MEF, MEB and MEU woes

[Cpl Steiner]

Hi,

As part of my on-going and somewhat forlorn attempt to portray all the units of CM:SF as counters on an operational map (see the Meta-campaign thread), I'm now starting on the Marines and running into problems.

The Marines campaign blurb says you are in command of 26th MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit), which is itself under 2nd MEB (Marine Expeditionary Brigade).

I'm presuming that 2nd MEB is the full Marines contingent in the hypothetical war but in theory it could also be under I or II MEF (Marine Expeditionary Force).

In the invasion of Iraq 2003, 2nd MEB was nicknamed "Task Force Tarawa" and consisted of about 5 Marines battalions plus an AAV company, Tank company and various other assets such as combat aviation wings and logistical support units.

Wikipedia says these battalions were all part of the 2nd Marine Regiment, which in itself is confusing as the units it included had designations such as 2/6 and 2/8 Marines (presumably the 2nd Battalions of the 6th and 8th Marine Regiments respectively). Another confusion is that there is no mention of an MEU being under the command of 2nd MEB. Yet another confusion is the number of AAVs, which is way too low to carry all those Marines by my reckoning. Presumably a lot of them were carried on trucks.

To come to the point, how should I portray the Marines in CM:SF at the scale of individual battalion-sized counters? The blurb definitely says we are commanding 26th MEU - which would be the equivalent of a large and powerful Marines mechanised infantry battalion - but what about the rest of 2nd MEB? Should there be other Marines battalions on foot, with helicopter-lift capability, or some as motorised infantry?

I know none of this is real - I mean it is just a game after all - but if anyone has any suggestions as to how best to portray the full Marines contingent at the battalion level, I would be very grateful.

Sample Marines counter:

[Apocal]

IIRC, within the MEU, one rifle company is mechanized, another heliborne and the last is built for small boat insertion (which essentially means light infantry). More realistically, a mix of mechanized (AAV), motorized (Humvees and MVTRs) and heliborne should be used for the individual battalions?

[JonS]

From my research, an MEB comes standard with threee inf bns assigned, along with other odds and sods (armour, recon, engr, AAV, artillery, aviation, logistics, etc) attached.

An MEU is like a mini, single battalion, version of an MEB. I.e., it has a single rifle bn along with other ground combat, air, and logistics elements in proportion.

For the campaign, I'd take it that 2nd MEB was swelled to four rifle battalions by the addition of 26th MEU (incl all it's support elts). So, you could represent 2MEB simply as four mech rifle bns, plus various aviation assets. That wouldn't be quite right, since 1/3 of each bn would be air mobile, 1/3 in trucks, and 1/3 in AAVs, but it'd probably (possibly?) be near enough for your purposes.

Alternately, you could clump like with like, and have a air mobile bn, a mech bn (in AAVs), a mot bn (in MTVRs), and ... another bn that is a mix. That would be elegant from a gaming point of view, but kinda unrealistic.

Or, you could knock it down a level to companies, and have air mobile, mech, and truck coys. but that means you're left with the problem of how to represent all the spt elts, ... although you could clump those too, and have a tank coy, a LAV coy, an engr coy, an arty bn, etc. But that would conflict with the rest of your game.

Or you could recognise that the USMC is a historical anomaly that needs to fade away gracefully, and just leave them out of your meta-campaign altogether

[Cpl Steiner]

Thanks for everyone's replies.

I think something like 2 Mech Inf btns plus 2 "Foot" btns that are capable of being moved by helicopter or truck according to some sort of transport pool available to the US side would be the way to go.

In fact, as the other brigades are a mix of armour, mech infantry, and recon units, I could also do that for the Marines and have say a LAV recon btn, an M1A1 armoured btn, an AAV mech inf btn and a "foot" btn with the ability to use helicopters or trucks for strategic movement.

In keeping with the original campaign I would make the AAV btn the 2/6 Marines that forms the nucleus of 26th MEU. The other btns would be other credible Marine btn designations.

The overall designation at the top of the counter could be based on OIF, i.e "2nd 2MEB" for "2nd Marine Regiment, 2 MEB", and the individual counter designations would be similar to the battalions of this unit, e.g. 1/2, 2/8, 2/6 (26th MEU), 3/2.

Thanks for all your help.

[Apocal]

Thanks for everyone's replies.

I think something like 2 Mech Inf btns plus 2 "Foot" btns that are capable of being moved by helicopter or truck according to some sort of transport pool available to the US side would be the way to go.

That certainly seems realistic.

In fact, as the other brigades are a mix of armour, mech infantry, and recon units, I could also do that for the Marines and have say a LAV recon btn, an M1A1 armoured btn, an AAV mech inf btn and a "foot" btn with the ability to use helicopters or trucks for strategic movement.

Ah... one thing to remember is that the Tank Battalions of the USMC generally task-organized and parcelled out to lighter formations. I'm not entirely sure if this was uniform procedure during 2003, but certainly at An Nasiriyah, there was only a (reserve) tank company present, which itself was divided into two parts; one (Team Mech) directly attached to the AAV-mounted infantry, the other a seperate, all-tank "super platoon" (Team Tank).

On the other hand, the LARs were mostly kept intact throughout the invasion and it's not as if Marines have a suicide pact with their doctrine, so it's entirely possible to say the Tank battalion actually swapped a company out and has three companies of tanks (around 40 M1A1s), a platoon of AAVs (12 amtracs) carrying a company of infantry. That would give it rougly equal fighting power with an equivalent Army combined arms battalion. Of course, the downside is that the Marine Corps only has three such battalions...

Another thing to remember is that an AAV Bn has enough tracks (213+) to transport an entire Regt.

In keeping with the original campaign I would make the AAV btn the 2/6 Marines that forms the nucleus of 26th MEU. The other btns would be other credible Marine btn designations.

The overall designation at the top of the counter could be based on OIF, i.e "2nd 2MEB" for "2nd Marine Regiment, 2 MEB", and the individual counter designations would be similar to the battalions of this unit, e.g. 1/2, 2/8, 2/6 (26th MEU), 3/2.

Thanks for all your help.

Sounds awesome, thanks for making this.

[Cpl Steiner]

OK, had to do it one way or the other, so here's my solution.

I decided to designate the whole brigade 2nd MEB, and split it into 4 battalions as follows:

1x Mech battalion (2/6 Marine - the nucleus of 26th MEU in "Shock Force");

1x Recon battalion (1/2 Marine shown as a LAV25);

2x Foot battalions (2/8 and 3/2 Marine).

I gave the Foot battalions the same movement rate as the Mech and Recon ones in recognition of the fact they would probably be motorised and/or air-mobilised for any long range missions.

I hope you like my solution.

[ChrisND]

I gave the Foot battalions the same movement rate as the Mech and Recon ones in recognition of the fact they would probably be motorised and/or air-mobilised for any long range missions.

I hope you like my solution.

What about making them immobile and then having to expend a certain amount of points from a "transport pool" (representing trucks/helos) to have them move? The point level is restored every turn. Or something like that...

[JonS]

2nd MEB 'should' have 4 bns. 2/6 (26 MEU) is under command for this op, but 2nd MEB natively holds 1/2, 2/8, and 3/2. The Recon Bn is in addition to that lot. Also, the MEB would only hold about one-third of 2nd LAR Bn, not the whole thing.

Oh ... wait. I see what you did there.

Hmm. I'm not sure that identifying 1/2 as a LAR bn is entirely appropriate. Apocals' point about the LARs being kept together is well noted, but I don't think what you've done here is quite right.

Then again, maybe it doesn't matter

[Cpl Steiner]

Hmm. I'm not sure that identifying 1/2 as a LAR bn is entirely appropriate. Apocals' point about the LARs being kept together is well noted, but I don't think what you've done here is quite right.

Then again, maybe it doesn't matter

I take your point about the LAR btn. However, what I was trying to achieve was to give the 2nd MEB a recon counter of btn size like most of the other US formations. As you say, maybe it doesn't really matter that 1/2 Marine is designated as recon as long as it's in the game and the Marines have a recon btn like other formations. Bear in mind that all counters represent combined arms units, so maybe 1/2 Marine and 2/6 Marine are similarly equipped with AAVs, tanks and LAVs but 1/2 Marine has a higher proportion of recon assets such as LAVs than 2/6 Marine?

The reason I wanted a recon btn is that I was going to follow the OIF VASSAL module's lead by giving recon units the power to provide their parent formation advance warning of enemy attack. As Syrian formations in the game don't have separate recon counters, this would highlight one of the chief advantages of the Coalition side - i.e. the ability to sidestep enemy attacks due to effective reconnaisance. I might increase the movement rate of recon units to further differentiate them from regular units.

[Apocal]

That's certainly an acceptable tradeoff; from reading the "The Highway War" by a LAR company commander, the one obstacle preventing the LARs use in their doctrinal role was a deficiency in the number of dismounts they had available to clear cities and other congested terrain. It's not at all a stretch to say the USMC took a hard look at keeping LARs relevant and parcelled them out to other formations, while maintaining a "recon heavy" combined arms formation for Corps-level recon, screening and some security.

I really like the additional speed for the Recon Bn. Essentially, you're acknowledging the ground-level truth that LAVs are far more operationally mobile than main battle tanks, if only because of their much more modest logistical tail. A LAV requires fuel every (roughly) 72 hours, compared to 12 for an M1. A LAV blows a wheel, it's a 15-20 minutes process (AIUI) to replace it, whereas an M1 loses a track, that's an easy hour or two spent fixing. Pallets of 25mm are easy to cart around, 120mm not so much. A 25 vic LAV company requires roughly the level of support (or slightly less, I can't recall the specifics off the top of my head) that a M1 tank platoon does.

I'm also biased because I'd like to see some good scenarios highlighting the capabilities of the LARs, because they are certainly interesting formations whose advantages are too often overlooked in tactical wargames.

[JonS]

... maybe 1/2 Marine and 2/6 Marine are similarly equipped with AAVs, tanks and LAVs but 1/2 Marine has a higher proportion of recon assets such as LAVs than 2/6 Marine?

Sure, that makes sense. But you appear to've made 1/2 only half as strong as 2/6?

[Cpl Steiner]

Sure, that makes sense. But you appear to've made 1/2 only half as strong as 2/6?

They are already 50% stronger than most other recon battalions, which I'm happy to leave them as. I figured they must have given up some M1A1s and some infantry to another formation in return for the extra LAVs so wouldn't be as strong as one of the other battalions. In any case, with their role being changed to brigade reconnaissance, surely they would be less aggressive and therefore less powerful than other Marine formations even if they had a similar amount of firepower?

I think I will add 1 or 2 movement factors, which I will probably do for all recon units, and leave it at that. If I ever finish all the units and release a CM:SF VASSAL module, I'll include detailed instructions on how to change any counter values so people can decide for themselves what they should be. I may even consider using counter overlays so you can modify the counter values by editing the VASSAL module directly - i.e. no need for any graphics skills.

[c3k]

I don't know a fig about modern U.S. Marine recce doctrine, but the WWII German (and post-war) recce units were specifically known for their aggressiveness.

Perhaps someone more knowledgable about USMC doctrine could chime in.

Regards,

Ken