Platoons instead of Squads

Development Ideaguys
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I’ve been thinking: What if we replaced the current squad scheme for platoons? You see, the Almayer have enough marine personnel to have an entire Company (A little bit more than a company) of marines, and maybe would be wise to expand the chain according to the actual playerbase that we currently have (which is substantially big) to make sure acting as an officer (or a position in leadership) will not be extremely effort-consuming (Current Staff Officers usually have too much responsabilities attached to them, which in return makes them not act effectively and not be attentive to actual overwatch), and instead will be somewhat more objective. As so, I propose this chain scheme, that is based more on real-life and, of course, a little bit on PVE:

Proposed chain of command:

Executive Officer/Commanding Officer →
Staff Officers(Tasked on monitoring lots of non-specified stuff) →
Platoon Commanders(Tasked on overwatching and organizing their own platoons) →
Platoon Sergeant(Main assistant of the Platoon Commander and his muscles) →
Squad Sergeant(A Sergeant with no specific purpose, but still useful on his generality) →
Any other minor command position inside the platoon

Executive Officer/Commanding Officer:
Have a final say to all command decisions and issue new orders from above to below, receive new tool to message an entirely specific platoon or a Platoon Commander directly, still allowing for a general announcement to the ground forces. You are A’s Company representative, so don’t fool around the clock.

Staff Officer:
You, as a First Lieutenant, work on CIC and auxiliate the Executive Officer/Commanding Officer in every kind of vital way: Collecting info from the platoons, preparing supply drops and Orbital Cannon fire, making anything Shipside related not become a headache to the Boss, overwatching all kinds of personnel and being the eyes and ears of the Boss. Two to three of these officers will be around to assist.

Platoon Commander:
As a Second Lieutenant, you deploy and work in the field together with the enlisted of your designated platoon, organizing them to the best of your abilities and overwatching them everywhere, through a compact overwatch computer capable of giving you enough information to know where each marine’s position in this hellhole. Remember that you are the officer with a map, so work with the Platoon Sergeant, as he is your primary assistant and muscles, and the head that will march into the enemy head on with the rest of the men. A high-wave bulky radio may be available for stationarily maintain contact with the CIC, when telecommunications are offline. Stay alive, you are the most important asset in the battlefield.

Platoon Sergeant:
The head of the Platoon’s enlisted and the assistant of the Platoon’s Commander, you are tasked on rallying the men and organizing them to the best of your abilities, being the one to charge with them, and to risk yourself for the USCM.

Squad Sergeant:
Each platoon will have three Squad Sergeants (Refitted FT Leaders, aka refitted RTOs) that will not have a specific purpose, but will be eligible for commanding smaller teams, assist the Platoon Sergeant’s on the squad activities, or be escalated to replace the Platoon Sergeant in the casualities of battle. Ask what the Platoon Sergeant needs of you, and do it proudly.

Don’t think this is literally a direct and unchangeable proposal, Im posting it here so you can share on what should be added to it, what should be removed, or if I should throw it on the garbage. Thanks for your time. Also, Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta nomenclatures would stay exactly the same, so you will have not to worry.

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What would the Ranks be for enlisted as from what I know realistically
Platoon Sergeant - Gunny? Staff SGT? Master SGT?
Squad Sergeant - Normal Sergeants?
Other than That, I 100% agree and realistically you would have to change any ranks as you rename FTLs Squad Sergeants. SL to Platoon Sergeant. Change the rank of SO and add PC. Would not be very hard to do. Currently Durning High pop each squad gets up to Platoon Squad size IRL so it makes since to me

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It would make more sense, thematically, if our “squads” were re-themed as platoons. A twenty-man squad is something you’d see closer to the 1940s, not the 2180s.

I don’t think you’d need to change much, ranking wise. You could re-name the Squad Leader as the Platoon Sergeant, and the Fireteam Leaders as a Squad Sergeant or something.

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yea I was think more on it there would not be much you would have to change its like renaming and adding A role. It’s not that hard. Hell, I could all but adding a role as that so far is out of my league.

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When this proposal is given, it’s always effectively “lets make SLs officers”. There’s already a natural platoon leader role. It’s the SO. That’s how it is in the lore - officers stay back and watch their TV screens. What’s funny is that this part of the lore is starting to get true in some IRL wars.

Then, this also adds the variation on the good old “CIC can’t reach groundside CO because he’s busy firing his rifle\killed\revived”. It’s already sometimes hard to get SOs in CIC to pay attention to orders, good luck reaching one groundside. Also, this probably would encourage some of the worst people to routinely go “shut up CIC I’m an officer too and I’m gonna do whatever I want with my platoon”. Currently the SLs are easy to slap out of that at least.

The other practical aspects are that the current big squads are big and unstructured because the amount of people who follow the orders is generally pretty low. So it’s up to SL to find the good ones and structure the squad around them. There’s also not enough leadership role players to fill more leadership spots, sometimes even SLs don’t get taken on high pop and I reliably roll it on low. Also when I play SL I struggle to get my FTLs to actually FTL, because 90% play for JTAC.

Also, the real lore structure is kinda wack where a platoon is divided into two 8 man sections, which are split into 4 man squads, which are in turn split into 2 man fireteams. That’s another little indication to USCM actually being secretly British.

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I like this idea since we can have FTL be useful for once. I maybe talking out of my ass next but the current FT setup looks more like a proper squad, and the current squad too jumbo of a mess to have any real organization.
Drawback for this idea (one of) is communication and call signs.

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  1. Argument: “Lets make SLs officers”
    Look, the role of a SL is usually two: Strategically organize their men, and lead their men into combat and other places. When playing as Bravo SL for a series of times, I’ve noticed that I couldn’t be overwatching and organizing troops and leading them at a combat zone at the same time: Its too much work, and can’t be done by one man alone, what Im proposing is literally this split of strategical and mechanical force that the current SL have, which in return can guarantee some benefits, given that some players like to strategically think, others like to head to battle and lead the people on it.
  2. Argument: “There’s already a natural platoon leader role. It’s the SO”
    In the lore, I don’t recall entire platoons of thirty people being overwatched by a single person, or a single SO overwatching more than a single squad(platoon-sized), big-scale combat like what you see in the PvP need to have them on the ground. And the proposal is not even removing the SOs, its just taking the extremely difficult task of overwatching tons of different people without actually being attached to them, which means your overwatcher can literally change at any second and you basically don’t have anyone to run up to for any orders (most time this happens along entire rounds), and distribute to fixed Commanders that (possibly) will be since the beginning of the round designated to the platoon they like/want, making them more attached to the other players and give them more chance of actually strategically planning something to arrive somewhere.
  3. Argument: “CIC can’t reach groundside CO because he’s busy firing his rifle\killed\revived”
    The CIC will not need to rely on the Platoon Commanders to issue new orders like they would need with a CO, but the proposal is that the marines will have representatives of their own Platoons on reachable distance on the ground, and orders will be able to be issued much more generally by the Duty Officer: “Delta report to Marshall Offices”, with the Platoon Commander able to announce to their men: “We currently have X amount of enemies there, reach from the south and stick with the Platoon Sergeant, I will call for mortar fire, Queen could be nearby”, providing detailed and analysed info and orders while basing themselves on the orders of the CO. The Duty Officer will be literally able to message the entire Marine Company, an entire Platoon, or specifically a Platoon Commander, and the Platoon Commander will be a re-assignable role if he is deceased, but with much less capabilities than the original (ability to message the Platoon, etc), there’s no obstruction of info because a single guy died (Like the CO).
  4. Argument: “shut up CIC I’m an officer too and I’m gonna do whatever I want with my platoon”
    That’s just stupid and against the rules, I don’t think its a problem of this scheme at all
  5. Argument: “People who folow the orders is generally pretty low”
    Usually, people follow the orders of their SLs and SOs if the orders are coherent/possible/make sense, and not generic to the point of meaning anything to anyone, like: “QUEEN AT THE FRONT!”, where is front? are we loosing? are we retreating? advancing? What’s happening??? Some people will not follow orders, but they aren’t the majority, and they shouldn’t be allowed in leading roles such as the ones proposed.
  6. “There’s also not enough leadership role players to fill more leadership spots”
    This is literally the proposal, or you think a Platoon Sergeant is no leader? He is the second most important guy in the field and is like a current Squad Leader, the only difference is that his OW will be at his side in battle, not miles and miles onboard the Almayer.
  7. “when I play SL I struggle to get my FTLs to actually FTL, because 90% play for JTAC”
    The original role for FTLs is literally JTAC, what Im proposing is to take that thing of role-designated FT Leaders and make them more generic in their nature (Squad Sergeants), so they will be more free to actually take anything that it may be required of them, and make them the assistant of the assistant of the Platoon, instead of the designated telephone-booth. Maybe it could be even ideal to return with the RTO for each Platoon, and take that designated telephone-booth out of the FT Leader hands.
1 Like
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  1. Literally what SO is supposed to do to help the SL.
  2. “need to have them on the ground” - this is just your demonstrably inferior opinion. SOs being shipside has the advantage of being free enough to focus on communication, particularly in a text-based communication game, since they don’t have to worry about their safety and shooting their rifle, plus they have a better view through the cameras. And in the lore our SOs are exactly that, platoon commanders, who use the overwatch cams. USCM platoon in the lore has 18 people.
  3. That exactly is the problem: CIC would have another level of indirection reaching the squad’s(now platoon’s) overwatch. You need to reach the Platoon Commander first. With SLs, you give them some time to react and if they don’t react quickly enough(or tell you off) you sack them. As an example, lets say SG of some squad died 25 east of the main force. Now SO, being shipside and always watching, should instantly see that, then reach that squad’s Squad Leader, get him to rally people to recover that SG. But maybe the SL is dead and getting revived? Then, the SO can try to rally some other people from the squad. What if that squad’s already pretty damaged and nobody is listening?. The SO can get another squad to do it or maybe inform the XO\CO to get the entire force to push in that direction. Now, in the system you’re proposing, since the overwatch is now groundside, lets say XO notices that SG already went perma and goes:
    “-Platoon Commander you know that your SG is perma, why did you not notice?”
    “-Fuck off XO, I was too busy shooting my rifle!”
  4. Just because it’s against the rules now, does not mean it’s not gonna be against the rules forever. And even so, does not mean that the rules gonna get followed. If a change is made with a bias of empowering the bad players, it’s gonna empower the bad players.
  5. You don’t get it. The argument is that the CM squads need to be big enough and somewhat unstructured to have enough of a chance of forming a stable core(while the dead weight dies). If you impose too much structure the units gonna get combat ineffective too quickly. Three squads per platoon means that some of the squads are gonna be combat ineffective instantly.
  6. Platoon sergeant is actually a 3rd wheel in your system. In the lore synthetic is actually that. In the current CM the SO\SL split works great, but if SO is planetside and starts micromanaging the squad, while say a lurker killed 2 people and nobody saw that since there’s no overwatch - that’s a recipe for disaster.
  7. You’ve just made 1 current squad, which currently requires 1 good SL, require 1 PL, 1 PS, 3 SLs, so 5 in total. So you need 20 total leadership players to fill all squads. While the current CM average of leadership players per squad is maybe 2. People can already roll FTL if they want to lead small sized units. But almost nobody does. We already have the structure for more organization, it’s the manpower and discipline that’s the problem.
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Why don’t we just, not make the SL a officer? Just make the SL the Plt Sergeant and move on…

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You can do that and even rename FTL into a Squad Leader, then add lore-accurate fireteams of 2 people, maybe even make them riflemen organized. Like 2 marines of any kind can form one, but then it’s up to the exSL(PS) to decide where to move it. I just noticed that the Canadian army actually still has that structure IRL. United Americas we are.

But I think, there’s a reason why people suggesting this keep insisting on the ex-SL being an officer. It would allow them to feel important while PFC+ing, without either having a CO WL, SO responsibilities, or being a lowly enlisted SGT, bullied by all the officers giving him impossible orders.

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The “this is just your demonstrably inferior opinion” really got me good, you are now just ignoring what I said and repeating stuff that is just what you think of the others, SL isn’t becoming an officer, SO isn’t going planetside, and you don’t treat mechanical and schematical problems like they are moral ones (Treating the players as the problem), what you are doing is not logical. “It would allow them to feel important while PFC+ing”, what kind of talk is this.

And just as an addon, the Staff Officer would still do the same thing as he do, but he wouldn’t have the direct responsability of micromanaging platoons, something that the Platoon Commanders would be able to do, given their responsabilities being limited to their own platoon.

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If we treat that Platoon Commander as a fully new role, it’s just gonna undermine both SL and SO. You, the current SL want to do some quick push into X, PL gonna go: “No, we’re going Y!”. You as SO trying to recover someone and ordering a medic to do it and PL would go: “Do not order my men! You have to talk to me first!” Then it’s also gonna undermine the XO\CO. That PL is gonna go PFC+, ignore the radio and announcements while he’s busy fighting or die and get revived then try to do something that was ordered 10 minutes ago and orders go changed 3 times since then. Or PL would go “CO, screw you, you can’t do that with my men!”.

Basically as designed, this is a PFC+ role that adds nothing, but has big potential to undermine other roles and make them unfun. There’s a reason why real militaries try to keep their command chains as short as possible - every extra man in the chain slows it down and is a source of risk.

SL\SO separation is actually one of the greatest things in CM.

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…The SO is an auxiliary unit in this whole scheme, if he noticed that someone has dying and needed to be recovered, he could just literally warn the Platoon Commander (or anyone else) and they would certainly do something about it, SO’s don’t order anything and never did, they distribute advisements to the marine force and what they gotta do from his point of view, even in the actual system… You are literally pre-estimating effects, and normal rounds aren’t dramatic as you are supposing. If he go fight like a normal marine, he is literally going against his role purpose and will face consequences (Like everyone who does it do, Chefs, Pilots, Maintenance Technicians, Cargo Technicians, and the list goes on), this is no rule and most of the times it doesn’t happen, you are just exaggerating the same effects you are pre-estimating, quite funnily.

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The CO is a company commander. XO company XO. Then the rest falls in

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You know that all those examples I gave you were actually real examples I pulled from the years of playing CM on all 3 leadership levels?

From the organizational psychology point of view you don’t want people in your org structure who have authority, but no real responsibility. Because people have egos, they want to contribute, or at least demonstrate that they have the power too. And on the military side, there’s a reason why unity of command is always a principle in all IRL militaries: a somewhat suboptimal decision made decisively is generally better than two people squabbling and losing time.

So, basically you’re trying to change the system you don’t even understand at even the intermediate level and the change you’re trying to inject is driven by your ego.

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You speak a lot about high ego, do you have a lot of experience with it? But in all seriousness, In all my years playing this game, I thought you were more modest Roman. Your feedback has been very valuable, thank you for contributing.

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Anything that involves more essential leadership roles is a hard pass from me. Lowpop already struggles to reach the bare minimum of 1 CIC player at round start, let alone 4 SLs.

Add more leadership roles that rely upon a strict hierarchy, and you’ll see a shitshow in lowpop as the heirarchy ends up being half-filled, with even more gaps along the chain of command.

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If anything, lowpop needs a more condensed hierarchy and perhaps a greater divestment of roles.

Another lowpop round with 0 people in CIC, 1 ComTech, no mortar and comms being dead for 95% of the round is just a terrible round. Perhaps more roles need the ability to construct proper barricades, or have access to JTAC, or anything.

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Platoons have Lieutenants as their leaders. I think it’d be better if we subdivided the unit automatically and allowed the platoon or squad leaders to make changes in composition.

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This has been suggested many times, the problem is in the implementation.

The only number you can use to check whether the pop is low enough, is the number of players who roll for roles. And that’s an unreliable indicator, because a huge percentage of players latejoins at the roundstart instead.

This is a problem, because if this system misfires, it’s gonna take the coveted or important roles from people. Lets say person A rolls for spec, person B for SL, person C for medic. The system thinks that the population is only big enough to sustain 2 squads and all three end up as riflemen in the already unlocked squads. Which would mean that someone lost his uncontested spec roll and Charlie, which would open up shortly won’t have a SL or a medic.

So, the best we can do is actually detect lowpop based on the time of the day, but the maints really disliked this idea, when I gave it before(I wanted to balance the number of xenos that way too).

On top of this problem, there’s a problem with how the newly awakened squads would join the fight piecemeal, which is not gonna be good for their cohesion. I guess one way to solve that would be by spinning the new squads from the already present ones. So, lets say if there are only two squads and there are 16 people in Alpha and 16 people in Bravo, we take a half of Bravo to make Charlie. Then, when 3 squads are filled to 16 again, we take a half of Alpha to make Delta. But this would of course be disliked by some people on the Squad culture grounds.