Is there a normal ORBAT of some sort for an Imperial Guard company or regiment? I saw there was one for the Catachans in the other thread. They seemed to have an ample supply of heavier weapons.
I would assume a regular Cadian knockoff generic ImpGuard Regiment would have more vehicles at the very least if not more heavy weapons in general.
What I'd be most curious of all is if the ImpGuard is totally mechanized or motorized with only their own assets or if it's something that has to be added to the unit (like it seems it would be for the Catachans due to being Jungle Warfare types).
Crom references several of them. Its also useful to look at the lower levels: your standard
infantry squad is 10 men. 1 Sergeant with 9 guardsmen, 1-2 with support weapons or sometimes a heavy weapon, though that seems to conflict.
We then have heavy weapon squads of 6 men with 3 heavy weapons, though I think reasonably it should be 10 men at least to 3 heavy weapons.
Finally for our purposes, there are
conscript squads.
"A Conscript squad consists of a massive squad of anywhere from twenty to fifty conscripts, operating as one unit. Due to their lack of training and combat experience, they are denied access to the arsenal of special weapons the Imperial Guard has to offer. Instead, the squad is issued the basic load out of
flak armour and
lasguns.
[1c] "
Might make sense to change levees to these conscripts/whiteshields, though I'm not sure how much it overall would matter.
Platoons then seem to be 3-6 guard squads, plus support which may or may not be organic.
Then the generic
company seems to be roughly 3-6 infantry platoons, with roughly equal number of heavy weapons, plus attachments. Command also seems to have scouting, logistical, and medical services, attached, which may be substansive.
Regiments then seem to generally be some 3-6 companies, plus even more substantial HQs.
I'm going to need a source that shows a Russ can target anything at 10 to 20 klicks.
Basic physics more or less. 500 m/s muzzle velocity at 20 degrees (the max gun elevation of an Abrams) gives an ideal range of 16 km. This is very low elevation with very low velocity. Low velocity big guns seem to be roughly 650 m/s, with a 40 degree firing angle gives an ideal range of about 40 km. Real achieved is generally more in the
15-20 km range. High velocity artillery like the
130 mm M-46 achieve roughly 30 km range unassisted, and 40 km with rocket assistance.
So, depending on details and ammo, Leman Russ shooting out 10-20 km is very doable. As
@Husky_Khan points out, this range is in a grid square artillery role, not targeting specific vehicles. As hopefully was clear in the example, where the Russ were being used in a 20 km^2 area barrage, counting on weight of fire to accidentally destroy enough. The more targeted the fire can get of course, the more dangerous things get: choke points for example.
Thus, on a 20 km square, all the tanks are capable of providing artillery fire on any point within the square, subject to communication, planning, and training on how effective it is.
I find that unlikely. As outlined the detachment isn't interested in the Levees and aren't going to waste time energy assaulting their entire length spread across twenty plus kilometers. The attack will be focus on a tiny fraction of that forward line across 1 to 2 kilometers at most involving a few hundred troops which will be rapidly overwhelmed, killed, overran or simply retreat.
Eh, this runs into problems with space actually. An Abram's platoon is supposed to maintain roughly 30-100 meter spacing from some quick google. Which makes sense: an Abrams is 8 meters long: you want to give each tank enough space so if it has to "dodge" left or right you don't risk coalitions. And if artillery does have a danger range of 30 meters, you don't want one lucky artillery shell to detrack the entire platoon, immobilizing them and leaving them venerable to further artillery.
However, a 100 meter spacing on Abrams means an attack on 1 km of front involves, well, 1,000 m/100m = 10 tanks. Round up to say 12, for three platoons/roughly a company. You can add multiple lines, but especially on flat terrain your increasing risk of friendly fire. Putting a 100 armored vehicles against a 1 km front is a spacing of 10 meters per vehicle, and remember these vehicles are about 3-4 meters wide! 100 vehicles in a line thus takes up roughly 400 meters, so level bind firing the enemy has a 40% chance to hit. A lucky artillery hit on the line might mobility kill 1-2 platoons of armored vehicles.
A single attack with all 240 armored vehicles of the Brigade with 30 meters spacing, which is still fairly tight for how big the vehicles are, artillery risk, and details of cover which may push for being more spread out, suggests an attack front of 7 km. Which is roughly what I've seen for Brigade offensive frontages in the 5-10 km range.
It is sometimes easy to forget that armies take up space: if the Brigade was a civil war era line infantry force 2 man deep, near soldier to soldier, 5,000 men take up about 3,000 km. A general attack on less than 5-10 km of frontage would be difficult with such a large force, and longer may be preferred.
Possibly. I don't think it proves sufficient warning from point of contact to the detachment breaching the square for the Guard to meaningfully react.
Well, lets take a worst case scenario: the Abrams start firing as 2 km from the infantry line, don't stop at all, and drive the remaining, say 10 km to hit the inner defensive positions. That's roughly 12 km to cover. Maximum overland speed is apparently roughly 40 km/h, or roughly 2 minutes a km, rounded up a bit. So, forewarning buys roughly 24 minutes of warning. This assumes basically zero time required to break through the levees, and generally favorable terrain. If any amount of time is required to fight through, warning from levee engagement to engagement with the rapid reaction force may be on the course of 1-2 hours from contact. Assuming further no scouts beyond the levee line.
Armies take up space, and space takes time to cross.
Certainly if a shell hits it's going to be pretty lethal and 30 meters is pretty accurate firing especially for the Imperium which doesn't do precision. But in all likelyhood by the time the Imperium realizes their line has been breached the detachment will already be inside their interior with the belated shells raining destruction harmlessly at the detachment's backside.
Well, you have a big shell with a 30 m radius (60m diameter) danger zone specifically to make up for lack of accuracy: Sabots you have to actually hit the vehicle. HE you have to get a shell in the general vicinity of the vehicle, and once its mobility killed, it doesn't really matter how many more rounds it takes to eventually score a true kill: the tank's not going anywhere without treads.
At 10-20 km as well, I believe the rapid reaction force will hear the Abrams firing on the Levees, even if for some reason no one radios in. Which is part of the overwatch's job, to make sure there's competent people watching the levees to report back exactly what's going on.
20-30 m is also I believe roughly what WWII-early cold war artillery could do at 10 km regularly, and I believe tank cannons have to be more accurate than artillery. So, if a Russ has a spotter telling one exactly where an Abrams is at 10 km, getting a round within 20-30 meters is quite doable, subject to general caveets over spotter and general targeting ability. Or, the gun can shoot that accurately, and a Rus might have enough of a targeting "computer" (this might be doable with slide rule tech) that its sort of automatic, as long as targeting data is accurate.
I really don't see the Russ tanks providing effective artillery.
I'm not sure why not. It has to be an accuratish gun for tank reasons, it obviously shoot a fairly large round, ignoring a bit of formal lore nonsense. I theorized a 150 mm gun, but even if its "only" a 130 mm, that's a substantial round still, and thus should have 10-15 km range with only Abrams level gun depression, and the body is so tall more gun depression should be quite doable, for more howitzer like arcs.
There's no reason the detachment would be spread out equally through making that meaningless. Further it takes time to coordinate where the detachment is, to aim/position the Basiliks to fire and for the shells to reach their target making it very difficult to hit a mobile force.
Sure, but this is describing more or less the worst case scenario for the Guard, where the most detailed firing plan is the km in front of/on top of the levees, and the Americans are equally spread out over such a mass area. The more concentrated the Americans, and the more targeting information the defenders have, the worse the artillery is for the Americans.
Depends on competency, communication, the time-lag from report to action as well their ability to find the enemy. A square kilometer is pretty big area and at night, limited by mark I eyeballs accurately finding the detachment might be a problem.
Well, were back to the issue that firing cannons is not a quiet, stealthy affair. A square km grid fire is "we can literally see and hear gunfire coming from that general direction" accuracy.
That's the problem. The Levee's aren't going to stop them or meaningfully slow them down. Which means the detachment can slip through and begin attacking the penny packets of Overwatch or simply drive straight towards the heart of your formation unopposed.
I'm not really convinced of this.
In summary
1.) There is no reason for the detachment to engage across the full breadth of your line and I find it dubious said line will meaningfully slow let alone blunt the detachment. I think they'll breach immediately and push the front straight through the heart of the square.
2.) I don't think the Imperial OODA loop is sufficient to detect this breach and react to it with sufficient force in time. Coupled with other advantages such as mobility and detection I think the Imperials will be shooting at shadows not realizing the detachment is already through while they in turn quickly overwhelm and pick off the scattered and unaware Overwatch piecemeal. That the artillery is likely going to be firing "blind" because of that being unable to process the rapidly changing battle conditions.
That the entire time the Imperials will be lagging behind the Americans in data processing being swamped with conflicting data both real and phantom as the detachment seeks out the armored elements to engage. Possibly up to and including the Basiliks themselves depending on how protected they are.
3.) That once they've sufficiently stirred up the hornets nest inflicting heavy losses the detachment can turn about and retreat in good order punching through any segment of the line almost as easily as they entered easily outpacing the slower Leman Russ's luring them into a killzone of their own artillery.
Whether they take the bait or not of course the rest of the brigade's armored force can puncture through from an opposing side and destroy the artillery. At which point any remaining Leman Russ tanks and Chimera's can either retreat to attempt protect the Basiliks in which case they detachment can resume the attack with their own artillery support or dig in with the Levee infantry and be crushed between the two armies.
I think the previous arguments show why I don't find this a particularly likely outcome. It pre-supposes an OODA loop superiority I'm not sure the US actually has, against a formation more or less designed to disrupt that, by breaking it a bit on materially irrelevant forces.
A leman Russ is certainly dangerous to a Bradley but it is pretty much exactly what the Bradley was designed to defeat via a weapon, the TOW missile, the Leman Russ is ill-equipped to handle. Guided, precision weapons being extremely rare on the IG battlefield. With a four kilometer range and an accuracy unseen by the IG you'd likely need 3 tanks to defeat one Bradley and that assumes it can't disengage and retreat from the vastly slower tank.
Battlecannon and lascannon is more or less the counter. A low velocity Battlecannon round in the 600-700 m/s range is twice as fast as a TOW missile, and a Bradley is even lighter armored than a tank, and thus more vulnerable to near misses. Lascannon is of course light speed, and seems to have an implied range in the 2-3 km range at least. Bolters may or may not be a danger, especially at shorter range, but hard to say.
If the Leman Russ sees the Bradley first, the Bradley's in a pretty bad position and likely dies. If a Rus gets the drop on several Bradleys, the group may be in a bad situation. If the Bradley sees the Rus first, it can fire a TOW, if not noticed pre impact get a kill, then probably get some return fire and need to retreat or die.
The longer the range the more impactful slower vehicle and tracking would be since there would be a greater lag between firing and point of contact. Longer ranges also benefits the more accurate side which is likely going to be to be Abrams. The Leman Russ best bet would likely be to close as much as possible.
Eh, this does hinge a bit on the earlier assumptions regarding how effective an artilery platform the Leman Rus is.
Well expecting it to "disrupt" the assault is expecting a lot out of them. In practice this is like holding up a sheet of writing paper and expecting it to "disrupt" my fist to give you time to punch me back.
Honestly it would make more sense just to roll Overwatch into the Rapid Reaction Force. As it is you've needlessly dispersed crucially needed heavier armor/firepower that is either going to be destroyed or force to link up with the RRF anyway
Its a skirmish/scout force basically. Those are generally useful. The Brigade will need to employ those too. Lest its forces bumble into killing fields unaware.
A heavy weapon per company? So one heavy weapon per square kilometer? That's a lot lower than I was expecting. I'd assumed there would be at least a lascanon per squad, couple of grenade launchers ect. I really don't see how you expect them to blunt anything that poorly equipped and with such few troops.
Sorry, said team where I should have said squad. So, 3 heavy weapons per km. Assumedly there's probably at least some Krak grenades as well. Plus the overwatch, which are there to provide a bit of extra firepower/stiffening to the levees. To a general front (20 km) that's about 2 platoons (6) Leman Russ and 2 platoons of proper Guard infantry. Maybe thinking of it maybe that should be a heavy weapons company, so about 6 ish extra heavy weapons squad, or 18 heavy weapons.
So, on a probing attack on 1 km, which would be roughly on the scale of 10-30 vehicles, there's 3 heavy weapons immediately, plus 100 conscripts to absorb fire and dig trenches before hand, which warns the overwatch who can right away bring 6 long range Rus fire, and the Chimera's can get in place maybe some 10 heavy weapons into a defensive position to counter the attempted penetration. Which may be enough to repulse a probing attack, and buy time for rapid reaction force mobilization if larger.
I would agree with you both on the Guard lacking the personal initiative and that a Bite and Hold Strategy seems exactly the sort of warfare the Guard were built around. These short, brief but massively supported big pushes where the individual soldier just has to worry about carrying his rifle and shooting anything that tries to stop the advance.
And considering the wildly varying qualities of IG regiments, with everything from tribesmen to convicts to draftees depending on the world's customs, and their conditions, ranging from fresh green recruits to battle scarred veterans, and fighting styles this kind of lowest common denominator warfare might actually make the most sense for them. If you can't count on a consistent quality of troops you have to reduce things until the regiment differences even out.
And it would even explain the Leman Russ. The Guard isn't intended to perform meaningful maneuvers, it isn't rapidly punching through an enemy into their interior and thus Imperial planners aren't worried about a Leman Russ encountering an enemy tank on even ground. Instead its a mobile assault gun meant to blow up a fortified position and support the slow crawl of infantry advancing over it. An enemy tank that wasn't smashed to flinders by artillery is expected to have to deal with both cheap, disposable infantry as well as the Leman Russ.
More less. Thus the formation here designed to be as idiot proof as possible, concentrate losses in the most replaceable forces (conscripts) and achieve maxium self sufficiency, which I also see in the Leman Rus: its somewhat looks to me like a jack of all trades vehicle you'd use if you couldn't trust on the combined arms working seamlessly.
Need artillery, and not sure the artillery batteries will respond promptly? Well, a large caliber gun means you are the artillery! Large caliber also means close enough is good enough, in case your spotters (if you have them) also aren't the best.
But, having a large HE shell as your default with a lower muzzle velocity makes the main gun less effective in the direct fire role, makes it potentially overkill against lighter vehicles, and your main gun is now potentially ammo, and thus supply, hungry. And well, a HE round with a 100-500 meter danger zone really shouldn't be fired in close combat.
No problem, you have a Lascannon! Effective over pretty much all general direct fire ranges, ammo independent, so as long as you have fuel it should be workable, and if its like the other laser weapons, tunable to your target: if a Rus has a roughly 1 MW engine, if you need 1 MJ bursts roughly 75 mm cannon energies, you can theorically power one of those a second, or with batteries maybe even nearly autocannon those. If you need to penetrate enemy armor, that's closer to 10 MJ bursts, so you can "only" fire every 10 seconds. Or fire 1/10th as many shots per battery. But, you can shoot enemies close, and tune bust strength to any non-super heavy target.
Infantry support not supporting all that well, and the huge gun makes close infantry a bit in danger anyways? Well, sponson mounted Bolters gives at least 180 degree coverage, so if infantry misses the suicidal cultist trying to throw krak grenade, your sponson gunners give one last chance to see the danger and respond before you get hit.
Generally high all round armor also limits the risk of poor positioning or careless maneuvers. Better to have the side armor not be as vunerable to an ambush flank, or careless turn to the side while under fire than a very strong frontal armor. Plus strong frontal armor is so expensive weight wise anyways, and may not even grant immunity to 40k AT weapons, so side armor makes sense.
And if maintenance or artillery fire immobilizes the Leman Russ, well, good all round armor, 180 degree coverage, plus an artillery viable gun means being immobilized is less crippling. And a crew of 8 ish also means if you break down and lose track of your support you have enough hands around to fix more problems with just the crew than when the crew is 3. As well as some give on casualties.