Question on unit organization and formations

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

In general, units (we'll use infantry as the example) are organized how? I know it is diffrent for diffrent nations durring diffrent periods in history. Did I say 'diffrent' enough?

I know the following:

Squad = 8 to 12 men

Platoon = 3 to 4 squads

Company = 3 platoons

Battalion = 3 companys

What comes next, and what is it composed of? Is it Regiment? With what? Three battalions?

I'd like to understand this network of organization all the way up to a full army.

[Michael Dorosh]

In the British Army, a brigade comes next, with three battalions.

In the German, Russian and US armies, a Regiment is next with two or three battalions.

Two or more Regiments form a Division.

Two or more Divisions form a Corps.

Two or more Corps form an Army.

Two or more Armies form an Army Group.

In the British example, an armoured battalion is called a regiment but is really only a battalion. A company of tanks was called a Squadron (this was true also of companies of armoured cars in German armoured reconnaissance units), and a platoon of tanks was called a Troop.

The Germans also had Brigades, but I think their definition of same was rather loose; for example the first unit to deploy Panthers was IIRC a "Panzer Brigade" consisting of two battalions.

The early war German Army also used brigades in their panzer division structure IIRC (?)

There were also Kampfgruppen (Battle Groups) in the German Army, Task Forces and Combat Commands in the US Army, and CommanderForces in the British Army (with the name of the commander substituted for "Commander", above). These were wildly different in composition and used for special missions, or as a means of amalgamating remnants of many units into something more homogenous.

A Brigade was commanded by a Brigadier in the British Army, A Regiment by a colonel in the US Army and German Armies.

Divisions were commanded by Major Generals in the US, Brit and German cases.

Corps were commanded by Lieutenant Generals.

Armies by Lieutenant Generals or Colonel-Generals (in the German Army).

Army Groups by Colonel-Generals (German), Full Generals (British or American), or Field Marshalls (German or British).

Generally speaking...

Support units were sprinkled in at the various levels; a German Regiment, for example, could have attached an anti-tank company, infantry gun company, anti-aircraft company, assault pioneer company, assault gun company, etc. as part of the standard regimental organization.

British (and Canadian) brigade assets were usually part of the division and deployed as necessary, so rather than each infantry brigade having its own anti-tank company, heavy mortar company, or field battery, they were grouped under their own "regimental" headquarters - ie a division would have an anti-tank regiment, with three batteries, each battery generally supporting one brigade of the division.

There were also heavier artillery units (150-200mm pieces) held at the Corps level, as well as such things as defence units, reconnaissance units, etc., directly under Corps headquarters. The same can be said for Army units, with such things as super-heavy artillery being directly under the Army headquarters.

Each level would have its own artillery commanders - in the British Army, you had a CRA (Commander Royal Artillery) at the Div level, CCRA (Corps Commander Royal Artillery) at the Corps level, etc., while the Germans had Arkos (Artillerie Kommandeur, or Artillery Commander) and Harkos (Hoherer Artillerie Kommandeur, or Higher Artillery Commander), to co-ordinate the activities not just of the divisional artillery, but of those assets belonging to corps, army and army group.

The Germans also freely used the term "abteilung" which could refer to anything from a company sized unit (100 men) to a battalion sized unit (800 men), in addition to the specific term "Battaillon" (battalion).

[ August 18, 2003, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Redwolf]

Don't forget that the next bigger formations doesn't only have 2-4 of the smaller formations, but also some own asset that it can assign as it sees fit. That can be quite substancial for combat units (artillery, anti-tank, engineers, recon), and even more so for support units (transport, medical etc.).

Brigade and Regiment have about the same size, the different terms are used (except for the British) to indicate whether it is meant for standalone operations. A brigade can act on its own, a regiment will usually operate in a division. The brigade may more support units on its own. Usually a divison is the first unit which is assumed to be self-sufficient, but if a regiment is organized to be that it is often called a brigade.

[IntelWeenie]

Originally posted by redwolf:

[QBUsually a divison is the first unit which is assumed to be self-sufficient, but if a regiment is organized to be that it is often called a brigade. [/QB]

US Armored Divisions usually were composed of semi-independent formations called "Combat Commands". These were essentially reinforced combined-arms regiments and could operate independent of the division, but were still "owned" by it.

[Redwolf]

Hm, I would rather say US armored divisions formed independent combat commands, not that divisions were composed out of it. They were not really independent, they were just good mixes of all weapons but they lacked the non-combat support that usually comes with a true independent unit like a brigade.

The combat commands were mostly a reaction to the fact that much of the fighting in Western Europe required smaller units than full divisions, but that the US armor divisions were very high-level. To get smaller units with correct combined arms mix they had to reform/remix instead of just splitting up.

The current US Cavallery divisions look like a permanent unit that can be split up without remixing and still get proper combined arms down to the smaller unit.

[JonS]

The French used "Brigade" and "Regiment" in a fairly exact sense. Both were units composed of three battalions, plus misc support elements.

If the three battalions were from the same parent unit (in the British example, say 1/7, 2/7, and 3/7 Queens) then it was called a regiment.

If the battalions came from different parent units (in the British example, say 1/7 Queens, 6 DWR, and 2/5 Ghurkas) it would be called a Brigade.

Thus, French divisions in Italy (and presumably NWE) had a mix of regts and bdes, which must have been a bit baffling for the uninitiated. (Source: Bidwell & Graham. Tug of war.)

Regards

JonS

[Michael Emrys]

Note: the below applies to infantry formations. Armor and other arms may be organized along other lines.

Originally posted by Vader's Jester:

Company = 3 platoons

Plus a heavy weapons platoon.

Battalion = 3 companys

Plus a heavy weapons company.

What comes next, and what is it composed of? Is it Regiment?

Or, as Dorosh has posted, brigade.

With what? Three battalions?

Two or three rifle battalions depending on nationality and period of the war + one cannon company + one AT company. Regiments could also have additional arms and units attached to them that were not part of their organic TO&E, such as armor, artillery, medical, civil affairs, etc., etc.

I'd like to understand this network of organization all the way up to a full army.

So would we all.

Generally regiments (or brigades) were organized into divisions along with additional supporting arms such as engineers, artillery, AT, AA, signals, medical, ordnance, supply, transport etc. But sometimes regiments/brigades served outside of a divisional structure. This was more likely in the case of non-infantry units than infantry units.

Divisions were usually grouped into corps of two, three, or more divisions plus supporting arms.

Corps were grouped into armies. Armies usually contained two to four corps plus supporting arms.

The Soviet Red Army was somewhat unique in that due to a lack of qualified officers to man corps headquarters (largely because of the pre-war purge of the officer corps), they simply skipped that echelon of command and grouped divisions directly into armies.

Armies were grouped into army groups, or in the Soviet case, fronts.

Army groups were subordinate to the theater of operations, usually called the supreme headquarters. It was possible for a supreme HQ to have no army groups subordinate to it if there were only one or two armies in that theater.

A theater command was subordinate to the uniformed chiefs of the armed forces and they to their civilian chiefs.

This is a very generalized schematic. There were sometimes significant differences in structure depending on nationality and period. Minor allies (regardless of which side they were on) were usually subordinated to their major allies. But something like this was the case for all the warring parties.

Michael

[ August 18, 2003, 08:02 PM: Message edited by: Michael Emrys ]

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The early war German Army also used brigades in their panzer division structure IIRC (?)

That's right. Although it wasn't until 1941 that they really settled down to a standard TO&E, a common one in 1940 was a Panzer brigade of two regiments comprised of a total of ~300 tanks, plus a motorized infantry brigade of four battalions plus additional arms.

Michael

[JonS]

It just occurred to me - up to battalion level for infantry types is covered remarkably well in the unit purchase screens of CMBO and CMBB.

Take a look there to see how various nationalities organised their various battalions.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

The Soviet Red Army was somewhat unique in that due to a lack of qualified officers to man corps headquarters (largely because of the pre-war purge of the officer corps), they simply skipped that echelon of command and grouped divisions directly into armies.

For traditional Corps, that is only correct from late 1941 to mid 1943. At around the time of Kursk, the Red Army re-introduced Corps. They were abolished in 1941 because of a lack of support assets to assign to them, and as you say, a lack of competent staff officers, AIUI. By mid 1944, over 100 Corps are active again in the Red Army.

Apart from that, there was also a more peculiar formation type, of usually four brigades, that was called a Corps in the Red Army in the intervening time.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The Germans also freely used the term "abteilung" which could refer to anything from a company sized unit (100 men) to a battalion sized unit (800 men), in addition to the specific term "Battaillon" (battalion).

Just to clarify, AFAIK the status of an Abteilung (literally: 'Department') was always that of a battalion, regardless of its size.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Andreas:

At around the time of Kursk, the Red Army re-introduced Corps. They were abolished in 1941 because of a lack of support assets to assign to them, and as you say, a lack of competent staff officers, AIUI. By mid 1944, over 100 Corps are active again in the Red Army.

Thanks. I thought something like that was the case although I was unsure of the dates.

Apart from that, there was also a more peculiar formation type, of usually four brigades, that was called a Corps in the Red Army in the intervening time.

These also existed pre-war, did they not? They were more or less equivalent to large divisions. Do you happen to know what rank officer commanded one?

Michael

[Andreas]

I think that would normally have been a Major-General, commanding them. At least the commanders list in 'Zhukov's Greatest Defeat' has all Corps commanded by Major-Generals.

Which reminded me, the Corps organisation (with Brigades as subsidiary units) was also used for the Mechanized and Tank formations of the Red Army, through the whole of the war. For Cavalry, Corps were the highest formations, with the weak Cavalry Divisions as subsidiary units, but as was the case with the Mech Corps and Tank Corps, they really only were divisions in size, compared to the Wehrmacht formations they were fighting.

I think the pre-war Corps were much larger beasts, but I know next to nothing about them.

[BeauCoupDinkyDau]

I knew you would respond Dorosh. Isn't this like your 1,009,468,222,137th post? Seirously though, thanks much for the info. That was exactly what I was looking for.

So (anyone that knows) Kampfgruppen were a special unit organization designed for a specific task? I kind of knew this, but it's been somewhat blurry for me. Did they operate independantly? If so, who did they recive their orders from? Army level? Division level? Or did that vary just as much as their size and composition?

Thanks guys for your responces. This has always been an area I was kind of unsure on. Now I understand it a little better. :cool:

[Andreas]

Wehrmacht Kampfgrupppen were an ad-hoc formation of anything that was available, created for a specific task, and early in the war usually dissolved quickly. Later in the war though, the Germans referred to remnants of mauled divisions as e.g. 'Kampfgruppe 21, probably partly to make themselves feel better. ID', a bit in the way that the Commonwealth had Brigade Combat Teams in the desert (the joke apparently went: 'What is a Brigade Combat Team?' 'A Division that was overrun twice by the Germans.')

A Kampfgruppe would be created around a staff, which would be given any unit available that was deemed necessary to get the job done. Panzerdivisions were often divided into an armoured Kampfgruppe, based on the Panzerregiment staff, and an unarmoured Kampfgruppe. Kampfgruppen in general seem to have been from reinforced battalion to reinforced regiment size, and would have a combined arms element to them, i.e. added artillery or specialist formations. The commanding units would normally be the next higher staff - so if 6.PD forms KG Hühnersdorff, it will command it. But if the KG is at the point of main effort, higher level HQs would often directly interfere in leading it.

In short, there is no general rule for KGs, because they were not an official part of the German TO&E.