[Siddhi]

hi chaps a lot of really good discussion here, i will summarise the key points FMPOV.

- the three units i have shown is the "actual" and official OOB for the periods in question, this is derived from various bits of army manuals i have.

- the OOB has already been slightly simplified; e.g. the Jäger units all have so-called "combat drivers" as part of their org (e.g. for the pinzgauer) who are fully-equipped/trained light infantry, howewever as there principle job is to protect the tranports (they never realyl go away from them) there is no reason to include them. also some other units, such as the motorcyle recce / couriers (2 per company) have been taken out.

- the austrian jäger company has a very heavy TO&E, this is a historic and well known fact. the jäger bN itself has the assets most infantry regiments have. the reason for this is primarily political - a BN sounds smaller then a regiment. one thing that is repeated a lot in our old manuals is the problems in having a such a large unit to command as a company commander, especially as it would nearlly always have another company-sized assets (!) attached in support.

- the TO&E is intended to be playable and WINSPMBT conform, therefore things that should not be in there (i.e. ammo trucks) should be removed.

- the question regarding company XO units is a litte more complicated, as because of the poor radio sitation before ca. 1990(only platoon has access to company/BN/* net, no tactical radios except for recce / scout patrols the XO performed a vital function in extending "the command radius". as DRG mentioned they are instant targets one option is to simply give them more men, if we remove the "generic" supply units that becomes kind of important anyway.i would say add a couple of men and keep them.

OTOH the Jäger squad itself is commanded by professional NCOs (not like WP) that have on average at least 4 years experience. there should be a "rally" bonus to these unit commanders (rank: "wachtmeister", at least.) One the platoon level there is also sometimes an "detached" XO to help the platoon commander (which I did not add), as the platoon is supposed to be able to cover on average 100m frontage (sometimes more, or less).


- the snipers and M2 HMG were a platoons heavy support. Some suggestions have already been made, a little more info: the two snipers are "true" snipers (trained in all 8 "sniper skills", not marksman, which offically every infantryman is supposed to be - also internationally verified). at least one is "special" enlisted man, sometimes one is a junior NCO. The HMG also operates independantly, as is usally not part of a platoon.

OTOH as many will know I disagree with the accuracy levels of some the rifles and believe contrary to recieved wisdom here that is very important - these days my acutal day-time job is national security and we have very precise results that are expected to be achieved from various units firing at various other units in different positions and with different equipment. The accuracy of the Stg-77 is for instance one reason why we did not orginally introduce rifle-gernades, as they were simply not needed (as opposed to hand gernades).

as i believe we are not going to be able to solve this debate one possibility is to make the snipers organic to the squads - which is NOT what they usually are (snipers, not marksman) and do the same with the M2. i am not in favor of this, but if this is the only way to accurately model a jäger platoon then that is it. of ocurse the squad manpower would have to be adjusted as a result. still while the combat power of the squad might increase marginally the platoon combat power will fall as a result.

the other option would be to put one sniper (in slot 2) in the platoon command squad, and one independant. i would NOT make the transport organic as we have "command problems" already, simply making a seperate category "company tranpsort" (under the command of the XO) might be more appropriate. OTOH if the transport HAS to be organic (i leave this to PK and SHAN to decide - PK made a good suggestion regarding dismounted "reinforced" jaäger platoon and mounted "normal" jäger) then it is also possible to mount the m2 on the puch light transport, as indeed it is intended, although in this case the transport needs to be upgraded with 1 armour each (plating is added in this function).

- finally i forgot to mention that the pandur obviously changes things somewhat, the units become more streamlines, but that is the "new" TO&E which we will get to. before that however the Bill-2000 (RBS ATGW) are introduced (Say 1996) and start to replace the RL guns. BTW if the 106 DO NOT have their stats changed i insist on the 85mm being used instead.

- final point: i am unsure as to ammo loadout for the CG teams. in retrospect i seem to remember those goddamned heavy shells being carried two to a container - which means there should be 8 rather then 16 shells for a normal team (say 10 with the commander), however in present SPMBT the two-man teams already pack that much, and the team should certainly have twice as much munition as do others internationally ( this topic came up before in officer thing, the swedes mentioned that we "got a lot of milleage" from the CG because of all the munition we had for it. i leave this open to be decided. btw the CG team usually had a radio.

i will try to punch out the other units in the next two days.