Military terms, gimme a hand.

[Guest PeterNZ]

Ok i need some help with some terms

platoon = 10-20 odd guys

company = 3 or so platoons

battalion?

regiment?

etc etc??

PeterNZ

[Guest R Cunningham]

Oh, god, where to begin?

The terms vary by armies but taking the US A rmy as an example.

Squad 12 men led by a sergeant

Platoon 3 or 4 squads plus HQ element led by a Lieutenant

Company 3 or 4 platoons plus mortar section (couple of mortars) led by a captain

Battalion 3 to 5 companies plus specialty platoons (mortar, scout, support) plus staff officer section. commanded by a Lt. Colonel.

Regiment (WWII US usage) 3 battalions plus services. In a regiment the companies were lettered sequentially. 1st Battalion might have Able, baker, Charlie and Dog companies. 2nd battlion would have easy, fox, golf etc. Germans numbered companies within battalions.

Brigade is a bad designation since it has widely variable meanings. Modern US army has only a few regiments, the ACRs, Rangers, and the rest are battalions organized under brigades. Brigades are not fixed organizations(again modern US usage)a division gets three brigade HQs and 10 combat battalions to divy up between them. 2 Brigades will get 3 battalions while one will get four.

In WWII and modern US usage both brigades and regiments are commanded by colonels.

Division. 2 star general command. Modern US 10 infantry and armor battalions (5/5 ID 4/6 AD) plus signals, support, enginerr, MPs, intelligence, artillery etc.

[Thorsten]

The smaller-scale structure is actually illustrated quite nicely in the demo scenarios. The platoons generally have three infantry squads and an HQ unit. They can have MGs teams, bazookas, etc. attached to them too. Organization generally goes by threes (sometimes four, sometimes two if they are understrength, etc.).

Am I correct in believing that German infantry platoons generally included a machinegunner as part of each squad, so they would have a seven or eight man squads plus a machinegun team? Was there an organizational difference between Wermacht and Waffen SS units?

Thorsten

[Guest Big Time Software]

Oh Thorsten, you don't even know the half of it The Germans have SO MANY squad types it isn't funny! What a pain to research and put into CM! Generally, yes, they have one LMG 42 as part of their armament. However, the PzGren (Armored) units have *2* LMG 42s, while 2 of the three squads in a Volksgrenadier platoon have none.

There was no TO&E difference between SS and WH troops, but in reality the SS had more automatic weapons than their WH counterparts. Early in the war the SS even purchased their own SMGs from Bergman, and then "aquired" captured stocks from Czechoslovakia, to make up for the fact that they couldn't get what they wanted through standard military chanels. But as the Waffen SS gained importance they started to get more stuff directly from German sources. Towards the end of the war they were more likely to have stuff like MP44s.

Steve

[guachi]

Thorsten,

I asked a while ago about all the squads included. Charles, I think, posted the entire list of squads. And Steve is not kidding when he says there are a lot of German squads. You should be able to find it if you do a search with enough key words in it.

There were even some oddball ones like escort squads and sturm squads.

CM 1 only covers one year of the war. I shudder to think how many different squad types the Germans had for the entire 5+ years of the war.

Jason

[Rooster]

Question for BTS. How are the FJ squads organized for this timeframe? Are they still in 10-men sticks from the days when they jumped into battle, or had they changed their organizational structure some to adapt to their ground role?