Magpie_Oz
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Posts posted by Magpie_Oz
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The current US system of lineage, CARS (Combat Arms Regimental System) in theory serves to enhance unit morale and cohesion by celebrating unit history and continuity. in practice, however, the Army's penchant to rename and reflag entire units from battalion through division, tends to dilute the effect and frustrates soldiers no end. One day you might all be members of, say, x battalion, y regiment, z division and overnight the army decides to redesignate you as, say, a battalion, b regiment, c division. Usually such changes are due to army downsizing and concurrent efforts to keep older historical units on the active rolls, but it also can't help but aggravate soldiers who may have formed a sense of unit identity and attachment to the old designation.
Hmmm, I'd always though the US were trying to adopt a flexible "modular" arrangement so that the basic building block was the battalion and then higher formations were clipped together in a mission oriented organisation. I believe that extended out of the whole "Pentatomic" disaster.
Or it could be a highly developed mechanism to "stuff the lads around", which seems to be the end result, if not necessarily the original intent, of most Army policy.
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Today non-infantry units such as the 1st Butchers, the 2nd Bakery and the 3rd Candle-stick Makery would doubtless also refer to themselves as regiments. The acid test for our purposes is how these splendid chaps would be represented in CM!!
It isn't a matter of how they choose to refer to themselves but rather the FACT that a regiment as a tactical formation only has meaning for those other than knuckle-draggers, as has always been the case.
Not sure what you are getting at tho', wouldn't other arms just be soldiers without heavy weapons? or in some cases WITH much heavier weapons?
Obviously Armour and Cav are already very much in the game to give the rockapes something to cower behind, as are the Arty, being the ones who actually do the "destroy" part of "Close with and Destroy" and Aviation as well. Sigs are already there as people can talk to each other, EME are there, the gear is working, Caterers are there, no one starves to death, Chaplins are there as they are not all sitting in the corner sulking, buddy aid shows us the Medics are about and the troops are not naked so I'm guessing Ordnance has popped in occasionally.
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I'm glad that someone finally agrees with me that in this day and age the term 'regiment' has a largely ceremonial and admin function.
Only for infantry
However I think it is fair to say that you seem to be talking about the relatively recent past. Try looking further back in history. Infantry used to fight in squares. Cavalry used to go to war on horses. The times they are a changin' and both the meaning and function of words such as 'regiment' will continue to change as the military goal-posts move.Nope, as JonS said earlier, pretty sure the British army has never actually fielded a regiment of infantry check out this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Battle_of_the_Waterloo_Campaign
The meaning of Regiment has never changed, it has always been different between Infantry and everyone else.
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I think it is fair to say that the word 'Regiment' has changed meaning over the years. If memory serves, didn't the Royal Hampshire Regiment once consist of a single battalion? This would of course have made the C.O. Colonel of the Regiment as well!
But no the is precisely the point it wouldn't as an Infantry Regiment is purely admin/ceremonial. The Colonel of the Regiment is usually a retired officer with the Colonel in Chief being a Royal.
All "corps pure" unit organisations stop at battalion level, it is just that battalion level units in most things other than Infantry are termed "Regiment".
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... The Brit top-end collective noun for Cavalry is Donkey-wallopers... er better make that Regiment - eg The Blues and Royals or 17th/21st Lancers. But this is a purely administrative term and would not be something that you would encounter in the field.
No that is not correct the term Regiment is used in Signals , Engineers, Artillery, Armour (and others) as battlefield formations. Regiments in these units are the same comparative command level as a Battalion, without containing as many people. Often such supporting units are often not deployed in that large a group.
For example the current 1 Armoured Division of the UK contains
7th Armoured Brigade
20th Armoured Brigade
1st Division Headquarters and Signal Regiment
1 Regiment Army Air Corps (Lynx)
28 Engineer Regiment, Royal Engineers
1 Regiment, Royal Military Police
1 Logistic Support Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
2 Logistic Support Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps
Additionally there are various Regiments, in particular Artillery (Section, Battery, Regiment) , attached to the 2 Brigades.
Troop or Platoon is decided by who "owns" the unit in question. If 4 MICV's are an organic part of an infantry battalion and the crew are members of the Corps of Infantry then they are Platoons, if they are an attachment from another formation and members are Corps of Armour then they are Troops.
This site http://bayonetstrength.150m.com/General/site_map.htm might help
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Probably, although that looks a little odd. The II is 2nd Battalion, but off the top I don't recall a regiment called "12th SS Panzers".
Have a look here
http://www.feldgrau.com/12ss.html
I think the German formations seemed to use 12 SS Panzer Regiment and 12 SS Artillery Regiment etc to mean "the Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Division". Possibly pointing again to Regiment denoting the linage and arms "pure" arrangement?
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So the lesson to learn from this is simple: do everything you can to avoid moving on to or off roads (at leats dirt roads). if you have to do so, get off the road as quickly as possible. If you are driving along a road, be extremely careful to make sure you stay precisely on the road and don't put a wheel or track off the side.
Sounds pretty much like Real life
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As a general rule of thumb in Commonwealth organisations a Regiment is a Corps "pure" formation from which units are detached to make up other units.
So an Infantry Regiment, Royal Australian Regiment or Middlesex Regiment for example will only have infantry. But the battalions of those regiments are attached to form the actual tactical manoeuvre units.
This is why Signals, Arty, Engineers and Armour all go by Troop, Squadron, Regiment. As to those levels all members of the unit are part of the same corps. The notion being that the Tps or Sqns or Regiments themselves are deployed under tactical command of a larger formation.
An armoured regiment will not contain any soldiers from the Signals corps for example (ok is some cases they do as a special attachment).
IN earlier times in the US Army the term Task Force and Team was used in a similar manner. A Task Force was a battalion that had swapped out one of its companies and a Team was a company that had swapped out on of its platoons. So a Tank Battalion might cross attach a Tank Company to a Mech Battalion to create an Armoured Task Force and a Mech Task Force. Within the Tank Task force the tank company would detach one of its platoons to create two teams, one Tank heavy and one Infantry heavy. The other two Companies would remain "pure" and be termed companies not teams
In theory if an Infantry unit was created above battalion which contained only infantry it would be termed a Regiment. The term Brigade is used to indicate it has other supporting arms and services.
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Well the Vogons are going to kill us all for a Hyperspace bypass anyway so the Kettles won't be a problem.
And if the Keplertwentytoobians have unfriended us, then screw them, who needs them
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"Pretty cool. Let's send a radio signal to Kepler 22b! Then we only have to wait 1200 years for the response "
"Angels or Apes but never men" Issac Asimov
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Imagine jumping off an airplane with an atomic bomb strapped to your back...
LOL how about Slim Pickens in Dr Strangelove ?
Which shows that contrary to :
"That is one side of the equation I think almost nobody thought of either until the late 80s at least, Magpie."
they were thinking along those lines in 1964, also "Fail Safe" from the same year.
Might want to also check out Bertrand Russell, the penny dropped for him the same day Fat Man dropped for Nagasaki
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I reckon the silliest thing with these low level weapons as it puts the ability to goad a strategic response down at the Tac level.
I'd expect that the chain of escalation would be pretty quick from Davo to Johnno to Thunderjet to Stratojet to Atlas to ........ sticks and stones
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Has anyone ever surpassed Napoleon's armies? Especially the uniforms of the marshals and generals.
Nancy boys.
On that, interesting to note that SS uniforms are popular with the Gay community, those guys certainly have an eye for fashion.
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Look at a Tiger, compared to a KV1, T-34, or Sherman the former looks very dated, even in the 1940's timeframe. Slab sided armour and a massive horseshoe turret that looks like it comes from a reduced scale WWI Battlecruiser, only the multi-leaved suspension gives it an air of modernity. For sure antiquity though, the Churchill 'look' must be hard to beat, looking like an armoured centipede with a turret strapped on it, it fought through till 45!
Yes, just like the archaic slab sides on the Abrams, Leclerc, Challenger, Leopard 2 etc etc ? or the horse shoe turret of the Centurion ? All of which use simple single line of road wheels suspension. Very few, or no, tanks use the fragile and over complicated German multi interleaved road wheel set up.
So really slab sided = modern, multi wheel suspension = outdated.
Agree with you on the Churchill, in fact it fought on past 45 into Korea.
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45 RT for sure, I like the pressure, the need to have excellent situational awarness and the better flow of the battle, much more engaging for me.
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I can well believe that. Oddies don't much appear to be interested in education,
That's right we are too busy curing cancer and creating a banking system that doesn't disappear up it's own bum every 20 years or so
and from childhood onward they already engage in the kind of behavior that would get most US frats banned.Fair cop
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Yeah, that was the last time I tried to rush at an Australian college fraternity. Those guys are freakin' weird!
Excepting of course that we have neither colleges or fraternities.
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That's the old first strike defence thing. If you have a 1000's of nukes it is prohibitively expensive for an enemy to build enough nukes to take out all of yours so they risk retaliation.
Besides you ALWAYS have to have more and bigger than anyone else.
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no it's fine, it is designed from the ground up as a stand alone
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Wong Tu Buklmyshu, recently arrived from the Siberian Far East, watched the apoplectic bunny's approach through his periscope in the casemate of the ISU and unable to control himself any further, bust into fits of laughter.
"What?" called the loader who then scrambled for a turn at the 'scope.
Peytri heard the scuffle and raucous laughter from below and began to scheme of endless rows of latrines to be dug and filled that he would inflict upon his crew. Swinging a foot he managed to connect with a head and the laughter at least became more subdued.
"Da Comrade Colonel ?" he called, trying to sound cheery and nonchalant.
"GET THIS OVERSIZED MOBILE WH**** HO**** MOVING FORWARD AND TAKE DOWN THAT HMG BEFORE IS KILLS US ALL !!!! " Colonel bunny screamed, despite the rage the edge was taken off by the flopping ears and half torn off cotton tail.
"But the 88 comrade colonel?" pleaded Peytri
"THE CREW IS .......... THE GUN IS UNMANNED" Vlad bellowed
"Very well Comrade Colonel" Peytri turned to give his orders to the crew muttering "Job tuv**** m**"
"WHAT WAS THAT !!!"
"Nothing Comrade Colonel, just ordering the crew forward"
"Oh, and Disch ? " Vlad said, his voice now low and foreboding "I suggest that you and your crew of miscreants press your attack with sufficient zeal, given that you have just backed over the Battalion Commissar and all that"
Peytri glanced at the goo behind the ISU, gulped but said nothing and dropped back into the hull were he took great delight in smashing his fist into the face of the still chortling loader.
"Prepare to move forward, time to shake your Pooty" all but the driver roared with laughter, some jokes just never get old.
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Vlad sprinted down the forward slope of the hill as the lead assault troops "hippety hopped" towards the first line of the Fascist trenches.
He spied the tableaux being played out in the HMG bunker and as the crazed Nazi gunned down the mesmerised crew he turned abruptly towards the ISU-152 Assault Gun on his left. He doubled his speed, partly in an attempt to beat the Nazi to the trigger but mainly because he could hear the steam train puffing and wheezing of Major Vatabitch close on his heels and doubted her ability to stop.
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Atop a nearby hill Colonel Vladimir Mickal Rockyasoxoff watched through Kalinka 8x40 field glasses.
A wry smile crept across his lips as he noted with satisfaction one of the PAK crew cast down his coal scuttle helmet and stalk away from the gun to stand behind a nearby tree, arms crossed. The mood of the Gun Commander was all to evident as he crashed a jackbooted heel to the ground and snapped a pointed finger at the half track partly concealed in the gully behind the gun. In response, two of the crew, amid much head shaking and rude gestures towards the tree, walked slowly towards it dragging their feet and clambered in to sit in the back.
The arrival of the Tiger Company had been cause for great concern, concern which dissipated as the crews dismounted and setup "11's ies" on the grass before the tanks. The folly of this move was only now becoming apparent as the first of the diminutive Panzer Truppen crashed to the ground upon his third unsuccessful attempt to remount the leviathan, whist his Kamraden cast about looking for a ladder or orange crate.
Vladimir lowered his glasses and pausing only to shove a floppy ear back under his helmet, shot his best "bluesteel" towards Major Svetlana Vatabitch.
Svetlana turned eagerly towards Vladimir, her 17 stone frame locked in mortal combat with the seams of the two sizes too small rabbit costume, "Da Comrade Colonel ?" she asked expectantly, her voice as smooth as a T34 gearbox imbibed with a handful of gravel.
Vlad eyed her silently, wondering quizzically and not for the first time how it was even remotely possible she had garnered the stage name "Destiny" in her pre-war job on the Hamburg Reeperbahn.
Saying nothing he raised his hand, all eyes of the the assembled assault troops in the field behind him snapped towards him amid a flurry of floppy ears, fluffy tails and blunt PPSh submachine guns.
Pausing for dramatic effect he crashed his hand down in a flat palm point towards the emplaced PAK gun, the crew of which was now evenly dived between the half track and the tree, thus setting in motion the plush clad vanguard of Operation Kinder Surprise
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Civil Surveyor here, did serve in the army but not as a surveyor. Yes the PADS is an inertial system, based on laser accelerometers IIRC, my company did look at using them at one stage but they were way too expensive in the commercial world.
I agree with your concerns on GPS, many surveyors now a days know little else and as you point out they are in a world of hurt when it fails.
Military Organization and Terminology
in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy
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Interestingly however the notion of referring to a body of men on the battlefield as a regiment spawned mainly from the nature of how that body of men had been raised. The English civil war units on the Royalist side were referred to as "Slanning's Regiment", or what ever, due to the fact that the body of men were raised from a particular area, by a particular person who usually also paid the expenses for training, provisioning and equipping the unit. The Parliamentary Infantry, the public forces if you will, were referred to as Brigades.
So really the use of the term regiment was still related to the administrative linage of the unit when it came to the infantry and essentially the same as it is today.