NationStates Jolt Archive

After a number of previous attempts at improving my armed forces on NS, I have decided to restart the process by posting a new thread, in order to deal with this issue one problem at a time. This thread is the first of what may be several aimed at remedying these problems.

To rectify the inconsistancies and lack of proper organization in my land-based military forces, I have set up this thread. This thread deals strictly with organizing the land-based forces, meaning that this thread will not deal with my navy, air forces, unconventional weapons, or other facets of the whole. In this case, the word "organizing" means "how many personnel go in a unit, and how many units form a bigger unit, etc." Questions about equipment numbers are also open for discussion here.

So, without further ado, here is my preliminary system:

BASIC ORGANIZATION:

Parts listed in red are under construction. Assistance with those particular parts is welcome.

SQUADS (10 men):

1 squad leader, typically an NCO
1 medic
2 light machine gunners (carrying a SAW)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

PLATOONS (52 men):

4 standard squads
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
1 mortar team
1 machine gun team
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer

COMPANIES (268 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
4 weapons squads
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO
4 medics
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

BATTALIONS (1,124 men):

3 standard companies
1 weapons company, consisting of:
Bullet list to follow
1 command platoon, consisting of:
1 commanding officer
1 executive officer
1 intelligence officer
1 logistics officer (similar to a quartermaster)
1 operations officer
1 medical officer
1 communications officer
1 personnel officer
1 judicial officer
1 chaplain
1 administrative clerk
1 adjutant
3 rifle squads

REGIMENTS (3,640 men):

2 standard battalions
1 weapons battalion, consisting of:
Bullet list to follow
1 command company, consisting of:
1 command platoon
3 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon
4 medics
2 administrative clerks
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

BRIGADES (14,612 men):

4 regiments
1 command platoon

DIVISIONS (29,224 men):

2 brigades
1 command platoon

CORPS (116,896 men):

4 divisions

FIELD ARMY (350,688 men):

3 corps

Summing up the above, this is how the organization system looks:

Squad: 10
Platoon: 52 (five squads and 2 officers)
Company: 268 (five platoons and 8 others)
Battalion: 1,124 (four companies and a command platoon)
Regiment: 3,640 (three battalions and 1 command company)
Brigade: 14,612 (four regiments and 1 command platoon)
Division: 29,224 (two brigades and 1 command platoon)
Corps: 116,896 (four divisions)
Field Army: 350,688 (three corps)

I'll take a further look tommorow when I have had a bit more sleep but one thing I have noticed is that there is no mention of man portable Anti-Tank or Anti-Air.

My recomendation would be to have a seperate Mortar Squad consisting of 3 light mortars, 1 heavy mortar and a mortar fire controller. Then have a fire support group/weapons squad of 2 heavy machine guns, 2 AT launchers and 1 AA launcher.

You may also want to add a forward artillery observer and forward air controller to either the weapons squad or HQ squad.

My recomendation would be to have a seperate Mortar Squad consisting of 3 light mortars, 1 heavy mortar and a mortar fire controller. Then have a fire support group/weapons squad of 2 heavy machine guns, 2 AT launchers and 1 AA launcher.

I have taken your advice thusfar into consideration nad have the following plan:

PLATOONS (52 men):

4 standard (rifle) squads, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
1 fire controller
1 heavy mortar team (3 soldiers)
3 light mortar teams (6 soldiers, 2 per mortar)
Or
2 heavy machine gun teams
2 antitank launcher teams
1 antiaircraft launcher team
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer

COMPANIES (268 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO
4 weapons squads, 2 of each type
4 medics
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

On the upper levels: Your Brigades are the size of combat divisions in other militaries. You may want to consider switching to single battalion Regiments, the way it's traditionally done in the British Commonwealth, or drop that organisation entirely. If you're looking to develop what's called the Regimental System, in terms of loyalty and morale factors, simply name your battalions, which is what De Vliggenplaat does since my recent reorganization of the KKvdPK (E.g. 73rd Infantry Battalion, "Hohendplaat Grenadiers"/"The black caps"). Some players who want to maintain the Regimental organisation but have a more unique ORBAT structure use Regiments as Divisions and apply the appropriate number of battalions and types to them, e.g. Russkya, who uses a Regimental structure with a combined arms Division-style HQ with associated elements (air defence, engineering, logistics) and plugs Rifle, Mechanised, Armour, Artillery, and so on battalions in under that until he's anywheres from 2,000-12,000 men per, but he also RPs a distinctly Soviet tendency to custom-build large formations for the mission at hand.

On the lower levels: You don't want to mix and match mortar calibres at the level you are now. Go with all light (50/60mm) or all medium (81/82/90mm) or all heavy (100/120/160mm) mortars at particular levels. Also, no mortar is moveable with ammunition by two men; assign three minimum to a mortar team and any "free" guys will have to carry cases of mortar bombs so you can keep up a reasonable amount of fire with those weapons. If they're Mechanised or Motorised and have a weapon carrier, that's great, they can stick extra ammo in that. Mortar units typically don't need a Fire Controller, that's the job of the Mortar Team Leader or the Mortar Platoon Commander, who interfaces with other units via radio who're calling for mortar support, as every officer and your SNCOs, if not all of your NCOs, should be trained to call for organic mortar support, even attached artillery and so on.

For your platoon, I'd recommend 3x Rifle 1x Weapon, though your 4/1 mix is nice, gives you more rifles to throw at an objective or to absorb casualties with. Also requires a bigger logistics tail, so keep that in mind. The Weapons Squad should be built around a central weapon, I'd suggest two 81mm mortars for the platoon since you seem to be travelling quite heavy, plus a single ATGM like Spike SR/MR/LR or Javelin. That means six mortarmen, two ATGM, section commander, and section radio operator. If you want to lighten the platoon load a little, 50 or 60mm mortars are still viable weapons.

Normally, they have 8 men in a section, but what you have will do fine as well.
It's all a case of co-ordination. You have about 5 sections of men in a platoon, wheras normally there'd be three - though it depends on how you would implement such a force. A platoon based force is mainly meant for the smallest level attacks, using two sections to provide multiple firing angles, and a third one to act as reserve, with the command unit included in one of the sections.
With five sections, things become more interesting, though still workable. It'd be more suited for some operations, though sticking with three would be the better.
(Just as a comparison, the standard british army section has 8 men in a section, and about 26 men in a platoon).

Mortars aren't always necessary for a platoon attack - from training I've done as part of the armed forces, mortars are only useful in more open areas of fighting - when engaging in FIBUA, grenade launchers are in preference. They also have anti-tank support included per section - what will normally happen is that you have six riflemen and two men with support weapons (light machineguns/marksman rifles/anti-tank), the support weapons depending on deployment. Normally, one section will have more focus on support (an assaulting section would have more LMGs, or in FIBUA some shotguns; fire support would have GPMGs or even an HMG, or a mortar team). In terms of mortars, most light ones need only two men to operate in a mobile role, maybe more in a fire support role. I'd often go for having a dedicated mortar section as part of a company sized force).
From there, you're going much to large - the company sized force you state is about the size of a modern battalion. You can have it, it's just more difficult to command (think about co-ordinating 250-odd men instead of 80...)

In terms of organisation, let's look at a company level scheme from my forces to try and help:
>Platoon 1 - Assault
- Assault section (Armed with LMGs and the like)
- Support Section (Armed with GPMGs and the ATGMs)(PIC attached)
- Mixed section (Carry the ATGMs, and LMGs)
>Platoon 2 - Fire support
- Assault Section (PIC attached)
- Support Section (CIC attached)
- Mortar section (Two mortars)
>Platoon 3 - Mixed reserve

In this scheme, the officers are attached to whatever section is relevant, with the company IC in the support platoon so that he gets the best view. From there, you can attach extra specialists to the sections to tailor for each role - for the mortar section, you could attach a pair from the air regiment to co-ordinate airstrikes; you could attach a medical officer to provide extra care for the wounded; you could attach MPs if the section is a particularly rowdy one/in a rowdy area; maybe even attach an extra section should there be some particularly specialist activity engaged in (eg. NBC warfare).

It can be tailored for different branches of the forces as well - from what I know, the Royal Marines often go in with about 6 LMGs/GPMGs per section, whereas pathfinders would likely go with marksmen rifles and lots of LMGs.

At a batallion level, you start getting the more specialised attachments - if this were a mech infantry group, possibly have an attached artillery platoon/AA platoon...
The problem is that you can't really provide an exact force structure, save for core units. After that, it's a case of stating the possible attachments at different levels, and dividing your army into its constituent parts.

I've always had dribs and drabs of my army done, because it's such a fickle beast. I find working on specific regiments for each of my separate RPs cuts workload and helps in that manner. Diagrams on paper also help as well.

On the upper levels: Your Brigades are the size of combat divisions in other militaries. You may want to consider switching to single battalion Regiments, the way it's traditionally done in the British Commonwealth, or drop that organisation entirely.

Some players who want to maintain the Regimental organisation but have a more unique ORBAT structure use Regiments as Divisions and apply the appropriate number of battalions and types to them, e.g. Russkya, who uses a Regimental structure with a combined arms Division-style HQ with associated elements (air defence, engineering, logistics) and plugs Rifle, Mechanised, Armour, Artillery, and so on battalions in under that until he's anywheres from 2,000-12,000 men per, but he also RPs a distinctly Soviet tendency to custom-build large formations for the mission at hand.

I have addressed this with an alternate system. I will, for the present time, keep the current system while developing this alternate system which includes your suggestions.

ALTERNATE SYSTEM:

SQUADS (10 men):

1 squad leader, typically an NCO
1 medic
2 light machine gunners (carrying a SAW)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

PLATOONS (52 men):

4 standard (rifle) squads, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
1 mortar team leader
2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary)
Or
2 heavy machine gun teams
2 antitank launcher teams
1 antiaircraft launcher team
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer

COMPANIES (268 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
1 commissioned officer
1 NCO
4 weapons squads, 2 of each type
4 medics
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

BATTALIONS (1,124 men):

3 standard companies
1 weapons company, consisting of:
Bullet list to follow
1 command platoon, consisting of:
1 commanding officer
1 executive officer
1 intelligence officer
1 logistics officer (similar to a quartermaster)
1 operations officer
1 medical officer
1 communications officer
1 personnel officer
1 judicial officer
1 chaplain
1 administrative clerk
1 adjutant
3 rifle squads

BRIGADES (5,620 men):

3 standard battalions
2 weapons battalions
1 command platoon

DIVISIONS (28,152 men):

5 brigades (composition to be figured out later)
1 command platoon

CORPS (112,608 men):

4 divisions

FIELD ARMY (337,824 men):

3 corps

Summing up the above, this is how the alternate organization system looks:

Squad: 10
Platoon: 52 (five squads and 2 officers)
Company: 268 (five platoons and 8 others)
Battalion: 1,124 (four companies and a command platoon)
Brigade: 5,620 (five battalions and 1 command platoon)
Division: 28,152 (five brigades and 1 command platoon)
Corps: 112,608 (four divisions)
Field Army: 337,824 (three corps)

On the lower levels: You don't want to mix and match mortar calibres at the level you are now. Go with all light (50/60mm) or all medium (81/82/90mm) or all heavy (100/120/160mm) mortars at particular levels. Also, no mortar is moveable with ammunition by two men; assign three minimum to a mortar team and any "free" guys will have to carry cases of mortar bombs so you can keep up a reasonable amount of fire with those weapons. If they're Mechanised or Motorised and have a weapon carrier, that's great, they can stick extra ammo in that. Mortar units typically don't need a Fire Controller, that's the job of the Mortar Team Leader or the Mortar Platoon Commander...

I have fixed that to look like:

1 weapons squad, consisting of:
1 mortar team leader
2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary)

Normally, they have 8 men in a section, but what you have will do fine as well.
It's all a case of co-ordination. You have about 5 sections of men in a platoon, wheras normally there'd be three - though it depends on how you would implement such a force. A platoon based force is mainly meant for the smallest level attacks, using two sections to provide multiple firing angles, and a third one to act as reserve, with the command unit included in one of the sections.
With five sections, things become more interesting, though still workable. It'd be more suited for some operations, though sticking with three would be the better.
(Just as a comparison, the standard british army section has 8 men in a section, and about 26 men in a platoon).

I got a lot of comments when my platoons were a measly 20 men, which was deemed insufficient by a number of others in my last thread on this matter. A number of folks said that it was too small, and then appeared quite satisfied when I increased it to the present quantity. This goes to show that there seems to be two competing infantry doctrines on NS: have a smaller platoon, composed of a smaller number of sections (as you propose) or having a larger one (proposed by thise who seem to thing tht three sections isn't enough. There were even a few that wanted to go as high as sixty men per platoon, which I found to be a little too much...

The advantage of having two additional sections/squads is that I have more bread-and-butter personnel to use. Two rifle sections would operate to lay down the firebase that you mentioned above, by having multiple firing angles. One would offer fire support or similar assistance (the weapons squad, armed either with machine guns or mortars) and one would act as a reserve. The fifth squad would provide cover fire for the others if they had to advance and were being fired upon.

Alternatively, I could use four sections, haing two of them lay down fire, one provide fire support, and one act as a reserve.

With five sections, things become more interesting, though still workable. It'd be more suited for some operations, though sticking with three would be the better.

Which types of operations would make five sections per platoon better than three? I'm just curious.

In terms of organisation, let's look at a company level scheme from my forces to try and help:
>Platoon 1 - Assault
- Assault section (Armed with LMGs and the like)
- Support Section (Armed with GPMGs and the ATGMs)(PIC attached)
- Mixed section (Carry the ATGMs, and LMGs)
>Platoon 2 - Fire support
- Assault Section (PIC attached)
- Support Section (CIC attached)
- Mortar section (Two mortars)
>Platoon 3 - Mixed reserve

If I am reading this correctly, you have three sections to a platoon and three platoons to a company, for a total of nine sections.

I am assuming that an "assault section" is your equivalent ot my current rifle squad, "a support section" is your equivalent to my current mortar or machine gun squad, and the mixed section is part riflemen and part heavier weapons.

Yeah. It's how we do things in the British Army (which is probably frowned upon by those who live in the USA - I think you lot have a similar system), working in units of threes. Most people just say "oh lets go for sixty men a platoon) because it gives them larger numbers and an advantage, on paper. In practice, coordinating the attack is more difficult.

I think the best way of describing the necessity of different sections is by going through how a platoon attack goes (in theory). Two sections split into paired fire teams, providing four arcs of fire on the enemy position, whilst trying not to shoot into each other. The one section providing fire support hangs back, whilst the others advance into position by staggered movement of that section's two fire teams, diverting fire as their comrades overrun the enemy. The advance continues to locate in depth positions, before the platoon regroups. The lieutenant is normally in the support section, to have the best view, with a third section standing back to act as both a rear guard and a reserve should they need extra fire support. Orders are given by the lieutenant to each section commander, who then gives orders onto the members of his section.

It's a case that three sections are easier for an officer to control than five in such a situation - he doesn't have the problems of coordinating so many men. And a smaller unit is more mobile than a larger one, as I'm sure you are aware.
The only time five-section platoons are useful are in static defence, from my experience (because there's less problems there in terms of mobility), and in situations where you expect a lot of the men to be casualties.

Oh, and the other problem with 10 men sections - most modern RL and NS vehicles are designed for eight/four men groups. You can fit five people in a humvee, but not very comfortably when they have kit as well.

I've noticed that your TO&E is still not registering a large number of NCOs. They come in three flavours; JNCO, NCO, and SNCO. Respectively, these are Junior NCOs, NCOs, and Senior NCOs. You're looking at everything from Corporal (which in the British Army can lead a Section of eight), while NCOs are typically Sergeants of a variety of flavours, and your SNCOs are your Warrant Officers and so on.

The very large platoons consume inordinate amounts of resources to be moved, to be kept static, and that expenditure goes up massively once they engage.

Keep in mind that when the mortars are organic to an Infantry platoon, when that platoon moves, the mortars come with them unless the Company Commander specifically dictates otherwise. Therefore, riflemen in that platoon can carry extra cases of mortar bombs when operating as dismounts. It's quite odd to have mortars organic to a platoon actually, hasn't been done since Korea I don't think, where we had 50mm and 60mm weapons at the platoon headquarters, a single tube. I now address your Weapons Squad composition in the overall rifle platoon structure:

I would not apply HMGs to the platoon. Heavy machineguns fire 12.7x99mm ammunition (NATO, e.g. the M2HB) or larger ammunition (largest coming to mind at present is the FN BRG-15, at 15.5x115mm) which weighs quite a bit. The tripod, traverse and elevation mechanism, optic, and ammunition all weigh a lot as well. This ammunition does not provide you with good area effect such as a mortar bomb burst, cannot be fired from a reverse slope position (with some exceptions, such as Canadian-style indirect machinegunnery), cannot engage troops in defilade (again, some terrain-specific exceptions when using Canadian indirect fire methods), so on so forth. Automatic grenade launchers are worse, they weigh more, the ammunition is even bulkier, and it's quite difficult to remain supplied.

ATGMs at the platoon level (note plural) is a bad idea. You need the launcher and its associated kit carried by the team (conceivably two men can do this) with one or two missiles. The remaining missiles will have to be distributed into their local organization, who will have to carry their own equipment + radios and other such kit, like bombs for the mortar teams. A single ATGM at the platoon level is something I'm quite fond of. I'd recommend the Israeli Spike (In Europe, the "Euro Spike") weapon, lightweight and not too much of a bitch to manpack. Better performance than Javelin. Inexpensive.

MANPADS are difficult. Fitting them onto the roof or in the troop bay of an Infantry vehicle for rapid deployment in the case of enemy air attack is great. Carrying them, they are long and bulky. However, they're lighter than ATGMs, usually, and they provide great capability. But, you'll want more than one round per launcher and that means more shit to be carried. They're also expensive, as are ATGMs.

In my opinion, the optimum solution in a Rifle Platoon is analogous to what I have designed for the KKvdPK. I demonstrate:

Platoon (Rifle, Light Infantry)
- Headquarters Element: Lieutenant, Warrant Officer, Platoon Marksman, Platoon Medic, Platoon Radio Operator, Platoon Heavy Weapons Team (or 3x Riflemen)
- 3x Rifle Section: NCO, JNCO, Section Radio Operator, Section Machinegun Team (or 2x Automatic Rifle), 3x Riflemen
- 1x Weapons Section: NCO, JNCO, Section Radio Operator, 1x Platoon Machinegun (GPMG) team, 1x ATGM Team/2x Riflemen

Note the flexibility. The NCOs and JNCOs are assumed to carry rifles with underbarrel grenade launchers (UBGLs). The riflemen are able to carry Light Antitank Weapons (E.g. LAW-66) when required. The section could have a GPMG, which requires a Gunner and a dedicated Loader to carry the heavier belts of ammunition, or two automatic rifles (such as FN MINIMI) which do not require that sort of support. Riflemen can carry additional ammunition or weapons. Weapons section has a three man GPMG team; this includes what is referred to as a Sustained Fire Kit (SF Kit), with tripod, T&E mechanism, optic, lots of ammunition, spare barrels. These kits could be fitted to the GPMGs in the rifle sections if they have them as well, which is what would be done defensively, and this provides an awesome amount of fire. Platoon Heavy Weapons Team (in the HQ element) can be given a 60mm or 81mm mortar and a reasonable number of bombs, another GPMG, a ATGM, or even a couple of MANPADS and spare rounds. The platoon's weapon section carries an ATGM using the two man weapons team structure. They could concievably operate a second GPMG + SF Kit if the JNCO gave them a hand.

Note that each section has a Radio Operator. Typically the NCOs carry their own radios, if everybody isn't tied in on the Personal Role Radio system as used by the Brits, Canadians, I think the Americans have it, etc. However, the longer range radios lets the platoon operate over a larger piece of ground, great for sweep operations, coordinating with nearby friendly units, particularly via combined arms, and so on. Platoon radio will be the heaviest, though I tend to standardise on radios until about Company level, the sections and platoons carry the same digital+encrypted sets because they have excellent range for both morse signalling and voice telephony.

Your organization is pretty close to this, so in my mind it is "good to go." Just be aware that when you go to create Mechanised and Motorised units, they'll need more transport which is expensive in terms of acquisition, maintenance, and useage costs.

Note as to higher organization: Once you get above the battalion level, you typically start co-assigning units to be combined arms. Example is No. 2 Mechanized Brigade, KKvdPK:

- 2 Brigade (Mech)
-- BDE Headquarters
-- 1 Battalion (MechInf)
-- 2 Battalion (MechInf)
-- 3 Battalion (Tank)
-- 4 Battalion (Self Propelled Artillery)
-- 5 Battalion (Support)

Divisions are similar, except with more fun shit. For example, a Division structure in De Vliggenplaat - assuming full mobilization - would look like the brigade above, probably inclusive of two of them, with a SP Artillery Regiment, SP rocket launchers, combat engineering battalions, air defence batteries, and integrated (organic) aviation, e.g. attack helicopters.

Yeah. It's how we do things in the British Army (which is probably frowned upon by those who live in the USA - I think you lot have a similar system), working in units of threes. Most people just say "oh lets go for sixty men a platoon) because it gives them larger numbers and an advantage, on paper. In practice, coordinating the attack is more difficult.

Increasing the number of personnel becomes cumbersome, something which most Americans don't seem to grasp. I am merely lookinh into alternative, and sometimes experimental systems in order to find something that works well.

It's a case that three sections are easier for an officer to control than five in such a situation - he doesn't have the problems of coordinating so many men. And a smaller unit is more mobile than a larger one, as I'm sure you are aware.
The only time five-section platoons are useful are in static defence, from my experience (because there's less problems there in terms of mobility), and in situations where you expect a lot of the men to be casualties.

Oh, and the other problem with 10 men sections - most modern RL and NS vehicles are designed for eight/four men groups. You can fit five people in a humvee, but not very comfortably when they have kit as well.

This calls to mind my other plan, which was for a platoon with four sections. It would be larger than three, but would be more mobile.

In Monavian history, static defenses were popular, although generally Monavia has not been invaded in quite a long time. Of course, with proper planning, casualties can be minimized, but are still to be expected.

Your last point is only partly relevant, as I can commission someone to design equipment around a set of parameters like this (better check out NSD some time soon). I can see why four or eight man sections are used, usulayy because of one or two reasons. Either the forces had to be reorganized around their vehicles, or the vehicles were organized around the forces, which were being grouped in multiples of four.

I'll get back to the section issue later, as it seems that my platoons are still lacking.

I think the best way of describing the necessity of different sections is by going through how a platoon attack goes (in theory). Two sections split into paired fire teams, providing four arcs of fire on the enemy position, whilst trying not to shoot into each other. The one section providing fire support hangs back, whilst the others advance into position by staggered movement of that section's two fire teams, diverting fire as their comrades overrun the enemy. The advance continues to locate in depth positions, before the platoon regroups. The lieutenant is normally in the support section, to have the best view, with a third section standing back to act as both a rear guard and a reserve should they need extra fire support. Orders are given by the lieutenant to each section commander, who then gives orders onto the members of his section.

According to this description, you would have four groups of four men attacking from four different angles, with the final section of eight providing support fire. The lieutenant is giving orders from the rear, being stationed with the supporting section. So, how do I add strength and still keep it more mobile than my fellow Americans would like? (Them and their sixty-man platoons!)

My middle-ground compromise between size (overall strength/manpower) and mobility leads me to formulate this model:

PLATOONS (52 men):

3 standard (rifle) squads, (two attacking and covering, as discussed above and an extra one advancing)
1 weapons squad, consisting of:

1 mortar team leader
2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary)

Or

2 heavy machine gun teams
2 antitank launcher teams
1 antiaircraft launcher team

1 commissioned officer
1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer

For now, ignore the composition of the weapons squad. I will deal with that later in this post.

In theory, this is how I would expect a four-section platoon to operate: The first two sections would move to either side, providing firing angles as you have described. They would draw away fire from the advancing third section. Instead of having eight men in two groups of four draw away fire and have another eight men in two groups of four advance in a staggered pattern, I could have sixteen men draw away fire and provide cover, wile I have a whole section advance in the middle. The fourth section would be the weapons section, which would opoerate as you described.

It's a rough plan, but it appears to operate quite well, at least from my perspective.

I've noticed that your TO&E is still not registering a large number of NCOs. They come in three flavours; JNCO, NCO, and SNCO. Respectively, these are Junior NCOs, NCOs, and Senior NCOs. You're looking at everything from Corporal (which in the British Army can lead a Section of eight), while NCOs are typically Sergeants of a variety of flavours, and your SNCOs are your Warrant Officers and so on.

The very large platoons consume inordinate amounts of resources to be moved, to be kept static, and that expenditure goes up massively once they engage.

Assuming that I used four sections instead of five, they would use less resources. See above.

I have a ranking scheme which lays out ow personnel are ranked. The general ranking system looks like:

A1 (5 star)
A2 (4 star)
A3 (3 star)
A4 (2 star)
A5 (1 star)
B11 (officer)
B10 (officer)
B9 (officer)
B8 (officer)
B7 (officer)
B6 (officer)
B5 (enlisted)*
B4 (enlisted)*
B3 (enlisted)*
B2 (enlisted)
B1 (enlisted)

In the Monavian Army, for example, the ranks would be (under the above system):

Marshal of the Army
Field Marshal
Vice Field Marshal
General
Commander
Colonel
Lieutenant Colonel
Captain
Major
First Lieutenant
Second Lieutenant
Staff Sergeant*
Sergeant*
Corporal*
Lance-Corporal
Private

For our purposes, the ranks with an asterisk are NCO ranks on a platoon level. I assume that a Second Lieutenant is a commissioned officer on this level.

I also will make a leap of faith and say that the Junior NCO rank(s) you described include the corporal, while the NCO rank(s) you mentioned would be the sergeant and staff sergeant, and the Senior NCO rank(s), which are not shown, as we haven't gotten all of the way up that far would be first or second lieutenants.

I would not apply HMGs to the platoon. Heavy machineguns fire 12.7x99mm ammunition (NATO, e.g. the M2HB) or larger ammunition (largest coming to mind at present is the FN BRG-15, at 15.5x115mm) which weighs quite a bit. The tripod, traverse and elevation mechanism, optic, and ammunition all weigh a lot as well. This ammunition does not provide you with good area effect such as a mortar bomb burst, cannot be fired from a reverse slope position (with some exceptions, such as Canadian-style indirect machinegunnery), cannot engage troops in defilade (again, some terrain-specific exceptions when using Canadian indirect fire methods), so on so forth. Automatic grenade launchers are worse, they weigh more, the ammunition is even bulkier, and it's quite difficult to remain supplied.

So heavy machine guns (HGMs) and automatic grenade launchers on a platoon level are out. Would you recommend that I place those in the company level instead?

ATGMs at the platoon level (note plural) is a bad idea. You need the launcher and its associated kit carried by the team (conceivably two men can do this) with one or two missiles. The remaining missiles will have to be distributed into their local organization, who will have to carry their own equipment + radios and other such kit, like bombs for the mortar teams. A single ATGM at the platoon level is something I'm quite fond of. I'd recommend the Israeli Spike (In Europe, the "Euro Spike") weapon, lightweight and not too much of a bitch to manpack. Better performance than Javelin. Inexpensive.

You are also saying that having more than one antitank weapon per platoon is out, but having one is fine and makes for more mobility.

In my opinion, the optimum solution in a Rifle Platoon is analogous to what I have designed for the KKvdPK. I demonstrate:

Platoon (Rifle, Light Infantry)
- Headquarters Element: Lieutenant, Warrant Officer, Platoon Marksman, Platoon Medic, Platoon Radio Operator, Platoon Heavy Weapons Team (or 3x Riflemen)
- 3x Rifle Section: NCO, JNCO, Section Radio Operator, Section Machinegun Team (or 2x Automatic Rifle), 3x Riflemen
- 1x Weapons Section: NCO, JNCO, Section Radio Operator, 1x Platoon Machinegun (GPMG) team, 1x ATGM Team/2x Riflemen

In your weapons section, you would have a machine gun team and an ATGM (I assume that's antitank) team. What comes to mind is this:

SQUADS (10 men):

1 squad/section leader, typically an NCO
1 medic
2 light machine gunners, carrying a SAW (squad automatic weapon)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

PLATOONS (52 men):

3 standard (rifle) squads, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:

-1 mortar section leader (an NCO)
-2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
-1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary) This one would also carry the section's radio.

Or

-Section leader (an NCO)
-1 machine gun team (3)
-1 antitank launcher team (3)
-2 riflemen
-1 radio operator

1 commissioned officer
1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer

In the post below, I will detail my new arrangement.

The changes here are explained in the post immediately preceding this one.

ORGANIZATION SYSTEM ONE:

SECTIONS (10 men):

1 squad/section leader (typically an NCO)
1 medic
2 light machine gunners, carrying a SAW (squad automatic weapon)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

PLATOONS (44 men):

3 standard (rifle) squads, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
- 1 mortar section leader (an NCO)
- 2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
- 1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary) This one would also carry the section's radio.

Or

- 1 Section leader (an NCO)
- 1 machine gun team (3)
- 1 antitank launcher team (3)
- 2 riflemen
- 1 radio operator
1 Headquarters Element, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic

COMPANIES (224 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO
- 4 weapons squads, 2 of each type
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

BATTALIONS (940 men):

3 standard companies
1 weapons company, consisting of:
- Bullet list to follow
1 command platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commanding officer
- 1 executive officer
- 1 intelligence officer
- 1 logistics officer (similar to a quartermaster)
- 1 operations officer
- 1 medical officer
- 1 communications officer
- 1 personnel officer
- 1 judicial officer
- 1 chaplain
- 1 administrative clerk
- 1 adjutant
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic
- 3 rifle squads

REGIMENTS (3,044 men):

2 standard battalions
1 weapons battalion, consisting of:
- Bullet list to follow
1 command company, consisting of:
-1 command platoon
-3 rifle platoons
-1 weapons platoon
-2 administrative clerks
-1 executive officer
-1 commanding officer

BRIGADES (12,220 men):

4 regiments
1 command platoon

DIVISIONS (24,484 men):

2 brigades (composition to be figured out later)
1 command platoon

CORPS (97,936 men):

4 divisions

FIELD ARMY (293,808 men):

3 corps

ORGANIZATION SYSTEM TWO:

SECTIONS (10 men):

1 squad/section leader (typically an NCO)
1 medic
2 light machine gunners, carrying a SAW (squad automatic weapon)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

PLATOONS (44 men):

3 standard (rifle) squads, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
- 1 mortar section leader (an NCO)
- 2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
- 1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary) This one would also carry the section's radio.

Or

- 1 Section leader (an NCO)
- 1 machine gun team (3)
- 1 antitank launcher team (3)
- 2 riflemen
- 1 radio operator
1 Headquarters Element, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic

COMPANIES (224 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO
- 4 weapons squads, 2 of each type
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

BATTALIONS (940 men):

3 standard companies
1 weapons company, consisting of:
- Bullet list to follow
1 command platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commanding officer
- 1 executive officer
- 1 intelligence officer
- 1 logistics officer (similar to a quartermaster)
- 1 operations officer
- 1 medical officer
- 1 communications officer
- 1 personnel officer
- 1 judicial officer
- 1 chaplain
- 1 administrative clerk
- 1 adjutant
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic
- 3 rifle squads

BRIGADES (4,744 men):

3 standard battalions
2 weapons battalions
1 command platoon

DIVISIONS (23,764 men):

5 brigades (composition to be figured out later)
1 command platoon

CORPS (95,056 men):

4 divisions

FIELD ARMY (285,168 men):

3 corps
I still have not yet introduced my command/headquarters components or their composition for my larger units.

Looking over it real quickly theres only thing i would think you might wanna change, that is the Divisional size, i would suggest dropping it about 2,000-3,000 men more as that makes them easier to transport as a unit, so therefore you dont have 1 brigade end up somewhere 3 weeks ahead of the other 2 etc. etc.

To add more mobility, you would want to limit the men you have at most to about 4 sections, using them as you said - two normal sections providing cover, one section charging up to the enemy, and the other acting to provide mortar support and reserve firepower. The officer would have to rely very hard on his corporals in charge of his sections, should everything go belly up, and communications would have to be good. In addition, you would have to include good logistical support in your army to ensure that the supplies needed to be transported for these men are done so well (since larger force units are often more likely to be assailed by such problems).

The officer would have to rely very hard on his corporals in charge of his sections, should everything go belly up, and communications would have to be good.

To make an analogy to the corporate world, middle management has to rely heavily on lower management, as they often cannot micromanage everything personally.

In addition, you would have to include good logistical support in your army to ensure that the supplies needed to be transported for these men are done so well (since larger force units are often more likely to be assailed by such problems).

In my previous threads, most viewers neglected to address the logistics issue, making it more difficult. A logistics officer is typically found at the battalion level, from what my reading has told me, and above that there are probably whole platoons or companies devoted to driving trucks and flying transport aircraft to carry material and supplies. Finding where to0 put my logistical personnel (and how many) in each of the upper levels will be another challenge.

Well in terms of handling your logistics units, what seems to have worked for me so far leads me to advise here that a change of operating perspective first be done before you take that part of the task up. For the formations you've followed the usual (and effective-enough) bottom-up approach to drawing them up, but to handle the non-formational troops that will comprise the vast bulk of your land forces' staff momentarily switching to a parallel top-down approach (specifically top-to-middle where you work down to where the non-formational personnel start to intersect with the formational personnel) may help you out; starting with the notion that these various formations (brigades-to-armies) are only going to comprise at most half of your overall end-strength in personnel for the land forces. Probably closer to a third actually, depending on how infrastructurally-heavy or not your armies are, but there is a margin to work with at least.

Going with the proverbial thirds-model just to illustrate, under this the first of the other two thirds will consist of supporting personnel attached to various bases, army hospitals or institutes, academies, installations, and so forth; these installations may or may not have unit terminologies applied to them but the key point is that where your brigades-to-armies could be called 'force structure' these other personnel here could be called 'force infrastructure' and almost serve as the proverbial "logisticians' logistics" so to speak. Depending on inclinations or how sneaky you want to get, you could also put some SOF personnel/units in this bracket (especially those with higher-level mission taskings), but use caution since the vast vast bulk of this first third should simply be those who keep the bases' A/C running and man the recruiting stations or boot camps, so to speak.

After them according to this organizational construct should come the next third of personnel, organized into the more conventional sounding independent supporting units attached to Corps/Armies/Army Groups/&c; most of these would be independent brigades or equivalent units if assigned to those echelons AFAIK, but just lots of them and in many specialties too. Common ones would be Signals/Intelligence or separate units of each, Engineering, Maintenance/Logistics/Transport or any combination of separate units thereof, Military Police, Medical, Civil Affairs/PSYOPS if not separate of each, and then HQ units manning the various miscellaneous specialties not really requiring dedicated units of their own. More could doubtless be thought up but these are the basics at least. Note that these prior two thirds can perhaps be merged somewhat, if you wanted to raise the formations' slice of proverbial manpower pie to half; but if this were done I would suspect that you'd be followng an almost Air-Force like structure very dependent on fixed bases for much of its' higher-level supporting functions so caution would be advised.

Lastly come the formations proper, here meaning the combat troops although even these should have a fair proportion of forward support staff in their numbers too; here you should probably think on how to maybe readjust your formations a bit because though what's there is a good baseline for starting with, the personnel counts will start to balloon once you start tacking on the desired specialists for each echelon you choose. Hence, for the first step I think you may want to think about halving the Brigades to start with; generally when there were such defined separate Regimental and Brigade echelons as this in past armies they operated on a doubling basis between echelons, so a 'square' division of the sort you seem to be going for here would actually have four line regiments between its two brigades, rather than eight since the 'square' was reckoned from the regimental level. I also suspect it might be a better idea to be more consistent in multiplying each level, e.g. base three-plus-extras up to the regimental level, then base two-plus-extras for all higher units (Brigades +); the idea for this being to free up some numbers of personnel from your prior ceilings so that once you start attaching supporting units to the higher formations you can do so either without going beyond those prior ceilings or else so you don't go too far beyond them if you end up needing to do so anyway.

For our purposes, the ranks with an asterisk are NCO ranks on a platoon level. I assume that a Second Lieutenant is a commissioned officer on this level.

I also will make a leap of faith and say that the Junior NCO rank(s) you described include the corporal, while the NCO rank(s) you mentioned would be the sergeant and staff sergeant, and the Senior NCO rank(s), which are not shown, as we haven't gotten all of the way up that far would be first or second lieutenants.

No, Warrant Officers and SNCOs (Colour Sergeant, etc) are not commissioned officers. They're often the same age or even older than commissioned officers, but they're still noncomissioned officers. Lieutenants of any flavour are commissioned. Often you find that Captains lead platoons and Majors lead Companies, which is abnormal in that typically Lieutenants are assigned to Platoon Commander slots and Captains command Companies. The reason that this "step up" occurs is seniority and merit; it is time for someone to be promoted so they are promoted, but are not moved ahead in the organization chart (removed from a Company position to a Battalion position, for example) because there is no open slot for them or because they have made a successful argument in favour of staying with their troops.

Corporals and/or Sergeants command Sections. They're entrusted with carrying out orders from the Platoon Commander or the Platoon Sergeant/Platoon Warrant Officer. The Platoon Warrant and Platoon Sergeant are the same thing with different names; they have a mostly administrative function of ensuring the troops get water, food, fuel, ammunition, stay physically fit, are trained to the task, so on. The Platoon Commander also has a role in this, but the idea behind the PLT Warrant is to give him free hand to hunch over a map board, coordinate with other officers, and generally get things done operationally. Warrant Officers also serve in Navies and Air Forces as command personnel, for instance noncommissioned helicopter pilots are often Warrant Officers. They have various other roles, I like to put them in command of support teams. It doesn't have to be called a Warrant Officer but to lack a senior NCO cadre is something I have a hard time working without. It's certainly possible; you just need more junior officers.

So heavy machine guns (HGMs) and automatic grenade launchers on a platoon level are out. Would you recommend that I place those in the company level instead?

Yes, an AGL section with the Coy's weapons platoon is bloody marvellous. I like HMGs or AGLs, not both, and I personally tend towards HMGs because I am a Canadian and have a fetishism for the "Emma Gees". My weapons platoons typically involve a Mortar Section, Antitank Section, and Machinegun Section. These aren't restricted, by the way, to the ten-men-per/eight-men-per rule; I go by the numbers of weapons and the numbers of personnel required to operate them. Since I operate on a 3/1 Rifle/Weapons mix in the Platoon, the Coy has four weapons per section in the Weaps Platoon, which enables me to attach one of each to each platoon to bolster that platoon's organic weapons section, and leave one of each in reserve at the Coy Headquarters for use whenever or wherever needed. That's the nice thing about good Platoon and Company organization and why it is so important; this is where your tactical battles happen and thus where the flexibility really needs to be.

That is not to discount operational flexibility provided by well designed battalions and brigades, mind you.

You are also saying that having more than one antitank weapon per platoon is out, but having one is fine and makes for more mobility.

Yes, I am saying that one ATGM per weapons section does not hinder their mobility greatly, but having more than one - depending on the weapons system - can be a major handicap when it comes to climbing hills, traversing marshes, etc. Given the track-heavy nature of many NS militaries, I would strongly recommend having organic antitank in as many combat echelons as possible; sections can carry LAWs and so on but those are not so effective against MBTs.

In my previous threads, most viewers neglected to address the logistics issue, making it more difficult. A logistics officer is typically found at the battalion level, from what my reading has told me, and above that there are probably whole platoons or companies devoted to driving trucks and flying transport aircraft to carry material and supplies. Finding where to0 put my logistical personnel (and how many) in each of the upper levels will be another challenge.

Logisticians provide a pool of supplies from which Company officers draw to supply their formations. Platoon Warrants facilitate this, as in the above example I gave. You do have entire companies and so on dedicated to logistics supply and maintenance, these are typically attached at the Battalion level or higher during operations. When you create a unit designed to act independently of a Brigade or Division (which has to have these logistics elements), you typically attach enough combat arms to create a combined arms team (E.g. an Infantry Bn + Tank Squadron + Artillery Battery + Logistics & Support Team). As to how many, I typically do it by tons of cargo. What cargo will I need? What is the weight of an average load? I like my combat loads. For instance, if I know that a Light Infantry platoon's combat load of ammunition is 300kg (ammunition for all weapon systems organic to the platoon) then I know that I can carry three platoon's worth of ammunition on a truck that can carry 900kg. That truck requires one man to drive, ideally two for long hauls and because it's nice to have someone to talk to, watch the other side of the vehicle, and help perform maintenance. I may need a combat load of ammunition moved to the front per platoon per every two days of combat, sometimes every one day of combat (assuming intensive operations, not sporadic potshots during a lull in the fighting. Grenades are often chewed up very quickly, as are mortar bombs, for example), so what do I need to make that delivery happen? Fuel for the trucks, spare parts for the trucks should they break, who repairs my trucks? Somebody at the higher levels of the logistics organization, a military "Triple A Roadside Assistance", if you will. And so on. Generalizations will suffice, you don't have to head-bash with this stuff beyond any level of detail higher than what I've outlined in terms of the supply chain.

What Wagdog states is valid; but at this level irrelevant. Total forces is not the organizational concern here, your combat arms are, and the question is what kind of logistics support needs to be organic to the division and subordinate formations, not how does the division fit into the military as a whole, which is when we start looking at personnel at military academies, etc.

Yes, an AGL section with the Coy's weapons platoon is bloody marvellous. I like HMGs or AGLs, not both, and I personally tend towards HMGs because I am a Canadian and have a fetishism for the "Emma Gees". My weapons platoons typically involve a Mortar Section, Antitank Section, and Machinegun Section. These aren't restricted, by the way, to the ten-men-per/eight-men-per rule; I go by the numbers of weapons and the numbers of personnel required to operate them. Since I operate on a 3/1 Rifle/Weapons mix in the Platoon, the Coy has four weapons per section in the Weaps Platoon, which enables me to attach one of each to each platoon to bolster that platoon's organic weapons section, and leave one of each in reserve at the Coy Headquarters for use whenever or wherever needed. That's the nice thing about good Platoon and Company organization and why it is so important; this is where your tactical battles happen and thus where the flexibility really needs to be.

If you are saying that placing a grenade launcher (AGL), heavy machine gun, mortar, and antitank weapons into the companies weapons platoon.
Taking that into consideration, I would change the following format to the one beneath it.

COMPANIES (224 men):

4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO
- 4 weapons squads, 2 of each type
1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer

COMPANIES (224 men):

1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer
4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO
- 1 heavy machine (HMG) section
- 1 antitank section
- 1 mortar section
- 1 antitank section

Each section would be equipped with one or two of the type of weapon it carries, depending on portability and weight, in addition to the weight oif ammunition. I assume that the commanding officer of each section would direct the firing and make radio calls in certain cases, unless they have a dedicated radio operator.

Yes, I am saying that one ATGM per weapons section does not hinder their mobility greatly, but having more than one - depending on the weapons system - can be a major handicap when it comes to climbing hills, traversing marshes, etc. Given the track-heavy nature of many NS militaries, I would strongly recommend having organic antitank in as many combat echelons as possible; sections can carry LAWs and so on but those are not so effective against MBTs.

If a LAW is for light tanks, medium tanks, APCs, and other light to moderately armored vehicles, then I what would be used against an MBT.

Logisticians provide a pool of supplies from which Company officers draw to supply their formations. Platoon Warrants facilitate this, as in the above example I gave. You do have entire companies and so on dedicated to logistics supply and maintenance, these are typically attached at the Battalion level or higher during operations. When you create a unit designed to act independently of a Brigade or Division (which has to have these logistics elements), you typically attach enough combat arms to create a combined arms team (E.g. an Infantry Bn + Tank Squadron + Artillery Battery + Logistics & Support Team).

Armor and artillery should not be too difficult to add in once I get up that far in the organization system.

As to how many, I typically do it by tons of cargo. What cargo will I need? What is the weight of an average load? I like my combat loads. For instance, if I know that a Light Infantry platoon's combat load of ammunition is 300kg (ammunition for all weapon systems organic to the platoon) then I know that I can carry three platoon's worth of ammunition on a truck that can carry 900kg. That truck requires one man to drive, ideally two for long hauls and because it's nice to have someone to talk to, watch the other side of the vehicle, and help perform maintenance. I may need a combat load of ammunition moved to the front per platoon per every two days of combat, sometimes every one day of combat (assuming intensive operations, not sporadic potshots during a lull in the fighting. Grenades are often chewed up very quickly, as are mortar bombs, for example), so what do I need to make that delivery happen? Fuel for the trucks, spare parts for the trucks should they break, who repairs my trucks? Somebody at the higher levels of the logistics organization, a military "Triple A Roadside Assistance", if you will. And so on. Generalizations will suffice, you don't have to head-bash with this stuff beyond any level of detail higher than what I've outlined in terms of the supply chain.

So logistics does not need to be organized as much as combat forces? If that is so, then I can just tack on a few personnel to deal with each need, up to as many as are needed. Generally, I would prefer to have a logistical surplus over simply having "sufficient" personnel.

What Wagdog states is valid; but at this level irrelevant. Total forces is not the organizational concern here, your combat arms are, and the question is what kind of logistics support needs to be organic to the division and subordinate formations, not how does the division fit into the military as a whole, which is when we start looking at personnel at military academies, etc.

While initially I focused on combat forces, I was hoping to expand the scope of this thread to include the complete personnel breakdown of my land-based forces. You are right in narrowing it down to one area to make the bigger picture easier to understand, but this thread will grow out of having only the combat troops addessed in the breakdown as time goes by.

Well in terms of handling your logistics units, what seems to have worked for me so far leads me to advise here that a change of operating perspective first be done before you take that part of the task up. For the formations you've followed the usual (and effective-enough) bottom-up approach to drawing them up, but to handle the non-formational troops that will comprise the vast bulk of your land forces' staff momentarily switching to a parallel top-down approach (specifically top-to-middle where you work down to where the non-formational personnel start to intersect with the formational personnel) may help you out; starting with the notion that these various formations (brigades-to-armies) are only going to comprise at most half of your overall end-strength in personnel for the land forces. Probably closer to a third actually, depending on how infrastructurally-heavy or not your armies are, but there is a margin to work with at least.

A rteversal of course might works well, but I must first build a more solid foundation before turning around. Now, it seems that the lager the units get, the more logistics personnel will be required, and by the time I reach my field armies, I will be having tens of thousands of personnel doing logistics work.

Going with the proverbial thirds-model just to illustrate, under this the first of the other two thirds will consist of supporting personnel attached to various bases, army hospitals or institutes, academies, installations, and so forth; these installations may or may not have unit terminologies applied to them but the key point is that where your brigades-to-armies could be called 'force structure' these other personnel here could be called 'force infrastructure' and almost serve as the proverbial "logisticians' logistics" so to speak. Depending on inclinations or how sneaky you want to get, you could also put some SOF personnel/units in this bracket (especially those with higher-level mission taskings), but use caution since the vast vast bulk of this first third should simply be those who keep the bases' A/C running and man the recruiting stations or boot camps, so to speak.

You are proposing, if I am reading this correctly, that I have the first third of my military personnel be maintainence workers, hospital staff, academy instructors, and so on; essentially doing work that seems somewhat civilian in nature.

After them according to this organizational construct should come the next third of personnel, organized into the more conventional sounding independent supporting units attached to Corps/Armies/Army Groups/&c; most of these would be independent brigades or equivalent units if assigned to those echelons AFAIK, but just lots of them and in many specialties too. Common ones would be Signals/Intelligence or separate units of each, Engineering, Maintenance/Logistics/Transport or any combination of separate units thereof, Military Police, Medical, Civil Affairs/PSYOPS if not separate of each, and then HQ units manning the various miscellaneous specialties not really requiring dedicated units of their own.

You are saying that the second third should be composed of what I highlighted in lime green, to be concise.

More could doubtless be thought up but these are the basics at least. Note that these prior two thirds can perhaps be merged somewhat, if you wanted to raise the formations' slice of proverbial manpower pie to half; but if this were done I would suspect that you'd be followng an almost Air-Force like structure very dependent on fixed bases for much of its' higher-level supporting functions so caution would be advised.

I don't mind having a more static system of defence, as I consider attacking to require more mobility and defending should be able to accommodate for more static doctrines. I am not someone who expects to fight an offensive war on NS, more likely some loose cannon who likes to declare war on those who he/she disagrees with will invade me, although in three years of playing on NS (half of that time I've used the forums here) nothing of the sort has happened.

Heres a list of some Heavy Hitting ATGMs

TOW
MBT LAW
Metis-M for shorter Ranges
HOT
MILAN
PARS 3 LR
Spike
Nimrod Missile
AT-15 Springer
FGM-172 SRAW
BILL 2
Kornet
Javelin

These are some i would suggest that are Man Portable, though the Springer and Kornet are pushing that description as you have to stop and set them up, most of the others are pretty good for Man portable with the exception of the Nimrod

Manportable does not mean that you fire them from your shoulder. The term for that is "shoulder-fired". Manportable means that the tripod, sighting mechanism, and weapon tube can be carried by a team of men; having to set up the weapon typically takes only a few seconds with a well trained crew and provides significant stability (accuracy) advantages, particularly with SACLOS missiles.

Again that has to do mostly with how i consider them as well. To me their all Man Portable because they can be moved from Position to Position by a man or a couple of men, but in my own opinion ones like the kornet and Springer are pushing it as you have to set it up by my own opinion. As for the accuracy, Kornet and Springer are Laser Guided, which means you have to have a line of sight on the target at all times to hit it, while the Spike, Javelin, FGM-172 SRAW etc. etc. are heat guide and fire and forget, and those missile can be mostly carried by a single man and fired in the amount of time it takes for him to aim it and it to lock on.

These are some i would suggest that are Man Portable, though the Springer and Kornet are pushing that description as you have to stop and set them up, most of the others are pretty good for Man portable with the exception of the Nimrod

Manportable does not mean that you fire them from your shoulder. The term for that is "shoulder-fired". Manportable means that the tripod, sighting mechanism, and weapon tube can be carried by a team of men; having to set up the weapon typically takes only a few seconds with a well trained crew and provides significant stability (accuracy) advantages, particularly with SACLOS missiles.

Again that has to do mostly with how i consider them as well. To me their all Man Portable because they can be moved from Position to Position by a man or a couple of men, but in my own opinion ones like the kornet and Springer are pushing it as you have to set it up by my own opinion. As for the accuracy, Kornet and Springer are Laser Guided, which means you have to have a line of sight on the target at all times to hit it, while the Spike, Javelin, FGM-172 SRAW etc. etc. are heat guide and fire and forget, and those missile can be mostly carried by a single man and fired in the amount of time it takes for him to aim it and it to lock on.

All of the above can be carried by one or more men, therefore they are man-portable. The term "shoulder-fired" refers to a weapon that can be carried by one man and fired from the shoulder like a rifle.

If the saying that "A tank has three speeds: slow, slower, and slowest." is correct, then a few seconds difference in firing makes little difference. Now, if it is bearing down on you at freeway speeds, that is another story, but I will not address that scenario.

De Vliggenplaat, could you tell me more about running a weapons company? I think I have the standard company figured out, as of the last post I made (four posts ago).

Again its just my own personal description, i tend to classify things different than other people.

De Vliggenplaat, could you tell me more about running a weapons company? I think I have the standard company figured out, as of the last post I made (four posts ago).


Firstly, apologies for the delay. Exams intervened.

On to your question. Weapons Coys are best looked at in the context of organic supporting assets as applied to an Infantry Battalion. The key differences between organic fire support and attached fire support are as follows:

- Organic is typically available for training exercises unless the point of the exercise is to work on section or patrol tactics, which typically doesn't mean establishing a base of fire with a GPMG + SF Kit + 2x 50mm mortars. As a result the platoon leader and section leaders, as well as anybody else trained to, get very good at calling in and adjusting this fire. I've been reading instances of 3" mortar gunners in the Canadian Army during WWII nailing German positions with their first round just because they had that much practice and the guys calling for the fire knew exactly how to work with these highly competent mortarmen.

- Attached is typically not available during training exercises unless the point of the exercise is to develop the ability to work with that asset. Tanks are attached in order to practice Armour-Infantry cooperation, artillery batteries are attached* in order to practice calling for supporting fires, CAS is available in order to practice calling in airstrikes, et cetera. Some fire support, such as naval gunfire, heavy bombs, or even tactical air is controlled by specialist personnel, the well known Forward Observation Officer and Forward Air Controller.

* - Artillery isn't attached to units below battalion level except in rare cases where combat groups are being formed, or the artillery in question is an assault gun battery, for example, which is treated far differently than a SPH or SPG battery. What happens is that you assign priority of fire from a certain unit (example: 3rd Artillery Regiment) to a particular unit (example: 2nd Infantry Battalion) so that 3AR supports 2IB whenever 2IB calls for fire. Now, a battalion having a full Regiment of guns on hand to batter whatever they want is sort of a wet dream of mine, I have a thing for directing artillery. Hand of God. Hand of God.

Equipment at the platoon level has to be able to be moved by men walking over shitty ground carrying a lot of other equipment, sometimes moving quite carefully to keep noise to a minimum, while trying to remain concealed. As a result, Weapons Sections in the platoon typically don't have very heavy equipment. The norm is a light antitank guided weapon of some sort (sometimes found in the platoon headquarters element) and medium machineguns/general purpose machineguns (same gun, different names). I like having 50mm mortars in this as well, though 60mm and even 81mm teams work as well. Anything over 80-82mm is going to be too heavy to move, and if it isn't there's been some tremendous breakthrough in metallurgical research or someone's sold you a mortar that will explode every time you use it.

Equipment at the company level is typically restricted to "can men move it?" level. However, nearly all Infantry units save for "Light" type formations (Light, Mountain, Airborne) have some sort of transport capacity other than "Boot, Mk.1" at the Coy level, so it is possible to equip with heavier ATGMs, mortars with more ammunition (still typically 81mm or so), even AGS systems, particularly if these weapons can be mounted to vehicles. Mechanised Infantry and Motorised Infantry (tracked AFVs or wheeled AFVs, though Motorised can also refer to riding trucks) often have supporting weapons mounted to vehicles, for instance M-113A3s equipped with Mk.19 AGLs, TOW mounts, and M-113 mortar carriers, which would comprise in small quantities a Weapons Platoon for a Mech Inf formation during the Cold War, for example. These weapons can very often be dismounted from the vehicle and used by the crew running around on foot, as tripods and optics for them can be easily stored inside or on the vehicle.

However, at the Battalion level you are now dealing with dedicated Weapons Companies. These have their own transport, sometimes they have their own vehicles dedicated to support missions. For instance, dedicated tank destroyers may be part of a Weapons Coy, particularly if the Battalion is mounted in tracks and the AT vehicle shares the same chassis as the IFV, for example. They will almost certainly have 120mm mortars, either towed or mounted in something like the CV90 AMOS system. I've seen 81mm and 120mm mortar carriers on the M113 chassis, and I've seen a M1126 Stryker vehicle that was a 120mm mortar carrier, but that variant seems to have been cancelled for some absolutely fucking insane reason; the M1126 series is not great but that mortar carrier gave the "Stryker Combat Team" concept a lot of viability it otherwise does not have. At the battalion level, you definitely have AGL or HMG platoons, mounted on carriers. The Universal Carrier from WWII is a good example of what I'm talking about when I say a weapons carrier. It was alternatively used as an APC, a runabout general purpose vehicle (everything from resupply to casualty evacuation), a carrier for Vickers MGs (.303 to .50 cal), a carrier for mortars, and was useful when it came to towing "Land Mattress" rocket systems around. The Land Mattress, by the way, is not a system you would typically see organically at the battalion level but you would certainly attach batteries of it to the battalion or its subunits.

Much as I described the function of a Weapons Platoon to allow a Coy Commander to mass his heavy weapons or distribute them out amongst the platoons in his command, a Weapons Coy is similar. You simply have greater quantities of weapons, and these are typically heavier. If we return to the Spike ATGW/EuroSpike ATGW example, while a Weapons Section may have Spike SR and a Weapons Platoon may have Spike MR or LR, a Weapons Coy will have Spike ER. Long range antitank weapons can be used on short range targets, but short range antitank weapons cannot be used to swat tanks at 5km+. Mortars in Weapons Coys are typically 120mm. I like to put together Weaps Coys of three batteries/troops/sections of each, because I have four company battalions with three rifle, one weapons, so this allows me to put a section of each type of weapon (ATGM, Mortar, HMG/AGL, etc) to each Company to be used tactically as the ground, situation, and mission dictate.

This is about as low as you have to go to get things integrated. Once you're over the battalion level it actually gets much easier, because it's no longer a tactical game so much as it's an operational game, which involves much more mass and less micromanagement; that's why you have subordinate commanders. A battalion may be as much as ~1,500 men, but it's still a pretty closely-knit organization. A Brigade, not so much.

Keep in mind that the Commonwealth centered its Regiments for a very long time on single battalions, and the second battalion existed only to maintain the base at home and provide replacements for men from the first battalion who had been killed in action, gone MIA, gone down to illness, etc, etc. Now we have multiple battalion regiments (E.g. the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry with 1, 2, and 3 PPCLI, each number denoting a combat battalion, plus support battalion and so on) and those fucking abominations in Britain where they take four regiments and cram them into a single battalion: "Queen's Own Scottish Regiment" for a ficticious (to my knowledge) example, with "A" Coy consisting of what used to be the First Scottish Fencibles Regiment, "B" Coy being the King's Own Scottish Borderers, and so on so forth. It is entirely possible to build the sort of Regimental esprit you may be seeking on a battalion system. Regiment is just a organizational size, it's the mindset that matters.

Firstly, apologies for the delay. Exams intervened.

That's fine with me; I'm on vacation, so my NS access is limited.

On to your question. Weapons Coys are best looked at in the context of organic supporting assets as applied to an Infantry Battalion. The key differences between organic fire support and attached fire support are as follows:

- Organic is typically available for training exercises unless the point of the exercise is to work on section or patrol tactics, which typically doesn't mean establishing a base of fire with a GPMG + SF Kit + 2x 50mm mortars. As a result the platoon leader and section leaders, as well as anybody else trained to, get very good at calling in and adjusting this fire. I've been reading instances of 3" mortar gunners in the Canadian Army during WWII nailing German positions with their first round just because they had that much practice and the guys calling for the fire knew exactly how to work with these highly competent mortarmen.

- Attached is typically not available during training exercises unless the point of the exercise is to develop the ability to work with that asset. Tanks are attached in order to practice Armour-Infantry cooperation, artillery batteries are attached* in order to practice calling for supporting fires, CAS is available in order to practice calling in airstrikes, et cetera. Some fire support, such as naval gunfire, heavy bombs, or even tactical air is controlled by specialist personnel, the well known Forward Observation Officer and Forward Air Controller.

Organic fire support is therefore something that appears in training more often than not, and attached fire support is more or less for actual deployment, unless training involves learning how to use the support fire units.

* - Artillery isn't attached to units below battalion level except in rare cases where combat groups are being formed, or the artillery in question is an assault gun battery, for example, which is treated far differently than a SPH or SPG battery. What happens is that you assign priority of fire from a certain unit (example: 3rd Artillery Regiment) to a particular unit (example: 2nd Infantry Battalion) so that 3AR supports 2IB whenever 2IB calls for fire.

Artillery is herefore used to support a specific unit against a specific target. This appears quite simple.

I have a thing for directing artillery. Hand of God. Hand of God.

Artillery, when properly applied in sufficient numbers can be an effective tool against an enemy. I will discuss artillery shortly in this thread.

Equipment at the platoon level has to be able to be moved by men walking over shitty ground carrying a lot of other equipment, sometimes moving quite carefully to keep noise to a minimum, while trying to remain concealed. As a result, Weapons Sections in the platoon typically don't have very heavy equipment. The norm is a light antitank guided weapon of some sort (sometimes found in the platoon headquarters element) and medium machineguns/general purpose machineguns (same gun, different names). I like having 50mm mortars in this as well, though 60mm and even 81mm teams work as well. Anything over 80-82mm is going to be too heavy to move, and if it isn't there's been some tremendous breakthrough in metallurgical research or someone's sold you a mortar that will explode every time you use it.

I believe that we have covered that in some of our previous posts, yet I still wonder if my selections are appropriate for such terrible terrain as you describe.

Equipment at the company level is typically restricted to "can men move it?" level. However, nearly all Infantry units save for "Light" type formations (Light, Mountain, Airborne) have some sort of transport capacity other than "Boot, Mk.1" at the Coy level,

Take the following standard or "rifle" company...

COMPANIES (224 men):

1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer
4 rifle platoons
1 weapons platoon, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO
- 1 heavy machine (HMG) section
- 1 antitank section
- 1 mortar section
- 1 AGL section

...and then adapt the structure to create a weapons company. To do that, I must now consider your next piece of advice:

...so it is possible to equip with heavier ATGMs, mortars with more ammunition (still typically 81mm or so), even AGS systems, particularly if these weapons can be mounted to vehicles. Mechanised Infantry and Motorised Infantry (tracked AFVs or wheeled AFVs, though Motorised can also refer to riding trucks) often have supporting weapons mounted to vehicles...

If the weapons company has five platoons, then I can approximate the structure thereof as:

COMPANIES (224 men):

1 administrative clerk
1 MP (military police) officer
1 executive officer
1 commanding officer
1 antitank platoon
- composition to be figured out later
1 heavy machine gun platoon
- composition to be determined later
1 heavy mortar platoon
- again, I will deal with these details in another post farther down th line
1 antiaircraft platoon
- ditto to above
1 other unit (probably headquarters or another type of heavy weapons. If not that, then make them logistics personnel, who carry the extra ammunition and drive trucks, haul material, etc. Barring either of those, make them "reserves.")[/QUOTE]

...for instance M-113A3s equipped with Mk.19 AGLs, TOW mounts, and M-113 mortar carriers, which would comprise in small quantities a Weapons Platoon for a Mech Inf formation during the Cold War, for example. These weapons can very often be dismounted from the vehicle and used by the crew running around on foot, as tripods and optics for them can be easily stored inside or on the vehicle.

Perhaps I could make the last platoon have more motorized equipment.

However, at the Battalion level you are now dealing with dedicated Weapons Companies. These have their own transport, sometimes they have their own vehicles dedicated to support missions. For instance, dedicated tank destroyers may be part of a Weapons Coy, particularly if the Battalion is mounted in tracks and the AT vehicle shares the same chassis as the IFV, for example. They will almost certainly have 120mm mortars, either towed or mounted in something like the CV90 AMOS system. I've seen 81mm and 120mm mortar carriers on the M113 chassis, and I've seen a M1126 Stryker vehicle that was a 120mm mortar carrier, but that variant seems to have been cancelled for some absolutely fucking insane reason; the M1126 series is not great but that mortar carrier gave the "Stryker Combat Team" concept a lot of viability it otherwise does not have. At the battalion level, you definitely have AGL or HMG platoons, mounted on carriers. The Universal Carrier from WWII is a good example of what I'm talking about when I say a weapons carrier. It was alternatively used as an APC, a runabout general purpose vehicle (everything from resupply to casualty evacuation), a carrier for Vickers MGs (.303 to .50 cal), a carrier for mortars, and was useful when it came to towing "Land Mattress" rocket systems around. The Land Mattress, by the way, is not a system you would typically see organically at the battalion level but you would certainly attach batteries of it to the battalion or its subunits.

So I can put tank destroyers into a weapons company! Then, I can add that to the antitank platoon and have a tank destroyer plaoon in addition (you may have given me an idea for my fifth weapons platoon to make up the weapons company.)

Keep in mind that the Commonwealth centered its Regiments for a very long time on single battalions, and the second battalion existed only to maintain the base at home and provide replacements for men from the first battalion who had been killed in action, gone MIA, gone down to illness, etc, etc. Now we have multiple battalion regiments (E.g. the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry with 1, 2, and 3 PPCLI, each number denoting a combat battalion, plus support battalion and so on)...It is entirely possible to build the sort of Regimental esprit you may be seeking on a battalion system. Regiment is just a organizational size, it's the mindset that matters.

In my "research" from reading various sources, I have come across similar systems among many different armed forces, the foremost example being NATO. According to an organizational table I came across while reading, this is the common system:

Section
Platoon
Company
Battalion
Regiment
Brigade
Division
"Corps" or similar equivalent
"Army" or "field army" or similar equivalent
"Amy group" or similar equivalent
"region/theater/front"

These referred to command units in the hierarchy, as evidenced by this page, which gave me the above series of designations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Organization#Hierarchy_of_modern_armies)

The basis for my original system of organization was that each larger unit would be composed of several smaller units, and so forth down to having individual soldiers. By making all units follow a modular system of grouping, I can instantly tell how many personel are in a certain level of the force, i.e. "a section has x number of men; a platoon has y number of men, a company has z number of men, etc." If I followed a format where the sizes of units varied, so that each group had a [I]range of sizes, and each larger unit had a varying number of smaller units making it up, the result would be a mess. I would have to see how many folks I stuck in every unit being deployed in an order of battle, and then spend hours doing the addition to find out just how much I'm sending out, since I am not just sending out modular forces which I can deal with quickly.

Organic fire support is therefore something that appears in training more often than not, and attached fire support is more or less for actual deployment, unless training involves learning how to use the support fire units.

And this is because on operations (deployment), the attached assets are in a state of flux. How they are deployed depends entirely on what the enemy is doing or what your commanders are trying to achieve; it seems we are in agreement on this point. Attached fire support is for when you have it, but as to when you get it is almost random, therefore it is important to learn how to work without it. The Americans have a nasty habit of training with close air, fast air, and artillery of all flavours, constantly. This is dangerous because on operations, those assets are not always available.

I believe that we have covered that in some of our previous posts, yet I still wonder if my selections are appropriate for such terrible terrain as you describe.

Quite, though we have not discussed actual equipment. I would recommend, for example, the L16A1 81mm mortar as a medium weapon. As Clausewitz wrote: Fighting has determined everything appertaining to arms and equipment, and these in turn modify the mode of fighting; there is, therefore, a reciprocity of action between the two, which in short means we can only discuss tactics and organization in the context of the equipment these formations use, and the equipment itself can only be discussed in the context of its intended employment and secondary roles. Do you hike or backpack at all? Attempt to move quietly with a heavy pack on your back over rough ground. It will give you an appreciation of some of the difficulties, and why 120mm mortars are not organic to platoons or companies.

I presume your Weapons Company TO&E to look as thus:

Administrative/Headquarters Element:
- 1x Administrative Clerk
- 1x MP Officer
- 1x Officer, Commanding
- 1x Officer, Executive

Antitank Platoon
Heavy Machinegun Platoon
Heavy Mortar Platoon
Air Defence Platoon
In Flux Platoon

I will point out now: Your companies are severely lacking in headquarters personnel based on this model. You will want signals and support organic to the headquarters element. This I should have pointed out earlier; here is a theoretical workup for your HQ elements at the Coy level:

Headquarters Platoon:
- Administrative Section (2x Clerk, 4x Runners) [NOTE: Runners are "general purpose" and can be combat troops in need of a rest assigned this duty, or troops not up to combat operations assigned to administrative tasks to keep them away from the field. They do not serve to simply run messages, they'll do whatever they're told to do that they can do.]
- Command Section (Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, Operations Officer, Intelligence Officer, Logistics Officer, Company Warrant Officer/Sergeant Major)
- Signals Section (4x Radio Operators, minimum, though I like to put in radio operators with the command section, then additional signals equipment in the Signals Section, such as field telephones, a lot of comms wire, longer range radios and even generators carried on the back of light trucks.)
- Medical Section (1x Company Medical Officer, 1x Medical Officer's Assistant 4x Stretcher Bearers/Orderlies/Company Medics/Operations Medics, whatever you want to call them)

Keep in mind that the Medical Officer's purpose is just to treat the combat wounded, but also to inspect and declare indigenous water sources to be safe to drink from, to inspect any questionable lodgings to determine if it's safe to bunk troops there or if they will develop scurvy/ebola/marburg/a severe case of Death from living there, and so on. With motorised units, I often assign ambulances ("Armoured Medical Evacuation Vehicles" or similar) to the Coy Medical team. This enables rapid evacuation of casualties to the Battalion Dressing Post or Regimental Aid Station. As you are likely well aware, time between being wounded and treatment is directly proporational to the likelihood of dying of wounds. The entire Headquarters team, at any level, functions as one unit. Commanders often keep part of their command in reserve to escort the headquarters unit when on the move and to act as a tactical reserve. In the Canadian Forces, this is usually referred to as "Niner's Tac", as Niner is how we denote commanders on the radio. The Americans used to use "Six", I don't know if they still do. "Tac" is simply shorthand for "Tactical Reserve".

Your "In Flux Platoon" could be removed outright; Weapons Coys don't have to match Rifle Coys exactly in the number of platoons (provided that, according to the model I have detailed above, you have sufficient weapons sections in these platoons to detach one section to each platoon/company as may be required). The number of men "freed up" by removal of this platoon could be used to bolster your other platoons: more men to lug ammunition, tripods, or even man more weapons in each of the platoons and their subordinate sections.

You mentioned giving this last, as of now un-role'd platoon, more motorised equipment. I like this idea and may have to steal it for my own use. WWII Canadian Infantry Battalions had a Universal Carrier Platoon which acted as a tactical reserve; these formations also had their heavy weapons mounted on carriers or carried by the carriers. This is particularly valuable in the context of a bounding advance; in a bounding advance each element moves under the protection of another. While A Company advances, B Company covers A Coy's advance, then once A is in place, B moves. The weapons teams would relocate in order to provide covering fire for each bounding element; greater mobility is thus hugely advantageous as they would have to move in "sprints" from one firing position to the next. In your case, the undesignated platoon could be given carriers to mount up a platoon's weapons and move them where needed, or even have enough carriers to relocate entire platoons (for organisational tidiness, a section of this 'carrier platoon' would have sufficient vehicles to "lift" an entire weapons platoon in the Weapons Coy) simultaneously. In the defensive, being able to rapidly relocate supporting weapons can make the difference between them surviving or being destroyed by a counter-battery mission (for the mortars) or being destroyed by artillery because they are priority targets. It also enables a commander to rapidly shift his base of fire to deal with enemy attacks. In the context of Light Infantry operations, if the ground is too rugged then the carrier platoon can be left behind to help with the supply train, or dismounted to act as extra riflemen. The key is personnel training. There is nothing inherently bad about mounting your support weapons in an Infantry formation or even lifting your troops via trucks (they then dismount well away from the fight and advance to the contact, as opposed to riding to contact as with APCs or IFVs) so long as your men are trained well enough to be able to operate away from these vehicles, carrying all of their necessities with them.

So I can put tank destroyers into a weapons company! Then, I can add that to the antitank platoon and have a tank destroyer plaoon in addition (you may have given me an idea for my fifth weapons platoon to make up the weapons company.)

This is also quite possible, though it may obsolete the antitank platoon (which I assume to be using ATGM of some sort). The major advantage of a "tank destroyer platoon" is that they can be used as assault guns; to use the CV90120-T or Stryker MGS as an example, the 120mm or 105mm guns that those vehicles mount, respectively, can also load High Explosive ammunition in addition to their armour piercing rounds. This, and being machinegun proof, is quite valuable in the context of obliterating enemy machinegun positions. Typically, Light Infantry formations would not have this sort of asset available; opting instead for more men to help carry mortars and mortar ammunition, as mortars are "pocket artillery" and popular with every Infantry commander I've ever talked to. However, for all other types of Infantry who already ride to work, this is definitely something you'd be likely to see in a TO&E.


The basis for my original system of organization was that each larger unit would be composed of several smaller units, and so forth down to having individual soldiers. By making all units follow a modular system of grouping, I can instantly tell how many personel are in a certain level of the force, i.e. "a section has x number of men; a platoon has y number of men, a company has z number of men, etc." If I followed a format where the sizes of units varied, so that each group had a range of sizes, and each larger unit had a varying number of smaller units making it up, the result would be a mess. I would have to see how many folks I stuck in every unit being deployed in an order of battle, and then spend hours doing the addition to find out just how much I'm sending out, since I am not just sending out modular forces which I can deal with quickly.


I now have a better understanding of why you are trying to keep X number of personnel in a formation designated "Company". It is workable, as we have discussed above. In the context of NationStates RP'ing however, it is not strictly necessary. I never say that I am deploying 10,000 personnel. I am simply deploying the 23rd Motorised Infantry ("Royal Dragoon Guards") Division. If the other player should want an idea of how many men are in the Royal Dragoon Guards, he is welcome to consult my TO&E. This however, is an aside to the topic at hand.

And this is because on operations (deployment), the attached assets are in a state of flux. How they are deployed depends entirely on what the enemy is doing or what your commanders are trying to achieve; it seems we are in agreement on this point. Attached fire support is for when you have it, but as to when you get it is almost random, therefore it is important to learn how to work without it.

This may tie into Alfegos's point about mobility and smaller platoons.

The Americans have a nasty habit of training with close air, fast air, and artillery of all flavours, constantly. This is dangerous because on operations, those assets are not always available.

This is most ture; perhaps it stems from the American tendency to think that they always have whatever they need at all times. We haven't even fought a major war (thin World War II) in so long, and so it is easy to be lulled into thinking that smaller conflicts are all that will ever happen, and that the enemy always has crappy equipment.

Quite, though we have not discussed actual equipment. I would recommend, for example, the L16A1 81mm mortar as a medium weapon. As Clausewitz wrote: Fighting has determined everything appertaining to arms and equipment, and these in turn modify the mode of fighting; there is, therefore, a reciprocity of action between the two, which in short means we can only discuss tactics and organization in the context of the equipment these formations use, and the equipment itself can only be discussed in the context of its intended employment and secondary roles. Do you hike or backpack at all? Attempt to move quietly with a heavy pack on your back over rough ground. It will give you an appreciation of some of the difficulties, and why 120mm mortars are not organic to platoons or companies.

I presume your Weapons Company TO&E to look as thus:

Administrative/Headquarters Element:
- 1x Administrative Clerk
- 1x MP Officer
- 1x Officer, Commanding
- 1x Officer, Executive

Antitank Platoon
Heavy Machinegun Platoon
Heavy Mortar Platoon
Air Defence Platoon
In Flux Platoon

Correct. My use of "platoons" here is to create a rough plan.

I will point out now: Your companies are severely lacking in headquarters personnel based on this model. You will want signals and support organic to the headquarters element. This I should have pointed out earlier; here is a theoretical workup for your HQ elements at the Coy level:

Headquarters Platoon:
- Administrative Section (2x Clerk, 4x Runners) [NOTE: Runners are "general purpose" and can be combat troops in need of a rest assigned this duty, or troops not up to combat operations assigned to administrative tasks to keep them away from the field. They do not serve to simply run messages, they'll do whatever they're told to do that they can do.]
- Command Section (Commanding Officer, Executive Officer, Operations Officer, Intelligence Officer, Logistics Officer, Company Warrant Officer/Sergeant Major)
- Signals Section (4x Radio Operators, minimum, though I like to put in radio operators with the command section, then additional signals equipment in the Signals Section, such as field telephones, a lot of comms wire, longer range radios and even generators carried on the back of light trucks.)
- Medical Section (1x Company Medical Officer, 1x Medical Officer's Assistant 4x Stretcher Bearers/Orderlies/Company Medics/Operations Medics, whatever you want to call them)

You just about hit the nail on the head with that last description, essentially providing a basic template for organizing the weapons company.

I will incorporate your wisdom into this new model:

WEAPONS COMPANY (243 men):

Administrative/Headquarters Element:
- Administrative "section"
-- 2 clerks
-- 4 "runners"
- Command "section"
-- 1 commanding officer
-- 1 executive officer
-- 1 intelligence officer
-- 1 logistics officer
-- 1 operations officer
-- 1 MP (military police)
-- 1 warrant officer
- Signals "section"
-- 4 radio operators
- Medical "section"
-- 1 Company Medical Officer
-- 1 Medical Officer's Assistant
-- 4 Stretcher Bearers/Orderlies/Company Medics/Operations Medics (Using your terms for these).
1 antitank platoon
- composition to be figured out later
1 heavy machine gun platoon
- composition to be determined later
1 heavy mortar platoon
- again, I will deal with these details in another post farther down th line
1 antiaircraft platoon
- ditto to above
1 "In flux" platoon

I'm briefly keeping the "in flux platoon," in case I may need to have it in my planning later, if not, I will probably scrap it altogether.

Keep in mind that the Medical Officer's purpose is [not] just to treat the combat wounded, but also to inspect and declare indigenous water sources to be safe to drink from, to inspect any questionable lodgings to determine if it's safe to bunk troops there or if they will develop scurvy/Ebola/Marburg/a severe case of Death from living there, and so on. With motorised units, I often assign ambulances ("Armoured Medical Evacuation Vehicles" or similar) to the Coy Medical team. This enables rapid evacuation of casualties to the Battalion Dressing Post or Regimental Aid Station. As you are likely well aware, time between being wounded and treatment is directly proporational to the likelihood of dying of wounds. The entire Headquarters team, at any level, functions as one unit.

I understand what you are saying here, and will keep that in mind.

Your "In Flux Platoon" could be removed outright; Weapons Coys don't have to match Rifle Coys exactly in the number of platoons (provided that, according to the model I have detailed above, you have sufficient weapons sections in these platoons to detach one section to each platoon/company as may be required). The number of men "freed up" by removal of this platoon could be used to bolster your other platoons: more men to lug ammunition, tripods, or even man more weapons in each of the platoons and their subordinate sections.

What about making it a "logistics" platoon? I understand that the idea is odd, but it just may work.

You mentioned giving this last, as of now un-role'd platoon, more motorised equipment. I like this idea and may have to steal it for my own use.

If you get into a war, don't let anyone know I gave you the idea! They might just come after me. :p

This is also quite possible, though it may obsolete the antitank platoon (which I assume to be using ATGM of some sort). The major advantage of a "tank destroyer platoon" is that they can be used as assault guns; to use the CV90120-T or Stryker MGS as an example, the 120mm or 105mm guns that those vehicles mount, respectively, can also load High Explosive ammunition in addition to their armour piercing rounds. This, and being machinegun proof, is quite valuable in the context of obliterating enemy machinegun positions. Typically, Light Infantry formations would not have this sort of asset available; opting instead for more men to help carry mortars and mortar ammunition, as mortars are "pocket artillery" and popular with every Infantry commander I've ever talked to. However, for all other types of Infantry who already ride to work, this is definitely something you'd be likely to see in a TO&E.

Would it be wise to have the scheme of an antitank platoon for mountain infantry, light infantry, and other light forces, and use a tank destroyer unit in armor, mechanized, and motorized units.

Now, if I incorporated your suggestions into my general plan for running a company, this is what I get. Bear in mind that this system below shows both rifle and weapons companies. I have yet to determine the composition of my specialized weapons platoons, which will be used to create the weapons company.

SECTIONS (10 men):

1 squad/section leader (typically an NCO)
1 medic
2 light machine gunners, carrying a SAW (squad automatic weapon)
2 grenadiers, armed with assault rifles and/or grenade launchers
4 riflemen

RIFLE PLATOON (44 men):

Version one:

1 Headquarters Element, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic
3 standard (rifle) sections, see above
1 weapons squad, consisting of:
- 1 mortar section leader (an NCO)
- 2 medium mortar teams (8 soldiers)
- 1 ammunition carrier (this soldier may either drive a truck if motorized or carry the extras on foot if necessary) This one would also carry the section's radio.

Version two:

1 Headquarters Element, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic
3 standard (rifle) sections, see above
- 1 Section leader (an NCO)
- 1 machine gun team (3)
- 1 antitank launcher team (3)
- 2 riflemen
- 1 radio operator

WEAPONS PLATOON, GENERIC VERSION (44 men):

- 1 heavy machine (HMG) section, consisting of:
-- composition to be figured out later
- 1 antitank section
-- composition to be figured out later
- 1 mortar section
-- composition to be figured out later
- 1 AGL section
-- composition to be figured out later
1 Administrative/Headquarters Element, consisting of:
- 1 commissioned officer
- 1 NCO, subordinate to the commissioned officer
- 1 platoon radio operator
- 1 medic

RIFLE COMPANY (243 men):

Administrative/Headquarters Element:
- Administrative "section"
-- 2 clerks
-- 4 "runners"
- Command "section"
-- 1 commanding officer
-- 1 executive officer
-- 1 intelligence officer
-- 1 logistics officer
-- 1 operations officer
-- 1 MP (military police)
-- 1 warrant officer
- Signals "section"
-- 4 radio operators
- Medical "section"
-- 1 Company Medical Officer
-- 1 Medical Officer's Assistant
-- 4 Stretcher Bearers/Orderlies/Company Medics/Operations Medics (Using your terms for these).
4 rifle platoons, see above (two of each version)
1 weapons platoon (generic version), see above

WEAPONS COMPANY (243 men):

Administrative/Headquarters Element:
- Administrative "section"
-- 2 clerks
-- 4 "runners"
- Command "section"
-- 1 commanding officer
-- 1 executive officer
-- 1 intelligence officer
-- 1 logistics officer
-- 1 operations officer
-- 1 MP (military police)
-- 1 warrant officer
- Signals "section"
-- 4 radio operators
- Medical "section"
-- 1 Company Medical Officer
-- 1 Medical Officer's Assistant
-- 4 Stretcher Bearers/Orderlies/Company Medics/Operations Medics (Using your terms for these).
1 antitank platoon
- composition to be figured out later
1 heavy machine gun platoon
- composition to be determined later
1 heavy mortar platoon
- again, I will deal with these details in another post farther down the line
1 antiaircraft platoon
- ditto to above
1 "In flux" platoon

I am bumping this up to avoid loss in the ever-shifting pile of posts that makes up this forum.

This is most ture; perhaps it stems from the American tendency to think that they always have whatever they need at all times. We haven't even fought a major war (thin World War II) in so long, and so it is easy to be lulled into thinking that smaller conflicts are all that will ever happen, and that the enemy always has crappy equipment.


This is the "asymmetric model" which has obsoleted the American forces. The "train as we fight" model has been corrupted by the thinking that the enemy will not be able to deny us (I say us, because where America goes, NATO typically follows) air superiority or control of the seas. Everybody who knows what it's like to be under enemy air attack or a concerted artillery effort has either retired or died of old age, so the institutional knowledge has gone and this new low-cost "high flexibility" crap designed for counterinsurgency operations has taken over. The problem is that this equipment is not particularly effective in COIN; what you need are well trained personnel, not fancy shit like Stryker. Stryker provides some impressive capability, but it's all capability Canada has had with its much older LAV-III system, which sports superior firepower, equivalent mobility, and superior mechanical reliability from what I hear.

America cannot fight a war against a modern nation-state. The USN and USAF are incapable of generating dominance against the kind of equipment that the Russians and Chinese are exporting, and because we focus so heavily on counterinsurgency/counterguerilla operations we've been decreasing our capability to fight a 'real war'. The reason that this low-intensity sort of fighting in Afghanistan/Iraq has become so commonplace is because it's suicidal to face us conventionally, but as we degrade our conventional capabilities and others improve theirs, it will no longer be suicidal to fight conventionally and we will most probably see a resurgence of conventional wars.

What about making it a "logistics" platoon? I understand that the idea is odd, but it just may work.

Support platoon would work fine.

Would it be wise to have the scheme of an antitank platoon for mountain infantry, light infantry, and other light forces, and use a tank destroyer unit in armor, mechanized, and motorized units.

Now, if I incorporated your suggestions into my general plan for running a company, this is what I get. Bear in mind that this system below shows both rifle and weapons companies. I have yet to determine the composition of my specialized weapons platoons, which will be used to create the weapons company.

In short, yes. I try to give dismounted Infantry antitank weapons no matter what their type is, because mechanised units often have to debus to sweep forested areas so the tracks can move through without being ambushed by enemy antitank teams. Light man-carried weapons are sufficient for this and each squad and platoon grouping would have their own; they don't necessarily need ATGMs though some IFVs enable you to dismount the ATGM and take it with you, and often have space for carrying a tripod so it can be fired by Infantry in this role. Something to be aware of; expounded on in the below paragraph.

I try to use antitank weapons which are flexible and provide antipersonnel/anti-structure capabilities as well. A good example is the RPG-7V. Using the PG-7VR rocket you can engage armour. Using the OG-7V you can engage troops in the open. Using TBG-7V you can obliterate structures. I have ATGMs that can fire HE-F warheads to an extended range in situations where I am not likely to encounter enemy armour, for instance deploying units with all of their organic equipment to serve in a counterinsurgency fight. The Javelin is not used to kill tanks in Afghanistan, but it is very handy for blowing apart "Tali-wagons" at extended range and denying the enemy freedom of movement.

You look fine for basic organization but, as stated, will have to figure out the composition of organic weapons units.

This is the "asymmetric model" which has obsoleted the American forces. The "train as we fight" model has been corrupted by the thinking that the enemy will not be able to deny us (I say us, because where America goes, NATO typically follows) air superiority or control of the seas. Everybody who knows what it's like to be under enemy air attack or a concerted artillery effort has either retired or died of old age, so the institutional knowledge has gone and this new low-cost "high flexibility" crap designed for counterinsurgency operations has taken over.

People should know how to fight before engaging in combat. On-the-job training (in combat) is pointless and increases casualties significantly. Artillery and airstrikes are quite useful, and can still be ued. If you know how to aim an artillery piece and fire it, you are using it correctly.

Having high flexibility is good if your threats are varied, but I tend to think ion black and white about strategy, with a limited number of shades of gray in between (generally I choose how many "shades" there can be).

The problem is that this equipment is not particularly effective in COIN; what you need are well trained personnel, not fancy shit like Stryker. Stryker provides some impressive capability, but it's all capability Canada has had with its much older LAV-III system, which sports superior firepower, equivalent mobility, and superior mechanical reliability from what I hear.

If you give highly-trained soldiers the best equipment that can be bought, and combine experience and knowledge with adequate equipment and supplies, you can produce an excellent fighting force.

America cannot fight a war against a modern nation-state. The USN and USAF are incapable of generating dominance against the kind of equipment that the Russians and Chinese are exporting, and because we focus so heavily on counterinsurgency/counterguerilla operations we've been decreasing our capability to fight a 'real war'. The reason that this low-intensity sort of fighting in Afghanistan/Iraq has become so commonplace is because it's suicidal to face us conventionally, but as we degrade our conventional capabilities and others improve theirs, it will no longer be suicidal to fight conventionally and we will most probably see a resurgence of conventional wars.

Nonethesess, our equipment is still some of the best around. There are some drawabacks. Take the F-22 Raptor. It costs $350,000,000 a piece (that's the maximum production cost) and yet not many jobs are created to make them. Granted, they are the best aircraft in the world, and probably will be for the next 25-40 years, depending on how quickly others catch up, but they cost way too much and put few people to work. Making them cheaper to produce is the only way to make them effective enough to use on any scale.

If you fight only the ill-equipped and poorly trained, there is no incentive to learn how to fight a regular army, especially one belonging to a major power. Even Iraq's regular forces under Saddam Hussain were not the best enemy we have fough in the last few years, and yet we might have to fight more powerful forces.

Support platoon would work fine.

I'll incorporate that into my plans.

In short, yes. I try to give dismounted Infantry antitank weapons no matter what their type is, because mechanised units often have to debus to sweep forested areas so the tracks can move through without being ambushed by enemy antitank teams. Light man-carried weapons are sufficient for this and each squad and platoon grouping would have their own; they don't necessarily need ATGMs though some IFVs enable you to dismount the ATGM and take it with you, and often have space for carrying a tripod so it can be fired by Infantry in this role. Something to be aware of; expounded on in the below paragraph.

I try to use antitank weapons which are flexible and provide antipersonnel/anti-structure capabilities as well. A good example is the RPG-7V. Using the PG-7VR rocket you can engage armour. Using the OG-7V you can engage troops in the open. Using TBG-7V you can obliterate structures. I have ATGMs that can fire HE-F warheads to an extended range in situations where I am not likely to encounter enemy armour, for instance deploying units with all of their organic equipment to serve in a counterinsurgency fight. The Javelin is not used to kill tanks in Afghanistan, but it is very handy for blowing apart "Tali-wagons" at extended range and denying the enemy freedom of movement.

You look fine for basic organization but, as stated, will have to figure out the composition of organic weapons units.

I will handle the platoons.

"Tali-wagons"

:p That's hilarious.

People should know how to fight before engaging in combat. On-the-job training (in combat) is pointless and increases casualties significantly. Artillery and airstrikes are quite useful, and can still be ued. If you know how to aim an artillery piece and fire it, you are using it correctly.

Having high flexibility is good if your threats are varied, but I tend to think ion black and white about strategy, with a limited number of shades of gray in between (generally I choose how many "shades" there can be).


You may have missed my point. The new TO&Es are not any more flexible than the "Legacy" Mechanised Infantry Division TO&E, the current Stryker Brigades (for example) just have less stuff, and the stuff they have is less, not more capable, outside very specific circumstances like a comparison of road speeds. Flexibility is provided by the Infantry, who get out on the ground and fight as they need to in order to achieve the objective. Returning to the Stryker BCT organization, that formation has barely enough organic firepower to defend itself because the primary armaments of the Stryker are a M2HB .50 or a Mk.19 40mm AGL. The primary armament of a M2A2 Bradley is a 25mm M242 (if I recall correctly) chaingun, with a coaxial 7.62x51 M240B, and a hammerhead TOW-2 launcher. One M2A2 IFV and associated dismounts (e.g.: Squad) have more firepower and a lot better armour protection and cross-country mobility than a Stryker squad.

What's happened is that the Americans have created more Infantry formations (which is what they needed to do) but did it in a half-assed manner. Instead of re-role'ing units properly into Infantry, they've simply taken gunners away from their artillery pieces, tankers away from their tanks, and sent them on dismounted patrols. No shit casualties are high; having passed Basic does not make one a qualified Infantryman. Stryker formations are effective in light of this because they're manned by Infantrymen, and we're fighting an enemy who does not have the ability to kill Strykers with direct fire weapons (at present, they might get more effective weapons later). Now imagine what happens if a SBCT gets into a fight with say, a Iranian mechanised battalion mounted in BMPs. The Strykers are going to get dominated.

That's not flexibility. A "Legacy" Mechanised Infantry force can deploy into counterinsurgency operations and fight dismounted as needed, using their IFVs as bases of fire to effect manouevre, or as manouevre assets to get them to where they need to go quickly... so exactly as the Strykers are used, but with much better protection and much better effect on target. Canadian LAV-IIIs (Wheeled APC with a 25mm/M242 and a coax 7.62x51 C6) have had huge success in Afghanistan because they're much more heavily armed than the Stryker. They need that kind of firepower to fight what is most definitely a counterinsurgency operation. They can still kill a BMP with the 25mm. And, we're looking at upgunning and improving the fleet of LAVs in general. Unlike the Strykers however, the Mechanised Infantry (Legacy), mounted in their Bradleys, can still go and kick the shit out of that Iranian mechanised battalion and their BMPs because they have the ability to engage those targets without getting shanked.

Artillery and fast-air are fucking wonderful. That's why we have them. Canadian and British troops, arguably the best Infantry in the world thanks to their training and aggressive behaviour in combat (which is what's required in combat, decisive action = aggression. You are imposing your will on the enemy, often through shooting him), call in air and artillery all the time. I'm not denigrating the supporting arms.

However, I am saying that thinking we will always have artillery and air available is a quick way to "buttonhole" our forces and get our boys killed. Al Qaeda/Taliban (AQT) cannot deny us artillery or air because they do not have SAM systems* or counterbattery capability. However, the Iranians, for example, do have the ability to counterbattery us and they do possess modern double-digit SAM systems which can very rapidly deny us air superiority. And when that happens, it is down to the men on the ground and their organic weapons to get the job done.
* - I note that even the suspicion of MANPADS being in an area is enough to declare that sector a "no go zone" for ISAF air, making the units in that area reliant only on artillery. And we're talking old FIM-92A Stingers or 9K32 Strelas here, not something like S-300 PMU-1, which is what the Iranians operate.


If you give highly-trained soldiers the best equipment that can be bought, and combine experience and knowledge with adequate equipment and supplies, you can produce an excellent fighting force.


Yes, this would be what I've been saying.


Nonethesess, our equipment is still some of the best around. There are some drawabacks. Take the F-22 Raptor. It costs $350,000,000 a piece (that's the maximum production cost) and yet not many jobs are created to make them. Granted, they are the best aircraft in the world, and probably will be for the next 25-40 years, depending on how quickly others catch up, but they cost way too much and put few people to work. Making them cheaper to produce is the only way to make them effective enough to use on any scale.

If you fight only the ill-equipped and poorly trained, there is no incentive to learn how to fight a regular army, especially one belonging to a major power. Even Iraq's regular forces under Saddam Hussain were not the best enemy we have fough in the last few years, and yet we might have to fight more powerful forces.


I agree, except most of that equipment is out of date and needs "new build" to bring it back up to snuff (I think the newest M2 Bradleys available are 1988 manufacture), as components are wearing out. The USN has some significant issues. The USAF's "legacy" fighters (the "Teen" series) are not survivable in the face of modern SAM systems which are rapidly proliferating.

F-22 costs less than F-35, which is the "same thing but cheaper", which is absolute bullshit engineered by "LockMart" (Lockheed Martin) to sell the F-35 JSF to people who are idiots. F-22 is a proven technology and is in service. F-35 is still unproven and is not in service, will not be for some time yet, and offers far less capability. It is possible to get a better fiscal bang from the F-22's buck by expanding production facilities (analysis indicates you - as in the USAF - needs approximately 800 to maintain global standards of NATO air superiority in the face of the new SAM and high performance Sukhoi threat) across several states, rebooting the Bradley, Abrams, and so on production lines, and expanding the supporting industry manufacturing lines as well. This is expensive but necessary. Shit like Stryker employs far fewer people and has less combat capability. There is absolutely no reason to have it, or F-35, other than backroom politics.

Canadian Army officers at the Platoon level are trained in small unit tactics which apply to conventional warfare as well as asymmetric warfare. Canadian Army officers at the Company and above level are trained to fight conventional wars. This is because conventional warfighting skills apply directly to counterinsurgency fighting. Training to fight an insurgency only does not enable you to fight a conventional war (high or low intensity) if and/or when one arises. This illustrates the key points we've been discussing in relation to training and organization of Infantry formations.

1) Flexibility is key and is assured through sufficient numbers of riflemen and appropriate amounts of organic supporting assets.
2) Once the tools are given in the TO&E, thorough training takes care of the rest.

The problem isn't that we're not as good as say, the Iranians. We're fucking better. Orders of magnitude better. But the equipment we would need to win a conventional war scenario is either falling apart from overuse (great example: Canadian LAV-III fleet) or nonexistant (great example: Canada's total lack of IFVs, SPHs, or Air Defence).