I'd say it's a matter of skill issue on the part of the Anglos, not the designs themselves as the Kongou class (which were designed by Vickers) performed decently well despite their age (though Hiei and Kirishima suffered major skill issues at Guadalcanal).
Jokes aside, did the Japanese ever adopt insensitive propellants? I know their shells were over-complicated, unstable bombs, and navweaps appears to be down so I can't look up what their propellants were on my phone.
This is actually somewhat relevant to us - adopting explosive fillers and propellants that don't degrade over time is good for us, since it means we can have a slow trickle of production that can be stockpiled for a longer time. Trinitrophenol and transnitroanisole form nasty things when left in contact with steel, and the elaborate lacquer coatings and shock buffers used in Japanese shells aren't worth it when there are better, albeit weaker explosives we can use
Adhoc vote count started by FrangibleCover on Mar 11, 2024 at 5:13 PM, finished with 142 posts and 21 votes.
[X] Plan: Making Boolit
-[X] Expand Production: 6.5x50mmSR (6-Month Investment.)
-[X] Enlarge the Army
-[X] Institute conscription (6-Month Investment)
--[X] Semi-annual conscription of 5,000 new soldiers, serving for a two-year period including training followed by four years in the "short notice" reserve, for a total strength of 20,000 active soldiers and 40,000 reservists.
--[X] The enlarged force is structured into brigades of three regiments (one active service, the other two reservists). Each regiment is structued after the current organization of the 2nd 'Kismayo' Regiment, except the AT/AA battery is moved to the battalion level (as in the 1st 'Reewiin Guards' Regiment) and a headquarters unit is provided to each battalion once sufficient officers are available.
[X] Plan: Forlorn Hope
-[X] Emergency Purchase (3-Month Investment. Variable delivery time. Can be selected multiple times.)
--[X] 250 Brandt Mle 27/31 81 mm mortars
-[X] Enlarge the Army
-[X] Institute conscription (6-Month Investment)
--[X] Semi-annual conscription of 5,000 new soldiers, serving for a two-year period including training followed by four years in the "short notice" reserve, for a total strength of 20,000 active soldiers and 40,000 reservists.
--[X] The enlarged force is structured into brigades of three regiments (one active service, the other two reservists). Each regiment is structued after the current organization of the 2nd 'Kismayo' Regiment, except the AT/AA battery is moved to the battalion level (as in the 1st 'Reewiin Guards' Regiment) and a headquarters unit is provided to each battalion once sufficient officers are available.
Okay, closing this now. You are now conscripting a wide slice of Reewiin's society into the armed forces, next you have to put them somewhere. Make suggestions as to possible organisations for the new armed forces, from the platoon up to the whole thing. You don't have to submit ideas for all levels of organisation, if you really want to see a pentagonal platoon and don't care about the higher level stuff, just talk about your platoon idea.
We'll take the suggestions, perhaps add some of our own and throw it up for a proper vote as an interstitial between updates.
So this is just throwing something to start discussion (as I know jack shit about infantry formations and as such feel free to tear my idea to shreds) but how about forming the new divisions with something like this.
For a full strength div.
Hq
- Runners
2 infantry battalions (1k men each)
-Subdivided into companies of 250 men, thus 4 companies in total.
-Each company is divided into platoons of 50 men, thus 20 platoons in total.
- Each platoon is divided into squads of 10 men, thus 200 squads in total.
Support:
Reconnaissance battalion
Artillery section (Don't think we've talked about the number of artillery pieces per new division)
Field hospitals
AA/AT section (6-12 13.2mm HMG)
Mortar Company (? Might be better to just roll them into each individual infantry company ?)
On phone rn so I'm using text rather than an image to convey what I mean.
One key limitation we should consider is our number of trained officers, as we can't exactly conscript a captain or colonel out of nowhere. We're probably going to have to rely on large formations with officers commanding larger numbers of troops until our officer corp catches up with the army expansion.
One key limitation we should consider is our number of trained officers, as we can't exactly conscript a captain or colonel out of nowhere. We're probably going to have to rely on large formations with officers commanding larger numbers of troops until our officer corp catches up with the army expansion.
I believe the American army did something similar in WW1, given how tiny the prewar army was compared to the mass conscript forces of 1918. It's kind of an inevitable growing pain consequence of using conscription to bulk out your forces.
Here's a possible infantry regiment formation. The idea is that this has no or a mainly administrative division level above it, as supporting assets are scarce we're not likely to deploy many of these without major mobilization so the level between Regiment and Army will be squeezed. Thus, it has a regimental cavalry/recon company, in theory a relatively generous regimental artillery pool (to that end we probably want more than the 8 listed, tomorrow), a medical unit and more than twice the regimental-level supply assets that the later Japanese regiments I was basing this on had. Except for the infantry company, numbers are fairly general.
If we were to put five or six of these in active service, it would leave us one to two thousand animals for the division/Army/Carabineri level supply and cavalry based on the crude estimate of 5,500 easily mobilizable in peacetime.
The main equipment we're lacking based on this OOB are MMGs and artillery.
HQ Company & Misc. service units: ~110 men (Japanese regimental HQ + parceling out some divisional groups)
Signals Company: ~100 men, including maybe 50 mounted messengers for now (smaller than later Japanese one due to less technical equipment)
Pioneer Company: 100+ men and ~15 animals; for non-mechanized logging, digging, construction etc (matches a common Japanese regimental unit)
Medical Company: ~100 men and ~15 animals (scaled down from Japanese divisional + further more due to limited capacity)
Regimental Transport & Supply Battalion: ~300 men and ~250 animals (this is at least twice the Japanese figure because there are less levels above this)
Okay, so as a starting point, I'm still a fan of this for our company-level org, with the logistics being handled by either 8 oxen and 4 donkeys/mules, or however many camels we need for the same:
I'm fine with keeping the company level supply if we think our captains are up to it. I'd fold it in as part of a headquarters platoon, then, and the MMG section can be lumped into it. I'd like to keep the medical orderlies; it's four dudes acting as stretcher bearers and being the point-of-contact for people in the company who need to find the first-aid kit. They're not exactly crack medical specialists.
If we do put everything together into a headquarters unit, then adding a MMG section should be reasonable. It's 16 more men, bringing the headquarters platoon up to a decent size. We don't need to expand it into a full weapons platoon.
I'd rather not have four infantry platoons, it has knock-on effects for unit size down the line if we don't switch the sections, and if we do, that's more officers we need right away. It's a complication for little benefit at this point, I think, and a fairly easy thing to switch up later (probably alongside the introduction of the grenade section).
Here's a TO&E and org chart for what I'm thinking of, based in part on the Japanese and German formations in advance of WWII and British formations during WWI:
Off.s
NCOs
Enl.
Rifles
Pistols
LMGs
MMGs
Mules
Carts
Co HQ Plat
3
8
44
48
7
2
17
14
1st R Plat
1
4
51
53
3
2nd R Plat
1
4
51
53
3
3rd R Plat
1
4
51
53
3
Total
6
20
197
207
7
9
2
17
14
Company HQ Platoon
Off.s
NCOs
Enl.
Rifles
Pistols
LMGs
MMGs
Mules
Carts
HQ Section
3
2
10
10
5
1
1
MG Section
2
14
14
2
2
Supply
4
16
20
16
13
Medical
4
4
Total
3
8
44
48
7
2
17
14
Rifle Platoon:
Off.s
NCOs
Enl.
Rifles
Pistols
LMGs
MMGs
Mules
Carts
Platoon HQ
1
1
2
1st Sec
1
17
17
1
2nd Sec
1
17
17
1
3rd Sec
1
17
17
1
Total
1
4
51
53
3
Scaled to 27 companies per division, we'd be looking at a total of 162 officers, 740 NCOs, 5319 enlisted, 5589 rifles, 189 pistols, 243 LMGs, 54 MMGs, 459 donkeys, mules, or horses, and 378 carts, ignoring all the stuff introduced at higher levels.
3 rifle companies to a battalion seems a good starting point. It's our current org, no need to shake it up. The big question at the battalion level, I think, is what else is in a battalion (in addition to or replacing the current battalion gun section and supply platoon).
We need to decide what the smallest formation that'll act more-or-less on its own is. I personally favour smaller units; our army itself is small, and we don't have a good communications apparatus, so trying to have huge formations in the field working together is IMO a bad idea. We'd also be spreading ourselves too thin if we're maneuvering at the division level, since we'd only have a peak strength of 6 divisions. As such, I think either our battalions or regiments will need basically all the bells-and-whistles; we can't concentrate much at the division level.
To start with, I'd throw a headquarters company in the battalion, in addition to the three rifle companies. This would include:
The actual headquarters of the unit
A medical section, mostly to keep people from dying of diseases (we don't want to follow US civil war casualty statistics)
A signals platoon to keep in touch with the army headquarters
A water decontamination section
An ammunition park
Battalion-level indirect fire can be provided by either the current 70 mm guns or 81 mm mortars. I'd like to upgrade this to a full platoon so we can really bring the pain on anyone we're fighting.
Based on other militaries, we'll need a supply platoon for our battalion.
I'd also include a 13.2 mm battery at the battalion level. That's a lot of people, but we want the AA/AT guns close to the front.
Likewise, I'd include a unit of pioneers/combat engineers. I can't recall who it was, but I was reading some US reports on unit formations and they noted that the lack of low-level combat engineers reduced that military's effectiveness. I think we should be able to find a decent number of people who are familiar with blasting and digging given Reewiin's extensive mining industry; even if the capabilities of our engineers are limited, it's someone in the battalion who carries the bangalore torpedoes and satchel charges and have been made to memorize the picture diagams of what a good fighting trench looks like.
Possibly, we could lump the mortar battery, 13.2 mm battery, and engineering unit into a general support company for ease of organization & pooling of heavy transport equipment.
In contrast, I'd keep the regimental organization fairly light. I'd have a headquarters company (enlarged from the battalion one, probably because it'll handle more supply and have better medical facilities to handle the people coming up from the battalions), a signals company, and three infantry battalions.
At the division level, I'd have the divisional headquarters (not sure what that'd be yet), division signals, field hospitals (which are important because, in peace time, they'll be the regular hospitals the military uses too...), our divisional artillery (a bunch of ~76 mm guns or so), and three infantry regiments
Somewhere in this, we need to squeeze in cavalry. I'm not sure where would be best.
Fantastic! We can always add more divisional artillery once we get more imports/production, but small and light suits our transport situation, ammunition stockpiles, and terrain. A gun that's in position and firing beats a heavier gun that's trapped in a mudpit.
That seems pretty comprehensive, anyone know if we're missing anything obvious?
I also want to know how the Defence Council plans to transition from the current force structure to your proposed one, as well as how they fit into the mobilisation plan. Break up all of the current regular units immediately and organise onto your proposal, or phase it? Keep a fully regularised battalion, or brigade, to react rapidly to threats? Keep it even after the reorganisation? Do you have a fully staffed division and a cadre division to put mobilised reservists into? Or do you do that at battalion level?
How, in short, do you envisage your pieces of paper interacting with reality?
If we plan on raising more or less 6 infantry regiments, we should be able to split up two or three battalions into cadres for a regiment each year, ideally spread throughout the year and one current brigade at a time, for a two-year transition to a full complement of conscripts. This would be slower than requested but probably not worse for capacity during that time than an instant expansion to size would be. Officer and NCO expansion/promotion would be rushed but would recover over time.
Of course, that could mean that one of the brigade HQs gets dissolved and will be unhappy about it - but then, if we're expecting the division-level organization to be nominal anyway, there's no reason we couldn't stick two regiments in each rather than 3. Regularizing that later would help reduce the chaos when we're expanding.
Okay, so as a starting point, I'm still a fan of this for our company-level org, with the logistics being handled by either 8 oxen and 4 donkeys/mules, or however many camels we need for the same:
As for above the company level:
3 rifle companies to a battalion seems a good starting point. It's our current org, no need to shake it up. The big question at the battalion level, I think, is what else is in a battalion (in addition to or replacing the current battalion gun section and supply platoon).
We need to decide what the smallest formation that'll act more-or-less on its own is. I personally favour smaller units; our army itself is small, and we don't have a good communications apparatus, so trying to have huge formations in the field working together is IMO a bad idea. We'd also be spreading ourselves too thin if we're maneuvering at the division level, since we'd only have a peak strength of 6 divisions. As such, I think either our battalions or regiments will need basically all the bells-and-whistles; we can't concentrate much at the division level.
To start with, I'd throw a headquarters company in the battalion, in addition to the three rifle companies. This would include:
The actual headquarters of the unit
A medical section, mostly to keep people from dying of diseases (we don't want to follow US civil war casualty statistics)
A signals platoon to keep in touch with the army headquarters
A water decontamination section
An ammunition park
Battalion-level indirect fire can be provided by either the current 70 mm guns or 81 mm mortars. I'd like to upgrade this to a full platoon so we can really bring the pain on anyone we're fighting.
Based on other militaries, we'll need a supply platoon for our battalion.
I'd also include a 13.2 mm battery at the battalion level. That's a lot of people, but we want the AA/AT guns close to the front.
Likewise, I'd include a unit of pioneers/combat engineers. I can't recall who it was, but I was reading some US reports on unit formations and they noted that the lack of low-level combat engineers reduced that military's effectiveness. I think we should be able to find a decent number of people who are familiar with blasting and digging given Reewiin's extensive mining industry; even if the capabilities of our engineers are limited, it's someone in the battalion who carries the bangalore torpedoes and satchel charges and have been made to memorize the picture diagams of what a good fighting trench looks like.
Possibly, we could lump the mortar battery, 13.2 mm battery, and engineering unit into a general support company for ease of organization & pooling of heavy transport equipment.
In contrast, I'd keep the regimental organization fairly light. I'd have a headquarters company (enlarged from the battalion one, probably because it'll handle more supply and have better medical facilities to handle the people coming up from the battalions), a signals company, and three infantry battalions.
At the division level, I'd have the divisional headquarters (not sure what that'd be yet), division signals, field hospitals (which are important because, in peace time, they'll be the regular hospitals the military uses too...), our divisional artillery (a bunch of ~76 mm guns or so), and three infantry regiments
Somewhere in this, we need to squeeze in cavalry. I'm not sure where would be best.
Good points, but I don't really see a reason to emphasize the divisional level and minimize the regimental - as you said above the regiment is a unit we can reasonably assign a section of front and expect to use as a single unit while the division only would be with a lot further growth.
If we plan on raising more or less 6 infantry regiments, we should be able to split up two or three battalions into cadres for a regiment each year, ideally spread throughout the year and one current brigade at a time, for a two-year transition to a full complement of conscripts. Officer and NCO expansion would be rushed but would recover
Of course, that could mean that one of the brigade HQs gets dissolved and will be unhappy about it - but then, if we're expecting the division-level organization to be nominal anyway, there's no reason we couldn't stick two regiments in each rather than 3. Regularizing that later would help reduce the chaos when we're expanding.
In addition to this, my showerthoughts this morning were that we could create under-strength versions of the newly created 'special' units like engineers, artillery, and so on by doing a sweep through the current sections and saying "hey, anyone here have experience with explosives/construction/handling pack animals/working with telephones/etc.", leaving the rifle sections under-strength for the short term, and then filling them back up to their full strength with new units while also growing out the 'support' units at the same time (i.e., we'd start with, say, a single mortar team by dropping the section to 16 dudes, then slowly fill things out to having four mortar teams and a section of 18 dudes again). It means we can train with a full on-paper org and have the skeleton for filling it out later, and with our sections being as big as they are, it isn't a huge drop in capability.
Good points, but I don't really see a reason to emphasize the divisional level and minimize the regimental - as you said above the regiment is a unit we can reasonably assign a front and expect to use as a unit while the division only would be with a lot further growth.
It was mostly an effect of which levels the stuff we want are located at. I want to cluster all of the supporting assets at the same level, more or less, so that there's one level with medical units, engineers, signals, transport, artillery, and AT/AA. IMO, ideally our field gun is something like this. We could assign a (6-gun) battery of those at the regimental level, but I'm not sure if that's economically feasible. If our field guns are at the division level, then what I'm proposing is basically the same as yours, except that I'm shifting some things (e.g., logistics and pioneers) further down into the battalion so that they can be grouped with the 81 mm mortars/70 mm battalion guns.
If we can put field guns at the regimental level, then I'm all for taking the division assets and splitting them up between over-strength regiments.
In addition to this, my showerthoughts this morning were that we could create under-strength versions of the newly created 'special' units like engineers, artillery, and so on by doing a sweep through the current sections and saying "hey, anyone here have experience with explosives/construction/handling pack animals/working with telephones/etc.", leaving the rifle sections under-strength for the short term, and then filling them back up to their full strength with new units while also growing out the 'support' units at the same time (i.e., we'd start with, say, a single mortar team by dropping the section to 16 dudes, then slowly fill things out to having four mortar teams and a section of 18 dudes again). It means we can train with a full on-paper org and have the skeleton for filling it out later, and with our sections being as big as they are, it isn't a huge drop in capability.
It was mostly an effect of which levels the stuff we want are located at. I want to cluster all of the supporting assets at the same level, more or less, so that there's one level with medical units, engineers, signals, transport, artillery, and AT/AA. IMO, ideally our field gun is something like this. We could assign a (6-gun) battery of those at the regimental level, but I'm not sure if that's economically feasible. If our field guns are at the division level, then what I'm proposing is basically the same as yours, except that I'm shifting some things (e.g., logistics and pioneers) further down into the battalion so that they can be grouped with the 81 mm mortars/70 mm battalion guns.
If we can put field guns at the regimental level, then I'm all for taking the division assets and splitting them up between over-strength regiments.
I was imagining the regimental gun as probably something older and off the shelf, at least for now, so probably cheaper to provide plenty of, but I guess there's no way to know what's available unless we trial them or buy something we know there's surplus of. 6 regimental guns, for 18 in a division with no higher level artillery is still less than half of a later Japanese division.
One key limitation we should consider is our number of trained officers, as we can't exactly conscript a captain or colonel out of nowhere. We're probably going to have to rely on large formations with officers commanding larger numbers of troops until our officer corp catches up with the army expansion.
It's not very contemporary to the quest, but IIRC in Estonian army in early nineties there also was a distinct lack of senior officers and they ended up with having say, captain on the position which lieutenant-colonel or colonel would normally hold. Then in the next years their officers quickly grew in ranks (but not in jumping order, one rank at a time just in the minimal normal time).
Speaking of ranks - what is our rank system? Is it a copy of the current Japanese one with the Arab names, or something else?
upd:
Also, as a conscription goes - how many years the conscript should serve? And we would definitely need as many professional NCOs embedded with the conscripts in the same barracks as we could possibly afford. The late-Soviet system of "first years are privates, second years are sergeants and every senior professional NCO lives separately from troops, just as officers" is a direct way to the Big Bad D.
I was imagining the regimental gun as probably something older and off the shelf, at least for now, so probably cheaper to provide plenty of, but I guess there's no way to know what's available unless we trial them or buy something we know there's surplus of. 6 regimental guns, for 18 in a division with no higher level artillery is still less than half of a later Japanese division.
Whoops, my mistake - the Germans used the 10.5 cm leFH as divisional artillery too, whereas I was just looking at the 7.5 cm guns that some volksgrenadier and other latewar divisions got. The Japanese have 36 75 mm field guns per division, and then 8 75 mm mountain guns per regiment; for a triangular division, that means each regiment would have 12 75 mm field guns and 8 75 mm mountain guns if you divided it equally.
I'm somewhat torn over this. Having the high velocity guns is good because they can do long-range bombardments and could later form the basis of a later anti-aircraft and anti-tank gun capable of defeating basically anything we'd see, but at the same time, I'm not sure if we could even make use of the longer range given our poor communications infrastructure. A heavier gun component would also limit our regiments' mobility.
Now that I think of it I might still want to have the heavy guns be concentrated on paper at the division level with doctrine being for the division commander to parcel out gun batteries to the regiments as the situation permits? That way there's somewhere for the artillery to stay behind if the terrain is otherwise impassable. We can make up the reduced firepower with more mortars at the lower levels.
Sadly, I don't think there are any 120 mm mortars in widespread service yet; having a bunch of them would be perfect for regimental fires.
Also, as a conscription goes - how many years the conscript should serve? And we would definitely need as many professional NCOs embedded with the conscripts in the same barracks as we could possibly afford. The late-Soviet system of "first years are privates, second years are sergeants and every senior professional NCO lives separately from troops, just as officers" is a direct way to the Big Bad D.
The winning vote has them serving two years currently, 1 year dedicated fully to training. As for how the soldiers are organized, I think we should sidestep the whole issue by having everyone just serve in the same battalion for the full term of service. Our training works up to the battalion level so thats a very natural solution which will maintain cohesion and prevent any fuckery in that regard.
So I went looking on Wikipedia and came to the conclusion that if we want 120mm mortars we need to make them ourselves but we if want to look at great war mortars that may be floating around on the market then IGotRecommendations.
Also I got a proposal for higher level organisation for the transition of the peacetime army to wartime following mobilisation of the reserves.
The different colors signify the training level, with dark blue being fully trained, light blue having gone through the first half of training and orange being in an even earlier state of training. Purple is the reservists. Dashed lines signify that the formation isn't actually organized, so the reservists and the troops still going through basics aren't in battalions yet, while after mobilization all the reservists are gathered into battalions. So the idea is that each Brigade has one high readiness regiment where all the fully trained battalions are located, one low readiness regiment which is responsible for the battalions still in training and one regiment which barely exists in peacetime except for a skeleton cadre. Then during mobilisation we staff the skeleton regiment and toss in the reservist battalions to fill the holes.
I also think we should consider giving each brigade a 'replacement battalion' organized like a normal infantry battalion to have a more formal replacement pipeline as well as potentially a place to put the troops still going through basics while keeping them safer than they'd be if put into frontline battalions.
Also I got a proposal for higher level organisation for the transition of the peacetime army to wartime following mobilisation of the reserves.
The different colors signify the training level, with dark blue being fully trained, light blue having gone through the first half of training and orange being in an even earlier state of training. Purple is the reservists. Dashed lines signify that the formation isn't actually organized, so the reservists and the troops still going through basics aren't in battalions yet, while after mobilization all the reservists are gathered into battalions. So the idea is that each Brigade has one high readiness regiment where all the fully trained battalions are located, one low readiness regiment which is responsible for the battalions still in training and one regiment which barely exists in peacetime except for a skeleton cadre. Then during mobilisation we staff the skeleton regiment and toss in the reservist battalions to fill the holes.
I also think we should consider giving each brigade a 'replacement battalion' organized like a normal infantry battalion to have a more formal replacement pipeline as well as potentially a place to put the troops still going through basics while keeping them safer than they'd be if put into frontline battalions.
The overall scheme makes sense, but I'm not sure about shuffling the troops in training out of the division for mobilization - it seems like a source of potential chaos compared to just keeping them in a separate training command, at least until they go to a potential later-stage training unit.
If we want to make the reserves integral to our units, rather than having separate reserve brigades/divisions - which could make sense as a smaller country - one thing we could do would be to just have two reserve regiments and one active regiment per division, stick support assets at the division level, and just count on those assets being swelled by reservists and mobilized draft animals when the division was mobilized. Since 6 divisions isn't an unreasonable number to push around like 2 is.
We also probably want to build in and determine the distinction between the ready reserve (in mobilizable units) and the older years which may be pulled on for replacements or new wartime units.
I also want to know how the Defence Council plans to transition from the current force structure to your proposed one, as well as how they fit into the mobilisation plan. Break up all of the current regular units immediately and organise onto your proposal, or phase it? Keep a fully regularised battalion, or brigade, to react rapidly to threats? Keep it even after the reorganisation? Do you have a fully staffed division and a cadre division to put mobilised reservists into? Or do you do that at battalion level?
How, in short, do you envisage your pieces of paper interacting with reality?
As for what to do with the transition from the current army to the next one, I think the best one is to start offering promotions while pushing everyone one level up on the organisational chart. The current Army HQ stays as the Army HQ obviously, meanwhile we turn the regimental staff into brigade staff, battalion staff into regimental staff and so on. The longer serving enlisted should be offered promotions into NCO roles. Stuff like that. We'll have 6 months from now before the first conscripts even start their training, which should give us enough time to get the first batch their Officer and NCO cadres. Then there will be another year before the first cadre is finished, and another 6 months after that before we have reached full staffing levels as all four 6-month "batches" are in service at the same time. That gives us a total of 2 years to finish this process of transition.
The overall scheme makes sense, but I'm not sure about shuffling the troops in training out of the division for mobilization - it seems like a source of potential chaos compared to just keeping them in a separate training command, at least until they go to a potential later-stage training unit.
If we want to make the reserves integral to our units, rather than having separate reserve brigades/divisions - which could make sense as a smaller country - one thing we could do would be to just have two reserve regiments and one active regiment per division, stick support assets at the division level, and just count on those assets being swelled by reservists and mobilized draft animals when the division was mobilized. Since 6 divisions isn't an unreasonable number to push around like 2 is.
I think the best solution is to have a "replacement battalion" added to the division during wartime and shuffle the soldiers still going through basics there, which seems to be similar to what you have in mind. This would also sort out the basics of how we handle replacements which is good.
Let's not forget that this army would be built from 2-year conscripts, drafted every 6 months. This means that the army would, eventually, consist of soldiers of 4 drafts - with recently drafted soldiers in their first "half-year" being the least experienced, and the soldiers in their 4th half-year most experienced. This suggests that the army should be built around that.
Kind of like this:
If we consider the battalion the "basic" building block, and that the infantry is primarily trained at the battalion level, this suggests four battalions per regiment. The "half-years" in this scheme would cycle each new draft, so with the next draft the 1st bat would let their experienced lads go and take in the fresh conscripts, the second would "mature" to 4th half-year, and so on.
The regimental and divisional units probably should consist of mix-draft soldiers, taking the most appropriate conscripts in each draft (with more NCOs per unit, living with the soldiers in the same barracks, to prevent the bad stuff).
Also, the artillery, signals and medics should have their own second hierarchy, with all the battalion ComSupport companies additionally subordinated to the regiment's chief artillery officer (and then to the divisional chief artillery officer), the medics to the chief medic officer, and so on. This hierarchy should be responsible for the training of the special units consistent between battalions (and between regiments), be aware of the relevant supply situation in each unit, etc. So the divisional chief arty officer should have the info on every battalion's ammo/transport needs and situation.
Regiment should have their direct subordinate units on this diagram too, I was just too lazy to put them there. Please assume that everything else is as on the C_Z's diagram.
Don't know where to put the cavalry/recons though.
upd.
Now that I think about the reservists, probably would be necessary to have 1-2 (more?) "reserve regiments" assigned to each division, that would consist of a cadre of officers/NCOs and "empty" units, which would be filled with the reservists during the mobilization.
The 40 000 reservists kinda make it hard on the structure in this case. Really not sure what to do about them, hm.
Ah, nuts, we have "The enlarged force is structured into brigades of three regiments (one active service, the other two reservists)." in our last vote.
So it's one regiment with conscripts and two cadres for the reservist regiments per division/"brigade".
Let's not forget that this army would be built from 2-year conscripts, drafted every 6 months. This means that the army would, eventually, consist of soldiers of 4 drafts - with recently drafted soldiers in their first "half-year" being the least experienced, and the soldiers in their 4th half-year most experienced. This suggests that the army should be built around that.
Kind of like this:
If we consider the battalion the "basic" building block, and that the infantry is primarily trained at the battalion level, this suggests four battalions per regiment. The "half-years" in this scheme would cycle each new draft, so with the next draft the 1st bat would let their experienced lads go and take in the fresh conscripts, the second would "mature" to 4th half-year, and so on.
The regimental and divisional units probably should consist of mix-draft soldiers, taking the most appropriate conscripts in each draft (with more NCOs per unit, living with the soldiers in the same barracks, to prevent the bad stuff).
Also, the artillery, signals and medics should have their own second hierarchy, with all the battalion ComSupport companies additionally subordinated to the regiment's chief artillery officer (and then to the divisional chief artillery officer), the medics to the chief medic officer, and so on. This hierarchy should be responsible for the training of the special units consistent between battalions (and between regiments), be aware of the relevant supply situation in each unit, etc. So the divisional chief arty officer should have the info on every battalion's ammo/transport needs and situation.
Regiment should have their direct subordinate units on this diagram too, I was just too lazy to put them there. Please assume that everything else is as on the C_Z's diagram.
Don't know where to put the cavalry/recons though.
upd.
Now that I think about the reservists, probably would be necessary to have 1-2 (more?) "reserve regiments" assigned to each division, that would consist of a cadre of officers/NCOs and "empty" units, which would be filled with the reservists during the mobilization.
The 40 000 reservists kinda make it hard on the structure in this case. Really not sure what to do about them, hm.
Ah, nuts, we have "The enlarged force is structured into brigades of three regiments (one active service, the other two reservists)." in our last vote.
So it's one regiment with conscripts and two cadres for the reservist regiments per division/"brigade".
Soldiers in their first two half-years would be in training, not serving in units, btw.
More generally, I'm also definitely not sold on the "soldiers should be trained as battalions" argument, it'll make things difficult when we have inevitable attrition or losses. If a battalion loses 1/4 of its strength, I'd prefer to reinforce it with newly-trained soldiers, but if we are training as entire battalions, that means the battalion in training will enter service at 3/4 strength. You can fix this, but it requires a lot of elaborate shell-game nonsense that defeats the point of keeping a battalion together for the entirety of training and service.
I also don't think the advantages are actually that good. Loyalty to the battalion above all sounds like a great way to have charismatic majors doing silly shit, and extremely close ties will result in morale plummeting once significant losses are taken.
I also don't think the advantages are actually that good. Loyalty to the battalion above all sounds like a great way to have charismatic majors doing silly shit, and extremely close ties will result in morale plummeting once significant losses are taken.
this would probably not happen, considering that the army is 2/3ds reserve. I mean, the soldiers serve in the same unit 2 years, but after being mobilized during wartime they would go to completely different units, with different officers and senior NCOs. While the same set of officers/NCOs in conscription battalions would instead receive a fresh set of conscripts every two years.
regarding the "reinforce battalion" - I thought this would be also happening via reservists? The conscription is a training pipeline to produce reservists, who would be then mobilized and fight in the war.
The training in this scheme would be going in the regiments. One battalion is going through basic training, another through "advanced" and two are actively serving. And during wartime, the first two battalions would become the division's actual reserve. (so, 10 "serving" and two "training" battalions per division during wartime; two serving and two training battalions during peacetime)
The general idea is to prevent The Big Bad D, aka "dedovshina". This could be done either with soldiers serving in the unit being from the same draft, or with embedding as many professional NCOs as possible at all time (eating and sleeping with the conscripts). Or by both.
I think there is at least one thing missing from our Army - Military Police. Gotta make sure we can rustle our boys from the bawdyhouses in the morning if they miss formation, break up bar fights, and direct traffic on the march.
Ah, nuts, we have "The enlarged force is structured into brigades of three regiments (one active service, the other two reservists)." in our last vote.
So it's one regiment with conscripts and two cadres for the reservist regiments per division/"brigade".
To be clear, we know you guys voted for this but we're not going to hold you to it, especially because that's not how brigades work. That structure will be an option during the vote, because it's suggested, but you're okay to move away from it if you want to.
