Troop unit sizes

[scvn2812 (OP)]

What is the troop numbers used for various unit organizations for ground troops? How many troops are in a company, how many in a battalion, how many in a brigade?

Also is there a way to break up a brigade into battalions or smaller formations?

I don't have engineer battalions researched yet (they're in the pipeline) but I was hoping to get a head start on checking build rates for PDCs on asteroids and moons as conducted by engineers in the SOL system but my troop transport with only a single transport bay isn't large enough to lift one of the starter engineer brigades on Earth. A Google search later, informs me that anywhere from 3 to 5 or more battalions might make up a brigade using US military organization and thus I would need multiple bays on a single ship or multiple ships (if a unit can be spread across multiple ships at all) to lift a brigade using my current design.

So what is the break down of companies per battalion, battalions per brigade and can they be split up into their components either for transport or permanently for greater flexibility?

[Dutchling]

I think it is 1 : 5 : 12 (1 :: 60)
An engineer is the same as 5 normal troops for transport though.

[Hawkeye]

Troop number:
Make up your own numbers

Engineer Brigades can not be broken up and are size 25
Battalions are size 5 and can not be broken up further
Companies are size 1 and can not be broken up further
conventional divisions are size 50 and can not be broken up further

A batallion transport bay can house units of up to size 5, so your troop transport needs at least 5 bays to carry an engineer brigade

Each Brigade HQ can command 4 Combat Battalions
Each Division HQ can command 4 Brigade HQs

A Division therefore consists of 1 Division HQ, 4 Brigade HQs and 16 combat Battalions.
A Division can be broaken up into its parts in any way you want, as it is only an organisational unit, the battalions and brigades are still present.


Edit: The main reason to form Brigades/Division is that the commanders boni stack. With a Division commander with combat bonus 20%, commanding a brigade commander with a combat bonus of 15%, commanding a battalion commander with a combat bonus of 10%, the battalion fights with a combined bonus of 45%.
 

[Girlinhat]

Division: The largest 'unit' available.  It's a structure, or a mobile command base if you want to look at it like that, with some defense and not much else.

Brigade: 4 brigades per division, this is also a structure giving some defense and nothing else.

Battalion: A "normal" unit, use your imagination as to how many actual soldiers are included.  At low tech, you can imagine that it's 500 soldiers with pistols.  At high tech you can imagine that it's one walking assault mech the size of a building.  You can roleplay/imagine what you want here.  You can assign 4 battalions to a single brigade.

Company: 1/5 the size of a battalion, in case you just need a marine company to capture a fast enemy ship and the company drop module weighs less.  Or if you just need a garrison company to quell some unrest, or somesuch.

A battalion, brigade HQ, and division HQ all occupy one regular sized drop pod and troop bay.  You can pack 1 division HQ, 4 brigade HQs, and 16 battalions, forming the entire "group" of infantry over 21 troop transports.  Any commander assigned to a brigade or division will share their bonus with underlings, so you can stack up your combat bonus commanders and end up with some fierce heavy assault troops.

Engineering battalions are 5x the size and are probably more akin to the peace corps than the army, trained to construct in the field but not how to fight.

[scvn2812 (OP)]

Ouch, looks like I'm going to have to put off assembling PDCs in the field until I can get a 5 bay transport up and going. The knife twists just a bit more that I only have one yard that can handle a 5 bay transport, that being the one building my heavy combatant. Looks like I'm just going to have to keep nearby systems well patrolled and shuffle my tankers around to keep up with my explorers for now. No forward listening posts / supply depots for me ... yet.

[Girlinhat]

You don't particularly need combat drop modules, just troop transport.  Combat drops deploy instantly, but if you're sieging a world with no PDC or you're moving to your own colony, then you can just unload over time without the combat drop.  That should reduce the size of the ship a bit, and may or may not make them civilian.  I make my troopships military, so I can't say for sure.

[metalax]

Yes as long as you keep the other components civilian, troop transports without combat drop ability can be civilian.

I seem to recall reading that it was intended that marine battalions would be able to be split into companies/companies recombine into battalions but as far as I know that functionality has not been implemented.

[orfeusz]

... Combat drops deploy instantly, but if you're sieging a world with no PDC or you're moving to your own colony, then you can just unload over time without the combat drop ...

And don't try to transport troops in the drop modules longer then 2-3 days.

[Girlinhat]

Speaking of which, I had slightly unusual incident.  I had a basing dropship with a troop bay and combat drop, nothing fancy.  I put 5 of them in a fleet, and ordered it to go to an enemy planet, load troops, and deploy troops.  Each 5 performed separately, and since they had no cargo handling it took them like a whole day to load each troop.  That took like 5 days total, apparently they do NOT multi-load troops, so by the time I managed to drop troops, the first ones were lower morale.

Is this normal?

[Brian Neumann]

Speaking of which, I had slightly unusual incident.  I had a basing dropship with a troop bay and combat drop, nothing fancy.  I put 5 of them in a fleet, and ordered it to go to an enemy planet, load troops, and deploy troops.  Each 5 performed separately, and since they had no cargo handling it took them like a whole day to load each troop.  That took like 5 days total, apparently they do NOT multi-load troops, so by the time I managed to drop troops, the first ones were lower morale.

Is this normal?

Unfortunately yes.  The way around it is to split the fleet into the individual ships in seperate task forces in which case they will all take the 1 day and be done.  This is a pain to micromanage however so good luck on it.

Brian

[Girlinhat]

In real combat I believe I'd have a capital ship outfitted with ~21 troop bays (a full division) and a lot of cargo handlers, then quickly load dropships, perhaps via docking, and deploy.

[blue emu]

The main reason to form Brigades/Division is that the commanders boni stack. With a Division commander with combat bonus 20%, commanding a brigade commander with a combat bonus of 15%, commanding a battalion commander with a combat bonus of 10%, the battalion fights with a combined bonus of 45%.
 

Shouldn't it be +51.8%? 1 x 1.2 x 1.15 x 1.1?

[Girlinhat]

Apparently not.  If you put a 50 training commander as a brigade HQ, and a 50 training as division HQ, they get 75 training total.  I'm not sure how things add up, but it appears that the further "up the ladder" a commander is, the more diluted their boost is.

Or I could be misunderstanding the idea, been known to happen...

[Hawkeye]

Shouldn't it be +51.8%? 1 x 1.2 x 1.15 x 1.1?

Could be. I don´t realy know if it is added up first or one at a time. It doesn´t realy matter. What is important is, that it _does_ add up 

[Father Tim]

Training rating is handled differently from combat bonus.