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I've know in the default estab there had been a decision to divide up mg or atg platoons in a battalion among the various line companies, i.e. avoiding stand alone atg or mg platoons, even though thats how some forces may have been organized on paper.

What I would like to know is, when you would want to divide up a hw/atg company's platoons or a hw/atg platoon's sections up in this way, and when you would not? And for what reasons you would want to do either one? I know that ideally, the smallest force should be company sized, but certainly that does not mean that there should be no platoon sized forces, ever?

The next question concerns the prime movers of these heavy weapons. I remember reading on a thread somewhere that the prime movers for atg guns were removed from the line companies so that they would not be prevented from entering woods. My question is, what happened to these prime movers? Were they moved to the nearest base unit? To the nearest wheeled hq? Or did they just disappear? I'd like to figure out what I should do with my own estab.

There is a platoon scale game being developed. The game has had to have changes that a modder can't do to make it work at that scale. The underlying fidelity of the LOS and spotting is to large really for a platoon level game..alot of work has gone into the engine changing this for the future game.

SO I think if you want to mod the game a platoon level, wait and buy Legends of the Blitzkrieg and mod it.

ORIGINAL: dholedays

I've know in the default estab there had been a decision to divide up mg or atg platoons in a battalion among the various line companies, i.e. avoiding stand alone atg or mg platoons, even though thats how some forces may have been organized on paper.

What I would like to know is, when you would want to divide up a hw/atg company's platoons or a hw/atg platoon's sections up in this way, and when you would not? And for what reasons you would want to do either one? I know that ideally, the smallest force should be company sized, but certainly that does not mean that there should be no platoon sized forces, ever?

The next question concerns the prime movers of these heavy weapons. I remember reading on a thread somewhere that the prime movers for atg guns were removed from the line companies so that they would not be prevented from entering woods. My question is, what happened to these prime movers? Were they moved to the nearest base unit? To the nearest wheeled hq? Or did they just disappear? I'd like to figure out what I should do with my own estab.

There's a couple of reasons you may assign smaller sized units to a command structure.

If you're modeling a country's force structure, one would revolve around the combat doctrine (a US Army term) for assembling the basic force.

For example, one type of combat doctrine may say a typical battalion commander oversees a structure that includes three maneuver companies, a mortar company, the battalion command staff, one of the engineering platoons from the regiment's assigned engineering company, and a heavy weapons platoon from the regiment's assigned heavy weapons company. Since the doctrine says that the regimental assets are directed by the lower echelon commander instead of being directly controlled by the regimental staff, the regiment's support elements would be broken down so the maneuver battalion commander can control them directly.

Doctrine will identify these relationships based on the tasks it says a battalion commander should be able to handle with his organic assets. If maneuver battalion tasks include bridging minor rivers, then an engineering platoon would be assigned from the regimental engineering company instead of having the company assigned a bridging task by the regimental commander.

If you're modeling a specific operational scenario the smaller unit might be tasked to support the battalion in that particular operation. For example, by doctrine the regiment normally builds bridges with a platoon from its engineering company, but in the specific scenario there was a task force consisting of one maneuver battalion with an engineering platoon attached to form a bridging task force.

For example, the Peiper scenarios in BftB reflect operations where the typical German 1944 brigade force structure was changed so Peiper could command a special armored task force as a spearhead for attack.

Doctrinal documents for the era you're modeling should be unclassified, and may exist as digital historical copies in the source document locations you've already reviewed for your 1950s Estab.

Hope this helps.

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah


For example, one type of combat doctrine may say a typical battalion commander oversees a structure that includes three maneuver companies, a mortar company, the battalion command staff, one of the engineering platoons from the regiment's assigned engineering company, and a heavy weapons platoon from the regiment's assigned heavy weapons company. Since the doctrine says that the regimental assets are directed by the lower echelon commander instead of being directly controlled by the regimental staff, the regiment's support elements would be broken down so the maneuver battalion commander can control them directly.

Doctrine will identify these relationships based on the tasks it says a battalion commander should be able to handle with his organic assets. If maneuver battalion tasks include bridging minor rivers, then an engineering platoon would be assigned from the regimental engineering company instead of having the company assigned a bridging task by the regimental commander.

That makes allot of sense. My question was more directed at asking when I should merge "forces" (in the command ops sense), but this is still very relevant, since doctrine would likely have something to do with it.

Also notice units in BFTB with only a few men usually don't last long at all (Mortar Units etc). Again i think due to lack of lower\micro level terrain features.

ORIGINAL: dholedays

ORIGINAL: jimcarravallah


For example, . . . would be assigned from the regimental engineering company instead of having the company assigned a bridging task by the regimental commander.

That makes allot of sense. My question was more directed at asking when I should merge "forces" (in the command ops sense), but this is still very relevant, since doctrine would likely have something to do with it.

The decision on how to combine units is dependent on the scenario maker's idea of how he / she wants the scenario to be played.

If you'd rather model at company sized units, in the event a battalion formation includes independently assigned platoon or smaller formations under the commander's direct control, you can either model those smaller units as independent entities for tasking by a battalion commander, or merge their capabilities into the battalion "command group" company equivalent.

Merging the capability would reduce the number of units that a player and the AI has to track as the game runs (subsequently reducing the time burden calculating statuses for each unit places on the software) but it could force the player to put the battalion's command group closer to a combat zone to use the assigned combat capability.

If you wanted the heavy weapons platoon to support an attack by two infantry companies of the three infantry and one mortar companies assigned to the battalion, you'd have to use the command group which has that capability embedded in its design join the attack instead of dispatching the independently controlled platoon along with the two companies.

Merging unit capabilities is already done for types of administrative support activities available to a battalion command group (supply platoon, intelligence staff, communications staff, etc.) because those unit operations are not modeled as controllable assets / skills by the Command Ops combat system. So that those services would be put in harms way to support the above attack without an independent heavy weapons platoon.

Because of the software's modeling of terrain features Wodin mentioned, it's probably a better plan to merge smaller unit combat capabilities into command groups in scenarios designed on smaller maps with a relatively high density of higher echelon forces than it would be for a lower density of higher echelon forces on a larger map.

Hope this helps.