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I have a nation with 4 airborne divisions, each made up of 3 regiments, each made up of 2 infantry battalions, with each infantry battalion made up of 4 infantry companies. (Not including support elements.) & this nation I trying to figure out the best way to distribute their new run of airborne IFVs (infantry fighting vehicle), similar to the BMD-3. they have enough for either:

A. 1 regiment in each division being mechanised

B. 1 division being fully mechanised and an extra independent regiment

C. 1 company in each battalion being mechanised

+an extra independent regiment for all of these options

Every regiment also has a 2-3 company battalion of airborne light tanks that share a chassis with the IFV. & Each battalion also has some vehicles similar to the Wiesel. The technology level is near future.

Which one would be the best way to organise these vehicles? Or would it be something else entirely (While still keeping the amount)

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    $\begingroup$ It is hard to know how to best allocate equipment without knowing what sort of things your military will be asked to do with it.. $\endgroup$
    – Willk
    Aug 18, 2021 at 2:00
  • $\begingroup$ @Willk it is airborne forces, they do ....... airborne forces things (idk myself what these guys are supposed to do, i just have them because big militaries always have airborne forces) $\endgroup$
    – OT-64 SKOT
    Aug 18, 2021 at 2:07
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    $\begingroup$ At the moment, books could be written explaining the possible answers to the question. I'm voting to close as needs more focus, so that you can go and do your research on exactly what you're asking, then edit the question for reopening with attention to the details of the context you expect them to be deployed in. You'd also need to define objective criteria for "better". $\endgroup$
    – Escaped dental patient.
    Aug 18, 2021 at 2:37
  • $\begingroup$ Military structure, equipment, and training depend on potential enemies and expected battles. Are you preparing for anti-terrorist operations? Urban warfare? Conventional (trench-style) battles? These would require different structures, equipment, and training. $\endgroup$
    – Otkin
    Aug 18, 2021 at 18:34

2 Answers 2

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  • Offensive or defensive?
    During the Cold War, one possible role for Western airborne forces was to be employed as a speed bump in front of a mechanized attack. If your divisions are employed that way, individually, than each might need a "stiffening" of air-mechanized forces.
    A more classical role would be the drop behind enemy lines, to secure objectives and hold them until heavier forces link up. Often it is not possible to drop directly on the defended objective, yet airborne troops are mostly foot-mobile after landing. If you see division-sized attacks like that, does each division need a 'fast regiment' as spearhead or do you want one division with increased mobility for all elements?
  • What is your airlift capacity?
    Aircraft tend to be more expensive than riflemen, even airborne riflemen. It would be unlikely that there are enough aircraft to lift all four divisions. Are there enough aircraft to lift an air-mechanized division in a single drop? If not, why have it?
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A, maybe B

Extrapolating from your earlier post about your nation having multiple areas of conflict, I would guess the best deployment would be one regiment in each division being fully mechanized. This gives each "region" organic mechanized support without having to request deployment from higher commands. Generally speaking it's better to have elements deployed as far down the chain as possible while still maintaining the necessary cohesive "punch" of whatever you're distributing. In this case one company per battalion is probably insufficient "weight" because each company would be too small a force to be decisive on its own, and would need to be pooled with other battalion's mech companies. The possible exception would be in your "Desert" zone where it's mostly anti-insurgency work. The other problem with company-sized deployments is that they'd be tied to the slower speed of the other 3 infantry companies once the air transport departed, negating a good part of the benefits of being mechanized at all!

That being said, a Mechanized division has its advantages logistically, especially during peacetime. In wartime if they're trained and equipped to operate mainly at the regimental level the division (barring the largest operations) would likely cease to exist as a unit except on paper. Instead its regiments, which had been kept together for ease of logistics and training, would be seconded to the other 3 non-mechanized divisions. The modern US Army functions like this quite a lot, with divisions being more paper/peacetime formations, and brigades/individual units within those divisions being sent hither and yon on their various deployments. If your army is professional enough to operate in such a manner a mech division would serve you well, because if you need to concentrate more than a regiment's worth of mech you're not fighting with individual divisions for it. Much easier for army politics to re-assign a seconded unit to a different command than an organic one!

TL/DR: Option A is the easiest to implement while still getting the job done. Option B is viable if you have excellent internal cohesion and training.

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