Battlefield Promotions

[Raellus]

After the TDM, the number of academy and ROTC grads and "90 Day Wonders" making their way to Europe would slow to a relative trickle. Meanwhile, casualties amongst junior officers already in theater would be pretty high. There simply wouldn't be adequate numbers of new officers to keep up with losses. The difference, then, would need to be made up of soldiers who'd received battlefield commisions, no

How would this work At what level (Division, Brigade/Regiment, Battalion, Company) would the decision be made Would a seniority system develop -i.e. the unit's senior NCO would receive the officership, the next highest ranking NCO would take the senior NCO's slot, etc.

I'm just wondering what percentage of lieutenants in 2000 would be academy/ROTC/OCS grads and what percentage would be former NCOs and enlisted.

[jester]

However,

There would also be a severe reduction in troops to look which would reduce the high number of officers needed.

[Raellus]

However, There would also be a severe reduction in troops to look which would reduce the high number of officers needed.

True. So would an NCO be in charge of a c.2000 platoon (which would likely be seriously understrength)

Since pretty much most units of any size would be operating at around 1/3 of(or less) than its authorized strength, would that eliminate the need for 1/3 of the regular complement of officers Or would units be top-heavy

[Legbreaker]

It depends a lot on the nationality involved I would think.

Soviet style armies for example place very little authority with NCOs leaving most of the more technical and administrative tasks up to Officers (so I believe). Pushing NCOs up to fill these roles may not be a particularly good idea since they're likely to need almost as much training as a civilian trainee.

In many western militaries (speaking specifically about the British model here), NCOs are the backbone of the army - without them nothing can happen. It's relatively common even without a war going on for Sergeants and Warrant Officers to receive a direct commission (Corporals still need training). While not an everyday occurance, I've personally seen it happen on several occasions when either the officer pool got a bit low, or as a way to hold on to highly experienced and valuable SNCOs.

As Jester has pointed out, the number of enlisted soliders is also likely to reduce, thereby reducing the need for some many officers. However, historically, the proportional casualty rate for Officers and junior NCOs (the senior NCOs usually being employed in plattoon, Company and Battalion HQs rather than on the front line) has been higher than for enlisted. This is most commonly due to the risks a commander must take to remain in control of the situation - they have to put their heads up out of cover to see what's going on.

[Webstral]

Speaking structly for the US Army, I see team leaders and squad leaders being made second lieutenants. As has been mentioned, platoon sergeants are simply too valuable to be turned into officers. By the same token, a senior NCO is more-or-less set in his ways. He can learn new tricks, but he is unlikely to adapt to the officer's way of viewing the world. A promising team leader or squad leader understands the way the Army works and has a good grasp of his personal soldering skills. He also is not so senor that he can't make the leap from the NCO mentality to the officer mentality. This matters.

USAEUR will push the authority to bestow battlefield commissions down to whatever level SACEUR feels is necessary. I'd guess battalion commanders would receive the authority. Perhaps company commanders would have the authhority to grant a warrant, although this authority might be retained at the battalion level, too.

Webstral

[Adm.Lee]

My WW2 & VN War reading leads me to think that platoon-leader slots will probably be left empty or handed over to the platoon sergeants as a matter of course. By 2000, commissions will probably be only done for "important" jobs. A staff spot or company CO would seem appropriate to me.

[Raellus]

So, I see two different theories.

Junior NCOs or senior enlisted men (not the senior NCO) leapfrog the senior NCO to become platoon leaders and receive battlefield commisions.

OR

Senior NCOs take over the platoon, keeping their rank and title.

I know that units are smaller and contain less soldiers in 2000, but I think the consensus here is that there will be roughly the same number of units. In other words, for example, a division would keep its three brigades but each brigade would be smaller. It would be this way on down the line. A battalion would still have three companies, just smaller.

With the same number of units, wouldn't folks need the same number of officers to lead each of them (Unless, that is, smaller units are commanded by NCOs).

[jester]

I can also see units being merged and combined with units becoming composite. Regiments of a Division may merge along with surplus support personel being added to the mix. So, maybe a Division would have a understrengthed Brigade in reality, and surplus officers in the HQ units and such would be turned into platoon and company commanders. Same with companies and platoons mustering a few men, they would be merged to fill the ranks of other platoons and companies and the surplus officers as well will be used to fill vacant slots in companies as platoon and company commanders.

Maybe a Company would end up with three platoons or even 2 platoons and a HQ element with a company comander and 2 Lts or even a Warrant OFficers of Senior or Staff NCO commander the platoons, heck I have been in such units where our platoon comander was a master Sgt, a Gunny or even a Warrant Officer. Hell I as a Lance Cpl was acting platoon comander for a month.

I am thinking the amount of officers a unit would get would also be determined on the size. An example, maybe a company would have one or two officers and doing away with the platoons having maybe four squad sized elements each comanded by a Sgt.

[Legbreaker]

I tend to agree that the larger units would exist in name only as the war dragged on. An infantry battalion with a prewar paper strength of say 750 men (four infantry companies, support company consisting or mortars, assault pioneers/engineers, antiarmour, etc, and all the supply, intel, motorpool, HQ elements) is likely to have barely a third of that by 2000 - maybe 250 men.

An infantry company (Australian model) has a paper strength of approximately 110 men in three plattoons plus heavy weapons section and HQ. With only a third of that strength the unit is almost totally combat non-effective (as a Company organisation). I have personal experience of this level of strength and confirm that 3 man sections (normally 9 or 10) do not work even for a short period of time (such as a single attack).

Therefore, it makes much more sense to consolidate the available personnel into pre-existing command structures - Company becomes Plattoon, Battalion becomes Company, Brigade becomes Battalion and so forth. Obviously the Battalion commander (for example) would likely remain in that position rather than effectively be demoted (and loose all that valuable experience and skill) with the possible surplus of officers being shifted into other roles.

I doubt however that there would be a surplus of officers - just because a HQ is not on the front lines, doesn't mean it hasn't been mortared, bombed, nuked, etc. Also, soliders are suceptible to disease possibly even more than the average civilian (although they do have access to better medical attention on the whole), so the rear eschelons are likely to have suffered significantly during the course of the war with correspondingly high casualties in the aftermath of the nukes.

[Targan]

I agree with Leggy. I can imagine the commander of a battalion that is operating as a company holding out hope that eventually he will gain sufficient reinforcements that he will command a battalion again and his now company sized element would act as a cadre, ready to be bulked back up like dehydrated rations having water added.

[chico20854]

That's the model we've been working off of too. With Operation Omega, Milgov reorganizes the units retained in service at the next lower size (divisions become brigades, brigades become battalions, etc.) but with the lineage of the former size. The units are brought up to full strength (a squad back to 9-11 infantrymen, etc.) and the training organization oriented towards gradually bringing the units back to their former size over a period of years.

[Raellus]

The reason I posted this topic is that I'm trying to figure out what a division, regiment, battalion, company, platoon would look like c. 2000, before Omega.

It seems like the consensus here is that, instead of significantly smaller units, units are merged to keep them near their nominal full strength.

In other words, instead of a battalion having three badly understrength companies, it may have only two slightly understrength ones. Is this right

The problem I see with regiments becoming battalions and divisions becoming regiments, etc. is that canon seems to refute this. It doesn't look like the U.S. Army, at least, has "lost" any divisions by 2000 (quite the opposite, actually). Division strengths are way down but it seems rather unlikely that a division in 2000 will have only one or two regiments or a single brigade, each made up of one or two battalions or two companies, and so on. It makes more sense to me that the division would keep its basic early war structure (albeit without a lot of the dedicated support units listed in its pre-war TOEs) but with much smaller units. Otherwise, why not redesignate the divisions as Brigades or whatever

What am I missing here.

[pmulcahy11b]

It just seems that the paper designations are being held onto -- most "divisions" in T2K are big if they are at brigade strength. Maybe its nostalgia...

[Webstral]

Raellus, I agree with you canon has its own idea of what is going on in USAEUR in 2000. Escape from Kalisz offers us some useful clues as to where the cuts might be made.

"...the remaining 10 M1E2s of 3-70 armor turned south off the road... and advanced overland to take the Soviet column in flank. 2-21 Field Artillery pulled it six howitzers off the road behind them and set up to deliver supporting fires." (Escape from Kalisz, "Death of a Division")

Both of these formations are operating at company strength. Throughout the handout, battalions are referred to by name. I submit that this is evidence that the battalion remains a functional but reduced level of command but that its strength has been reduced to company level. Ergo, either the platoon or the company has been eliminated. If I had to say which one the US Army would get rid of, I'd say the Army has done away with the platoon. New lieutenants probably take over a company formation that has been effectively reduced to a collection of squads or sections led by NCOs.

Legbreaker also has an excellent point about attrition among the officers. If we think about the nature of the tactical nuclear exchanges in 1997, the most senior officers and their staffs are going to be hard-hit. Command posts are among the most attractive targets. At every echelon, the enemy will make a concerted effort to hit the unit headquarters. I think an awful lot of field grade officers have met their respective makers. Light colonels might be commanding the brigade-sized formation calling itself a division in Twilight: 2000. Battalions might be commanded by first lieutenants. The latter happened often enough to the Germans in the Eastern Front in WW2.

Paul has a good point about nostalgia. The Army does love its tradition. I know I've given my opinion on kampfgruppen before, so I won't go into it at any length here. Suffice to say that Targan is right on the money: the Army is thinking that when things get better, formations will be brought up to their authorized strength.

Webstral

[Raellus]

That's what I was talking about Web. I was thinking about the units mentioned in "Escape from Kalisz" when I wrote my last post but I was too lazy to look it up and cite it. Thanks.

It makes sense that the platoon would go. Or perhaps a reinforced rifle squad would be called a platoon. Whatever.

I too am a fan of the Kampfgruppe concept. Seems like a neat way to create a mixed unit made up of various NATO nationalities. A lot of PbP games, at least, seem to include player parties made up of many different nationalities of PC and sometimes it seems a stretch to explain how they all got together (or ran into each other in the same AO). Multinational Kamfgruppen would take care of that.