A general ORBAT/TOE question; ADA units?

[sdp]

This might be out of the scope for CMSF (but not if you're putting together ORBATs for a meta campaign...)

I've studied quite a few TOEs for the US army but don't seem to find any ADA units at battalion or brigade level - anyone know how they are organized/deployed? Do they operate in battery-size or even smaller?

regards/

sdp

[ASL Veteran]

I just happened to have been in the US Army in Air Defense Artillery but alas, it was many moons ago and my poor memory is fading. You basically have two types of Air Defense Artillery though - short range in direct support of maneuver elements and more theater type units which in my day was the Hawk Missile batteries. The Hawk was basically replaced by the Patriot though. Yes, the missile units were deployed in batteries and you basically had IIRC about four actual missile launchers connected to one radar element (one that had a little thingy going up and down vertically and another that I called 'mickey mouse ears' that tracked the aircraft after the vertical up and down thingy picked up the target) and a trailer with a guy who did tracking stuff. I don't remember if the individual batteries had the tracking trailer too because I was at Brigade level and we had the tracking trailer. There were about four batteries IIRC each with four missile systems (which each had about three individual missiles mounted on them). Yeah, this is all very technical stuff . Sorry, but it's been about twenty five years so it's been a while .

For the short range stuff we had Vulcans and Chapparals. There were also manpads systems but I think those were split off to the individual maneuver elements in teams of two men each. The Vulcans and Chapparals were set up in batteries too, but I think they were in pairs (the memory fades). For the short range stuff I had the pleasure of riding around in the back of a Gamma Goat that had the FAAR radar (a total waste of resources). The FAAR radar picked up aircraft and relayed the info to the Vulcans and the Chapparals. The range of the FAAR was really short though - something like 20 miles and really by the time we had that piece of crap set up, operating, and camoflauged it was time to redeploy it .

And yeah, I think it's probably outside the scope of the game - except maybe the Vulcans and Manpads (Man Portable Air Defense - not sure what the S stands for ) could be used against helicopters or something I guess. More work than it's worth though if you ask me.

[M1A1TC]

I am ADA now - 14S (also served as tanker and MP on active duty), and my battalion has Avengers and Stinger MANPADS. In my Battery we have 2 Avenger platoons, 1 MANPAD platoon, 1 Radar Platoon (14J), and 1 HQ Platoon.

Recommended reading:

ARTEP44_648_37 MTP AVENGER BATTERY

FM3_01x11 ADA REFERENCE BOOK

FM44_44 AVENGER PLATOON, SECTION AND SQUAD OPERATIONS

[sdp]

Yeah, well it's definitely not something that you need to simulate on the CM battlefield.

My bottomline is; would it be fair to assume that a US army battalion has some kind of organic short range ADA capability and that there are long range ADA assets at brigade level?

(Bear in mind - this is just for the operational level of a meta campaign...)

regards/

sdp

[M1A1TC]

Yeah, well it's definitely not something that you need to simulate on the CM battlefield.

My bottomline is; would it be fair to assume that a US army battalion has some kind of organic short range ADA capability and that there are long range ADA assets at brigade level?

(Bear in mind - this is just for the operational level of a meta campaign...)

regards/

sdp

They could have Stinger Bradley with them, or attached ADA platoon, or some MANPAD crews. They would not have any organic ADA weapons

[sdp]

Ok, thanks for the info. So it's nothing at all like in the British army?

(3) LLAD - Low-Level Air Defence - HVM

regards/

sdp

[ASL Veteran]

No, ADA in the US Army is not organic at the battalion level - at least in my day it wasn't. When I was on the FAAR Radar I was in a self contained ADA Battalion that was organic to the 1st Cavalry Division. At least I assume it was organic to the division because I don't recall having any higher level ADA HQ above us, just the division HQ. The Missile Batteries were in an entirely separate command structure (I was in West Germany). I think it was the the 32d Army Air Defense Command IIRC or the 32d AADCOM. I don't actually know where the individual Vulcan units drove around or who they were with, but they were too slow to keep up with the Abrams and the Bradleys since the Vulcan was on a M113 chassis. Plus the Vulcans were tied to our FAAR radar somehow. I'm sure they coordinated with the various armored and infantry battalions but I don't know that they were ever formally 'attached'. We pretty much did our own thing.

[JonS]

Pretty sure it isn't organic at the bn level in the British Army either, since Air Defence using HVM is a Royal Artillery responsibility (except for a single troop in 3 Cdo Bde ... which may also be RA). I strongly suspect that someone left an "(in support)" qualifier off that chart.

[Delta228]

well, although ADA would be included in real life, we are assuming that the US has complete air superiority, so they really have no purpose in the game. One of my favorite ADA units is the Italian OTO- Melara Otomatic. It uses a single 76mm cannon to blast helicopters and missiles out of the sky.

[sdp]

Thanks for all the info. As I mentioned earlier this is for the operational level of a future meta campaign, not something you necessarily would want to include on the "CM battlefield".

Concerning the British establishment example one must bear in mind that it deals with the composition of a typical battalion sized battlegroup - an equivalent of a american battalion sized task force -so the LLAD, LRATGW and engineers are likely to be ad hoc units, I suppose.

I got the information from http://www.armedforces.co.uk/army/listings/l0014.html

Anyway, thanks for the input - I'm a bit wiser :-)

regards/

sdp