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Oh yeah, I was talking battalions. Should have been more specific.
East Africa 1930: An ORBAT Quest
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Oh yeah, I was talking battalions. Should have been more specific.
4WheelSword
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Hey AMel, there are parts of your vote which can no longer be considered quick fixes and so were going to have to veto them as options:
Also, if you're going to make major changes to your plan vote, can you post it as a new plan so that the QMs and the other people voting for your plan don't make mistakes. Thankyou.
Procurement is never a quick fix, see the current rifle trials.
Also, if you're going to make major changes to your plan vote, can you post it as a new plan so that the QMs and the other people voting for your plan don't make mistakes. Thankyou.
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Ok, i understand.
I implemented some changes to my Plan to comply with what the QM has ordered, so I removed the purchasing of more equipment and instead added the option to add a company of bicycles to each regiment for Reconnaissance and as Quick Reaction Force.
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Eukie
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Bicycles are equipment. Enough bicycles to equip a company in all three regiments is not really within the budget of a quick fix.
edit: if you want a QRF/recce unit, the scope of a quick fix mostly lets you play around with what you have. You can tell the army to distribute the cavalry across all three regiments, or tell them group all the fastest runners/marchers in a regiment in squads and companies as a kind of proto-Bersaglieri, but acquiring new equipment to change the fundamental role of nearly a third of the army is just too much.
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And so goes another change. :-(
4WheelSword
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Just to be perfectly, 100% clear: A quick fix is a shuffling of the force org or some redistribution of equipment.
It's not:
- buying things
- recruiting more soldiers
- anything that might possibly fall inside the category of procurement.
It's not:
- buying things
- recruiting more soldiers
- anything that might possibly fall inside the category of procurement.
I think it's important to consider that, in times of war, we'll likely dramatically expand our military. We might want to consider having a larger number of under-strength units that can be bulked out during wartime.
Overall, I agree with your proposed layout for the army, although I think some things could be tweaked slightly. With some changes (e.g. an "infantry support company" instead of a HMG company, adding in a logi company, a medical detachment, a company of autocannons for AA/AT), it'd look something like this?
I also think that we'll want to eat the cost and have radios at the Brigade level at least, and ideally much lower than that. Sure, they're expensive, and I don't think we'll ever get to the level of the SCR-300 or the like, but even WWI-level radios like the SCR-108 are dramatically more reliable than runners.
For the Carabinieri, I'd like a smaller level of organization since they're going to be stationed in more remote areas where I don't think anything larger than a company in one place is viable and even that's pushing it; an oversized platoon may be better. That said, I'd like for them to have embedded military police/political officers, a transport section, and a dedicated quartermaster/armourer to maintain equipment in the field.
I agree on having some specialized Carabinieri units.
On the topic of naval stuff, the recent turnpost indicated that there are concerns that Japan cannot provide significant help. Also, one of our borders is a significant river and another is a lake; a brown-water navy could possibly significantly contribute to our ability to defend ourselves.
Rat King
Izutsumi-pilled
I think it's important to consider that, in times of war, we'll likely dramatically expand our military. We might want to consider having a larger number of under-strength units that can be bulked out during wartime.
Overall, I agree with your proposed layout for the army, although I think some things could be tweaked slightly. With some changes (e.g. an "infantry support company" instead of a HMG company, adding in a logi company, a medical detachment, a company of autocannons for AA/AT), it'd look something like this?
I also think that we'll want to eat the cost and have radios at the Brigade level at least, and ideally much lower than that. Sure, they're expensive, and I don't think we'll ever get to the level of the SCR-300 or the like, but even WWI-level radios like the SCR-108 are dramatically more reliable than runners.
For the Carabinieri, I'd like a smaller level of organization since they're going to be stationed in more remote areas where I don't think anything larger than a company in one place is viable and even that's pushing it; an oversized platoon may be better. That said, I'd like for them to have embedded military police/political officers, a transport section, and a dedicated quartermaster/armourer to maintain equipment in the field.
I agree on having some specialized Carabinieri units.
On the topic of naval stuff, the recent turnpost indicated that there are concerns that Japan cannot provide significant help. Also, one of our borders is a significant river and another is a lake; a brown-water navy could possibly significantly contribute to our ability to defend ourselves.
I can dig it; I was mostly going off of how the Japanese organized their Type B divisions, since they're the most likely to influence how we end up orging.
If we can import radios to at least give the brigade/regimental units the ability to communicate roughly in real time.
RE: the Carabinieri, I imagine the organization above the company (or platoon) is likely to be purely administrative (and could be useful for the whole reserve part of their training; you call up a battalion of Carabinieri and with some refresher or extended training they'll serve as a decent static battalion for a regular brigade or the skeleton of a new maneuver battalion).
The point of giving them "battalions" "companies" or "brigades" would be to unify paperwork and give them a bit of an identity.
Plus it's easier to refer to, say, 1st Platoon, 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Carabinieri Regiment (1/3/1 1st Cb.) and have all the paperwork point to that. So I imagine it'll be something like:
Northern Department
North-Western Department
Southern Department
Potentially with a National Carabinieri Command in the capital so they can better coordinate with the Army HQ (or as a subordinate department to army HQ, depending on how we want to roll).
Each regional command will be responsible for their training unit and managing their regional armories and they then have Carabinieri Regiments assigned to them, numbered how we think appropriate, and the regiment administration mostly helps keep track of all the paperwork and provides a line of communication between the department heads and the subordinate units. If we want the regiments to also be regional within the departments, they might also do rotating management duty on smaller armories. Regiments is probably also where we put our purpose-trained Carabinieri MP companies.
Battalions might be the lowest "tactical" command, since we could potentially see "mobile" Carabinieri battalions as units during wartime, either to provide rear security or to be called up as reservists.
On paper at least , a standard Carabinieri Battalion might look like:
-HQ
-3-4 Companies (tactical in more populated areas, potentially also merely administrative or only formed for mass training events for more rural departments and potentially tactical units in wartime)
-Machine Gun Section (probably not a fully company and typically only used in times of unrest or wartime or left in armory or in foritifactions unless needed)
-"Border Guard" or "Ranger" Company who are more focused on doing the wilderness work (or we could put these guys together or move them up a level, hard to say).
Of course, getting an entire Carabinieri battalion in one place (to say nothing of the regiment) probably only happens a few times a year when they do refresher training on battalion maneuvers/inspections.
Companies are then divided into stations/platoons and these are probably where the Carabinieri spend most of their time - 36 to 60 men, depending on how exactly organize them, possibly broken further down into squads.
Border patrol units might be called "Border Guard Battalions" and could possibly have more of a mounted element; but I'm mostly spitballing here. Do we give them the brown water patrol capability, at least as far as policing goes? Because we'll probably have to designate stations/regiments specifically for it.
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They chose to unify their MMG and HMG rounds, rather than using separate LMG, MMG, and HMG cartridges like most modern armies or unifying their infantry/LMG/MMG rounds as I believe makes more sense logistically. Much better if all the guys walking can share ammo and only the vehicles and heavy mounts and so on need a separate round.
The period comparison is the German "Mauser/MG34 on bipod/MG34 on tripod" model for infantry/LMG/MMG firing the same cartridge, rather than a typical modern 5.56 AR, 5.56 LMG, 7.62 MMG model.
It's not practical in the modern world because anything powerful enough for MMG usage is too powerful for a five-pound carbine, but post-spitzer and pre-armalite at least it is completely workable. Pre-spitzer it probably doesn't have the range you'd want out of your MMG, but given how poor our nation is it might be enough to get by in exchange for the cost and logistics savings.
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Mmm, It could work, but I was fond of the "modern" solution with two calibers: it allowed to use the same base ammunition of a long-range sniper rifle in a long-range MMG/GPMG...
@C_Z , I don't want to be rude so I ask first, but can I point out some shortcomings of your plan?
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Oh, if that's your goal 6.5 Swedish blows 7.62 NATO/.308 completely out of the water. There is no contest; you literally cannot do better than long heavy slippery 6.5mm boattails for long range shooting- or even medium-range; the smaller cartridge will have the advantage in retained kinetic energy well inside 200 yards, and it only gets further ahead from there. Depending on the bullet weights being compared, its retained energy pulls ahead of .30-06 somewhere between 5 and 800 yards. Finally, the 6.5mm bullet will stay supersonic (and therefore stable) much, much further- as much as 1400 yards for modern match-loaded 6.5 Creedmoor, versus around 900 yards for equally-modern .308 match ammo.
Direct comparisons of 6.5 Swede to 7.62 NATO are fairly sparse, but look up any of the many, many brutally-one-sided comparisons of 7.62 NATO/.308 to 6.5mm Creedmoor, and then consider that 6.5mm Creedmoor is a 2007 cartridge that only produces about 6-8% more muzzle energy than 6.5x55 Swedish using the exact same bullets. Both of them will absolutely take 7.62 to the cleaners.
USSOCOM said:
Basically, if you want a .30 with comparable performance to a 6.5mm bullet at very long range, you're looking at .300 Weatherby Magnum territory minimum.
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I was thinking of something along the lines of the .338 Lapua, that has over 2'000 meters range for precision shooting with a sniper. I imagine using that for creating a beaten zone with an MG to harass the enemy without needing to bother the few artillery we have...
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...I dunno, I mean yes the cartridge is technically capable of that, but at that point you're looking at double the case capacity and recoil of .308, far too much to be usable from a non-mounted machine gun, and far beyond the common use of squad- or even company-level machine gun crews outside of fixed positions (where they might as well just use a proper HMG or a mortar).
Oh, and more than double the weight per round versus .308 and nearly triple vs. 6.5 Swedish, meaning less than half the number of rounds actually able to be carried by your average infantryman.
Finally, unless you want to blow through match-grade sniper ammo at 650rpm, I don't think there's even any significant benefit to be had in simplifying logistics.
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Mmm, @thepsyborg you have a point...
EDIT: I also made a small change to my plan: I added a point to transfer a battalion from the 2nd regiment to the 1st as to have 3 regiments with the same capabilities...
EDIT No.2: added also a point to create a Coast Guard Service internal to the Carabinieri to respond to the Concern Raised here:
The new points are evidenced in bold(to summarize we should purchase some recently retired Kamikaze-class destroyers and crew them whit some of the Carabinieri from Lake Turkana):
EDIT: I also made a small change to my plan: I added a point to transfer a battalion from the 2nd regiment to the 1st as to have 3 regiments with the same capabilities...
EDIT No.2: added also a point to create a Coast Guard Service internal to the Carabinieri to respond to the Concern Raised here:
The new points are evidenced in bold(to summarize we should purchase some recently retired Kamikaze-class destroyers and crew them whit some of the Carabinieri from Lake Turkana):
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always_confused
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Rat King
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More rambling from me, since I have been taking walks in the morning and it gives me a lot of time to think about this stuff, lol.
For our light machine guns, considering that everyone in the world at this point is still using box magazines (aside from the Germans, who will develop the MG-34 shortly), I think our best bet is to use the Madsen, the ZB vz. 26, or the Belgian FN mle 30 BAR, which fixed a lot of the issues it had and will have a variant with a quick-change barrel by 1932 (although still limited by the small magazine).
For heavy machine guns, I keep coming back to the Type 3/Type 92/Hotchkiss; it's a decent weapon and serves well in the role. The alternative is perhaps try for a water-cooled variant of the Browning, Maxim/Vickers, or one of the older Austrian models (Sweden uses one of them at this point in time).
For mortars, hard to go wrong with the Brandt mle 27/31. Simple, reliable, easy to produce. Has decent 'oomph'.
Regimental artillery is a bit harder; we do at least have enough Krupp 7.5 cm guns to make a whole artillery battalion at the Army level, but we may want to modernize our guns and pick something else. Or upgrade to 105mm. That might be impractical, though, because of transport/weight/logistical issues.
I believe our current battalion guns are the Type 92. Seems to have been an effective piece, so we could simply keep them and start giving every regiment a four-gun battery and all the battalions get 4-6 81mm mortars. Overall net increase in firepower on the regimental level; go from (potentially) six Type 92s to four, but add up to 18 81mm mortars.
For our light machine guns, considering that everyone in the world at this point is still using box magazines (aside from the Germans, who will develop the MG-34 shortly), I think our best bet is to use the Madsen, the ZB vz. 26, or the Belgian FN mle 30 BAR, which fixed a lot of the issues it had and will have a variant with a quick-change barrel by 1932 (although still limited by the small magazine).
For heavy machine guns, I keep coming back to the Type 3/Type 92/Hotchkiss; it's a decent weapon and serves well in the role. The alternative is perhaps try for a water-cooled variant of the Browning, Maxim/Vickers, or one of the older Austrian models (Sweden uses one of them at this point in time).
For mortars, hard to go wrong with the Brandt mle 27/31. Simple, reliable, easy to produce. Has decent 'oomph'.
Regimental artillery is a bit harder; we do at least have enough Krupp 7.5 cm guns to make a whole artillery battalion at the Army level, but we may want to modernize our guns and pick something else. Or upgrade to 105mm. That might be impractical, though, because of transport/weight/logistical issues.
I believe our current battalion guns are the Type 92. Seems to have been an effective piece, so we could simply keep them and start giving every regiment a four-gun battery and all the battalions get 4-6 81mm mortars. Overall net increase in firepower on the regimental level; go from (potentially) six Type 92s to four, but add up to 18 81mm mortars.
4WheelSword
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Rat King
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It's important to note that they are adorable baby guns too:
Oh yeah, they're tiny guns. Love the little suckers. And in thinking on it, they may not be quite suitable for regimental batteries, so we could just keep them at the battalion level AND give the battalions mortars and then invest in some full=size three inch guns for a regimental battery.
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I'm in agreement on the LMG. My primary concern is having something cheap, light, and reliable more than anything else.
In addition to the squad-level LMG, we could also throw in some Type 89 mortars for each squad. From what I've read, they had quite the reputation in WWII and we can likely license the design from Japan.
I'm not a fan of the strip-fed Hotchkiss. It apparently has a low sustained rate of fire?
Agreed on the Brandt for "heavier" mortars. Giving a handful to each regiment would be a dramatic improvement, and afaik that design is pretty good.
I'm in favour of a heavier regimental gun. The 75 is neat, but I worry that only 4 of them will be too weak, and by 1930, there are much better alternatives available instead of buying more of the same (e.g., 75 mm M1, Bofors 75 mm Model 1934, Bofors 75 mm mountain gun, 76 mm regimental gun M1927, or Obice da 75/18 modello 34 if we want to stick to 75 mm, or something like the Canon Court de 105 M modèle 1919 Schneider or Type 91 10 cm howitzer if we want to go up in calibre). We also have the option of issuing a public request for proposals for a newly-designed weapon as well, if we want - it's not like we have a critical need to get regimental guns now. Something like the US 105 mm M3 isn't a result of dramatic technological improvements; it's a shortened version of a barrel from 1932 on the 75 mm M1's carriage.
The 70 mm, with an effective range of under 3 km, feels like a downgrade over 81 mm mortars (which outperform them in most areas!) and wholly unsuited to providing fire support to an entire regiment. We need a heavier gun at the regimental level.
Oh yeah, they're tiny guns. Love the little suckers. And in thinking on it, they may not be quite suitable for regimental batteries, so we could just keep them at the battalion level AND give the battalions mortars and then invest in some full=size three inch guns for a regimental battery.
Seeing your reply here, yeah, could make the standard heavy mortar company a mix of 70 mm guns and 81 mm mortars, or give a 70 mm gun or two to each combat support company (along with the MMGs).
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Rat King
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re: Hotchkiss, I'm not sure if I think overall sustained rate of fire is that important unless you're in an emergency "dump everything" situation. Usually HMGs are going to be firing in bursts (or should be), although I suppose in WW1 and in other instances you did have guns just blasting away along set lines... the main benefit is that the Type 3 is available, we have experience with it, and it wouldn't be too hard to get more of them/a variant. The French, Japan, and other export costumers were apparently OK with it, although the French did make a metal-link belt for use on vehicle-mounted Hotchkiss guns.
The other alternative is something like the M1917 Browning re-chambered for whatever round we want or maybe just a straight Maxim copy (which would be cheaper) or potentially the Schwarzlose. Swedes have a variant chambered in their 6.5mm and the Czechs produce a copy, so there's potential to be able to either buy them or maybe get licensing rights. Also apparently the Japanese Navy is using a variant right now in-universe.
I agree on the artillery. My primary concern with potentially going up to a 105mm is the weight and our ability to move it. 75mm has less firepower, but are also lighter and will be easier for us to move with man/cattle/horse-power if we don't have trucks, etc. Same for the shells, which will be correspondingly smaller/lighter than the 105s. So it'd be a compromise, but one we might have to make.
I dig the 70mm guns going into the support company with the MMGs; they're small and man-portable enough to provide decent direct-fire support and some indirect support.
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4WheelSword
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Just as a side-note. There's about a day left of the vote and at least one vote no longer has a plan associated with it.
Best of luck everyone.
Best of luck everyone.