Problems with the current Russian OOB (#11).

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Crueldwarf

To be more precise I want to introduce a more 'realistic' organization for Soviet rifle company on BTR-152/BTR-50 large capacity APCs. In the game now they are essentially the same as all other mech companies with a separate APC for each section, 10 in total. IRL they had only 6 or 7 vehicles for the entire company. Can AI handle such structure or it will fail to mount sections without dedicated transports?

The best way to find out would be to build one the way you think is should be then set a game to advance or assault, buy a number of them and autodeploy. If they are loaded when you check the map then it works..if not try another way. Autodeploy works the same for P1 human player as it would for P2 Computer player.

That said if you are looking for a formation the AI will actually buy it needs to be one the picklist "knows" about so if you replace an existing formation you know the AI picks with this new one of yours, you need to make it work for the exact same time period as the old one or the AI will not use it and that means it has to work for any new equipment that formation might have available between it's start and end date and in the case of BTR-50's the BTR-50PA's end date is a 1964 that's the end of the 20 capacity units, the BTR-50PK stays in service until 1967 but that in itself adds another wrinkle to your project as it has a capacity of 14 so if you are going to make a coy that only has the smaller number of carriers they can only run as long as there are high capacity carriers available and right now when the AI goes looking for a Mech coy or pl to buy it only looks for the ones we have in there now.....build a new one in a new slot and it might as well be on Mars

.....then there's the issue that the BMP-1 with 9 capacity enters service a year before the BTR-50PK goes out of service and when you consider all that you will understand why they are set up like they are now.........it's a juggling act between formation structure, infantry unit size and carrier capacity and it will NEVER be " perfect" but it will be "close enough" for the scale this game represents

Don

[Crueldwarf]

Originally Posted by DRG

That said if you are looking for a formation the AI will actually buy it needs to be one the picklist "knows" about so if you replace an existing formation you know the AI picks with this new one of yours, you need to make it work for the exact same time period as the old one or the AI will not use it and that means it has to work for any new equipment that formation might have available between it's start and end date and in the case of BTR-50's the BTR-50PA's end date is a 1964 that's the end of the 20 capacity units,

Well, current OOB already have an mech company available specifically between 1955-65. But in the default OOB it is the same as the generic mech company. And judging by the fact that it is one of the earlier formations in the list (do not have a game at hand currently, so cannot provide a precise number) it was probably one of the default ones.
So I think switching mech platoons to a leg platoons inside the company and adding a transport platoon should make AI buy it.

Also I plan to move BTR-50s into heavy APC unit class (it already have some BTR-152s) while keeping one model in tracked APCs for the compatibility sake. As I can understand OOB structure and its use changing classes (at least within clone ones) should not break anything.

the BTR-50PK stays in service until 1967 but that in itself adds another wrinkle to your project as it has a capacity of 14 so if you are going to make a coy that only has the smaller number of carriers

This is by the way a mistake in the current OOB. 50PK have the same capacity as 50P - 20 dismounts. Its huge inside.

Picture from the manual.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Crueldwarf

This is by the way a mistake in the current OOB. 50PK have the same capacity as 50P - 20 dismounts. Its huge inside.

I will put that on my list to investigate. Early on in OOB development the BTR-50's were 12 and 14 carry cap but a quick check seeing to show that the formation you want to create already exists ( sort of..... )in the OOB's ( 375 ) is a coy of BTR-50's with 7 carriers

[DRG]

Originally Posted by Crueldwarf

Also I plan to move BTR-50s into heavy APC unit class (it already have some BTR-152s)

The OOB already has a BTR-50 as a heavy APC along with a BTR-152. But right now it's just the open topped model, but there may be other changes that can be done. The other question is was how was it originally determined which troops used each APC. Where they 13 man sections with support elements or two smaller sections that used one transport. The basics have to be sorted out before any other changes can be made but a quick glance seems to indicate this is doable without upsetting the balance in the existing OOB and that is the main goal. I may be able to adjust this and gain a spare unit slot but I need to know how the troops were packed into this thing. There are only two formations that use the BTR-50's as UC 25 and if the three versions of the BTR-50 that are in that class ( 329, 330, 331 ) are changed to UC 120 that keeps the AI picklist happy and nothing needs to be changed in regards to AI picks and that isolated the heavy BTR-50's from the smaller BMP's and that allows me to eventually remove unit 885 as redundant

[Crueldwarf]

Originally Posted by DRG

The OOB already has a BTR-50 as a heavy APC along with a BTR-152. But right now it's just the open topped model, but there may be other changes that can be done. The other question is was how was it originally determined which troops used each APC. Where they 13 man sections with support elements or two smaller sections that used one transport. The basics have to be sorted out before any other changes can be made but a quick glance seems to indicate this is doable without upsetting the balance in the existing OOB and that is the main goal. I may be able to adjust this and gain a spare unit slot but I need to know how the troops were packed into this thing

There is apparently a service manual for this thing somewhere in the deeps of the internet but most of the links are dead nowadays. Some articles claim that the scheme for BTR-50P was 10+10. Ten guys in the 'turret' and ten guys rode on the armor outside. In that case both BTR-50PK and BTR-50P have only 10 men capacity.

As for the section sizes - Soviet sections in the post war period were either 9 or 8 men (including vehicle crews for motor rifle troops), no larger 'heavy' sections existed in organizational structures. At least I never saw or heard any mentions of such sections.

One memoir claims that motor rifle battalion around late 1950 had separate 'platoon' of BTR-152 and each company had 5 of them assigned, including one (for the company commander) with ZPU-2 AA mount.