I've thought about reducing the platoons to 2 squads or the company to 2 rifle platoons and 1 weapons platoon, but it just doesn't look right. You've got to have threes, 2 on the line, one in reserve.

I've decided that even though I don't really like it, I'll stick with the one officer per platoon with ensigns as the most junior officer and LTs as experienced platoon leaders and company staff officers and XOs. If I made it 2 officers, then what is the platoon sgt. for? And the APC leader will be a Master Sgt. like the platoon sgt. I can't use Staff Sgt. since I already decided that rank is an expression of experience, senior squad leaders get to be Staff Sgts. and get paid a little more.

And it looks like the company is going to get a QM platoon with some trucks, not so many since all those APCs will have fusion engines and each APC is built to carry 28 men, not 14, leaving room for extra supplies to be carried. But enough to carry some spare food, ammo, and spare armor and parts even though the tech support is at battalion or regt level.

Putting a Major in charge of the infantry company is tempting, but I'm stuck on doing it American, where Captains have companies and Lt. Colonels have battalions, and Majors are the XOs and fill out staff positions. Though for armor and mechs, Majors can have battalions and the Lt. Colonels will be the senior battalion COs and the regiment XO.

There's still a question of academy vs. mustangs. But if I say that all officers must first be sgts. that means academy graduates start as sgts., which opens the question of how do the corporals get promoted with all those academy boys taking up the open sgt. slots? Since Mechwarriors will all have to be academy trained, they will have an edge even though they all start as Sgts. (standard MW rank). A MW will be the only acadamy graduates that don't necessarily have to become officers, they could become career MW NCOs, since there will be 2 Master Sgts. and a First Sgt. in a battlemech company (the lance seconds).

Hmm.. MW officers start as Sgts, a member of a lance, while infantry and armor officers take longer in training but start out as Ensigns unless they were sgts who went mustang, in which case officer training is shorter (mustangs already know how to shine their shoes). Say the academy is the same length for all, but the green cadets go through some kind of basic training before getting mixed in with the mustangs for officer training.

I don't want to turn the company into a betech battalion with a weapons company. A weapons unit is not meant to stay together, but to be broken up and spread around to where more firepower is needed. At the batt. level the support fire to be spread around will be tanks, VTOLs, long range artillery, and a mech lance or two, not guys with SRM2s, MGs, mortars, and portable recoilless rifles.

The inf company has a weapons platoon to break up and send where needed. I made it 2 squads, each with 3 SRM2 (2 man teams), 1 MG (2 man team), and 4 rifleman to look after them or get sent to the platoons as replacements all carried in their own APC, to be sent to the platoon that needs them. Then a 3rd squad with 4 mortars, better ones then the platoons have, 12 men total, and a 4 squad with 3 recoiless rifles (4 men each) that I think will be 3 or 4 damage point weapons with nice long range firing from a fixed position. I think I may use converted Savannah Masters to carry each mortar or recoilless team so they can be sent to support platoon individually.

I threw in the 2 Thumpers because I figure a company of this size ought to have some arty under the Captain's direct control and a little off-map support fire. For heavier stuff he'll have to call on the battalion arty battery, which is where the Arrow missiles and Marksman guns will be found. I threw in the tank lance, lights or mediums, for the same reason, to give the Captain some reserves he can use where needed to back up the platoons since his company is large enough it will often be broken up and operating over widely seperated distances.

I will have mech infantry with APCs as described mostly, hover APCs in the cavalry units which are all jump and hover capable. Really the only infantry unit that will always operate as a full company will be the jump infantry, who will have jump packs and also transport VTOLs. I may do a garrison infantry company too, base defense with AT guns instead of so many APCs?

The infantry units are still way larger than the average Btech unit, but I like it that way. An infantry battalion of mine can take out anyone else's regiment. And there is the element of surprise when engaging an enemy who doesn't know my army very well. His idea of an infantry company will badly underestimate my idea of an infantry company.

Of course I still need to get heavymetal aero and make the dropships. Because I get into such detail I need ships that can carry the whole unit, not just the combat vehicles. I never liked how an Overlord carries the mechs, but not the techs and the support train those mechs need in the field. You can't always operate in walking distance of the ship that brought you, your support elements have land together with your combat elements.

Landing one of my infantry companies will do most of the time for conventional forces. And my battlemech battalions are going to have a platoon of mech infantry integral to them just like my infantry company has a tank lance. One of my combined arms battalions, mech, tank, and infantry companies with battalion support forces (including a VTOL squadron) will be a strong force on campaign, stronger than just about any btech conventional regt. I've seen in the books.

I don't want to specialise the companies, if I did, they would not need to be the size they are. And I want to stay well away from the standard Btech type unit, all laser rifles or all SRMs, real platoons and real squads just aren't like that. But I will need to figure out a variety of battalion types.

I want some pure units, mech battalions, tank battalions, etc. But I also want combined arms battalions, they sound fine for planet garrisons or independent commands. So I will need to figure out some names to call a variety of battalions and regts. and also think on what kind of dropships should carry them. Don't want to have whole classes of dropship that carry only 1 particular type of unit for the most part, when fighting a familiar enemy he'll just say "hey, X class ship, with X unit aboard." At least half the dropships need to be somewhat flexible in what sort of unit thay can carry.