Understanding British Standard ORBAT

[Tazak]

sorry memory is a bit spotty (its been nearly 20 years since I was in) and can only recall the fun stuff (like booby traps [:'(])

Found this on ARSSE forums although it is a few years old now but this covers AP activities

Assault Pioneers were (are) a vital asset to any CO or Battlegroup. Their duties include;

• Demolition (inc explosives using electric or flash initiation)
• Field defences (plant or manual)
• Minelaying (clearing, recovery or disposal of)
• Water purification (making it fit for their BG to drink, an often neglected art in this day & age)
• Bridgelaying (usually in support of RE)
• Watermanship (The army's word for boat handling or rafting)

They can also expect involvement in;

i) Search (Urban, Rural, Veh or body)
ii) Forward Recce for RE (ie where to throw a Bridge, fascine or trackway)
iii) Just about anything their unit throws at them.

Modern Infantry Battalions are unlikely to have an establishment for Assault Pioneers therefore manning & getting the right calibre of soldier is a problem (an OC told to provide XX men will send knackers if he can get away with it). Initial training is conducted in house but leads to B2,B1 & W/O courses @ Minley Manor & RSME.

An Assault Pioneer sect/plt starts life as a bunch of misfits & bottlewashers but soon becomes resourceful & able to use its initiative. I recall having to clear a helipad in the jungle using little more than hand tools & the bare minimum of demolition accessories. We managed to fell (HUGE) trees by making shaped charges (enabling us to place a small charge in the centre to bring them down) from compo tins & moving the timber with some virtually useless turfoil jacks to ensure the helipad would be ready on time.

[Plodder]

No worries, it's only been 23 years since I was in.[:D] Thanks for that, one of my training NCOs in basic was an AP and I faintly recall him mentioning stuff like that.
NZ Army is not too different from British Army, being a child of it. Uniforms used to be the same(our DPM had a slightly different tinge, iirc), A lot of traditions are the same, drill is the same, ranks are the same, and bloody officers are the same.[:D]

What I might do with the APs in Berlin is equip them with a satchel charge each on top of their normal kit to differentiate them a bit from normal infantry as it seems to make sense that they would have them for fibua ops so they could breach buildings etc.

Interestingly enough, it seems every Btn had their own way of approaching ways to fight in Berlin. I read in a comment somewhere that the Wombats with one Btn were mainly to be used to breach buildings while another comment i read said that one Btn left them in storage the entire time they there and gave the portee land rovers to the recce platoon.

[Tazak]

Interestingly enough, it seems every Btn had their own way of approaching ways to fight in Berlin. I read in a comment somewhere that the Wombats with one Btn were mainly to be used to breach buildings while another comment i read said that one Btn left them in storage the entire time they there and gave the portee land rovers to the recce platoon.

It wasn't just Berlin, it was down to the CO of the btn, I saw 5 different CO's over the years and each made small changes here and there, example was snipers - 1 CO loved snipers and made each coy have 4 men trained as snipers (2 teams), the next CO wasn't interested in snipers so once the blokes moved on no one replaced them resulting in a loss of sniper capabilities within the coys, another was more into crosstraining and made each coy produce a training plan that gave everyone the chance to train on Milan, mortars, AP, signals (coy & btn level) and GPMG SF role (support coy were constantly training different rifle platoons under that CO)

[Ian R]

Hi Tazak,

2 queries on your AD OOB -

(a) Watson and Rinaldi say the 16th ADR rotated back to the UK in '85 when the 12th rotated in to BAOR (with an overlap) - hence it never gets the tracked Rapier (the 12th gets a 4th battery and the tracked Rapiers when rolled out in October that year).

(b) Are the RAF Regiment AD squadrons beyond the scope of this game's maps?

[Tazak]

Ian

(a) Watson and Rinaldi say the 16th ADR rotated back to the UK in '85 when the 12th rotated in to BAOR (with an overlap) - hence it never gets the tracked Rapier (the 12th gets a 4th battery and the tracked Rapiers when rolled out in October that year).
Both regiments were assigned to BOAR defence, yes 1 was Germany based and the other UK based which would've moved to Germany in the event of war. As was often the case when regiments rotated the equipment stayed in situ while the men moved about.
Tracked Rapier was introduced 1983 so the BAOR based regiment would have 4 batteries in a 2/2 split between tracked and towed Rapiers
from memory I used 1 point in time when putting the AD details together hence the difference in which regiment has 2/2 tracked/towed vs. 3 towed. this was done for ease of data collection and display.

(b) Are the RAF Regiment AD squadrons beyond the scope of this game's maps?
Their not beyond the scope of the map/game, however as their primary function and AOR was airfields and Harrier FOB, the scope for including an airfield in battles in my view is limited so decided not to add them and focus on the formations that would more commonly be encountered.

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: Tazak

Ian

(a) Watson and Rinaldi say the 16th ADR rotated back to the UK in '85 when the 12th rotated in to BAOR (with an overlap) - hence it never gets the tracked Rapier (the 12th gets a 4th battery and the tracked Rapiers when rolled out in October that year).
Both regiments were assigned to BOAR defence, yes 1 was Germany based and the other UK based which would've moved to Germany in the event of war. As was often the case when regiments rotated the equipment stayed in situ while the men moved about.
Tracked Rapier was introduced 1983 so the BAOR based regiment would have 4 batteries in a 2/2 split between tracked and towed Rapiers
from memory I used 1 point in time when putting the AD details together hence the difference in which regiment has 2/2 tracked/towed vs. 3 towed. this was done for ease of data collection and display.

(b) Are the RAF Regiment AD squadrons beyond the scope of this game's maps?
Their not beyond the scope of the map/game, however as their primary function and AOR was airfields and Harrier FOB, the scope for including an airfield in battles in my view is limited so decided not to add them and focus on the formations that would more commonly be encountered.

OK, I see how that all fits. Like all other things BAOR the key fact is the position of the battalion equipment set.

The regimental histories suggest (not entirely clearly) that 11 Bty/22nd RA got the first tracked Rapiers in February 84 at Napier Barracks, but the batteries were rotating to the Falklands 82-85 so I imagine they were training in series on the original bty set in Germany. 35 Bty joined the regiment in March 85, by inference the second tracked battery arrived before then. 12 RA is said to have been issued its tracked batteries by October '85 when 12 bty was reformed, and it then had batteries rotating to the Falklands (and Ulster/Cyprus) for the next 4 years. In any event 4 batteries of 12 vehicles takes up the original production run of 50 with a couple of maintenance spares. So that all makes sense.

Thanks.

[Mad Russian]

+1

It's been my experience that campaigns were provided for all the nations included in the game. 1 for US, 1 for Soviet and 2 for West German. By my count that's 4 campaigns for the 4 nations in the game. But something doesn't add up just right there. [:-]

We seem to be missing a campaign for the British forces. [X(]

Before Southern Storm is released I intend on correcting that omission. I may well be calling on some of you experts on the BAOR to make sure I get the units correctly done for them as they roll back and forth across the North German Plain. [&o]

Good Hunting.

MR