Re: [GZG] Some questions about organizational structure

On Sun, Apr 19, 2009 at 7:36 PM, Charles Lee <xarcht@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Nice mechanized platoon. If anything it's virtually text book numbers.

Thanks, I did a little searching around and found a site claiming
(with what accuracy I can't say) that a modern US Mech Infantry
platoon is 32 men in 4 Bradleys, so I just translated that over.  But
how about the weird little 'special detachment' guys - the PA dudes
with their command vehicle, and the 2 scout/IFVs with two half-teams?
Does grouping them together like that as a quasi-'special ops'
detachment make any sense?  If not, what would be a better or more
rational way to incorporate those extra minis into the Tank and Mech
Infantry Platoons?  I've been reading "Barbarossa" recently, and I
keep seeing references to Guderian commanding his tank group from a
command car - would the second command hover and the 2 scout
tanks/IFVs make a logical command element?  Using the scouts for,
well, scouting, as well as some HQ security?  If so, I might push the
PA squad into the Infantry platoon and just use regular trooper models
to represent the HQ security troops.

Frankly, this feels a little better anyway; it gives me a Tank platoon
(4 tanks), a Reinforced Mech Infantry Platoon (3 squads regular
troops, 1 squad PA, all in HAPCs, one of which is command variant) and
a Headquarters unit (command HAPC, 2 scout tanks/IFVs.	I've looked at
a couple of structural organization charts this afternoon working on
this, and while I'm not sure I could get a single org unit run up out
of these models, I think that by cutting them up into Tank
platoon/Mech Inf platoon/HQ unit I could fairly rationally call them
all elements of the same Battalion/Squadron, and then assume they were
detached together in the field.

This has run to a much longer post than I'd intended... Another way to
phrase these ramblings might be: are any of these ideas I'm throwing
out LOTS worse than the others?  Gaming has sort of blunted my
sensibilites as to organizational reality - there's that sort of
'organic everything' doctrine that fiction and gaming seem to
promulgate, where your individual unit seems to have heavy
support/combat engineers/medics/psionic talents/whatever integrated
down to at least the platoon level, if not within individual squads!
Granted, the stuff I'm doing isn't going to be super-realistic anyway,
but I'd prefer for my fictional unit org charts to pass the laugh
test.  Is there any single book or source out there that would really
help a layman grasp the concept of real-world military organization
and structure?	Even if it just focused on one example armed force
that would be a big help...

Thanks again!

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