Starship Troopers organisation

[Mikey]

Since we've been discussing Starship Troopers lately, look at the book; there's a fairly good-sized passage in which Heinlein blasts the top-heaviness of the modern American military machine. What it comes down to is too many Indians, not enough chiefs (no offense, Tsu, I didn't make up the phrase.) Heinlein's model shows a pretty decent officer to enlisted ratio, annd a good NCO to private ratio as well.

Split from here - Seafort

[Captain Seafort]

Since we've been discussing Starship Troopers lately, look at the book; there's a fairly good-sized passage in which Heinlein blasts the top-heaviness of the modern American military machine. What it comes down to is too many Indians, not enough chiefs (no offense, Tsu, I didn't make up the phrase.) Heinlein's model shows a pretty decent officer to enlisted ratio, annd a good NCO to private ratio as well.

Don't you mean "too many chiefs and not enough indians"?

The problem with Heinlein's TOE is that it doesn't take account of the amount of staff work and organic support any army needs. At platoon level thats fine, but he doesn't make any mention of supporting weapons (despite mentioning a HW squad earlier in the book - it must either be integral to one of the sections, or the MI reorganised between Op BUGHOUSE and Rico's sint on the Tours). Above platoon level you need admin, heavy weapons, armour, logistics, various types of engineers, signals, medical staff, etc, etc. The higher up the chain you go, the more extras you need. In a modern British armoured infantry battalion, there are only 192 men in the rifle platoons, out of a total of 741. The other 500+ do not spend their time sitting around twiddling their thumbs. The further up you get, the worse the discrepancy gets - 3 (UK) Mechanised Div has about 18,000 men on strength, of whom fewer than 1800 are in the rifle platoons. Again, the rest of the division is not sitting around doing nothing. Heinlein tries to brush off the issue by claiming that officers on the commander's transport "double hat", but that doesn't wash. Commanding an infantry battalion and being chief of staff of a division are both full time jobs - you can't have people double hatting those jobs.

[Aaron]

Don't you mean "too many chiefs and not enough indians"?

The problem with Heinlein's TOE is that it doesn't take account of the amount of staff work and organic support any army needs. At platoon level thats fine, but he doesn't make any mention of supporting weapons (despite mentioning a HW squad earlier in the book - it must either be integral to one of the sections, or the MI reorganised between Op BUGHOUSE and Rico's sint on the Tours). Above platoon level you need admin, heavy weapons, armour, logistics, various types of engineers, signals, medical staff, etc, etc. The higher up the chain you go, the more extras you need. In a modern British armoured infantry battalion, there are only 192 men in the rifle platoons, out of a total of 741. The other 500+ do not spend their time sitting around twiddling their thumbs. The further up you get, the worse the discrepancy gets - 3 (UK) Mechanised Div has about 18,000 men on strength, of whom fewer than 1800 are in the rifle platoons. Again, the rest of the division is not sitting around doing nothing. Heinlein tries to brush off the issue by claiming that officers on the commander's transport "double hat", but that doesn't wash. Commanding an infantry battalion and being chief of staff of a division are both full time jobs - you can't have people double hatting those jobs.

That 192 are just the standard rifle platoon though, right? Your not counting mortars, pioneers, anti-armour and recce?

[Mikey]

Seafort - yes, that's what I meant.

And yes, the book did ignore some bureacratic necessities. I trust by "heavy weapons" you mean artillery - I can't imagine needing what we think of as squad or platoon support weapons when every individual soldier can carry weaponry up to and including tactical nukes. However that may be, that bit of the book is still a good parable for what goes on.

*EDIT* PS - the impression I got is that, organizationally, the MI is more like the USMC than the Army, in that logistics, etc., seem to be taken care of by the Navy.

[GrahamKennedy]

The book says that a lot of the bureaucracy in the MI is done by hired civilian employees.

[Captain Seafort]

That 192 are just the standard rifle platoon though, right? Your not counting mortars, pioneers, anti-armour and recce?

Yes, just the rifle platoons.

And yes, the book did ignore some bureacratic necessities. I trust by "heavy weapons" you mean artillery - I can't imagine needing what we think of as squad or platoon support weapons when every individual soldier can carry weaponry up to and including tactical nukes.

Both artillery and company/battalion heavy weapons - the fact that their individual weapons are low-kT range doesn't remove the need for proportionally more powerful weapons the higher up you go.

*EDIT* PS - the impression I got is that, organizationally, the MI is more like the USMC than the Army, in that logistics, etc., seem to be taken care of by the Navy.

That would help, but only with the heavy lifting. You still need logistics elements at the battalion level to distribute supplies.

The book says that a lot of the bureaucracy in the MI is done by hired civilian employees.

They'd be able to do that to an extent back at RHQ, and in whatever their equivalent of the MoD is, but in the field, and with operational planning, you need soldiers.

[GrahamKennedy]

He describes that being done too; in a large battle the general drops with a staff and a bunch of bodyguard types and directs the battle from the ground. But the general and staff DO drop and are classed as combat troops.

[Aaron]

He describes that being done too; in a large battle the general drops with a staff and a bunch of bodyguard types and directs the battle from the ground. But the general and staff DO drop and are classed as combat troops.

A civvie staff?

[Mikey]

No; IIRC (it's been a LONG time) anyone who dropped into combat was a full MI soldier.

[Captain Seafort]

He describes that being done too; in a large battle the general drops with a staff and a bunch of bodyguard types and directs the battle from the ground. But the general and staff DO drop and are classed as combat troops.

I don't have a problem with that - after all, the concept of a general not being able to watch a battle develop in person only developed because of the size of the typical battlefield and the limits of communications. Since MI technology allows much finer real-time control, particularly in terms of data links and presentation, that limitation would be reduced.

The problem I have is with staff officers double-hatting as unit commanders - there's simply too much work involved for them to do either job effectively.

[Sonic Glitch]

He describes that being done too; in a large battle the general drops with a staff and a bunch of bodyguard types and directs the battle from the ground. But the general and staff DO drop and are classed as combat troops.

I don't have a problem with that - after all, the concept of a general not being able to watch a battle develop in person only developed because of the size of the typical battlefield and the limits of communications. Since MI technology allows much finer real-time control, particularly in terms of data links and presentation, that limitation would be reduced.

The problem I have is with staff officers double-hatting as unit commanders - there's simply too much work involved for them to do either job effectively.

Wasn't Major General Almond, US X Corp commander in the Korean War still also MacArthur's Chief of Staff?

[Mikey]

The problem I have is with staff officers double-hatting as unit commanders - there's simply too much work involved for them to do either job effectively.

I don't recall that situation occurring in Heinlein. IIRC, the MI unit commanders were dedicated unit commanders.

[Sionnach Glic]

IIRC, Mikey's right. I'll dig out the novel (I've got it lying around the house somewhere) and flick through it later.

[Captain Seafort]

...a general must have staff; the job is too big to carry in his hat. He needs a big planning staff and a small combat staff. Since there are never enough officers, the team commanders in his flag transport double as his planning staff and are picked from the MI's best mathematical logicians - then they drop with their own teams.

The trouble with that is that it assumes that unit commanders have vast amounts of free time in between battles. This is emphatically not the case.

[Mikey]

In the world of 'Troopers, it seems that downtime is more readily available. An individual battle is generally followed by evac, then interstellar travel.