soldier, and as such have NO IDEA what sort of baggage train/ the size of the baggage train I'll need.
Support train with each legion:
800 medics
3,000 mechanics/drivers/pilots
1,800 supply vehicles (yet to be designed)

Currently, I'm too busy to work on dividing it up into cohorts however I will do so later tonight when I actually have time to do the math ect. ect.

Not a soldier either. :) But you for sure need to organise that mob. As posters above stated, if you say you land 18,000 men, it is all too easy to assume they are an unorganised mob. That is the whole point of the OP and my suggestions above.... Figure out an organization first. Having the 1st cohort of the 2nd legion attack is much more effective than having 18,000 men from the 2nd legion attack in a seemingly disorganised horde, which better oprghanised players will meet as stated above....

My Military is Here (http://www.red7.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/WintreesDefenceForces.txt)

As you can probably see, I've organised my Military a bit differently; I've tried to give it a feel instead of just numbers.

The size might be godmoding, but I've tried to compensate for that by saying that some Regiments might be holding battalions of 15-20 men due to understaffing etc. This is just the on-paper organisation. What do you lot think about it?

Any questions just ask. (But do ask before you burn me to a crisp :P)

We just put all our soldiers in usually three groups and give them orders.

By the way, did i tell you our artillery are actually catapults throwing old refrigators? :lol:

I just got bored and not only took your advice but finished up my basic organization... I should have tried harder to make a legion follow the pattern, but eh. :wink:

Each legion is made up of:
18 marine cohorts
200 sniper/scout units
3 heavy weapons cohorts
1 combat engineer cohort
1 Invader ATV cohort
9 troll combat car battles
1 Spider APC cohort and 5 battles
1 dragon command car unit
1 ogre MBT battle and 8 units
4 macro MBT units
2 Firecaster battles and 5 units
1 Gallant IDMWP battle
1 Black Rider Self-propelled Artillery battle
8 heavy dropship wings
1 gunboat wing
2 combat dropship wings

Support train with each legion:
800 medics
3,000 mechanics/drivers/pilots
1,800 supply vehicles (yet to be designed)

A legion is in total 22 cohorts 19 battles and 204 units
A cohort is 10 battles
A battle is 10 units
A unit is 10 men or vehicles

An Array is 10 flights
A Flight is 10 wings
A wing is 10 dropships/gunboats

Much better Padmasa! :D

WinTrees: Looks good. You addressed the size well. Question: Roughly what size are your brigades and regiments, assuming full strength?

tagging.