Playing with doctrinal stuff. French tank platoons run four LeClercs and four VBLs for security and infantry support. Compared to the American style of pure tank units, what would the advantages and disadvantages be to having your support infantry right there in the platoon with the armor?This does dictate what kind of terrain my fictional army clearly fights in, namely 'it's almost all tank country' - so lots of rolling open terrain, farmland, low hills, that sort of thing. Relatively light on the mountains and forests, so...Nebraskansas.
I was a tanker before I went EOD, so my information may be a bit dated (when I left tanks we had M1A1's) but the US Army pure tank units is mostly a peace time training thing to make it easier to train them all the same. When you go to combat you swap units with the others in your Brigade (BDE) and make the Battalion in to Task Force, and most companies will become teams. So using my old battalion as an example. Peace time we had (only talking combat equipment/major support units) four Line companies (A-D) and a Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC). Each line company had three tank platoons (four tanks each) and a headquarters section (two tanks each) giving them fourteen tanks. HHC had the S shops, Scouts (we had ten turtle back Hummers, but some had six M3 brad's), Mortars (six mortar tracks 120mm is the current standard), Medics (one M577 battalion aid station, and four M113 ambulances), and Battalion Headquarters (one tank section of two). This gave them fifty eight tanks, six to ten scouts, six mortars, and the medical section.
When we went to War we traded from A and C Companies one tank platoon for one infantry platoon, and B company two tank platoons and the headquarters section for two infantry platoon and a headquarters section. In addition we got added to us one Engineer company, one artillery battery, and one scout troop. The Engineer company had three line platoons and an Assault and Obstacle (A n O) Platoon, the line platoons were made up of three squads and a headquarters team each in a track (M113A3's), The A n O platoon had two sections Assault made up of two Combat Engineer Vehicles, and four Armored Vehicle Launched Bridges (AVLB) normally two of them had bridges and the other two had Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC), and Obstacle that had two dozers, two M548 with volcano mine dispensers in the back, and four small emplacement excavators (SEE Truck). The artillery battery had three platoons of guns but as I never saw them (saw their handy work, and it is impressive) I can not say for sure how many (I think six, as I heard that number but is that for the platoon or for the battery I do not know). The scout troop had one command section of one M1A1, and one Brad, also two hunter killer team of four M1A1's and six M3 brads each. So this gave them fifty one tanks, twenty nine brads (a mix of infantry and scout versions), ten scout hummers, six to eighteen? M109's (as I said I am not sure on the numbers here as this is the only part I never directly work with), six mortars, twelve engineer tracks, fourteen engineer vehicles, and the medical section.
My BDE at the time had two tank battalions, two infantry battalions, one scout squadron, one artillery battalion, one engineer battalion, one transport battalion, one support battalion, one MASH, one MP platoon, and one ADA platoon. When deployed the artillery, engineer, and scouts were broken up and tasked out to the combat battalions.
