How to Organize Units into RCT

[johnboyjjb]

My campaign has been going awhile and they've aggregated about 45 mixed units.

As a unit went down it was replaced by something available from the market or salvaged and repaired. This over time has led to very mixed lances. I'd like to structure this back into an RCT format but everything looks fairly labor intensive unless you just make light, medium, heavy, and assault lances and call that good enough.

Does anybody have tool or some logical formula that makes building out an RCT with existing units easier?

[dgorsman]

Define "unit" in this context?  Lance?  Company?

And by mixed you mean... weight?  Different types (Mech/vehicle/infantry/etc.)?

[Mendrugo]

Well, a full RCT has:

1 'Mech Regiment
5 infantry regiments
3 armor regiments
1 aerospace wing

So, you'd want to arrange all your 'Mechs into a regiment, probably sorting the 'Mechs by mission type based on speed and weapon loadout.  (scout lance, command lance, fire support lance, battle lance, etc.)  Perhaps you'll have a lighter recon battalion, a medium/heavy striker battalion and a heavy/assault siege battalion.  Depends on your assets and your preferences.  Then, get a bunch of support units to back up your 'Mechs - have vehicles that can keep up with each battalion - no sense supporting your recon battalion with Behemoth heavy tanks.

[johnboyjjb]

There are 45 deployable objects (Mechs, Tanks, and Infantry platoons) of mixed weight and composition that are structured into irregular lances (4-6 units of mixed weight and composition).

I'm looking to sift them into a more typical lances of 4, with each lance having a tactical purpose and cohesion. Lances that belong together instead of coming together by attrition and replacement.

[Colt Ward]

Well . . . get ready to have your experience/quality rating take a hit if you re-organize it that way since they are going to lose cohesiveness.  You are either going to shift mechs between pilots so that someone in a lance has a new & unfamiliar machine (hard to do if they are family owned!) or you are breaking up lances to shift the mechs w/pilots around- 4 people, 2 from one lance w/singletons from other companies or whatever.  It will take a intense training period to get them all back up to speed.

And I think its still not clear if you are talking about deploying a single mech or a lance of mechs as a 'deployable object' and the armor makes it worse.  Going on the assumption you are talking a object is a single mech, tank or infantry platoon then you have at best a reinforced mixed battalion.

In which case, my best suggestion is to put the list up in General . . . some of us play AccountanTech and LIKE organizing lists, lol.

[Kovax]

That's a single battalion of 3 companies, not multiple regiments with several battalions each, so it's not even close to requiring RCT organization.

You could try to group it into Mech, vehicle, and infantry companies, with a few units out of place to fill in for the missing pieces, but in the field they'd likely be deployed as mixed companies ('Mech and vehicle lances, possibly with an infantry platoon or two in APCs) in an ad hoc formation, or else the 'Mechs deployed independently from the vehicles and infantry.

The organizational structure does not necessarily need to exactly match how the elements get utilized in the field, it's primarily for the streamlining of command and logistics (you don't need a mechanic for a 'Mech company, nor do you require a Mechtech for a vehicle company), but still easier to send in as groups than as diverse pieces grouped together tor a purpose.  It would probably be extremely rare to see lances of mixed composition in any major House's military (despite being the most common OPFOR formation in MegaMek), but fairly common to find a lance or company of vehicles temporarily assigned to support/assist a lance or company of 'Mechs or vice versa.

[Daryk]

*snip*
. . . some of us play AccountanTech and LIKE organizing lists, lol.

Guilty as charged!  ;D

That said, you may only have a Battalion of combat units, but once you add in the necessary support forces (techs, medics/admin, etc.), you'll be up to a Regiment in no time...

[johnboyjjb]

There's a lot of weird stuff in here. I essentially started with 3 infantry units and after a few hard years of buying replacement infantry units have managed to capture or be awarded the vehicles and mechs (which is why they are generally terrible).

Here's what I came up with:

Infantry Battalion:
First Motorized Infantry Company:
Motorized Platoon MG
Motorized Platoon MG
Motorized Squad MG
Motorized Squad MG

Second Mechanized Company:
Mechanized Tracked Platoon MG
Mechanized Tracked Platoon MG
Mechanized Tracked Platoon MG

Third Mechanized Company:
Mechanized Wheeled Platoon MG
Mechanized Wheeled Platoon MG
Mechanized Wheeled Squad MG

Fourth Artillery Foot Company:
Foot Squad Rifle
Foot Squad LRM
Foot Platoon Anti-Mech Rifle
Foot Platoon Rifle
Field Artillery Thumper

Vehicle Battalion:
Alpha Company:
First Hover Fire Lance:
Coolant Truck Hover
Armored Personnel Carrier Hover SRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Hover SRM
Flatbed Truck SRM

Second Vehicle Light Fire Lance:
Armored Personnel Carrier Tracked LRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Wheeled LRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Wheeled LRM
Heavy Tracked APC SRM

Third Anti Infantry Urban Lance:
Stoat Scout Car Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard

Bravo Company:
First Jeep Order Lance:
Jeep MG
Jeep MG
Jeep MG
Jeep MG

Second Buggy Order Lance:
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard

Mech Company:
Alpha Security Star:
Wasp WSP-1
Dervish DV-1S
Griffin GRF-2N
Firebee FRB-1E
Quasit MilitaMech QUA-51T

Bravo Security Star:
Powerman SC XI-M-B LoaderMech MOD
Falcon FLC-4N
Dervish DV-1S
Shadow Hawk SHD-1R
Quasit MilitaMech QUA-51T

[johnboyjjb]

Part of the reason I was hoping to find a quick and unit cohesive way of doing this is that since accomplishing this sort yesterday, I played a bit longer with the units as sorted and have acquired another Powerman whatever its called. Now because I'm irregular (and it's my game) I can tack that onto either star and be "good enough" but I prefer a better way that doesn't involve as much time. I spent about 2 hours trying to come up with complementary groupings for this batch of misfits.

[Daryk]

The good news is a lot of that infantry can be your AsTech pool... it'll be tomorrow night before I can put real thought into it, but that's the start.  You need Tech Teams (of 1 Tech and 6 AsTechs) for each vehicle/'mech, and you have enough infantry to require at least one Tech Team of their own...

[johnboyjjb]

A lot of the infantry is trained in Small Arms as well as tech trained. Some also are trained as administrators. I found the infantry armor leaves something to be desired and I end up with quite a few missing body parts that has negative impacts to their gunnery.

[Daryk]

Lyran, Davion, and ballistic plate armor vests aren't too expensive, and give infantry a damage divisor of 2.

[Colt Ward]

I am just going to look at your armor (very light) and mech assets . . .

Okay, some of this just does not belong on the line-  Coolant Truck comes to mind though I thought it was wheeled rather than hover.  You also want to keep the same motive types in a lance and generally the same speed.  For instance, I will mix old Condors (8/12) with new Condors (9/14) with either Musketeers (7/11) or J Edgars (11/17) but not usually Musketeers and J Edgars.

Vehicle Battalion:
Alpha Company:
First Hover Skirmish Lance:
Armored Personnel Carrier Hover SRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Hover SRM

Wheeled Fire Support Lance
Flatbed Truck SRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Wheeled LRM
Armored Personnel Carrier Wheeled LRM

Second Vehicle Light Fire Lance:
Armored Personnel Carrier Tracked LRM
Heavy Tracked APC SRM

Bravo Company:
First Jeep Order Lance:
Jeep MG
Jeep MG
Jeep MG
Jeep MG

Second Buggy Order Lance:
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard

Third Anti Infantry Urban Lance:
Stoat Scout Car Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard
Dune Buggy Standard

Mech Company:
Alpha Strike Lance:
Wasp WSP-1
Griffin GRF-2N
Falcon FLC-4N

Bravo Fire Support Star:
Dervish DV-1S
Dervish DV-1S
Shadow Hawk SHD-1R
Firebee FRB-1E

Charlie Support Lance
Quasit MilitaMech QUA-51T
Quasit MilitaMech QUA-51T
Powerman SC XI-M-B LoaderMech MOD

Honestly, I wonder when you are playing because that is a lot of primitives from a wide amount of sources . . . and since they are some of the earliest primitive designs, they use ALL primitive level tech.  So you could 'upgrade' them but really, your building a new mech from the parts . . . depending on your employer you might just make as part of your terms of employment a mech swap with militia grade forces covering the difference in value.  During the Age of War the prims found themselves shifted from frontlines to militia forces where some served into the Succession Wars and some might have been stop gap measures during & after the Jihad.  At least until they were weeded out as part of Stone's overall draw down.

The Support lance is interesting b/c they are not line combat units, but I think they can work in a ISV role to support your infantry and light vehicle formations that should not run up against comparable mech forces.

[johnboyjjb]

It was supposed to be 2398. The Griffin doesn't fit that time frame so I'm not sure how the RAT spooled him out. I let it ride because parts don't exist and I'll end up having to sell it in broken bits. Plus it was the only thing that could destroy anything for quite some time.

[Colt Ward]

Might have been a typo then for the -1N (2492) or even the 'overweight' 1A which is all primitive and prototype parts.