evolution of an armoured division

[95th Rifleman]

WW2 started in 1939 and ended in 1945, in that time the various militaries evolved and adapted to changing technology and strategy. The British armoured division alone changes 4 times during the war and the Germans went through numerous changes.

One thing that bugs me, a pet hate of mine, is the wayT2k presents (admittedly very good and rather detailed) TO&Es for combatants but they are rather fixed. he published material presents cold war TO&Es as they where back in the late 80's.

The Twilight war runs from late 1996 to mid 2000, in that time there would be some changes methinks. Does anyone else think on this or am I being too anal about it?

My players are remnants of a 7th armoured brigade battlegroup (we jiggled with canon to allow a British contingent to the clusterfornication that was the last NATO offensive) and we discussed this and came up with a few variations for the British.

One of the main variations was on tank squadrons. Rather than having 4 chally/chieften squadrons we reduced it to 3 squadrons with the fourth either disappearing or being replaced with a scimitar/scorpion squadron. The theory being that with attrition the CVR(t) vehicles would end up being less of a recce vehicle and be employed more and more as a light tank in combat roles.

Another variation was to remove the concept of battalion and regiment entirely towards the end of the twilight war. 7th armoured brigade became two battlegroups, with the situation being what it was the units lost their old regimental identities due to casualties and picking up reinforcements from wherever they could be found.

Each battlegroup roughly consisted of three mixed company commands consisting of a tank troop and two armoured infantry platoons. However two of the resulting six troops ended up being chieftens and one was a mixed force of scimitars/scorpions at the final offensive due to attrition.

Our group had allot of fun discussing a and creating the brigade, before we had the whole thing ripped apart in the final offensive.

Has anyone else thought along these lines?

[Legbreaker]

T2K, as far as I'm aware, doesn't provide much in the way of unit information beyond troop and tank/AFV numbers. How they're organised within the unit is left almost completely alone.
It's very likely that experience and the dictates of a low manpower, limited resource environment will require reorganisation - take the US 8th ID as an example.

None of that really matters that much though, as PCs are unlikely to ever need to know much beyond their immediate surroundings. If a pre-war UK Armoured Division now has no tanks, a quarter of the manpower and is foot and horse mobile, it really doesn't matter that much - all the PCs need to know is they're in the company of UK soldiers who walk or ride horses.

Only in the big picture does any of that really become interesting, let alone required knowledge. Only the Officers above Lt Colonel really need to worry about any of that, a rank most PCs are unlikely to meet, let alone be.

[Targan]

In the vehicle guides it has basic organisational tables for a variety of different types of units. That may be what this discussion is about.

[Legbreaker]

In the vehicle guides it has basic organisational tables for a variety of different types of units.

Yes, of course. However, it also states those tables are pre-war.

[95th Rifleman]

T2K, as far as I'm aware, doesn't provide much in the way of unit information beyond troop and tank/AFV numbers. How they're organised within the unit is left almost completely alone.
It's very likely that experience and the dictates of a low manpower, limited resource environment will require reorganisation - take the US 8th ID as an example.

None of that really matters that much though, as PCs are unlikely to ever need to know much beyond their immediate surroundings. If a pre-war UK Armoured Division now has no tanks, a quarter of the manpower and is foot and horse mobile, it really doesn't matter that much - all the PCs need to know is they're in the company of UK soldiers who walk or ride horses.

Only in the big picture does any of that really become interesting, let alone required knowledge. Only the Officers above Lt Colonel really need to worry about any of that, a rank most PCs are unlikely to meet, let alone be.

To a point, true

However it adds to the feel and atmosphere if such things are fleshed out properly.

If you want a cold, sterile game then I suppose such details can be left out. I prefer games that have real depth, real history and by having such detals fleshed out and ready they can be incorporated in many different ways into a game. Finding an overun HQ with such details lying around, it's a brief, perhaps useless detail of information. However it adds to the ambience, to the atmosphere as the PCs look at wat they once had, once where part of and the reality of what they have become becomes more manifest.

As a gm I prefer to have as much detail as possible prepared and ready to incorporate. I feel that I'm doing my group a great diservice if the game isn't as deailed as possible for them.

[Panther Al]

To a point, true

However it adds to the feel and atmosphere if such things are fleshed out properly.

If you want a cold, sterile game then I suppose such details can be left out. I prefer games that have real depth, real history and by having such detals fleshed out and ready they can be incorporated in many different ways into a game. Finding an overun HQ with such details lying around, it's a brief, perhaps useless detail of information. However it adds to the ambience, to the atmosphere as the PCs look at wat they once had, once where part of and the reality of what they have become becomes more manifest.

As a gm I prefer to have as much detail as possible prepared and ready to incorporate. I feel that I'm doing my group a great diservice if the game isn't as deailed as possible for them.


Agreed: IN all the games I have run, I have always used the rule of thumb that the units consolidated downwards as manpower and equipment was whittled down throughout the way. So while the 1st Cav might still for all intents and purposes be a full up division in 2000, I have the men and vehicles condensed into a few, but strong, units instead of leaving it where you have a single company with 20 guys and a tank: If anything has been learned from all the wars prior, is that when you penny packet troops, they die a lot faster. Taking that brigade, that has only a dozen tanks, and having it operate as a single company makes a lot more sense. And then I present it to the group of players this way - how over the years as the size of the unit has dropped, more and more other MOS's have been pushed into these ad hoc companies to bring them up to strength, and it gives a reason for why you have such a diverse selection of PC's in a single unit.

[Adm.Lee]

My players have never sweated this kind of detail. As a GM, I've usually assumed that each division has concentrated its tanks, artillery, and other AFVs as best it can. Each brigade would have an armored "battalion" of about company strength, a mechanized infantry battalion of about the same size, an oversized maintenance force, some motorized and horse cavalry, and 1-2 battalions of leg infantry.

Getting one's players to work through a brigade like that sounds like a good experience, I'm glad to hear of it.

[Raellus]

Considering what the game designers had to work with back then (no interweb), they didn't do a terrible job. I don't think any of them were military historians or former servicemen either. If they had added a lot of detail to their OOBs and TOEs, we'd probably still be ripping on it big time. You've seen some of the heated debates that have gone on here about fleet/naval TF composition, and others have found fault with where the designers placed some of the ground force units. The more detail the designers provided, the more faults many folks here would find with it. It's probably best that they kept it loose and open to GM interpretation. Set it up how you like and run with it.

[Webstral]

My impression of the US Army Vehicle Guide and its companions is to provide players with a point of reference. We know what the division looked like on paper at the start of the war. One need only leaf through the unit histories to see how much that all changed.

Players like to ask questions like "Did this unit belonging to this division have M1A1 tanks?" We ask questions about what kinds of equipment are likely to have been in formations like 92nd Infantry Division. I don't see this information as delimiting at all. Players also like to come up with good stories for why unlikely events occur. I have light armor and howitzers belonging to an MI brigade in southern Arizona, a force of light infantry operating under the command of the US Coast Guard in northern New England, BTR-80A operated by Japanese-styled motorized marauders in Nevada, an an ad hoc riverine force operating in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River in my take on the Twilight: 2000 universe. I have used information in the various sourcebooks as a starting point for my story-telling, not an end-point.

[Olefin]

All kinds of things could have happened, especially late in the war. A shipment of Sheridans meant to go the RDF gets sent to Texas instead when a desperate commander there needs some kind of armor.

Captured Soviet equipment that was sent home for analysis gets issued out because its better than nothing or gets used by units in the field in Europe, the US or Iran (and the guides point to that happening in the NATO, Soviet and US field guides)

[95th Rifleman]

All kinds of things could have happened, especially late in the war. A shipment of Sheridans meant to go the RDF gets sent to Texas instead when a desperate commander there needs some kind of armor.

Captured Soviet equipment that was sent home for analysis gets issued out because its better than nothing or gets used by units in the field in Europe, the US or Iran (and the guides point to that happening in the NATO, Soviet and US field guides)

Yeah, we had a friendly-fire scenario last week along these lines. My group encountered a BMP2 leading a small truck convoy.

The guys had been getting a bit gung-ho lately, shooting without asking questions, thy set up and ambush and disabled the BMP only to find that the convoy comprised Americans and the BMP was captured and put into service.

This led to an interesting encounter with a bunch of well armed and very pissed off friendlies.

[Legbreaker]

My impression of the US Army Vehicle Guide and its companions is to provide players with a point of reference. We know what the division looked like on paper at the start of the war. One need only leaf through the unit histories to see how much that all changed.

Absolutely correct. We can also assume unit structure may alter on almost a weekly basis to respond to losses, or captured equipment and supplies.
Therefore, the papers a group capture/sneaks a look at in the commanders HQ tent may well be out of date already.

Another idea might be an enemy deception plan - allowing the enemy to "capture" intelligence on their numbers, organisation, etc which is radically different to reality in order to achieve some unspecified goal (such as cause their opponents to erroneously redeploy their forces).

[Rainbow Six]

I agree things like this add to the atmosphere of the game.

The guys that came up with the British Army order of battle on the etranger website obviously thought along the lines of replacing Regiments / Battalions with composite Battlegroups:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dheb/2300/Historical/BritA2K.htm

I also agree that it seems pointless for Armoured Regiments to keep multiple Squadrons when their numbers of tanks are lucky to be in double figures, so having a Regiment consisting of a CVR(T) Squadron, an MBT Squadron, and an HQ / Support Squadron seems like a very sensible option.

My only query about consolidation into Battlegroups where the Regimental / Battalion identity is lost is that this would tend to go against the British Regimental system and the tradition contained within. One could argue about how much relevance tradition would have on the battlefields of Europe in the year 2000, but it is possible it could affect morale. So I’d be inclined to suggest that an effort would be made to retain Regimental identities even if Armoured Regiments are effectively single Squadrons and Battalions are single Companies. For example etranger orbat has a Battle Group “White Rhino” made up of elements of three Armoured Regiments and three Infantry Battalions, so could in theory look like this

1 x Armoured Regiment
Composite HQ Squadron
4/7th Royal Dragoon Guards Squadron (MBT)
Queens Own Hussars Squadron (MBT)
17th / 21st Lancers Squadron (CVR(T))

All MBT's are thus concentrated in two Squadrons, so if the 17th / 21st Lancers did have any operational they would hand them over to the other two Squadrons (receiving any CVR(T)'s they had in return). If there aren't enough MBT's to equip two Squadrons then one Squadron could perhaps convert to horse cavalry instead.

1 x Infantry Battalion
Composite HQ Company
Queens Company
Devonshire & Dorset Company
Staffordshire Company

Again, you could consolidate any APC's / IFV's in one Company (probably the Company that had the most operational vehicles to start with).

From a US point of view, some time ago a forum member called Graebarde posted an order of battle for a reorganised 5th Division prior to the summer offensive. I'm at work at the moment but will post it when I get home (unless anyone else has a copy handy) as some people may not have seen it and may be interested in it.

[James Langham]

I agree that regimental identity is important and every effort will be made to maintain it.

I actually did a brief write up of 7th Armoured a while back - if you do a search you will find it.

I'm still working on expanding the British MBT article but here is the (expanded) organizational part.

Organisation

British tank units come from three main sources, the Royal Tank Regiment, the cavalry and the yeomanry. In addition there was also the small Household Cavalry which in addition to it's horsed ceremonial role also formed two recce units. Whilst all (excepting the Household Cavalry) were theoretically part of the (administrative) Royal Armoured Corps, all units placed the emphasis on their regimental identity. The Household Cavalry is technically a Corps in its own right but for all practical purposes acted as part of the Royal Armoured Corps in wartime).

The Royal Tank Regiment was the youngest of the armoured units being established from the Heavy Branch of the Machine Gun Corps in the First World War. The Royal Tank Regiment battalions are composed only of heavy tank units and there were no Territorial Army units. 1RTR is unique among non-Scottish, Gurkha and Irish units in the British Army for having a pipe band.

The cavalry regiments made up a substantial part of the British tank unit strength. These were horsed cavalry that had converted to a mechanised role (completing this during World War Two). These could be found operating either as heavy tank units or in a reconnaissance role using light tanks (often but not always based around historical roles). In the 1980s and 1990s many swapped between these roles on a seemingly arbitrary series of re-rollings.

The yeomanry units were composed of Territorial Army cavalry units. These operated only in a reconnaissance role with most being equipped with wheeled vehicles such as the Fox or Land Rover.

As the war progressed it was planned that a number of infantry units were to be re-rolled as tank units. These plans were only ever implemented in a limited way with 2nd Bn Coldstream Guards and 2nd Bn Scots Guards, both of whom converted to armoured battalions using Chieftain tanks drawn from war reserves. These both adopted the all seeing eye of the Guards Armoured Brigade of World War Two. This often causes confusion on identifying vehicles. Infantry insignia was retained. Despite being deeply unpopular with the units concerned, plans were made to convert further battalions. These plans to increase the armoured strength using infantry conversions were stopped as numbers of vehicles held in storage were rapidly being depleted as battlefield replacements.

In BAOR prior to the start of the war, the organisation of the heavier tank units was based around the Type 57 organisation introduced in 1984. In this a regiment (full strength 44 officers and 539 other ranks) was made up as follows:

Regimental HQ
Regimental HQ section
1 x MBT
3 x Sultan
1 x Spartan
3 x Ferret
1 x Land Rover FFR
Recce troop
8 x Scorpion (some replaced by Sabre from 1994-1995 and Scimitar from 1995)
Tank destroyer troop
2 x Ferret
9 x Striker
2 x 4ton truck
2 x Land Rover (REME)
HQ Squadron
6 x Land Rover FFR
2 x Land Rover
1 x 1 ton Land Rover
10 x 4 ton trucks
2 x stalwart or 4 ton trucks
1 x FV432 Ambulance
Light Aid (LAD) Detachment – REME
1 x armoured recovery vehicle
1 x FV432
1 x Land Rover
1 x Sampson
4 x Tank squadrons each
HQ Section
2 x MBT
1 x Ferret
1 x Land Rover
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
3 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
1 x 4 ton truck
FV432 Ambulance
REME Section
1 x FV432
1 x FV434
1 x Recovery vehicle
4 troops each with
3 x MBT

As the Challenger I came into service, these were initially assigned to Type 43 units that had an identical organisation except there were only 3 tank squadrons. Most of the Type 43 units in BAOR were upgraded in the build up to war to Type 57 at least initially until loses resulted in the Type 43 becoming the standard from 1st January 1998 (even then few units reached this level of equipment). From 7th November 1998 the following organisation (Type 20) became the official structure of a British armoured regiment:

Regimental HQ
Regimental HQ section
2 x Sultan
1 x Spartan (defence section)
2 x Ferret
2 x Land Rover FFR
Tank destroyer troop
1 x Land Rover FFR – occasionally Ferret or Spartan
6 x Striker – sometimes replaced with Spartan with Milan or dismount-able Milan teams
2 x 4ton truck
HQ Squadron
6 x Land Rover FFR
2 x Land Rover
1 x 1 ton Land Rover
10 x 4 ton trucks
2 x stalwart or 4 ton trucks
3 x Land Rover Ambulance
Light Aid (LAD) Detachment – REME
1 x armoured recovery vehicle
3 x FV434 or Sampson (minimum 1 FV434)
2 x Land Rover
2 x Tank squadrons each
HQ Section
1 x MBT
1 x Land Rover or Spartan or Sultan
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
3 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
3 troops each with
3 x MBT
1 x Recce tank squadron – often the troops were dispersed to the tank squadrons with each squadron reinforcing another squadron. Some units instead had two Scimitars/Scorpions/Sabres with 1 Spartan in each troop.
HQ Section
1 x Land Rover or Spartan or Sultan
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
2 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
2 troops each with
3 x Scorpion/Scimitar/Sabre (occasionally Fox) – often mixed types
1 troops
3 x Spartan

From 1st January 2002 the organisation changed again depending on type. Challenger units were equipped as follows (on paper at least):

Regimental HQ
Regimental HQ section
2 x Sultan
1 x Spartan (defence section)
2 x Land Rover FFR
HQ Squadron
4 x Land Rover FFR
4 x Land Rover
1 x 1 ton Land Rover
10 x 4 ton trucks
2 x stalwart or 4 ton trucks
3 x Land Rover Ambulance
Light Aid (LAD) Detachment – REME
1 x armoured recovery vehicle
3 x FV434 or Sampson (minimum 1 FV434)
2 x Land Rover
2 x Heavy tank squadrons each
HQ Section
2 x MBT
1 x Land Rover or Spartan or Sultan
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
3 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
3 troops each with
4 x MBT
1 x Light tank squadron
HQ Section
1 x Land Rover or Spartan or Sultan
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
2 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
3 troops each with
3 x Scorpion/Scimitar/Sabre (occasionally Fox) – often mixed
1 x Recce squadron
HQ Section
1 x Land Rover or Spartan or Sultan (usually Land Rover)
Admin troop
1 x Land Rover FFR
1 x Land Rover
2 x Stalwart or 4 ton trucks
2 light recce troops each with
4 x Land Rover
1 light recce troops each with
4 x Spartan

Occasionally the light armour or recce squadrons were replaced by cavalry but this was usually restricted to the light role regiments.

In many ways this organisation reflected what was already happening with the shortage of tanks. Chieftain units usually retained the Type 20 organisation but reduced the number of tank squadrons to one.

[95th Rifleman]

My group keep their personal regimental identities alive, we had a very moving game a while back when a PC died and at his funeral one of our lads (playing an Pioneer) created a cross for his grave with the guy's cap badge incorporated in the centre, was a very moving scene.

However the loss of regimental identity is something of a reality in peacetime let alone in war, even today with almagamations. The Rifles and the Royal Regiment of Scotland being two clear, lamented, examples.

I agree it undermines one of the most important aspects of the British army, however I think this is sort of the point of Twilight 2000 and it's one of the themes I enjoy most. Things have gone to total hell, what we knew, what was comfortale has changed and individual PCs are left with the choice of embracing these changes or trying to hold on to what was past. How players handle this aspectis one of the most fascinating parts of GMing a game of T2k for me.

I have your 7th armoured article saved in my T2k file james ad I do enjoy it, as I enjoy all your articles.

[Rainbow Six]

Ok, home now...attached Graebarde's 5th Division reorganisation. It has been posted here before, but may be of interest to those who haven't seen it before.

[Webstral]

Great work, James! Whether I find a use for your work or not, I appreciate the time and effort that go into making that product.