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ImpSB Sector Group Organization: How To Improve It
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 27, 2018 9:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

So, are MP units permanently assigned to a given unit, or are they paired up as part of working up to going overseas?

Also, would those duties differ depending on whether the MP unit was assigned to a base in the US or a garrison in Afghanistan, and in what way?

And how do you think this would be applied differently in the SWU than the real world?
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 28, 2018 12:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

In real life, an individual soldier will trace a more or less unique career path through the ranks.

The empire may allow promotion or choice of duty on a merit-based system.

But in general, as soldiers die or retire or complete a term of service, etc, it becomes necessary to back fill those positions with qualified personnel, and depending on the particular requirements, the empire my have to reassign someone from the other side of the galaxy.

In the US, there is no such thing as a "permanent" duty assignment for individual soldiers. Soldiers generally want access to advanced training, which makes them more competitive for promotions or special duty positions, etc. If there is no open spot at their current unit, they may apply/volunteer/reenlist for the desired position (such as a spot on an SRT), which may mean going to a new duty station.

In a combat zone, units deploy as a unit and have an overall unit mission (large scale), with lower eschelons having responsibility for smaller portions of the Areo of Operation.

MPs in particular may be deployed as individuals. For example, a dog handler is sometimes deployed under his own command to be available to any of the units in the same AO.

Before deployment, a unit will be assembled, and trained together. However, whatever element is deployed will be under the command of whatever higher eschelon is already in theater.

An MP company will get on a plane, and replace some other company, which reports to some forward-deployed Battallion HQ.

Infantry deploy as a brigade, but brigade-level operations are well above the concerns of individual foot sloggers. As far as the individual soldier goes, his squad/platoon/company has a mission and he does his part.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 29, 2018 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
In real life, an individual soldier will trace a more or less unique career path through the ranks.

The empire may allow promotion or choice of duty on a merit-based system.

But in general, as soldiers die or retire or complete a term of service, etc, it becomes necessary to back fill those positions with qualified personnel, and depending on the particular requirements, the empire my have to reassign someone from the other side of the galaxy.

How common is it for a unit (of any size) to operate under strength? I was thinking of leaving out unit strengths at the mid-to-higher level units, but an alternative possibility would be to include nominal strengths, with the notation that very few units operate at that strength. Certainly combat units facing off against Rebels are going to suffer casualties, and their replacements won't just magically appear out of thin air.

Of course, it's likely that the Imperial Army also has sufficient reserves in loyalist systems to be able to replace losses, but the actual turn-around of requesting replacements and the arrival of those replacements is the bottleneck.

Quote:
Before deployment, a unit will be assembled, and trained together. However, whatever element is deployed will be under the command of whatever higher echelon is already in theater.
Quote:
Infantry deploy as a brigade, but brigade-level operations are well above the concerns of individual foot sloggers. As far as the individual soldier goes, his squad/platoon/company has a mission and he does his part.

So, say a division deploys from CONUS to the Middle East, for something along the lines of Desert Storm. Aside from attached units (such as additional Combat Engineers or Artillery), which units are considered organic to that unit (as in, the ###st Regiment is permanently assigned to #th Armored Division), and which ones are "transferred" from their parent unit as part of the deployment workup and then returned to that unit when the deployment ends?
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The mission of the recruiting command is to maintain the army's numbers at a dictated level of "readiness."

In terms of number of personnel, it always seemed like my unit was under strength, but in addition to that, there was a lot of "fracking" going on: there aren't enough people of the appropriate rank, so a lower ranking soldier has work in a higher position, while being administratively unqualified (for whatever reason) for promotion to the appropriate rank.

With respect to units getting swapped around, when a commander deploys, he has command over whichever of his troops went with him.

But when things get complicated or murky, the cliche in the army is always "mission dictates" or "situation dictates." If the mission/scenario requires addditional support under the command of a brigade commander, then someone from division (or higher) will order the commander of the needed support troops to lend whatever is required, or else will place the support element under the direct command of the brigade commander. Or, it could be handled as a joint operation, if it is a short term mission.

Does that answe the question?
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Pel
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 11:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:

How common is it for a unit (of any size) to operate under strength?


Short answer: Very common.

Long answer: To echo Naaman's advice, if funding is short and/or recruitment is down the existing members of any unit will end up wearing a lot of hats as those who are present are forced to take on additional duties and responsibilities to make up for the missing personnel. Additionally, you'll often find those responsibilities devolving upon lower-ranking personnel, e.g. a Lance Corporal (E-3) leading a squad that's supposed to be lead by a Corporal (E-4) or Sergeant (E-5). This is reflected in the officer corps as well where you'll find Majors (O-4) doing the job of a Lt. Colonel or Colonel (O-5 & O-6 respectively).

You can also find units performing duties that they were not trained or intended for, such as an artillery battalion relegated to security duties. They can do it, but it's not what they were specifically trained for and their performance may suffer.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 1:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Naaman wrote:
Does that answer the question?

Kind of, but it didn't address the main point I was getting at. I'll see if I can elaborate.

Suppose a combat formation is working up to deploy overseas. Just as an example, in the late 90's an Armored Division would generally consist of:
    1 MP Company
    1 Chemical Company
    1 Signal Battalion
    1 Military Intelligence Battalion
    1 Air Defense Battalion
    1 Engineer Brigade
    2 Armored Brigades
    1 Mechanized Infantry Brigade
    1 Aviation Brigade
    1 Division Artillery Regiment
    Plus the various Command and Support elements

Now, of that list, which units are considered a permanent part of that division, and which are "interchangeable," so to speak?

As in, if you are in an MP Company, does your MP Company always deploy as part of, say, the 3rd Armored Division, or is it assigned to a different Division based on when it comes up in the deployment cycle?
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm thinking the deployment cycle needs to be addressed, as well. It may not particularly effect how the PCs engage in combat with the Imperial Army out in the field, but it is useful to provide more background.

Short version, there needs to be some mention of a deployment rotation, with units being pulled out and replaced on a semi-regular basis. There should also be some form of reserve / replacement command - mostly in the Core regions - who provides replacement troops to front-line units.
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Pel
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ah, sorry. Forgot to cover that. The core units of any division will usually remain with that division, but support elements like the MPs, engineers, signals, or intelligence will probably rotate in from other commands before or during a deployment. You're almost never 100% staffed, especially in periods of dramatic mobilization.

In your example, I'd say the armor, command, support (staffing & logistics), mechanized infantry, and artillery probably stay together, while the rest are assembled from other units.

And yes, deployment cycles are critical to how the troops and equipment function. Home rotations are frequently cut short and deployments extended for the "needs of the service". The only thing that never happens is your deployment ends early. Crying or Very sad
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 10:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's it in a nutshell.

A simple way to think of it: any troops who deploy together, go home together.

Think of the war as one big operation broken down into different AOs. A division commander will have command over a specific AO. We called that commander the "Land owner" in Iraq. Every element in that AO (down to the individual squads) had comms linked up to the land owner net, as well as their own company/battallion net.

Any troops whose forward operating base was in the AO would fall under the jurisdiction of the Area commander, even if they deployed as a company or battallion, or whatever.

So, whichever level of command you deploy with, that is the level of command you go home with.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 10:47 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, the FOB you are on will be commanded by some HQ staff from Hawaii (for example), while the infantry will be from Georgia, and the artillery from Texas or whatever. That FOB all falls under the command of the FOB commander (often a colonel), regardless of each individual unit's place of origin.

On paper it appears to be a sloppy mess, but the military is well adept at working together, even when none of the troops have ever met before, and even when there is a hodge podge of ranks in a gaggle.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 31, 2018 10:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Also, the army has a concept called a brigade combat team. The idea is that for a brigade level operation, a single commander will have command over all the necessary resources torun a brigade-level operation.


I am not super familiar with how this works, though.
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CRMcNeill
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 01, 2018 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Theoretically, the Imperial Army can do the same thing at multiple levels. Page 109 of the ImpSB mentions Imperial Navy Assault Fleets being built to sustain what's called a 1/4/16/64 Plan, simultaneously supporting continuous operations for 1 Corps, 4 Divisions and 16 Regiments, plus 64 irregular duration Battalion Level operations. It would seem to follow that the Imperial Army is equipped to field combat teams at each level, with the type of unit based on the operational conditions, and various support units tacked on based on projected needs.

Unfortunately, the system as it stands is too rigid to allow for that kind of flexibility...
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 6:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

CRMcNeill wrote:
Naaman wrote:
Does that answer the question?

Kind of, but it didn't address the main point I was getting at. I'll see if I can elaborate.

Suppose a combat formation is working up to deploy overseas. Just as an example, in the late 90's an Armored Division would generally consist of:
    1 MP Company
    1 Chemical Company
    1 Signal Battalion
    1 Military Intelligence Battalion
    1 Air Defense Battalion
    1 Engineer Brigade
    2 Armored Brigades
    1 Mechanized Infantry Brigade
    1 Aviation Brigade
    1 Division Artillery Regiment
    Plus the various Command and Support elements

Now, of that list, which units are considered a permanent part of that division, and which are "interchangeable," so to speak?

As in, if you are in an MP Company, does your MP Company always deploy as part of, say, the 3rd Armored Division, or is it assigned to a different Division based on when it comes up in the deployment cycle?


So, generally speaking, those "support" elements will report to the commander one echelon higher than whatever element they are supporting. In other words, if there is an infantry brigade doing an operation, then there will be support companies or battalions which report to division headquarters. And division assigns tasks to the support element commanders in support of the brigade's mission. Once a support element is assigned, it can report directly to the lowest ranking commander in charge of whatever mission they are participating in.

So, the intelligence element (battalion, detachment, etc.), for example, will be lent to the infantry on a mission-by-mission basis. When the job is done, those intelligence personnel are no longer under the command of the mission commander. A mission may take hours or months, depending on the objectives, the scale of the operation, or other factors.

So the infantry commander may request support from an intelligence commander. The commander to whom they both report will authorize (or not) the requested resources (personnel, equipment, etc.) for whatever duration the budget/bureaucracy can support.

Often, an MP platoon will be "embedded" into an infantry battalion HQ company, along with other support personnel, such as admin, medics, commo, etc.

These MPs are under the command of the BN commander, available to support the mission of any of the company commanders; but generally will run detainee operations or force protection for that battalion (in theory).

When I was deployed, I was part of an MP-only battalion, and we had infantry guarding the FOB while we went out and did route clearance and "bad guy hunting" with the Iraqi police. There were plenty of infantry in our AO that were also out on the streets with us, as well.
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Naaman
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 6:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here is an example of how the US army does it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigade_combat_team#/media/File:IBCT.png
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the way the us army does things looks good on a power point presentation and thats where all the good starts and ends. what the army is, is ordered chaos. and im not talking about the whole "colonel has an outstanding solution" type either.

there was a meme out there that stated, "the reason the american army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the american army practices chaos on a daily basis." but i prefer the saying, "if we dont know what we're doing, the enemy certainly cant anticipate our future actions."
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