Real life military organizations, equipment and personnel.

[Marski (OP)]

Since not everyone knows what a battalion, regiment or a division looks like. I'm making this thread as a depository of information on which to base your ground units on.

Starting with the most comprehensible piece, includes everything from the organization structure of several different types of soviet formations, to how many field kitchens a regimental headquarters has.
Image is a hyperlink.

[Marski (OP)]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireteam

[YABG]

Found this today which serves as a good source for what contemporary British formations look like. Not masses of detail but enough to create a reasonable looking ground unit template:

http://www.armedforces.co.uk/armyindex.php#.XpyS9MhKhhG

[mtm84]

http://niehorster.org/000_admin/000oob.htm

Various countries during ww2, some more detailed then others.

[kyphrite156]

I've been doing research into WWI orders of battle for an AAR scenario I want to run and found this site, which has links to OOB for pretty much every major combatant for both ground and naval OOBs, along with TO&E strengths down to the company level in some cases. 

http://www.314th.org/Nafziger-Collection-of-Orders-of-Battle/Nafziger-Collection-World-War-One.html

Also has links to a larger OOB repository for armies from 1600 to 1945.  Might be useful to anyone looking to setup scenarios during those eras.  Needs a little tweaking to get it to fit in the new GU formations, but I've been experimenting with how to set them up and have come up with some fairly sizable formations from corps down to the company level for the UK and Germany. 

[Shadow]

It may be important to streamline all this down to what's actually meaningful in Aurora. Creating a complete OOB from Army down to Squad level, with every detail, may be tedious both to organize and later to actually manage and use in-game.

Is company level simulation worth it or can we skip to battalion level? Are regiments necessary as a larger unit? As far as I've read a while ago, like regimental ones, divisional systems were falling into disuse, giving way to autonomous "brigade combat teams" (BCT), at least in the US Army.

So the primary units could be brigades composed of 4-5 battalions (or regiments if you prefer that flavour), perhaps with some greater administrative unit encompassing them to cover fronts/planets/campaigns.

What are your thoughts?

[Marski (OP)]

It may be important to streamline all this down to what's actually meaningful in Aurora. Creating a complete OOB from Army down to Squad level, with every detail, may be tedious both to organize and later to actually manage and use in-game.

Is company level simulation worth it or can we skip to battalion level? Are regiments necessary as a larger unit? As far as I've read a while ago, like regimental ones, divisional systems were falling into disuse, giving way to autonomous "brigade combat teams" (BCT), at least in the US armed forces.

So the primary units could be brigades composed of 4-5 battalions (or regiments if you prefer that flavour), perhaps with some greater administrative unit encompassing them to cover fronts/planets/campaigns.

What are your thoughts?

It is tedious now, but I hope that Steve-, once he has hunted down all the gameplay bugs that are currently burning through version numbers at impressive speed, -improves the ground force management by introducing "categories" that act as "folders" in the unit design screen, where ground units based on their type are deposited. Vehicles in vehicle folder and so on. Other thing would be having similiar system for producing army formations. So the poor bastards like me, who have designed their army down to the squad level, can have a bit easier time building them.

As for combat performance I can't say, bugs and new versions have reset my plays before I've had even a glimpse of an opportunity for planetary invasion.

[Pedroig]

It may be important to streamline all this down to what's actually meaningful in Aurora. Creating a complete OOB from Army down to Squad level, with every detail, may be tedious both to organize and later to actually manage and use in-game.

Is company level simulation worth it or can we skip to battalion level? Are regiments necessary as a larger unit? As far as I've read a while ago, like regimental ones, divisional systems were falling into disuse, giving way to autonomous "brigade combat teams" (BCT), at least in the US Army.

So the primary units could be brigades composed of 4-5 battalions (or regiments if you prefer that flavour), perhaps with some greater administrative unit encompassing them to cover fronts/planets/campaigns.

What are your thoughts?

I'm finding good "balance" at doing Brigade-Battalion-Company format for a RA type of MTOE.  This gives multiple Front Line units with some LAA, supported by LB, MB, and MAA Battalion assets at HQ, backed up by HB, HAA, and STO option at the Brigade HQ level.  I find it maximizes CP/ton levels quite well, with some minor modifications to suit mission(s).

[Shadow]

It seems companies are sort of mandatory after all, since the most junior army officer rank you have is Major, which isn't enough to command a battalion (Lt Col).

Command levels appear to be out of whack, though, if a Colonel can command up to something like 80-100 thousand troops (if the Ground Combat Command value corresponds to men under them).

Ranks can be renamed, but apparently not removed, so I'm not sure what'd be the consequences of reshuffling nomenclature to make command figures more sensible.

[Marski (OP)]

Ranks can be renamed, but apparently not removed

Yes they can.

[Shadow]

Hmmmm. And how does that affect academy graduate generation?

[Marski (OP)]

Hmmmm. And how does that affect academy graduate generation?

Hmmmm. Look deep into yourself and you'll find the answer.

[Father Tim]

Hmmmm. And how does that affect academy graduate generation?

Not in the slightest.

[idefelipe]

I always create a new rank (Captain) for my ground forces, and I have not see any changes related to the Academy. As the new rank is added on the top (for the promotions) and you have to rename the other ranks, the only change is to rename Major to Captain, everything else keeps as they are.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I always create a new rank (Captain) for my ground forces, and I have not see any changes related to the Academy. As the new rank is added on the top (for the promotions) and you have to rename the other ranks, the only change is to rename Major to Captain, everything else keeps as they are.

Is it really tenable to go as deep down as platoon level in Aurora... I have so far only worked with Company Level strength formations. At platoon level it seems like the individual formations get too weak and you risk breakthroughs from enemy attack quite often.

Command levels appear to be out of whack, though, if a Colonel can command up to something like 80-100 thousand troops (if the Ground Combat Command value corresponds to men under them).

The numbers does not represent number of men but the total "size" of the formations under them. Also the game NEVER refer to number of actual soldiers but units. You could easily have an infantry unit be referring to a fire-team of three soldier or an infantry unit with a CAP is a machine gun team of 5-6 men. Like wise one infantry unit could be a super soldier like a space marine in power armour and a bolter. A light vehicle could be a small walker or a space marine Dreadnought type individual.

The number that each commander can command is their capacity, there is nothing that says that a colonel could not command a divisions... I mean he is capable of it... he just have not attained that rank yet. You probably also could find generals that are not capable of commanding a division even though they have the rank to do so... that is how real life actually works...