[SG] Platoon make up, exoskeleton PA and drones

[quoted original message omitted]

G'day,

I've read all the how-to's for TO&Es etc and saw that most everyone uses
4 squads per platoon. Apart from the "it is most efficient with respect to
reactivation" etc arguments I take it that there are sound military reasons
for not having more squads? What happens if you're short on leader stock??

It may well be unrealistic, but I was thinking of the following (so far only
rough) platoon make-up...

Platoon HQ Lt Sgt
EW/Comms
IAVR or PA SAW or PA (i.e. either the IAVR or SAW will potentially be carried
by PA) 3xriflemen
Spotter-drone

Platoon Engineers Cpl 6xriflemen (or whatever you call them if they're
actually an engineer... sorry John) SAW or PA Drone

Platoon Mortars 2xtubes 6xcrew SAW or PA Comms Drone

3xRifle Squads Cpl IAVR or PA SAW or PA (i.e. either the IAVR or SAW will
potentially be carried by PA) Comms 4xriflemen (one of these is a medic and
there may even be a
sniper/marksman
per squad too) Drone

OK potentially over the top (and still only rough) but all these squads
probably aren't going to be on at once... I was thinking of a colonial force
with only themselves to rely on for much of the time. Large squad sizes as not
that heavily armoured (mostly just ballistic cloth battledress). PA support
fig as I was thinking of the Starship trooper animated series.
Speaking of which does anyone know where/if you can get PA that isn't
all
sealed in like GZG PA, but is more like an exo-skeleton like in the
Starship
trooper series? Either that or a 1-2 man walker or gun spider?

By the way did the person who was going to make their own drones ever have any
success?

Thanks

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

Yes. The limit is the ability of your junior leaders to effectively control
their units.

The US tried during the fifties to do "pentagonal" divisions with 5
battlegroups per division, 5 companies per batallion, and 5 platoons per
company. It overwhelmed the staff and commanders with too big an area of
responsibility. You can do about 3 maneuver elements well, plus support assets
(usual platoon makeup on those TOEs you're talking about is 3
rifle squads plus weapons/headquarters, neh?).

> Platoon HQ

This is a huge platoon. Probably a captain, with a major commanding the
company. Just my gut inclination. Plus an LT as an assistant platoon leader
and the platoon sergeant.

> Sgt

What are the riflemen for?

> Platoon Engineers

Typically, Sappers, Pioneers, or Engineers. Which nation is this for? If it's
Commonwealth, probably Pioneers. Sappers is for regular engineer types. US
just calls them all engineers (of whatever types--the
MTOE line I used to occupy was labelled "Combat Engineer")

> Platoon Mortars

Yaaah! That's a lot of mortars in the batallion. Usually platoons don't get
mortars, but why not?

> 3xRifle Squads

Well, I don't like the way you've done your PA. If you've got that much PA
it's best to consolidate them in 1 squad. Why? Movement rates. Half the
selling point of PA is that it's damn fast. But you're tying them to slow
regular infantrymen. PA is your main striking force, you want to be able to
concentrate
them.  2 PA guys isn't a threat.  6-8 is.

interesting. too my knowlwdge the USA used 28 combat infantry TOEa in
the  RVN-this excludes  advisory groups and  special operations
formations

my brigade had infantry 3 battalions in it. each battalion had 6
companies in it. 1 HQ company, 4 rifle companies (A-D), and E which was
a combo infantry combat support and reconn company.

each rifle company had a HQ platoon, 2 rifle platoons, and a weapons platoon.

each combat support and reconn company had a HQ platoon 1 mortar platooon, 1
106mm recoil less rifle platoon, a recon platoon.

> --- DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote:

Still experimenting.

We're down to 5 now. Airborne, Air Assault, Light Infantry, Infantry, Ranger,
and Mechanized.

Plus the slightly experimental Force XXI and IBCT organizations.

> each rifle company had a HQ platoon, 2 rifle

2 platoons? Yerk!! What's the company reserve? How do you weight the main
effort? That's stupid.

> each combat support and reconn company had a HQ

That makes sense. Needs ADA assets to fight against anyone but guerillas, but
otherwise good.

G'day,

> What are the riflemen for?

To protect everyone else?... she says meekly;)

> Typically, Sappers, Pioneers, or Engineers. Which

Mine...;) <i.e. non cannon, probably not IAS as there will be a
low-tech
look, maybe the Henti I've been messing with>

> Yaaah! That's a lot of mortars in the battalion.

I like the look so though what the heck they're all going to be laughing
anyway;)

> Well, I don't like the way you've done your PA. If

I get your idea, but I guess my thoughts on PA are much more at the
low-tech
end vs yours. Really just an exoskeleton to give you a bit more strength and
protection not necessarily speed. I was also thinking you could create PA
detachments if necessary (sort of on a platoon scale what Napoleonics did with
companies of grenadiers).

Thanks for your comments

TYPO!

2 SHOULD BE 3 WHEN I WAS DISCUSSING RIFLE PLATOONS!

in real life, the RR platoon and reconn platoon were merged in the field, and
acted as a RRF in base camp.

sometimes the weapons platoons of the rifle companies were sent out as rifles
(when manpower got low) on a rotating basis from the NDP during an op.

they might take 1 81mm tube, site, baseplate and ammo with them, on a sweep,
and load up on ammo.

each rifle squad had a HQ squad of 5 or more bods on paper LT, PSG,
WPNS SL, 2-3 RTOs and a DOC.  might have  attached  arty team or  dog
team.

the  platoon weapons  squad would be broken down into 2 M-60 teams, and
one assigned to 2 rifle squads. the 4 man recoilless rifle team would leave
the gun and ammo in NDP most times, and hump a 3 M60 (if
there  was one) or be split up and  added to the 2 existing  M-60s
teams. LAWs were carried when we did this.

> On Sun, Jun 16, 2002 at 05:08:07PM -0700, John Atkinson wrote:

Agreed. Spreading the PA around also means that you're going to have to
use the slow way of allocating hits - check which figure is hit first,
then find the right armour die, then roll it.

G'day,

> Agreed. Spreading the PA around also

That's the way Lachy likes playing it already, so luckily his preferences dove
tail with my "evil plans";P;)

Cheers

Hi folks,

responding to several different posts on this subject (as I receive the list
digest version)

--------

John A said:

> Still experimenting.

er, that's six actually;)

yeah, ok, that's being pedantic:)

---------

Beth - as John said, you have a huge platoon.  It often helps when
putting together a platoon TO&E (for Stargrunt) to have an idea of how that
platoon fits into a Company and Battalion. For example, most countries (that
I'm aware of) that have "Assault Pioneers" usually include them as a
*battalion* asset, as a single platoon, attached to the "support company" of
the battalion. They would then be sent out as a platoon or by squads as
needed. So, having a squad of them in EVERY infantry platoon is a huge
investment of your total force in Pioneers. Same with mortars. In a Canadian
battalion, for example, you have a mortar platoon in the combat support
company, with eight 81mm mortars. I can't remember if we add mortars in the
rifle companies (but I don't think so). It is relatively unusual to find a
mortar in every rifle platoon, though I think the British army might have done
this, and certain US formations. For the platoon commander, having a mortar
available is useful under some circumstances, but in many cases, they're more
effective if you can mass their fire against a single target, and it would be
difficult (from a
command-and-control) point of view in a lower tech (and not highly
computerized, all zoomie with high tech communications, etc) force, to mass
your mortar fire if they are all assigned to different rifle platoons. In that
case, the mortar will be able to support "its" platoon, but that's about it,
unless everyone was in defensive positions (ie not maneuvering) with a
coordinated fire plan, etc.

Because you're saying you have a mortar squad and a pioneer squad in every
platoon, that's 16 troopers per platoon who aren't assigned as riflemen. You
have to have a minimum number of plain old riflemen (including the comms
people, saw gunners, etc) in each platoon to do the fighting part while the
mortar people are lugging the mortars, the pioneers are lugging mines, etc.
This means you have a platoon that is roughly 50% larger than usual. This also
means that the higher level formations (company and
battalion) will be larger than usual also.  Current Canadian/Aussie/UK
battalions might be approx. 750 - 900 troops.  Yours would be maybe 1200
-
1400 if you keep the battalion assets. That's a BIG formation, and would
consequently place a bigger requirement on your economy for resources, etc (if
you translate that type of formation across your army). Your formation isn't
big enough or different enough that you can say "my battalions are going to do
what everyone else's Brigades do, so it doesn't matter if they're bigger." And
since that's the case, your battalions will still be doing the same sorts of
missions everyone else assigns to their battalions. You'll just have a much
larger investment in infrastructure requirements, etc., to achieve roughly the
same result. In certain circumstances, your battalions will get the job done
faster, but not *all* cercumstances, for certain.

It is pretty reasonable to say that you've assigned a couple or three mortars
at the COMPANY level, to your "weapons platoon" (that might also
have anti-tank weapons and heavy machineguns, for example).  These would
be light mortars unless you're a heavily mechanized force who can afford
specific mortar transports for a larger weapon.

So, it helps when you're putting together a platoon to have an idea where all
the other bits fit in, or you might end up with the "try to fit a bit of
everything in" sort of organization. If you extrapolate your platoon out to a
company or battalion size formation, you'd have something like this:

Rifle platoon = 1 squad pioneers, 2 mortars (according to Beth)

Rifle Company= 3-4 rifle platoons = 1 platoon of pioneers equivalent, 8
mortars

Rifle Battalion = 3-4 rifle companies = 1 company of pioneers
equivalent, 32 mortars.

Having a company-equivalent force of pioneers is interesting for a
battalion, but but hardly necessary unless you're the Egyptians breaching the
Israeli Suez canal defenses, or something. Even then, they took along a bunch
of very specialized assault engineer units to do the big work. Most battalion
commanders would probably be happier with just a platoon of
pioneers, and the extra people as extra riflemen!  Same with mortars -
32 mortars is a LOT of mortars, and given that they'd all be commanded at the
PLATOON level, you could run into all kinds of problems, like bombing your own
people... And the logistics requirements of supplying every infantry battalion
with ammo for 32 mortars would be insane:)

When you get right down to it, 32 mortars might as well be a mortar battalion,
all on it's own!

I'm not suggesting that you give up your orgainization at all! But if you
translate it into a Dirtside formation, for example (ie
company/battalion
size) you will run into this sort of problem.

Now, if you want to create your platoon with all these extra bits (assigned
assault pioneers and mortars) you could say that the mortars and pioneers
have been attached to the platoon for a specific mission/assignment from
the company /battalion level, and that way you can be happily painting
the figures you want to use and at the same time have a force that reasonably
translates into larger size units for Dirtside crossovers (and makes more
sense from a Stargrunt point of view, also).

Something else to point out, in Stargrunt, light mortars have a MINIMUM range
of 24" and all other indirect weapons (ie medium and heavy mortars, light
arty, etc) have a MINIMUM range of 48". This is from the
"On-Table
Artillery Fire" section on p47. There are other restrictions on moving and
firing, etc. Check them out. For the purposes of a stargrunt game, having a
couple of mortars in your platoon will work well in certain circumstances,
depending on scenario, but it might also be a disadvantage in some scenarios
(ie having a significant portion of your fighting force
tied up carrying heavy weapons - thereby being encumbered and traveling
slower - and not shooting at the other guys...).  They'd be great in a
defensive game, if you have a large enough table to work around the range and
movement limitations.

Creating your force as part of a larger formation and telling everyone else
that you have company and battalion assets to draw on (that would include
pioneers and mortar teams) might be an decent alternative to bringing the
mortars along to every game and hoping that they'll work in that scenario.

But certainly you can have fun painting the figs and having them handy when
needed:)

Something else you could consider is adding a medic team to each platoon. I've
done this in several of my Stargrunt forces and find it to be very useful.
This would be a medic and assistant medic (two figures only) used as a
separate "squad". So rather than having them tied to any one particular squad,
they can run around to whichever squad needs their attention. The rules say
that you have to take a reorg action to check your wounded, and that if a
medic is "part of the unit" you get a bonus to the "they're ok" result.
Because I use "independent" medics, I modify this a bit, as follows:

Your medic unit (the 2 troopers) have to move to within unit coherency of the
unit with injured troopers, or that unit has to move within unit coherency of
the medics. The actual reorg action has to be spent by the unit with the
wounded, but if a medic team is within coherency, their bonus gets added. In
effect, they join the unit very briefly, just for the purposes of that check.
Then, they can both go their separate ways. The medic team CAN'T take the
reorganize action on behalf of the larger unit.

I have my medic team "administratively" attached to the platoon HQ squad, but
during the game, they act as a separate unit with their own chits, etc.

Also, it is really funny to watch as my "harmless" medic team adds into the
fighting on occasion when I'm in a desperate situation... Ok, they're only
rolling feeble dice, but due to the vagaries of dice rolling, I've seen them
take out PA troopers, effectively suppress other squads, etc. Mostly, though,
my medics just hide:)

> I like the look so though what the heck they're all going to be

Which is as good a reason as any, but if you use the "they're attached from
the battalion organization, which I happen to have right here" argument, then
you'll look like you know exactly what you're talking about, and you can cut
the laughing off at the knees:)

It's nice to have a good justification for doing what you were going to do
anyway!

> I get your idea, but I guess my thoughts on PA are much more at the

would it not add unnecessary complexity to have squads composed of figures
with different types of armour? be a bit of a pain during fire resolution, no?

I suppose you could determine who gets hit before making the IMPACT vs. ARMOUR
rolls, so maybe not a problem.

I was also thinking you could create PA
> detachments if necessary (sort of on a platoon scale what Napoleonics

Would this happen "in game" or before the game starts? If "in game" it would
take a LOT of actions to make something like this happen.

Anyway, I hope this gives you something to think about!

Have fun!

> --- DAWGFACE47@webtv.net wrote:

Oh.

Makes more sense. Only having 2 maneuver elements is pretty blindingly stupid.
Which wouldn't stop the US Army of the '60s from trying it.

> in real life, the RR platoon and reconn platoon

Makes sense.

> the platoon weapons squad would be broken down

Well, logically there weren't that many targets in RVN that required a 90mm
recoilless to kill.

Did a rifle squad have it's own organic -60?

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

It's a lost cause, but you can try.

> I get your idea, but I guess my thoughts on PA are

It's not a real good idea to create these sort of ad hoc groupings at such a
low level. You need to practice working together on a regular basis and
forming detachments of individuals won't work.

And whether it's lowtech or hightech, concentrating your powered armor will be
a more effective tactic.
Concentration of force/mass.

G'day,

> 2 PA guys isn't a threat. 6-8 is.

Thinking back to this yesterday. Does it turn out that speed is the only thing
you'd consider makes them worth grouping together? <OK there's the get the
correct armour die thing, but that's a game mechanic I'm talking
tactics... I think... I'll have to go searching my desk for that post-it
note I wrote out;)>

One of the guys here started rabbiting about it being firepower yesterday and
it lost me as otherwise why don't SAW's etc all get lumped together?

As to 2 PA not being a threat I can think of a few games where 2PA in HTH have
been enough of a thorn to slow entire flanks down, but then we play with a lot
of "shirts only" figs;)

Cheers

> On Tue, Jun 18, 2002 at 10:17:57AM +1000, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> One of the guys here started rabbiting about it being firepower

In "real-world" terms (as I understand it, not having actually done
this) - having three squads with a machine gun each is more useful than
having two squads without 'em and one with three. One machine gun is enough to
make the enemy keep their heads down...

For SG PA, which doesn't tend to carry much heavier weapons than the regular
troops, it's basically about movement rate. Armour is still a
factor - if your whole squad is PA, you can be prepared to move into
heavier fire than a mixed or leg-infantry squad would be able to handle.

Roger said:
> In "real-world" terms (as I understand it, not having actually done

 Someone--SLA Marshall?--did a study after WW2 which reported that
your basic infantry is not really likely to actually shoot at the enemy. He
may just sit tight, or he may fire in the general direction of the enemy
("north"), or he may scurry about doing other useful
things (bandaging, carrying ammo--something that lets him avoid
shooting people).  Machine guns or other crew-served weapons are more
likely to actually fire on the enemy. So if you have one squad with 3 MG and
the other two with none, then you probably have one really effective squad and
two which are mostly just taking up space. Kind of hard to use maneuver to win
if you only have one effective unit.

(BTW, it's believed that "desensitization training"--in essence, first
person shooter video games--will train riflemen to be much less
reluctant to shoot people. Of course, if they played DOOM growing up, they may
not need the Army's version....).

> For SG PA, which doesn't tend to carry much heavier weapons than the

And into close assault. If you're trying to wipe out a squad quickly, close
combat is the way to do it. Preferably when you outnumber him,

> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:

Already taken care of. Popup targets were the biggest factor. Practically
everyone in Vietnam shot. May not have shot accurately, had lots of other
factors impairing combat effectiveness, but they were at least pulling
triggers.

> --- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> Thinking back to this yesterday. Does it turn out

Nope.

1)You can move the whole squad into more dangerous situations, ie if they are
working with unarmored troops then you're more worried about enemy fire
because they will drop dead. You can take more risks(more risks = more gains)
than you can with unarmored troops.

2)Close combat.

3)Psychological effect. Real Life and on the board, PA concentrates you're
opponent's min wonderfully. Once you have him reacting to whatever your PA
does, then you can smack him silly with the rest of your force.

> One of the guys here started rabbiting about it

Because without SAWs your rifle squads are almost useless.

> Laserlight wrote:

> (BTW, it's believed that "desensitization training"--in essence, first

FWIW, there was a report on the BBC yesterday saying that the
British Army is using a version of "Half-life" to train squaddies
on.

> On Thu, Jun 20, 2002 at 11:19:19PM +0100, David Brewer wrote:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_2054000/2054437.stm