Re: British Army Infantry Company
The normal company HQ (excluding loggies) post war was 2 landroveer FFR with the one for rear link to bn HQ, the other as the co cmnd runabout.
SP uses a rifle section for the company HQ, as the AI will kamikaze any rovers. And rovers dont do well in the defence if stonked. And little 4-man company HQ specialty elements are a "I am a company HQ, very valuable, please kill me now!" item in SP. Because SP tells you exactly what something is on spotting it, including actual man count.
The rifle platoon was HQ section and 3 rifle sections since 1940 or so, or maybe from the introduction of 3 brens in the 30s.
The platoon HQ contained the officers party, the radiomen - usually with the officer, and an anti-tank team and a light mortar team - usually under the platoon sergeant.
(By the 70s the 2in mortar was considered useless, it was only there to throw smoke or flares, sights were a white line painted down the barrel. So my Bn for one put those 2 bodies to better use! - 2in mortars, like pistols lived in the armoury and never left there).
The rifle section was spliit into a 2-3 man Gun Group who operated the LMG and the rest in a Rifle group under the platoon corporal.
Splitting the platoon HQ into tiddly little teams is bad in SP - every one of them is a separate rally node, and the 2-3 man HQ with radio will evaporate on a decent mortar hit. So these are all wrapped up in the platoon HQ/support section in the game, plus the 3 rifle sections.
Now when swanning around in COIN (Say in NI) then it was found best to split the platoon into 2 halves one of which did the base stuff - eg manning an OP or vehicle checkpoint, while the other half got a radio too, bud did security patrolling round the base of operations or did a half day resting up and the other half on the task. This seems to have been where the term "Multiple" came from as the platoon had 2 radios, hence callsigns (normal was 1 bckpack radio til very late).
In Afghanistan, some reorganisation came about with a 4th suppoert weapons section (LMGs concentrated there and so on), but that really acted as a base of fire under the platoon sergeant and so is covered by the existing 3 rifle sections and 1 support/HQ team. In Afghanistan, add-ons (EOD, Locals Liasion etc) were the norm, these brought more call-signs, so the term "multiple" may have been from there rather than NI, who knows?
Platoons and sections are quite flexible things, and can be tailored to task.
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