I'm just trying to get an idea of how many "fighters" are in any given military unit.
I'm more interested for the bigger units (i.e. Divisions and Battalions) but I'd be happy to get any information someon is willing to share...
Vicarius
Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
I'm just trying to get an idea of how many "fighters" are in any given military unit.
I'm more interested for the bigger units (i.e. Divisions and Battalions) but I'd be happy to get any information someon is willing to share...
Comes Rei Militaris
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
A brigade is about 5,000 men & women
A division is less than 100
A Battalion is around 500-1500 men & women.
A company is 75-200 soldiers
A regiment is roughly 5000 soldiers
(Curtesy of Wikipedia)
Vicarius
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
I knew all of that but I also know that some of those people (Company +) are for support and don't actually fight.Originally Posted by Celsius
I want to know out of the 5,000 soldiers in a Regiment how many actually fight.
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
The breakdown of USMC infantry battalion is three rifle companies, one weapons company, and one heaquarters and service company.
Appropriate TO aka Task Organized size for a battalion is roughly 1200 Marines and Sailors.
A rifle company aka a line company is made of three rifle platoons, one weapons platoon, and a headquarters and service platoon.
A weapons company is usually broken down into different sections, or they have what's called CAAT teams, which mean Combined Anti-Armor teams. Since 06 names have been changed to MAP, which means Mobile Assault Platoons. Obviously there is a H&S platoon to handle admin and training stuff within the company.
The Headquarters and service company is all your non combat guys. All the S shops fall under H&S, S-1 through S-6. You have your battalion aide station, all your non-line corpsman, and your officer docs that can perform surgery and so forth. Your motor transport section falls here. You also have your sniper plt usually under H&S and your Protective detail for your battalion commander. Also log trains/combat trains which are usually truck drivers and guys made up from other jobs that do supply trains out to forward operating bases. You have all your heavy guns with these guys, 81mm mortars, and TOW gunners.
At the rifle company level each platoon is comprised of around 38 Marines broken down into three squads with hopefully three corpsman, a platoon sergeant, a platoon commander and at least a platoon radio operator. This varies because not everyone unit is up to TO, and some are over TO. The entire rifle platoon is made up of 0311s, which are Infantry Rifleman.
Within that company there will be one weapons platoon. Traditionally when deployed the weapons platoon will be broken down amongst your rifle platoons. So you have light and heavy machine guns, aka MK19, .50 cal, and 240 golf or bravos. You have assault man, and mortar man who fire the 60mm mortar all at company level. ITs supposed to be a Ssgt in charge of each section and a Gunnery Sergeant as the platoon sergeant but its not usually that way.
Then you have your support platoon within that company. You have three or four comm operators, a few wire guys, a senior line corpsman, your CO, 1st sgt, company gunny, police sgt, armourers, company clerk, and training nco all fall under H&S platoon. Theyre the smallest platoon, and the police sgt, training nco, armourers, and company clerk are usually rifleman by trade.
The proper TO is around 220 Marines and sailors for a Marine rifle company. Of that I'd say 15 or so are a support role.
Sorry if that's confusing...
The Corps is easy cause it's the rule of threes
3 fireteams make a squad
3 squads make a platoon
3 platoons make a company (not counting wpns cause they are sposed to be broken up but arent always)
3 companies make a Battalion (not counting HandS and Wpns)
3 Battalion make a regiment.
Last edited by Captain Jin; November 30, 2008 at 02:25 PM.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Has to be easy else the Marines wouldn't understand it... Just kidding.
So you don't have organic weapons squads to your platoons?
It seems your organization is similar to the organization of the US Army in WWII. We change our squad size to 9 mostly to fit it in the Huey.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
The organic weapons comes from the weapons platoon. With a 12 man rifle squad that has three SAWs, and three 203s you have a lot of firepower. Traditionally you also would put one 240G MG team in there, and possibly a team of assault men, in which case you have a SMAW, and then if you have your squad carry an AT4 or a LAAW then you have quite a bit of firepower.
Now-a-days with upgrades in avionics and safety requirements the Huey can't carry troops like it did in 'Nam. Now it can barely carry water, fuel, ammo and it's own crew. But with the new Venom coming out that will change and the Marines can go back to utilizing the Huey more. In which case you could do two Hueys per rifle squad. We've got 123 on order and they should change things.
But we're more aggressive than the army, and we fight by immediately gaining fire superiority, and having an additional fireteam is very useful for that. Once you have your twelve man squad, add two or three weapons attachments, a squad leader, and a corpsman and you're looking at normal operational strength around 15 or 16. This is how we operated in Afghanistan. It's the traditional way we set up. In Iraq we don't usually have weapons attachments so you're generally looking at anywhere between 12 and 14. If youre just performing security patrols and trying to rest your boys you can go out with just eight.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Exact numbers vary greatly, but I can give ya an idea for the US Army...
A Division has about 6 brigades and a super-battalion of about 1000 soldiers. 4 brigades of them are combat brigades, one is an aviation brigade and one is a support brigade. The battalion is made up of the troops needed to support the HQ and perform other support tasks.
Each combat brigade has 4 combat battalions (except Stryker which have 5) and about two support battalions and one HQ company.
A light and a stryker combat battalion has 3 line companies and one HQ company. A heavy combat battalion has 5 combat companies (2 Infantry, 2 Armor, 1 Combat Engineer)
So a brigade has between 12 - 16 companies and a division between 48 and 64 companies of combat troops.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
APP-6A SymbolNameNo. of personnelNo. of subordinate unitsUnit leaderXXXXXXregion or theater or front1,000,000 +4+ army groupsgeneral or army general or field marshalXXXXXarmy group250,000 +2+ armiesgeneral or army general or field marshalXXXXarmy60,000-100,000+2-4 corpsgeneral or army general or colonel generalXXXcorps30,000-80,0002+ divisionslieutenant generalXXdivision10,000–20,0002-4 brigades or regimentsmajor generalXbrigade2000–50002+ regiments or 3–6
battalions or Commonwealth regimentsbrigadier general, brigadier or colonelIIIregiment or group2000–30002+ battalions or U.S. Cavalry squadronscolonelIIbattalion (of infantry), (U.S. Cavalry squadron or Commonwealth armoured regiment)300–10002–6 companies, batteries, U.S. Cavalry troops, or Commonwealth squadronslieutenant colonelIcompany (of infantry), artillery battery, U.S. Cavalry troop or squadron of armour or combat engineers (Commonwealth)70–2502–8 platoons or Commonwealth troopschief warrant officer and captain or major•••platoon or Commonwealth troop25–602+ squads, sections, or vehicleswarrant officer and first or second lieutenant••section or patrol8–122+ fireteamscorporal to staff sergeant•squad or crew8–162+ fireteams or 1+ cellcorporal to staff sergeantŘfireteam4–5n/alance corporal to sergeantŘfire and manoeuvre team2n/aany/private first class
Civitate
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
United States Army Divisional Breakdown (keep in my mind, there are regiments, but I won't go into that):
Simplified Version (without indepth combat service support and combat support elements)--
Squad: 8-10 soldiers, plus 1 or 2 team leaders (SGT), plus one squad leader (SSG).
Platoon: 4 squads, plus one platoon sergeant (SFC) and one platoon leader (2LT-1LT) (approximately 50 joes)
Company: 4 platoons. plus one first sergeant and one company commander (CPT) (200+ joes)
Battalion: 4 companies, plus one support company, plus one sergeant major and one battalion commander (LTC) (1000+ joes)
Brigade: 4 battalions, plus several support battalions, plus one support company, plus one sergeant major and one brigade commander (COL) (5000+ joes)
Division: 4 Brigades, plus one artillery battalion, plus one support battalion, plus one company of military police, plus one platoon of snipers, plus one sergeant major and one division commander (LTG) (25,000+ joes)
Corps: depends, but usually 2 divisions plus corps assests (70,000+ joes)
This ain't exact, but I hope it answers your question.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
That's a bit outdated, I put the new organization as of about 2005-2006 on...
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Civitate
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Yeah, you're right, that's based on what I remember when I was in the real Army a few years back. I had heard that divisions had gone through major restructuring, but the beauracracy is slow, especially when it comes to change.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Started around 2003 and just finished in about 2006.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
The Osprey has killed a lot of Marines. My old company gunny lost a whole squad from his platoon back when he was a plt sgt to one going down. That's why we're very untrusting of it. I don't even like flying on CH46s and 47s cause so many have gone down. Ill take a 53 thx.
I thought it was the Marines too stubborn to change. Sounds you like you dog faces get pretty stuck in your ways.
And you know we have a history of aviation mishaps. The AV8A has killed more pilots then any other aircraft in service.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
If I get the choice I'll stay closer to the ground, a Stryker, Hummvee or Bradley hasn't ever fallen from the sky.
Both services have their quirks, but the 9-man seems to work well enough at least. But with ya Marines we'd still be using the Brown Bess if you got to choose the standard issue rifle.I thought it was the Marines too stubborn to change. Sounds you like you dog faces get pretty stuck in your ways.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
At least when I shoot someone they'd die. Not like the bloody M16. If I had it my way I'd be using an M14, to be honest, but that's way off subject haha.
Saviors of the Japanese
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
When the M14 was adopted didn't the Marines want to keep the Garand?
And I know they wanted to keep the Springfield when the Garand was introduced.
“The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of demarcation between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.”
—Sir William Francis Butler
Vicarius Provinciae
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Yes, and we wanted to keep the M14 when you guys adopted the M16. We are very attached to our rifles.
Even now you guys have adopted the M4 but the Corps sticks with the M16 and the M4 is only fielded in moderation.
A lot of guys in the infantry are clamoring for the M4 but the Corps is very reluctant.
Vicarius
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Thanks Farnan and Capt'n Jin! Your responses were great and very helpful.
Comes Limitis
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
Btw are the US forces to replace some of their UH-60s with AW101s (US-variants)?
I thought I heard something along those lines in a National Geographic show about the ''Super Copters''
The Colonel
Re: Men vs Fighting men in the modern armed forces
They've been chosen as the new presidential helicopters, Marine One, but so far no contracts for use with the troops. So they are gonna replace some VH-60's if that's what you meant.
Last edited by Rapax; December 03, 2008 at 02:44 PM.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
