[Charles22]

I was approaching the question I put to everyone, as a means of figuring of what the best gamewise use is, irrespective or not irrespective of the fact of real life history. There is historical interest and there effectiveness within game parameters too.

Sure one might desire hordes of 2 tank sections, not exceeding the limit, but as I already ascertained, IMO, if you are campaigning you have a lot more, or should have a lot more need to preserve a platoon commander, than you would have for a one battle scenario, but obviously campaigning for a long period and doing only one battle for your core, places a very dramatic difference in how one should handle commanders.

My perspective, at least in campaigning against the AI, is that I want as many non-HQ units as possible per platoon, without handicapping too severely the ability to HQ rally them. So, half your section is only effective (2 total tanks) if you are going to protect the commander very well; possibly greatly reducing your firepower, comparatively. The brave ones therefore, ones who have no qualms about fighting full force in that situation, have a much higher rate of fighting within a 5 unit platoon than a 2 unit section. I thought I made that clear.

If people think losing a great many commanders while long campaigning is a wise idea, I would have to question that. Yes, while they last, and probably very shortly, the rally ability is prime there, but even short term, if the leader isn't protected much, there's NO commander rally ability if it's destroyed, and then you have the lone unit that isn't even a command itself; probably significantly worse off than if the tank were one of the 1 tank sections instead.

For long campaigning, it seems to me the general best pick might be the 5 tank platoon. You are willing to suffer somewhat in the ability to rally, but your fearless tanks (the subordinates within the platoon, remember?) have a high ratio within the platoon (80%) compared to the section's ratio of only 50%.

Most forces are probably better off with a blend of different sizes, but what ideas are there out there?

When I described what the enemy would think when spotting a single tank, I drifted over into the zone of PBEM play, and didn't mean to, because as far as I know the AI doesn't think that with seeing one unit, there is other units of that same platoon around it that are unseen (such that a single tank platoon would cause more worry than it really deserved). Even so, I think people can easily differentiate what parts of the discussion drift into PBEM-only and which are AI-only.

As I stated earlier, the 9 subordinate to one 1 commander ratio would seem close to disasterous, but considering the high amount of units that are able to fight without qualms, it's just too much of an advantage to not be applicable somewhere. So I think I have it. The 10 unit 'platoon' if you will, is best suited to a nation with high experience/morale, where the commander rallying ability may not be as important. That sort of outfit, however, is probably only available to the USSR, who may never get high enough in those attributes to benefit. OTOH, the nations experienced very weak experience/morale will be likely better off with more sections, therefore more rally ability, but necessitating they expose more commanders to more active fighting, in order to keep anything resembling a constant effective fire.

But the differences raised between platoon sizes isn't any the less a concern because the most exaggerated of them, the 10 unit one is only a USSR one.

You will note, that the USSR seems to have a higher ratio of 3 tank platoons than most nations, and in my mind anyway, as a long campaigner, that has always made me cringe, as it's too few subordinates. As well, this brings up the whole aspect of the ability of the commnder to rally itself. At least the beginnings of the USSR campaign sees the rally ability so pathetic, that while preserving the HQ for later is a good idea, ironically enough, when seen from that angle the 10 unit platoon takes on more life. If you can accept the rallying from HQ won't work anyway then at least for 6 months to a year, the firepower gained in having a lot of subordinates to one HQ can pay off. I'm sorry is this just too complicated to understand? I'm not having a problem with it.