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Company COs - can they control ANY squad?


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I'm setting up To The Volga. I have a buttload of men (think battalions here). Having never played anything this large, I'm not really sure about this, so here goes...

Can a company CO control any squad regardless of which battalion it or company it came from? I hope the answer is yes, otherwise, I have a lot of re-setting up to do (and I mean A LOT). But best to get it right from the get go considering the time investment I'm going to put into this.

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Yep, that is what makes them so useful. Any unit, squad or team or gun, from any company or battalion. When you have lots of higher level commanders, you can organize your force into teams pretty much as you see fit, without being constrained by a conventional force structure.

You can also do things like strip a poor platoon HQ of all his men and just use him to spot for light mortars, give your best company commander a big half-company force under his personal control to get the most of command bonuses, put another in charge of a mixed pioneer, SMG, ATR, and tank hunter "armor killer" detail, etc.

A force with company commanders is dramatically more flexible than one with just platoon HQs.

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Originally posted by JasonC:

Yep, that is what makes them so useful. Any unit, squad or team or gun, from any company or battalion. When you have lots of higher level commanders, you can organize your force into teams pretty much as you see fit, without being constrained by a conventional force structure.

You can also do things like strip a poor platoon HQ of all his men and just use him to spot for light mortars, give your best company commander a big half-company force under his personal control to get the most of command bonuses, put another in charge of a mixed pioneer, SMG, ATR, and tank hunter "armor killer" detail, etc.

A force with company commanders is dramatically more flexible than one with just platoon HQs.

OK. I actually know all of the above but I'm going to be a little bit contentious here. Is it realistic? I'd accept this philosophy of command and control in a modern battlefield setting but not WW2. It just feels too flexible if you know what I mean. Don't get me wrong. I actually do all of the above myself for maximum effect. Wouldn't it be more realistic in representing the correct chain of command if HQ's could only influence independent teams, subordinate units from their own command or any broken troops who run nearby?
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No, it is realistic enough. Captains to colonels just pull rank and order everybody about. And units formed task forces, battlefield "KGs", details, whatever you choose to call them, all the time.

You see field manual descriptions of a bunker clearing force combining SMGers, engineers, FTs, MG sections, etc. All about a platoon sized group.

If anything, it is the rigidity of every man remaining with his squad, which is in one spot on the map, under one sergeant for the whole battle, answering to his platoon leader, who is always within 60m of him.

Real battlefield formations fall apart much more thoroughly than all that, and play "pick up" after the confusion sets in. Particularly if losses are high.

Anybody who looks like he knows what the heck is going on will attract attention, as long as he isn't asking the obviously suicidal.

Is it always the officer with a certain rank, and certain spot in an org chart? No. But in CM, they were HQ units, not individual officers, anyway. They include senior NCOs, of course.

It is really up to the officers and NCOs to keep themselves sorted out and working to a plan. Then men under them aren't going to do the sorting for them, by only listening to this or that guy (beyond the immediate NCO above the lowest privates, anyway).

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