US Armored Infantry Company

At the lowest level of the organization hierarchy is the individual unit, represented in the game by the unit card. Units do not fight alone, and are grouped into "maneuver elements". Maneuver elements represent what their country's military thought were effective mixes of combat forces. The standard maneuver element is the company, although some specialized maneuver elements were smaller. In this first rulebook, we provide the organization for the standard maneuver elements in use by the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union from 1944-1945.

The diagram above shows the organization for one of the basic maneuver elements of the U.S. Army, the Armored Infantry Company. The organization lists the exact number and type of each unit in the maneuver element by the card id number. For example, there are nine U.S. Infantry stands in the company and they all use card US-18. Where a unit is motorized, the type and number of transport units are also listed. Finally, attached anti-tank and artillery assets are also specified.

We show the exact units to use, possible substitutions, common attachments from other units, and other variations necessary to organize your armies so that they will contain an historically accurate force mix.

Maneuver elements were usually organized into higher echelon formations. The adjacent diagram shows how the Armored Infantry Company is used as a building block to build larger units.

US Mech Heavy Task Force

The Mech Heavy Task Force is a higher echelon formation primarily composed of full-sized maneuver elements. The organization also shows individual unit attachments that are appropriate for this formation as well as notes as to how appropriate attachments and detachments are constructed. As with the maneuver elements, this task force can be used as a building block for even higher echelon formations (see the Combat Command on the right). As with the company, any single unit attachments are identified by their unit data card id so that you can always use the right forces. Maneuver elements used as building blocks are identified by a maneuver element identification. For example, a US Armored Infantry Company is "ME-05".

US Combat Command

The Combat Command is the highest level of the U.S. organizations represented in the game. It uses task forces and maneuver elements as its basic building blocks with only a few extra individual units. The organization at this level includes elements that are assigned to it from divisional and corps assets.