Military Structure

[ratbastard]

meep

[Hannibal]

Actually, I already wrote out the structure of our military. See the other postings for the Office of Military Affairs (I only separated out SOCOM b/c I intended to work on it a bit). I already covered the entire structure, from squads through divisions. See, the Minister of Defense hasn't been slacking all those years ; ) I'll repost for ease:

As described previously, the Office of Military Affairs (OMA) resides within the Ministry of Defense. In essence, OMA is the republic's military. As the military grows and matures, it will fit into the organizational model below:

OMA is divided into 3 Commands:
ArCom (The Army... conventional ground forces)
AirCom (Air Force)
SOCOM (Special Operations)

ArCom is comprised of infantry, armor/robot, and artillery combat and support units.

Combat units are organized in the following way:

Infantry (our largest contingent):
--1 platoon is comprised of 3 squads of 12 soldiers (each squad run by a sergeant and 2 corporals). A lieutenant commands the platoon, with the assistance of a platoon sergeant, and has 1 commo guy with him (total of 39 men/platoon)

--3 platoons=1 company (run by a captain, plus his own commo guy and master sergeant) (total =120 men)

--5 companies=1 battalion (run by a major with a minor support staff like commo, battalion quartermaster, etc) (Approx 605 men)

--2 battalions=1 regiment (Run by a colonel and his second-in-command LtC, support staff. Approx 1220 men)

--3 regiments=1 brigade (Run by a brigadier general. There is an extra hqs company attached at the brigade level that handles all support functions, such as the cooking, repairs, medical, resupply acquisition, etc for the entire brigade. All told, approx 3800 men)

--3 brigades=1 division (Commanded by a major-general)

The units in a division are all numbered generically (ie, 1st, 2nd, 3rd squads; Able, Bravo, Charlie, Dog, Echo companies; 1st, 2nd battalion; 1st, 2nd, 3rd regiment; 1st, 2nd, 3rd brigade).

At the division level, however, each division has it's own unique numerical designation. For example, there is only one 1st division, then 2nd division, 3rd division, etc. So a unit could be 1st platoon, charlie company, 2nd battalion, 3rd regiment, 2nd brigade, 2nd Mechanized Infantry division.

There are 6 Divisions:
1st Ranger Division
2nd Mechanized Infantry Division
3rd Mechanized Infantry Division
4th Mechanized Infantry Division
5th Ranger Division
6th Division, Combat Engineers

Some units will also be specialized. For example, each battalion or regiment would have one of its companies specialized as a "pathfinder" company, ie specially trained for scouting and recon.

It's important to note that psionics, mages, and other specially powered D-Bee types generally will be directly integrated into the platoons rather than serve as their own units (except in some special units or situations). Same with individual Juicers, borgs, crazies, etc. That said, this does not hold true for power armor. Power-armor soldiers will be grouped into their own mechanized infantry units, such as a company of Samsons, for example.[/b]

Artillery
In regard to the case of artillery units, since we have a lot fewer of those than infantry, we'd do things a little differently:

--12 units of artillery/missile units etc makes up a battery.

--3 batteries = 1 battalion (with a support company)

At this point, each battalion would have it's own unique unit designation, for example 1st missil battalion, 2nd artillery battalion, etc.

Armor/Robots
Armor is treated similarly to artillery (but still some unique distinctions):

--12 armor = 1 company

--5 companies = 1 battalion (with a support company)
At this point, each battalion would have it's own unique unit designation, for example 1st armored battalion, 2nd armored battalion, etc.

AirCom
Combat units start in sections (2 fliers), then next units is a flight (2 sections ie 4 fliers).

--3 flights=1 squadron (12 fliers)

--6 squadrons=1 wing. Each wing has it's own unique designation (ex: 1st air wing, 10th air wing, etc).

AirCom is also responsible for the UAV shop, which consists of mechanics, pilots, and targeters.

SOCOM
The special forces units of the republic are being trained in the image of today's US Navy Seals... sea, air, and land operations. They are different from contemporary US SEALs in that the ones in this game do not fall under the Navy and do not use Naval ranks... they use the standard ranks listed further below (like SF/Delta/Force Recon etc).

We will have six SEAL teams (1-6). Each team is comprised of 8 platoons with 16 personnel in each platoon (12 shooters, 2 psi-stalkers, 1 freelance-spy-type, 1 psych or combat mage-type.) Platoon designations will go by Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc]. In addition to the 8 combat platoons, each Team will also have one Seal Delivery Team (SDT) that consists of pilots (16 RPA-types) specializing in transporting/inserting/extracting the SEALs. Not including the other necessary support element for each team, the combat strength of each Team would be 144 (includes the fliers).

The teams will rotate operational duties every four months: 2 teams will be operational, 2 on-call but still doing team training, and 2 on r&r/individual-focused training.

Finally, SOCOM also will have other special units:

--Development Group (or Dev Group): This is the training cadre for SOCOM. In addition to running the training programs for the SEAL teams, the group also contains/trains a cadre of specialized psychics, mages, D-Bees, etc, whose specialized skills are leveraged on a mission-by-mission basis.

--Red Cell: When first established, Red Cell consisted of two special SEAL platoons that specialize in testing and evaluating facility security throughout the Republic. However, in addition to the group's training/security function, they initially also performed a highly classified role of a direct action unit for the Minister of Defense. This second duty eventually transferred to SOG when SOG was created, but Red Cell continued to perform its security functions (as well as serve as a combat unit if needed).

--Blue Group: This is a small, specialized R&D team that assesses and acquires the various technologies needed by the Teams. This group is comprised of both technical personnel and SEALs.

--Gold Group: A small, specialized targeting and intel shop providing direct support to SOCOM units and missions. It liaises closely with DIA as appropriate/needed.

--Studies and Observation Group (SOG): SOG pulls from the ranks of SOCOM and comprises the elite of the elite. SOG is the size of a full SEAL team (8 combat platoons + 1 SEAL Delivery Team) with mages and psionics integrated into many of the platoons. SOG is a direct action unit like the contemporary Delta Force or Seal Team 6. They are on-call 24/7 and are training when not on missions. Unlike the Teams, which deploy to staging areas outside of the republic, SOG barracks and deploys out of New Alexandria. The true nature of the unit is a highly classified New Alexandria secret (hence the innocuous name).

How We Fight (combining our operations for maximum effectiveness):

When we conduct combat operations involving multiple divisions (such as vs. the Xiticix), they fall under a task force (TF). For example, TF 329 (random number generated) could be our Xiticix combat force, combining army, airforce, and socom units all under the TF commander and his staff.

--So. for example, TF329 could combine the 1st Ranger and 3rd Mechanized Infantry divisions, 2nd artillery battalion, 1st and 2nd armor battalions, 1st and 8th airwings, and 3 platoons from Seal Team 1.

--The TF will be commanded by a Field Marshall (or a lieutenant-general, doesn't matter).

Training

Finally, there will be a big training facility for all the services. We'll call it Camp Caligo. Everything from basic training to specialized schools will be done at Camp Caligo. There will be a permanent training cadre that both provides training directly as well as helps various units organize and conduct their own training exercises at Camp Caligo.

**Please note that there is no Marine Corps.

E1: Private (one chevron up)
E2: Private First Class (one chevron up, one bottom loop)
E3: Corporal (two chevrons up)
E4: Sergeant (three chevrons up) (squad level)
E5: Staff Sergeant (three chevrons up, one bottom loop) (squad and/or platoon sergeant level)
E6: Gunnery Sergeant (three chevrons up, two bottom loops) (platoon sergeant level)
E7: Master Gunnery Sergeant (three chevrons up, three bottom loops) (company sergeant level)
E8: First Sergeant (three chevrons up, three bottom loops, diamond in middle) (battalion sergeant level)
E9: Sergeant Major (three chevrons up, three bottom loops, star in middle) (regimental sergeant level)

Officers are *basically* standard and use the same icon designations from the US army today:
2nd Lt (platoon)
1st Lt (platoon)
Captain (company)
Major (battalion)
Lt. Col. (2IC of regiment)
Colonel (regiment)
Brigadier General (1 star) (brigade)
Major General (2 star) (division)
Lt. General/Field Marshall (3 star) (Commands and Task Forces)
Full General (4 star) (heads of OMA, DIA)
Minister of Defense (5 star)

*Post edited to remove NavCom. Instead, a Naval Liaison Office would be attached to the head of OMA's command structure.

[ratbastard]

There are some things that I need to note.

First off, there is no real robot/armor division. Robots are are allot of sound and fury for nothing in the world of Rifts, for the price of a single robot vehicle you can outfit two power armored Platoons, The sale of a single Glitter Boy can outfit a Battalion of infantry (and every single glitter boy produced is purchased by allies, we have a backlog of orders going years into the future from Japan, Native Americans and Mercenaries).

The Military uses four kinds of power armor (Blue Squad Combat Suits, Red Squad Encounter Suits, Naruni stealth armor and SAMAS - Normal and Wild Weasel) and all types of Automaton, but so far every type of Robot Vehicle and tank has had an unacceptable cost to effectiveness.

Vehicles in New Alexandria are used to transport personnel and gear rapidly, not to slug it out with other forces. The only exception is the Naruni Space Fighters and Bombers, which cannot be out performed by power armor.

As for our Navy, well Nobody referrers to New Alexandria as having a Navy with a straight face, Our Navy consists of MDC Wooden Boats, some power armor with underwater attachments and some torpedo launching emplacements that provide relative safety for Fishing boats and tidal generators. There was a joint effort to excavate the sunken ruins of California, Oregon and Washington's coastal cities that new Alexandria and Japan participated in, But Japan provided the Robot Vehicles and Power Armor and that became a land operation when the water levels returned to normal.

There is a push to build a real Navy because any effective space force would generally follow the model of a of a wet Navy, and there are plenty of dangers from the Ocean but as of yet, there is very little in the way of an organized navy.

[ratbastard]

The other thing is not to discount the need for a group of Irregulars, as New Alexandria has a decent amount of citizens and allies that would not fit into a conventional military that are occasionally given a vague goal and pointed in a direction by Caligo (The Irregulars is Caligo's baby). The Platinum Shield does not make a practice of hiring Crazies, Juicers, Inhuman looking borgs, god like beings and weird creatures who cannot fit in conventional militarys (dragons, elder True Atlantians, Brian's Characters, Certain Cyber Knights, Civilized evil critters that mostly want to be left alone and are willing to trade directed destruction for peace) and these people are guaranteed equal opportunity to earn their citizenship, however they are disruptive to the traditional military.

[Hannibal]

Points definitely noted, and thanks for going along with the work I've done. Couple thoughts on your follow-up posts:

First, regarding the armor, I agree that we probably wouldn't have robot/armor divisions, but we would probably need to have a battalion or two (just to note, I had laid them out above as designated battalions rather than divisions... they, like artillery, would reach the highest unit designation of battalion rather than "divisions" for infantry, b/c we would have so much fewer/cost prohibitions, etc.) This is where something like your Bison/Javelin hovertanks would fall, as they are not artillery units per se. Plus, having a battalion or two of armor/robots would make good standing defense units just in case.

Second, concur with the navy. We can cut it completely if you prefer, and just have a "Naval Liaison" attached to the director OMA's office. I'll adjust the postings accordingly.

Third, regarding the irregulars... whoever Caligo wants to hire for his personal jaunts, he can feel free. But that's his group. Our "irregulars" that operate for the state are our special forces... first SEALS, and then SOG for the most sensitive stuff. Caligo can send his irregulars to do what they want as long as it doesn't interfere with the State's operations, b/c if they do, I'll shut them down faster than Newt Gringrich drops his drawers for secretaries. Maybe on occasion we would hire mercenaries, but mostly I see us paying mercenaries for intelligence and information rather than using them for state-sanctioned direct action operations except in rare circumstances.

One last note... Arnold is a supporter of hiring juicers, but concurs with the rest being too... unconformist... for the traditional military. SOCOM might pick up a few who really really wanted to be a part, but ARCOM and AIRCOM not so much.

[ratbastard]

OK, the Platinum Shield has accsess to several Robot Vehicles and tanks available to it, All but the most exclusive and high tech robots manufactured by Triax, Japan, The Native American Tribes and Russia. They could manufacture Coalition designs, but for the most part only manufacture them for The African Alliance (the place most of the spoils of the Coalition/New Alexandria war went). There is also a distinct bias against robots with two legs as one of the major tactics used in the war was to blow the legs out from under the robot using Naruni Shoulder cannons and other precision weapons. As for tanks, The Platinum Shield does buy surplus Prowler Hover Tanks and outfit them with C/M equivalent weapons.