Bradley formations

[DRG]

This is more an FYI than a topic of conversation/discussion/debate


For years.....at least a decade and a half anyway the game Bradleys have had a crew of 3 and carried 6 infantry and I have accepted that as gospel as that's the way it was set up when I "inherited" maintenance of the OOB.....and ( most importantly ) *I* rarely play the game as the US ( yes..I know........shock and horror all around.... )

Working through my OOB to-do work notes I found a comment that questioned the number of Javelins assigned to a particular mech unit........that spun off into a further investigation of the Bradley formations as that was mentioned in the notes along with the Stryker formations.

What I discovered surprised me.... I have two sources....one very good and one very VERY good that confirms there were too many Javelins assigned ( there should be three per platoon ) but also that each platoon has 4 BFV ( that is not in dispute )...and each platoon contains three 9 man squads ( further broken down into 2 fire teams each with one fireteam leader but that is not relevant.

Each BFV has a crew of three except the lead vehicle that has 4

"Three, nine-man rifle squads make up the platoon’s dismounted element

A Bradley Crew
The crew of a Bradley normally consists of three Infantrymen. These are the driver, the gunner, and the Bradley Commander (BC). In the instance of the platoon leader’s vehicle, there are four. This is in case the Platoon Leader dismounts the vehicle to maneuver with the dismounted element. This allows the Bradley to continue to be crewed by 3 Infantrymen.

the math is 3x9 = 27+3+3+3+4 = 40

40 / 4 = 10 men total per vehicle so with a crew of 3 that means there are 7 men carried NOT 6 and what baffles me is that has not been questioned in all this time

Sources

http://www.benning.army.mil/infantry...ent/ATP3-21.8/

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/tacti...ry-platoon.htm

so they are now set up with 7 passengers and I managed to find a way to
set up the javelins so they are the correct number per platoon ( 3 ) and each platoon now has the correct number of men instead of being 4 men short

fun........