Question: Anyone ever played Right-hand vs. Left-hand?

[Suhiir]

Yeah, one of the things I did in the USMC rebuild was split the weapons platoons and companies up among the rifle companies as they normally would be. They only exist in the first place for admin/logistic/training purposes, none of which is terribly relevant in actual combat.

[Aeraaa]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

They only exist in the first place for admin/logistic/training purposes, none of which is terribly relevant in actual combat.

Not only that. Keeping all your support assets together gives the commander the freedom to deploy them in the most optimal way deemed necessary. He may ditribute them evenly among all companies, or that one company that is expected to be attacked by armor getting all the AT assets, or only two companies getting indirect fire support, or that one company not getting any support etc.

[Suhiir]

Originally Posted by Aeraaa

Not only that. Keeping all your support assets together gives the commander the freedom to deploy them in the most optimal way deemed necessary. He may ditribute them evenly among all companies, or that one company that is expected to be attacked by armor getting all the AT assets, or only two companies getting indirect fire support, or that one company not getting any support etc.

True.
But for game purposes it's usually better to have them evenly distributed as you can't usually be sure where the main attack/defense will be.

If you really want to distribute them yourself then you can buy formations without support weapons, then buy the support units and play with the editor. If you don't use Command Control then you don't even need to bother attaching them to platoons/companies.

[shahadi]

It depends on a few factors such as: map size, battle type, and force composition. I always distribute my weapons between my rifle companies. I build in Mobhack formations for company, platoon, and squads with the weapons integrated. If air is not contested, I won’t deploy MANPads. If there are no enemy tanks, I’ll use inf-ATGM but with HE to target enemy infantry units. In short, depending on the mission, the composition of the force varies with what weapons and how they are loaded. I may put an infantry company to field without mortars.

As far as scouts, snipers, trucks, ammo carriers and the like, they are not put of a weapons company.

Now, in the game universe, each formation has a leader. You want to keep your subordinate units nearby the leader for rally and suppression recovery, etc. So, now map size is extremely important. If you have a large map and your weapons company is in the back, then you have to account for a lot of turns to get say a MG crew forty hex to support a rifle squad (at 5 hex per turn.) So, you keep your platoons together so that they can support each other in a fight in whatever formation (column, wedge, line, etc).

Now, scouts should cover your flanks and forward positions, but not as fighters, just to report to you where the bad guys are. Besides, they are not part of weapons anyway.

The one platform that will give your company or battalion the muscle against armor or the unexpected attacks is attack helos. They are mobile, quick, and pack a big punch. They are the cornerstone of the Land/Air battle doctrine of the USA since the 80’s. The Marines use a much similar approach but with more coordination between company commanders and what they call their air elements. In the game, attack helos are not part of the weapons company, but they can be crucial on the battlefield giving you the commander, the desired flexibility spoken of in earlier posts.

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