Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl
That reflects a bias towards NATO units. If you look at a Roman Legion, each centurion commanded 100 individuals divided into ten contubernium. Each of the contubernia was led by a decanus, one of which was his optio, with his tesserarius handlong things during the night watch. The centurion would give orders directly to the decanus as well as to his own contubernium. In essence, a TL2 military organization was capable of handling 100 individuals through only one level of intermediaries, which would suggest that the modern infantry unit designs are not the most efficient (even in NATO units, there are platoons that reach over 100 personnel).
The reason for the structure of NATO units is tradition. The modern NATO evolved from the lessons learned in WW I and WW II and, since there has not been a global war since then, there has not been any major evolutions in military design. The design was based off the aristocratic traditions of Europe though, and were designed more to reinforce existing social structures than to facilitate military objectives. In addition, NATO forces tend to be brass heavy, so there is a major incentive to put officers everywhere to assure that they receive the necessary experience for advancement, so there has been no real incentive for reform.
|
That's why I said that in a 'modern' army the limit was a platoon.
I do not believe it's merely because of tradition. Tradition is what gives us the officer/NCO split. What limits the modern commander is dispersion. A Roman century or maniple was a fairly compact unit, as were just about all units of the time (and indeed, all the way to around the US Civil War). A modern infantry platoon on foot will only be compact enough for everyone to be in direct command and control range of a platoon commander if they're dug into a defensive position, and possibly not even then. When moving they'll be spread out over hundreds of metres, and odds are that a platoon commander will not know exactly where everyone is.
Now, this is something that
may change in the future, with everyone being hooked into a platoon or company wide wireless data and voice net, their position and status being constantly updated on their commanders' map units, etc. However, as each fireteam is a discrete manoeuvre unit this will still strain a company commander's ability to control them effectively directly, making the platoon commander a necessary step, and thus the top level for tactics (because the fireteams have their team leaders). Even then we're having platoon commanders controlling 6-7 manoeuvre units and that's going to strain them.
There's a reason armies today tend to have 3-5 actual combat components at each level, tending strongly to three standard units plus a support unit of smaller size and a logistics unit, and that's because it's the most that most commanders can manage effectively in battle. It's true that larger units tend to deviate from this (brigades, divisions, and upwards). However, these are at a level where the commander has a decent staff, and also where they don't have to make decisions so rapidly - we're well into the land of Strategy here.
Compare this to a pre-modern army, where most of the time in the field the smallest manoeuvre unit was about company or century/maniple sized. Except in cases where such a unit was too large for a mission. Command could be 'flatter' because the smallest manoeuvre unit was larger.