soviet SMG company missing
 

According to the red army handbook ,each infantry regiment contained a smg company (company hq, 3 plts, 3 sqds each). as for as I know this isn't in the soviet obb

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

Tank Desant Co

Desant Platoon

all SMG

Don

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

Tank Desants represent tank riders, not the regimental level smg company these had 9-10 man squads.

there are is already alot of smg squads, just not a smg company formation.

edit: the tank desant company also has different organization.

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

OK. I'll look into that.

Don

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

What info you have for a start date for that formation? I find October 1941 mentioned a few places

Don

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

according to the red army handbook

it first appears in the July 41 TO&E

the smg company remained the rest of the war, guards regiments had 2 smg companys. According the December 44 TO&E another one was added to "regular" infantry regiments, giving them parity with the guards reg. (although this isn't important in game terms)

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

OK good.

I have some info that the tank rider squads were smaller.......8 men rather than 10. What info do you have?

Don

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

the tank desant company in the game is modeled as a 3 plt ,with six squads each, and 5 men squads, unit. there is no official to&e regarding their organization, but this seems to be a little unweildy. I assume it was done to represent ,in the game, desant mobility, or something similar.

I can't find any official to&e information about them. but tank brigades also contained an smg company, it may be that the brigade level smg company was used to make the tank riders (tankodasantniki).


spwaw has them only attached to tank units, under a 10 tank company called "tank desant co", which is the standard 10 tank company with 3 plt of 3 squads of tank riders. they use an 8 men squad. but I'm not sure this number comes from, on paper an smg squad is 9-10 men.

if tank desants are infact just the company level smg squad with special tank riding training, they should be organized like a standard smg company. but to make them distinct should they be given some kind of bonus?

if the current split squad organiztion is to be kept, I don't think their is enough justification to cut it into a 4 man squad.

this "split" organization works when the tank riders are acting as recon. but would make them to weak in fighting indepently,(when their acting like a regular smg company), maybe a solution would be to have two different desant formations, one with the split squad model, and one as a whole sqd.


edit: with all this in mind there is probably not enough warrant to make any changes to the desant formations.

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

I'd suggest splitting the 10-man SMG squads into two 5-man sections for tank dessants as to allow them being carried by light tanks as well.

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

the tank desant squads are already split into 5 man teams. 6, 5 man teams per platoon.

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

No offense, but actually the Red Army Handbook says October 1941, not July 1941. You may have misunderstood the following paragraph on page 15:

"At the same time a sub-machine gun company was added to each infantry regiment on the July (04/601) TO&E, although apparently not to the pre-war regiments."

The operative part of that paragraph is "At the same time." If you look at the previous three paragraphs (starting at the bottom of page 13) you will see the time in question is October 1941 when they were consolidating the mortars into larger centrally controlled formations. It's in the July 1941 section of the book, but it's referring to an October 1941 change. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

Yeah, the tank brigade SMG Coy appears to be the tankodesantniki formation, at least as far as I can tell, and it would appear the squads were 8 men, at least in the beginning:

"The sub-machine gun company was made up of three 25-man platoons, entirely equipped with sub-machine guns. These were intended as close protection for the tanks, with the sub-machine gunners riding on the tanks in the tank battalions, and thus rarely served under the infantry battalion HQ in combat." Page 75 of the Red Army Handbook 1939-45. (I know you have the book, I'm just providing the quote for other readers.)

That was as of December 1941 with the company totalling 79 men. In November 1943 the company appears to increase in size to 95 men according to Table 2.13 on page 82, which may have meant an increase in squad size to 9-10 men, but this is not explicitly stated anywhere that I've seen. I would guess the latter number as the unit breaks down as 4 officers, 10 NCOs, and 81 men.

"The tank brigade's motorized rifle battalion was reconfigured as a sub-machine gun battalion. This made few changes to the battalion organization, the only notable ones being that the two former rifle companies were converted to purely triangular organizations (three platoons of three squads) and re-equipped with sub-machine guns. Unlike the sub-machine companies in other roles, however, theses units kept their crew-served machine guns for long-range fire. The third (original) sub-machine gun company kept it's prior organization and role of riding into combat on the tanks of the brigade." Pages 81-82.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: soviet SMG company missing
 

yup, your right, I mis-read the paragraph. so the smg company formation should appear in october of 1941.