Machine Gun Battalion?

[Tactical Wargamer]

Ok how does these formation work. Our operational game Cdn commander insists that each CDN Infantry Battalion was assigned a 4 gun heavy machine platoon from the Machine gun Battalion? Is this correct? Why have a Battalion machine gun unit if it is in essence organic to the infantry battalion in the first place?

[JonS]

Ok how does these formation work. Our operational game Cdn commander insists that each CDN Infantry Battalion was assigned a 4 gun heavy machine platoon from the Machine gun Battalion? Is this correct?

Sort of. It was certainly an option, and it definately occurred. Sometimes it went even further and individual guns were sub-allocated to individual rifle companies.

Why have a Battalion machine gun unit if it is in essence organic to the infantry battalion in the first place?

An excellent question, and one which many MG Bn members asked themselves during the war.

In thory, the effects of the guns were intended to be used indirectly and en-masse. That implies that they were meant to be kept back a bit from the FEBA, and used in a coordinated and interlocking fashion to cover frontages of entire brigades and indeed the whole division.

But most infantry commanders could never think larger than the next hedgerow, and simplified their own lives by just allocating down, which completely neutered the effectiveness of the MMGs, and wasted the potential of the MG Bn.

See:

http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%204/Johnson%20-%20The%20Toronto%20Scottish%20Machine%20Gun%20Battalion%20in%20Normandy%20%28July-August%201944%29.pdf

And:

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-27Ba-b1.html

(NZ MG Bn in Italy, reporting much the same issue with infantry ignorance)

However, in the context of CMBN CW, unless your operational layer has some means of simulating the indirect and interdictory effect of the MMGs, you might as well push them down, with a pn per bn.

[Broadsword56]

Because the MG platoon wasn't organic to the battalion.

Here's a good reference site for the Canadian battalion TO&E's:

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/tactical/infantrybattalion.htm

To quote: "[by 1944] each Infantry Section of 10 men had its own Bren light machine gun, but heavier machineguns (the Vickers) and 4.2-inch Mortars were held by support battalions at the divisional level and did not form part of the infantry battalion.

[JonS]

Because the MG platoon wasn't organic to the battalion.

Yes, that is understood. But I think RCMPs question is: why bother with having an MG Bn if that bn is just going to be broken up into platoons and farmed out one per infantry bn.

[TrailApe]

Perhaps to create a 'centre of excellence'?

It must have been no fun for these MMG soldiers - taken away from your own supply line and farmed out to an unfamiliar unit.

To quote: "[by 1944] each Infantry Section of 10 men had its own Bren light machine gun, but heavier machineguns (the Vickers) and 4.2-inch Mortars were held by support battalions at the divisional level and did not form part of the infantry battalion.

This is not borne out in 'Accidental Warrior' by Goeffrey Picot. He ended up as the Mortar Platoon officer in Hampshires in 50 Div and seems to have been with the battalion constantly, either as a full platoon, which seemed to be the norm or the mortars being split up into pairs and allocated out to the various companies.

I'll check tonight to make sure these were 4.2's (they might be 3")

[Tactical Wargamer]

Sort of. It was certainly an option, and it definately occurred. Sometimes it went even further and individual guns were sub-allocated to individual rifle companies.

An excellent question, and one which many MG Bn members asked themselves during the war.

In thory, the effects of the guns were intended to be used indirectly and en-masse. That implies that they were meant to be kept back a bit from the FEBA, and used in a coordinated and interlocking fashion to cover frontages of entire brigades and indeed the whole division.

But most infantry commanders could never think larger than the next hedgerow, and simplified their own lives by just allocating down, which completely neutered the effectiveness of the MMGs, and wasted the potential of the MG Bn.

See:

http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%204/Johnson%20-%20The%20Toronto%20Scottish%20Machine%20Gun%20Battalion%20in%20Normandy%20%28July-August%201944%29.pdf

And:

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-27Ba-b1.html

(NZ MG Bn in Italy, reporting much the same issue with infantry ignorance)

However, in the context of CMBN CW, unless your operational layer has some means of simulating the indirect and interdictory effect of the MMGs, you might as well push them down, with a pn per bn.

OK will push them down to the Battalion. I wonder now with the heavy Motors (in the Macgine gun Battalion)he is now complaining about should also be pushed down to the Battalion?

I wonder when the German commanders are going to start wanting items pushed down from regiment etc to their respective Battalions.

I don't really see that much difference between the German or CW battalions. Our Cdn commander seems to think because he would normally be assigned such assets as seen in the Machine Gun Battalion he is at a disadvantage when facing a Vanilla German Battalion. Do you think his argument has merit? The CW forces seems very flexible with 20 Bren carriers I would think it certainly could hold its own. I wonder don't play QB's but what is the point spread between a German/Yank/Brit battalions?

Thanks for all your help guys!

[YankeeDog]

I wonder now with the heavy Motors he is now complaining about should also be pushed down to the Battalion?

What do you mean by this? 3" mortars are already part of the 1944 British Infantry Battalion TO&E in the Support Company, so they don't need to be "pushed down" to show up at the Battalion level... perhaps you are referring to the Battalion farming out 3" mortars to individual rifle companies? This might have been done on occasion but I don't think this was done particularly often. 3" mortars were the Brit Infantry Battalion's only organic indirect support weapon, so farming the mortars out to individual rifle companies would reduce the battalion command's ability to quickly concentrate the fire of the mortars when and where they were most needed. But if a battalion was really spread out, such that the 3" mortars could not be placed in battery in a position that could support all the companies on the line, then I could see the mortars being spread out so that each company had at least some indirect support available.

Germans are a little different because by 1944 most German TO&Es had moved the 8cm mortar to the company level, with the 12cm mortar at battalion level. Therefore it's probably more likely that German 8cm mortars would be on-map on the CM scale (though not necessarily -- depends on the nature of the battle and the size of the map).

Edit to add: If you're referring to the 4.2" mortars in the MG/Support Battalion, it's kind of moot since you can't put these on-map in CM. In General, the Brit's system of artillery support was pretty flexible, so they could shift the fire of the 4.2" mortars where they were most needed. Bear in mind, though, that the 4.2" mortars are a relatively short-ranged weapon for Divisional/Brigade-level asset, so if the division is spread out or on the move, the mortars might well not have enough reach to support all line elements of the division. And, of course, the 4.2" mortars can't fire in support of every Company in the Division at once, so you have to consider what other call(s) there might be for their support.

[JasonC]

YankeeDog - he means the 4.2s, not the 3 inches. The 4.2s were also off in the divisional battalion.

As for the reasons for the MG battalion being separate, it goes back to WW I and the process of organizing defenses in that era, which MGs were central to, and to the organizational uncertainty the British army specifically had about what to do with these new fangled machine gun thingimabobs, which were crew served and semi stationary like an artillery piece, but fired rifle bullets on flat trajectories like the poor bloody infantry.

Plenty of men specifically in the MG arm didn't want to be part of the infantry and thought of their weapon as a variety of artillery. The absurdities of their attempts to push this similarity to extremes was obvious to everyone else, but on they went in their plucky British fashion designing indirect fire plans and barrages and called fire and registrations and all the rest of the artillery toolbox. Which nobody actually used for anything, ever.

The part that did get used in the WW I era was designing larger scale defensive fire schemes to get interlocking coverage over the entire divisional front. These 4 MGs will go here with 2 facing this way and 2 facing that way to then interlock with this other fire-nest over here, that between them cover the fields from Podunk to Wheresville. Then in the next sector there is no point in having MGs because it is so wooded and the fields of fire are so short. But a few need to go at each edge of the wood facing out to the flanks to interlock with other nests a kilometer away in each direction. Etc. Basically, the value of MGs in defense increases as their deployment is coordinated with each other across battalions and adapted to the terrain.

But when the front line isn't static, it gets much harder to plan such things. When the army is attacking every day and not defending, similarly. There is still a role for defensive MG schemes in quieter sectors, but it is a sideshow to the main effort of the division, which is taking the next town or the next ridgeline. So in practice, the guns get split up and pushed down to the battalions, and get used to consolidate anything taken after it is taken and before the next thing is attacked.

I hope this helps.

[YankeeDog]

YankeeDog - he means the 4.2s, not the 3 inches. The 4.2s were also off in the divisional battalion..

Yes; I realized and edited in an addendum; must have been while you were typing your response.

As I noted, it's largely moot since 4.2" mortars are not available as an on-map asset in CM. Whether they are available as off-map support to any given rifle company at any given time would have more to do with the tactical situation at the moment, then any technical details of how they were tied in to the C2 chain (though I'm pretty sure that usually the 4.2" mortars were administered by the divisional FDC, and not farmed out to battalions).

[Tactical Wargamer]

Great guys. Appreciate it.

Would your average CDN battalion on the move in Normandy have 4.2 '' motors "normally" attached to it. Or would they be assigned via division for special circumstance rather than a few being parceled out to each battalion (off board of course).

In your opinions are the organic Battalions that are listed in CMBN about equal in lethality? I know there are small differences, but in essence a Battalion is a Battalion whether it is Brit/Yank/Kraut?

[YankeeDog]

Great guys. Appreciate it.

Would your average CDN battalion on the move in Normandy have 4.2 '' motors "normally" attached to it. Or would they be assigned via division for special circumstance rather than a few being parceled out to each battalion (off board of course).

It doesn't really work like this. Generally speaking (and this holds more or less true for all the ETO combatants), divisional and above level indirect fire assets are assigned to missions as needed by the FDC (Fire Direction Center) or equivalent. Assets like 4.2in Mortars, 25pdrs, 105mm howitzers, etc. are not typically "attached" to a specific battalion at all. Rather, the FDC decides that they're the correct asset to provide indirect fire support for a given support request by a unit on the line. Basically, the FDC is the clearinghouse unit that decides which indirect fire assets fulfill the incoming support requests. If there are more support requests than assets available, the FDC decides which support requests get delayed or denied, and which get fulfilled immediately.

In certain specific situations, a given support asset like a battery of 4.2in mortars might be held "on-call" to support a specific rifle Company or something like that. But this is actually the exception to how higher-level artillery assets are usually allocated.

It gets more complicated once you start considering that some assets are scheduled for pre-planned fires, interdicting and counter-battery fires, etc. So new calls for artillery support sometimes compete with fires that have been planned in advance. In these cases, the FDC may (or may not) pull assets off pre-planned mission, to fulfill new calls for fire support if the call is deemed important enough.

CMBN's system of assigning specifically which higher-level assets are available to the player for a certain battle is really an abstraction of the above. It's not "Combat Mission: Artillery Simulator", so sooner or later, some simplifications have to be made to keep the Artillery modeling and UI from swallowing up too much time and effort.

Anyway WWII standards, Brits were especially good at coordinating their artillery support on the fly -- in theory, a Brit Infantry Company commander could get Corps and even Army level support on the fly, if the radio connection was good, and he was able to express a clear need that superseded all other support requests at the time.

So, should 4.2in mortars be available to the CMBN player who is commanding a Company or so if British Infantry? Totally depends on the tactical situation. Generally speaking, the better prepared the attack (or defense), the more likely a British Company CO would have some kind of divisional or higher-level support available. Other factors like General tempo of action in the area also apply -- if the entire division is heavily engaged along its entire front, then less support is going to be available to any given rifle company.

In your opinions are the organic Battalions that are listed in CMBN about equal in lethality? I know there are small differences, but in essence a Battalion is a Battalion whether it is Brit/Yank/Kraut?

No. Looking strictly at what they had at the Battalion level and below, German formations usually have far more support and firepower -- more (and more effective) MGs, 120mm mortars, and Infantry Guns. However, except in very rare instances, Infantry battalions don't fight as independent entities. As per above, both the Americans and Brits generally had more support assets at the Regimental/Brigade level and higher, which could be assigned or called upon to support any given infantry battalion, on an as-needed basis.

There are other differences, too. American Rifle Infantry Companies are the largest in terms of headcount, for example, so they bring more actual riflemen to the line than any other unit. How important this is depends on the tactical situation.

[flamingknives]

YankeeDog,

I would point out that while 25pdr regiments are part of a division's artillery assets, their batteries are commanded by the officers in the observer parties. As such, and unlike the US army, the British FOO should be able to ORDER his battery to fire on a target.

If such an FOO party is attached to a battalion, then you can be assured that the guns are too.

[7thGalaxy]

This is not borne out in 'Accidental Warrior' by Goeffrey Picot. He ended up as the Mortar Platoon officer in Hampshires in 50 Div and seems to have been with the battalion constantly, either as a full platoon, which seemed to be the norm or the mortars being split up into pairs and allocated out to the various companies.

I'll check tonight to make sure these were 4.2's (they might be 3")

I thought he was part of the OOB of the Hampshires, under the heavy weapons platoon, with the medium mortars.

He did seem to have some carriers too though, if I remember correctly, which aren't in the infantry oob, maybe they were scrounged from somewhere?

[Sirocco]

HMG's were used in the indirect role in WW1. I don't know on what scale, but they were used for indirect fire, at least on occasion.

[YankeeDog]

YankeeDog,

I would point out that while 25pdr regiments are part of a division's artillery assets, their batteries are commanded by the officers in the observer parties. As such, and unlike the US army, the British FOO should be able to ORDER his battery to fire on a target.

If such an FOO party is attached to a battalion, then you can be assured that the guns are too.

My understanding is that *all* divisional and above artillery assets were subject to the control of the FDC, and while it is true that if a commanding officer from a specific 25pdr battery was deployed forward with a certain infantry unit, this would would generally mean that said battery's guns were "on-call" to support this infantry unit, the higher ranking officers at the FDC could still override this, and if a more pressing need for these guns' fire came up elsewhere, they could re-allocated for said purpose, which would at least temporarily mean that the organic FOO unit would not have access to their fire.

This was really the beauty of the British system. Dedicated FOOs from a specific battery could be sent forward to offer rapid, on-call support when needed. But at the same time, any unit with a radio like could potentially access support from any and all support assets in range, if the need was pressing enough.

Incidentally, this system wasn't unique to the British. The Americans also put officers from artillery units into forward observer positions to improve communication and responsiveness. It's a practice that continues to this day.

[JonS]

But bear in mind that while they generated more-or-less the same outcome, the UK and US took different routes to get there.

AIUI US FOs identify a target, and the FDC allocates fire untis to the target. The US FO is a message passer.

UK FOs identify the target and order (or request if they want more than is currently under their hand) the number of guns they want, up to and including WILIAM target which called in everything in range not already engaged in a mission. The UK FO is a commander and, not coincidentally, considered to be 2iC of the unit he was working with. The rationale there being that the FO and the OC would be working hand-in-glove on the tactical problem, so the FO was best placed to immediately continue with the plan. The /actual/ 2iC would take over at a convienient later time.

Not surprisingly, there was also an experiential difference between US and UK FOs. Again, AIUI, US FOs were junior officers on their first posting. UK FOs were senior captains who'd already spent considerable time (years) in a variety of appointments within the battery, and were intimately familiar with the technical functioning of a battery.

[JasonC]

YankeeDog wrote in part "what they had at the Battalion level and below, German formations usually have far more support and firepower -- more (and more effective) MGs, 120mm mortars, and Infantry Guns".

This isn't quite correct. Infantry guns and heavy mortars were regiment level assets - and 120s were frequently simply not available in the first place, with 81s taking their place. (Late war TOEs did have 120s at battalion level on paper, but e.g. in Normandy only a couple SS mobile divisions actually had them. A few other formations had some at regiment).

The level of equippage also varied widely across formations, with the mobile divisions often at TOE, the best of the Heer infantry likewise, but easily 2/3rds of the army not so lavishly equipped. Concretely, a German battalion might have 30 machineguns or it might have 63; it might have 4-6 81mm mortars or it might have 10-12.

As for the fire call stuff and the general tendency to sing the praises of letting every grunt call for the biggest possible stonk, it is worth pointing out the downside of such procedures. It led to very high, uncontrolled ammo expenditure, and that in turn led to shortages and misallocations, and periods when nobody could get fire at all. Patton's army had to ration 105mm ammo to 10 rounds per day per gun for half of the fall because the other armies had scarfed up and fired off so much by the end of the Aachen battle that there was nothing left for the Lorraine.

Letting every low grade operator call for fire by an entire corps sounds great, but if the response is "sorry, we don't have any ammo for that" the next day, it kind of defeats the point...

[black_prince]

In your opinions are the organic Battalions that are listed in CMBN about equal in lethality? I know there are small differences, but in essence a Battalion is a Battalion whether it is Brit/Yank/Kraut?

I think the Brits may appear to be at a disadvantage if compared at a company to company level with the Americans and Germans but at a batallion level their extra rifle company, Bren carriers and 6pounders probably make up the difference.

[Vark]

One advantage of the slower firing, water cooled MMG's the Allies used was the ability to fire from reverse slope positions, allowing far greater survivability. Can this be simulated in CMBN?

Regarding British artillery, didn't a request for an 'uncle target?' have to pass quite a rigorous procedure, specifically to stop the situation Jason mentioned?

[flamingknives]

Considering that Uncle, Mike and other target calls were for engaging targets of opportunity, a rigorous procedure would be counter-productive. http://nigelef.tripod.com/maindoc.htm is a good site to look at British Artillery procedures. It quotes 5 minutes for 144 guns on an impromptu target.

[JonS]

Regarding British artillery, didn't a request for an 'Uncle’ target have to pass quite a rigorous procedure, specifically to stop the situation Jason mentioned?

Sort of, except the ‘rigorous process’ occurs before going into action. They had the concept of ‘authorised observers’ with everyone else being, by default, unauthorised. In general practice this meant that each observer could order his own ‘stuff’, but had to request if he wanted a larger allocation of guns. So a battery FO always had access to his troop of four guns, and could ask his BC for more. The Battery Commander (BC) always had access to his 8 guns, and could ask the CO for more. The regimental commanding officer always had access to his 24 guns, and could ask the CRA for more. The divisional Commander Royal Artillery always had access to his 72 guns, and could ask the CCRA for more. The Corps Commander Royal Artillery always had access to his ~240 25-pr, 48 5.5-in, 8 7.2-in, and 8 155mm, and could go up to Army if he wanted more. All of those commanders, at each level, could and did act as observers.

To streamline the process in action, for major activities specific observers could be authorised to fire additional resources outside their normal span. For example, Capt Fortheringham-Woatsitt, FO from C Troop, 153 Battery, 53 Field Regiment would normally be allowed to fire his own four guns whenever he wanted. But if he was to be attached to the lead company of a major attack he might be authorised to fire the entire regiment without having to request it from the CO. Meanwhile, his chum Capt Pyne-Gould-Guiness from D Troop might be occupying an static anchor Observation Post (OP) on a hill with good overview of the battle area, and so be authorised to fire one of the other divisional regiments and a battery of medium guns. Or somefink. Depending on what the CRA wanted to achieve to fulfil the manoeuvre commander’s plan.

Air Ops, the FOs tooling around in the air in Austers, would routinely be authorised to fire a regiment of 5.5-in, although generally they’d be looking for targets outside the scope of a CM battle.

The norm would be that each fire unit would only be authorised to only one FO, in order to reduce resource contention. But other FOs could still request resources authorised to another observer, and as long as they weren’t currently engaged in a mission would expect to get them.

Note that even requesting additional resources is different to the US approach. The UK FOs made the decision about how many guns they wanted based on their personal assessment of the ground, the target, and the tactical situation. In the US it was the FDC making those decisions.

In terms of ammo conservation, Jason C is partly right, but glossed over a significant point. Yes, there are always more targets than rounds, and FOs are expected to use their judgement and experience to match the number of guns and ammo fired to the target. This is another situation where having senior, experienced FOs creates benefits. But the main reason the US ran out of ammunition along the West Wall was because of an earlier decision to cut production of 105mm based on dodgy deductions from lessons-learned in North Africa. In certain times and places the UK certainly had to ration ammunition for their artillery – I’ve come across a number of instances in Italy and during the 1944/45 pursuit phase of the Burma Campaign (although that was mostly due to appalling transport links) – but it didn’t affect them to any great degree in North West Europe. In fact, in order to alleviate the US ammo shortage, a number of US artillery battalions were re-equipped with 25-pr because that ammunition was relatively abundant. The US also re-equipped some other units in France with captured German weapons for the same reason.

[TrailApe]

One of the mandatory elements that was required in a request for fire was 'Description'

So "Fire Mission Brigade - Lone Sniper in Tree"* would probably not get the resouurces

* although this was a few years ago on the Sailsbury Training area (it was a shoot primarily to expend what ammunition was left after 3 days firing - the paperwork surrounding handing back arty ammo is a right pain).

It raised a chuckle in the various CP's and amongst the various HeadSheds who had gathered to observe the last afternoon of firing.

[JonS]

One of the mandatory elements that was required in a request for fire was 'Description'

So "Fire Mission Brigade - Lone Sniper in Tree" would probably not get the resouurces

ROFL ... just so

[Vark]

Interesting, just to clarify my use of the word rigorous, I was not suggesting a bureaucratic paper chain before permisson, but FO's given strict parameters as to what constitutes what type of target. From a vague memory an FO in Normandy spotted a large group of armored vehicles (I think it was 30plus), this large concentration (for Germans in 44 it was large) immediately allowed regimental resources.

Is artillery then significantly over-modelled in the game, simply to make it playable in the time frame, i.e. smaller concentrations of artillery cause damage equivalent to far higher formations. Otherwise what happens when your German Battalion armoured counter attack faces 200 plus tubes of Brit HE? Has anyone modelled a realistic (in numbers and calibres) artillery barrage, if so what are the results. I remember doing so for a CM1 and it was not a good game!

[JonS]

FO's given strict parameters as to what constitutes what type of target.

Not so strict, but rules of thumb to be used in conjuction with the specific circumstances and modified by experience.

Is artillery then significantly over-modelled in the game, simply to make it playable in the time frame

I don't know about over-modelled, but I think it is significantly more flexible and responsive than perhaps it should be. I prefer it that way, but it does make me lol whenever someone whines about it being overly restrictive or too slow ("WAH! I can't shoot out of LOS!" uh, yes you can - use a TRP or do it during the Setup Phase. "WAH! I have to wait 5 minutes for a 60mm mission!" Really? Only 5 minutes? Suck it up, buttercup.)