British Section Sizes VS Mechanised Squads?

[Destraex1]

What is the standard mech squad size for the brits.

As far as I was aware the Bulldog carried around 10 and the warrior 7 ??

Brits seem to have very light forces in the demo.... so curious as to what rl sizes are.

A Bradley is 6 peeps i think. So does the LAV25 - ??

I don't know, the americans just seem to have larger infantry teams that die less often.... or maybe it was the firepower they bring to bear.

Traditionally in the British infantry a "Section" is the standard element and is 10-15 men strong.

I will have to load in and count.....

[Field Marshal Blücher]

The British infantry section is 8 men, the Bradley and Stryker both carry 9 in the game (although in real life Bradleys carry fewer men, but this is a fudge that the devs did in order to avoid people having to do crazy squad-splitting like the real US Army has to do!). The Warrior does carry 7 men, and to be honest, I find that those two extra men (in US Army squads) increase the survivability of the teams significantly.

[ScubaSam]

Traditionally in the British infantry a "Section" is the standard element and is 10-15 men strong.

It used to be 10-15 Men strong, back when the Bren gun was still used, as they had a Recce Group, a Gun Group and a Rifle Group (the beginnings of todays fireteams).

Eventually a 2 fireteam structure centred around an LSW each was decided upon, and that is now augmented with the firepower of the Minimi LMG as well. So its 2 x 4 man fireteams for an 8 man section.

[Destraex1]

yeah i always hated that. get a real gpmg involved i say

[ScubaSam]

I think operationally they tend to try and get as many GPMGs as they can lay their hands on and issue them on as large a scale as is possible. So as well as having a mounted Fire Support Group, if stores allow for each section to have one GPMG, then they'll roll with that. The more firepower the better, basically.

[Destraex]

if u have vehicles like the ones in the demo u need a gpmg at squad level. realistically the lighter skinned british vehicles seem to be taken down easily by enemy MG positions

[ScubaSam]

The ones in the full module are pretty good, Warrior and the uparmoured Bulldog are pretty resistant to MG fire. The land rovers and jackals need to be kept out of view, though, or they'll get eaten up pretty quick.

[Destraex1]

good to hear..... does the full game still have tiny brit sections?

[JonS]

does the full game still have tiny brit sections?

Eh? What an odd question. Why wouldn't it have the correct number of men in the sections?

Note that mech and armd inf sectiosn are 7-men. Light inf sections are 8-men. The 'missing' man remains in the Warrior or Buldog to man the weapons.

[Destraex1]

your right it is a strange question

just checked and the fv342 that you get late in the scenario does seem to have 10 man sections. The earlier scout spartan apc is the one with 4 man fire teams

It is frustrating to have supposed armoured transports die so easily trying to move around.... but i guess they are really for just getting to the front.

HAve the brits got an equivalent to the lav25? Or is this just the bulldog/warrior?

[wisbechlad]

The LAV25 is purely for recce in the USMC I thought? In which case, the UK equivalent is the Scimitar. But UK recce forces, ISTR, are not designed to be "aggressive" recce, but passive.

The Bulldog is an battle taxi, to get to the front. The Warrior is an IFV, to add fire support as well.

[Destraex1]

interesting.... they must rely on aircraft for any real information then. No point doing recce if you cannot go far enough to see anything. That is unless you just want to know where the first point of resistance screens are.

[JonS]

Extracted from a similar thread:

I happen to have an (unclassified) British doctrinal publication in front of me as I sit here. Let me quote from the section on reconnaissance:

Emphasis in original.

You know, in the latest British Forces Trailer, when it says "A Whole New Army!"? They weren't kidding

... and "a whole new army" means a lot more than a few new vehicle skins

[Apocal]

Yeah, definitely not a fan of recce as the Brits know it and recon as Americans know it. I wonder how the Brits plan to handle the recon/counter-recon fight being so much lighter in terms of ass and guns?

[Combatintman]

When Bulldog was introduced (reintroduced if you're an old git) - the stated absolute minimum for the dismounts was to be an 8 man section resulting in a manpower increment for the mech battalions converting from Saxon. I'm pretty sure the ORBAT reflects this in the game.