Realistic vs Real

For a long time I've aimed at a certain level of realism in my gaming.

It seems strange, considering the massive levels of absolutely unreality in many of them.

In the real world there is no provable magic, no half-animal people no gigantic tornado of eldritch energy in New Mexico or Antarctica and penguins show no affinity to Communism or malice towards mankind.

So, why, does it matter if PV2 Astaire from weapons squad hangs out with 2nd squad all the time?

Because when I make a change from the real world to a myth-parallel, I want the change to be because I made a decision.

Willard did convey that the squad composition shortly after Vietnam was officially what I had in this post; but it didn't always work like that.

The 1/17th and 2/75 had the same TOE except for the M113 tracks, and the fact that the Ragnars actually had warm bodies to fill all the slots.  Rifle platoon has four squads: three rifle squads, one weapons squad.  Weapons squad has three GPMG teams.  Mortars and Recoilless Rifles live in the Company Weapons Platoon and get assigned by the CO, or in some units the XO.

 

Deployed in the field:  In defense the guns are sited first, as determined by the terrain, then the rifle squads are deployed to protect the guns.  During movement the gun teams will usually be assigned to a rifle squad and come under the command of the rifle squad leader.  That frees up the weapons squad leader to either ride herd on any attached weapon system or become a defacto [3rd in command] for the platoon.  It's a good system, nice and flexible.

 

The flaw is that it's too easy to just assign a gun to each squad, and then leave them there.  People will tell you that makes the unit "balanced" but that's just an excuse.  Over time I personally came around to prefer an unbalanced platoon, but that's another, different rant.

 

In my entire time in the US Army I never saw anyone designated as an automatic rifleman except on old organizational charts.   Fact of the matter, the US Army usually used the M 60 as if it were a product improved BAR, with a single guy  carrying the thing and its basic load of ammunition.  The Ranger Battalions were the only unit I know of that had the people and resources to form machinegun teams and train them.

 

The received wisdom (from Vietnam) regarding the 90 mm was that they were pure hell with the "canister round"  which, in the '70s even the Rangers couldn't scare up from the supply system.

The airborne unit in my original post shows 2x M60 MG's and 2x M67 recoilless rifles in the weapons squad.  The diagram also dates from before we actually tried using helicopters in combat.  Moving the recoilless rifles to the company level, adding an MG and a dedicated mage might just be what the 101st does.

The 101st Spellborne isn't a prestige unit like the 75th Ranger Battalion, but it's very much in the spotlight.  It's using lots of new ideas and I'll have to decide if the higher powers want them to succeed or not.

If they want them to fail, then people and resources to form proper MG teams will be withheld.  If they want them to succeed, then those things will be available in abundance.

I did figure out what they meant by "Automatic Rifleman" in that diagram.  It dates from when the US service rifle was the M14 and its automatic rifle variant the M15.  When everyone has an M16, everyone can play automatic rifleman so the job is, effectively, eliminated.

Something I need to decide is where the guy who flies the magic carpet sits in this.  Is he assigned to the aircraft, platoon or an independent entity?  I'm leaning to making them a company level asset, like the mortars.