This is an excellent weapon. I really disagree with the LMG being retired. @MikeW It offered HE, WP, smoke and illuminating bomb types. Intelligence Cell With the US Army planning to adopt a new 6.8 mm High Velocity Armoured Piercing Ammunition (HVAP), the rest of NATO may follow its lead. Ultimately, this discussion is about maximising “Boots on the ground.” It can best be achieved by ensuring that British infantry units are structured around ground combat roles that ensure responsiveness and efficiency, rather than being organised according to financial constraints. I can’t upload pics but their SOIs are on AKX if you have access to it and are interested. Such a capability is definitely still needed and there is a strong case to re-instate the 51 mm exactly as it was. 40mm MV is would be an excellent addition to the ammo mix in sections bit there will be some work for the SASCs to update Pams and traces so unlikely to happen. Tri-Service? With the Army embracing other new technologies, such as drones and loading carrying autonomous vehicles, having sufficient technical personnel to operate and maintain them suggests that having sufficient REME personnel is essential. firepower and protection yes (which would possibly be over kill), but at the expense of a massive logistical footprint. Welfare Office This reduces each company by 20 personnel. How would they operate together from a logistical view point? Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Cramming ten blokes’ kit in is a nightmare. Catering Platoon Building on Captain Nemo‘s comments: in solving the problem of dismounted infantry mass the starting point should be ‘what is the minimum number of dismounts sufficient’ not ‘how do we fit more troops and firepower into four vehicles’. Why did / do we need mass, as in large numbers of infantry boots on the ground ? Is this concept outdated ? STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION. The command structure is hierarchical with divisions and brigades responsible for administering groupings of smaller units. The central idea in proposing a universal battalion structure is to build it around platoons of 1 + 35 soldiers. In Platoon HQs that have 9 soldiers, the same structure would be adopted, providing an additional machine gun and designated marksman rifle. Interesting article on a subject I personally know little about. Thinking about the need to operate from IFVs, Mechanised infantry vehicles (MIVs), from helicopters, and on foot, the first proposal is to standardise all Infantry Rifle Platoons around a common size that provides some degree of flexibility. This is an interesting idea, but would impose an increased weight and logistical burden on rifle companies. The German corps, in addition to containing supply, communication, and hospital units, provided heavier artillery for the support of the divisions. The battalion-level system we have used since WW2, with mortars organised in a separate platoon, still seems to work well. However, what about this suggestion with platoon manning lifted to 36 as follows: Pl HQ: Pl Comd, Pl Signaller, Pl Sgt, Pl Medic. And to the opposite for open terrain which is tank friendly the said general-purpose all-mech infantry would be more expensive than simple tanks without infantry which would dominate the open terrain against such infantry as the more numerous enemy infantry would rule the closed terrain against the to few of the general-purpose bataillons because the number of infantry outside the vehicles would become much lower if you include all this vehicles in an infantry bataillon. | PowerPoint PPT presentation | free to view The following diagram shows the current outline structure of an Armoured Regiment equipped with Challenger 2 main battle tanks. This means units/sub-units pinged would spend a colossal amount of time rehearsing at cost of other training and tasks. A Challenger 2 Regiment with three Squadrons of main battle tanks would have an all up total of 56 tanks when deployed for war. Therefore, there may be a case to standardise all infantry battalions around a common structure with an identical headcount for each. If Warrior was to go, is there a reason for not looking at the KF41 Lynx rather than Ajax? Some would argue that the 40 mm low velocity grenade is a substitute for 51 mm mortars, but maximum range is 300-400 metres not 700-800 metres. Doing this has massively increased the company in vehicles (+6) and personnel (platoon now being 9+9+9+9+4+4=44 without a Signaller or medic). They are not man-portable, so will usually only accompany a platoon when mounted on MIV, MRVP, MWMIK (Jackal) or other vehicles. So providing extra seats at platoon level should be affordable. Syria vote: Michael Fallon says UK already an IS target. At the beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1793, the army was a small, awkwardly administered force of barely 40,000 men. I just wanted to pick up on a comment by White Hackle. For what it’s worth, I think it would be good to have a rotating other-arms presence. We can tailor our forces now for a sustained operation, such as we have done for Bosnia until the present I don’t think we need to radically change the div structure just refine the battlegroup concept to reflect the modularity aspect of the force but reataining the mass of the individual capability the heavy, medium and light bring when needed. A second issue is the now universal threat of IEDs, which means that all deployed infantry units need some form of protected mobility. It allows Marine Expeditionary Units (MEUs) to be generated quickly. This size of unit would do much to increase the deployability and resilience of UK infantry battalions, especially if we could field at least 18 out of 32 battalions with some form of organic protected mobility. It enables a return to pre-1950s rule of four: assault, suppress, reserve, exploit. I further agree that 28 is a good number: four six-strong sections and a four-strong Pl HQ has sufficient flexibility, lethality and survivability (it can absorb casualties, something current AI platoons struggle to do). The structure outlined translates into an overall battalion size of 32 officers + 658 other ranks or 690 soldiers in total. fire missions, instead the mortar team is at his immediate disposal. Just realized – your modular multi-role battalion has 42 people less than the current Armoured Infantry battalion establishment – who are these 42 peeps and what do they do? Three platoons of 36 soldiers would need to be supported by a Company HQ comprised of the Company Commander, Company 2IC, CSM, CQMS, two storemen, two clerks, two radio operators, four drivers, and two runners. I was throwing around the idea of top slicing the TA and just plugging companies into existing battalions with the intention that it would enhance their professionalism and that they could pull through the three regular companies as casualty replacements. Are ~1,200 troops really needed?? There are two distinct tiers within the British Army’s rank structure - officers and other ranks. As we begin to look towards autonomous vehicles, REME support across all battalion types will become more important. 6 Battalions of “Foot Guards” (armoured infantry), 6 battalions of “The Light Infantry” 6 Battalions of “The Fusilliers” (Mech infantry in Boxer) and 18 Battalions of The Rifles ? In recent years the Royal Welsh, RAF, Royal Navy, Gurkhas and even the Royal Malay Regiment have done it. Weapons like the 12.7 mm HMG and 40 mm high velocity grenade machine gun are primarily vehicle-mounted systems. This means wagons to have space for additional personnel and stores, are all properly crewed and that dismounted mass hits the desired 28 (plus crew 5×3=15 so 43 total). This proposal is in-line with what rifle companies already have. Ulrich gives an alternative of all battalions being light role and armoured vehicles being in independent extreme bronegruppa units. Heavy armour battalion With each Javelin vehicle requiring a driver and commander, t. As noted above, there is no reason why other weapon types and combinations could not also be used. I agree on the close relationship between regs and reserves, having been in a specialist reserve unit, I have seen it work really well. So Rifle Sections of 9 soldiers would work well. fold-out plans and diagrams. The CSA is assisted by the Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army The CSA is a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a body composed of the service chiefs from each service who advise the … In June '44 there was one 17pdr Firefly per troop, by the end of the war most troops had two. If we have multi role divisions, then does this not theoritically make a third of your div redundant for any given operation? Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. 1. Mortar platoons with 8 or 9 x 81 mm tubes has been proven on many occasions to be sufficient. Technical Quartermaster’s Department Unfortunately, it is only attached if a battalion deploys and may not train often enough with the battalion to which it is allocated to achieve the desired level of integration. This articles argues that it would create a more flexible and potent force as well as making it easier to re-role battalions if a universal, multi-role structure was developed. What it does do is massively hollow out the capability and capacity of the Reserve Infantry for little tangible gain beyond having a structure which is more aesthetically pleasing on an ORBAT chart. When you constantly need to juggle different group sizes, there’s a risk of not knowing whether you have enough “boots on the ground” to complete allocated tasks. Important Operations of the Indian Defense Forces; Indian Army Rank Structure and Promotions; Indian Army Commands. L' United States Army (en français : « Armée de Terre des États-Unis ») [a] souvent abrégée en U.S. Army est l’armée de terre des États-Unis. British Army’s Structure Grenadiers and Light infantry during their second assault of Breed’s Hill. I think that wider structures, instead of ten BCTs we should look at the French and Australians. Maybe have the armoured corps supplying the vehicle crews in a similar way to the Mastiff group on Telic? No, I hesitated on the TA bit because it sounded derogatory, but note that I said enhance their professionalism, not that they were unprofessional. Historique. By having so many different existing battalion structures, it is more difficult to asses overall manning levels. These developments, This is broadly similar to the structures of the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force, in that the four-star (general-equivalent) commanders-in-chief have been eliminated since 2011 and service chiefs are given direct command of their respective services and are responsible as Top Level Budget (TLB) holders. The other support company would have the assault pioneers and the 2-3 anti tank platoons. This where I would fit the reserve infantry into the mix, sticking with 1 inf battalion providing 1 Coy on the 1 in 3 rotation to their twinned regular battalion for the regular “motorized” inf Battalions. Considering something like Mali or from our experience Afghan what would the heavy bring to the party? Infantry Headquarter Company’s have the following elements: Do we need to simplify the rank structures of UK Armed Forces? It may indeed prove a good idea if explored and developed further but I don’t understand what problem you seek to solve nor what the advantages are: it will do nothing for quality of training, Reserve professionalism and competency, morale and retention or, crucially, deployability. At the RUSI Land Warfare Conference in June 2012, the army's Chief of the General Staff General Sir Peter Wall set out a significantly different army structure from that foreseen in the Strategic Defence and Security Review. Service children are the children of serving service personnel but they also have a responsibility for the children of Ministry of Defence UK based civilians and sponsored organisations serving outside of the UK. Eleven British armies were formed during the First World War. In the brochure it is seven. 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