JCS Darragh wrote:
I do agree with you on the Airborne unit cap, perhaps only 75 battalions?
Typically, a regiment is composed of two to three battalions, although that can vary widely from country to country, and across different eras. The personnel size of regiments and battalions can also vary widely. Our in-game infantry regiment has 1,500 men, and that's on the smaller side compared to typical American, British and Commonwealth units.
A typical WW2 Allied infantry division had ~15,000 men, and included three frontline infantry regiments, plus headquarters, artillery, combat engineers, military police, and other organic support units. In an American infantry division, the four artillery battalions were the equivalent of a fourth regiment.
A WW2 American airborne division typically had ~13,000 men, usually including two parachute infantry regiments, one glider infantry regiment, three battalions of 75mm howitzers, and one battalion of 105mm howitzers. An airborne division had the same number of infantry regiments as a conventional infantry division, but it had ~2,000 fewer men and its organic artillery was lighter (75 mm & 105 mm vs. 105 mm & 155 mm). An airborne infantry also had less organic anti-tank capability, but that was often supplemented by additional attached units for particular operations. On the other hand, "paratroopers" were almost always better trained infantry, and their esprit de corps was usually unmatached.
So, in some ways, paratroops and commandos were similar (e.g., parachute insertion), but their operational objectives and capabilities were very different. Commandos typically fought small-unit actions in squads, platoons and companies, and only rarely in battalion-size units (e.g., the British/Canadian Dieppe Raid, U.S. Rangers at Pointe du Hoc), with objectives of sabotage, disruption and even assassination. The "commando" mission rarely included taking and holding ground, and certainly not for more than a few hours without reinforcements.
Contrary to some of the factually inaccurate posts you may read in the forum, American and British airborne divisions were intended to take and hold ground at high-value strategic points on the map (river crossings, cross-roads towns) in advance of larger amphibious invasions and/or ground offensives. Unlike commandos, airborne troops were organized and fought as full-size divisions, with divisional headquarters, artillery, engineers, intelligence and jeep reconnaissance subunits, in addition to their three core infantry regiments. An airborne division was supposed to overwhelm local enemy opposition with surprise, capture their strategic objectives and then hold them for 2 to 3 days against enemy counter-attack until they were relieved by larger follow-on ground forces. As the Dick Winters character famously said in Band of Brothers: "We're paratroopers. We're supposed to be surrounded."
Anyway, I have repeatedly suggested that any single country should only be able to produce and maintain a total of six to nine airborne infantry regiments -- the equivalent of two or three airborne divisions -- and I base those numbers on the fact that the combined Allied air forces of the United States and Britain were only able to deliver three airborne divisions in the two largest airborne operations of the war.
If we assume two infantry battalions per regiment, and three infantry regiments per division, your suggestion of 75 battalions would be the equivalent of 12+ divisions.
