Signalian
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Honourable Sir,
Your post mentioned an infantry Div. having 3 Infantry Brigades plus an AD Brigade, an Artillery Brigade & a Support Brigade making 6 Brigades in total!
In my humble opinion, an Infantry Div. would only have AD Battalion, Artillery Battalion & a Support Battalion. It is the normally the Corps Artillery that is of Brigade strength. I am certain that an Artillery Brigade is at least 3,000 strong, the post mentions 900 -1000 men; surely this is Battalion/Regiment manpower not of a full Brigade.
Even in PA, not all divisions have same composition which is why i mentioned full strength infantry division e.g. 12 Infantry Div has 6 infantry brigades and then the support brigades, Armour Divisions have 2 armour brigades each having 2 armour regiments each which is quite under strength.
i agree that most Infantry divisions in PA have one regiment of AD, Armour and Arty. The Corps HQ attaches other units. The Pakistan Marines do not seem to have any Corps Command for attaching support units to Marine division so i mentioned all units attached with a single Division.
Same is the case with support units: Most infantry divisions have own Signals or Engineers units. Similarly, Corps also have own signals units and sometimes an Engineer Brigade, having three Engineer battalions to attach to its divisions. Every Division has an S & T Battalion. Then there is the Field Medical Unit, Intelligence Unit and Military Police unit with Divisions. I mentioned all of these as Battalions in a Single Support Brigade.
In case of Artillery regiments, usually armoured divisions have own artillery brigades made up of three SP units. Arty Regt is formed up of 12-18 guns formed in three batteries.The three batteries of Arty (e.g P,Q,R) have 6 guns each, each battery of 6 guns supporting one battalion. In ideal condition, one regiment of Artillery supports one infantry/mech/armour Brigade.
AD has same case, usually an AD Brigade attached with an Armoured Div in PA.
The man power in Armour, Arty and AD battalions are less than of an Infantry regiment. First basic difference is that infantry battalions have 4 companies + HQ while Armour, Arty etc have 3 squadrons or batteries + HQ. Next difference is that infantry company has 4 platoons + weapons det like LMG/ Mortar etc. where as Armour has 3 troops of 3-4 tanks each + HQ while artillery has basic 3 x battery of 6 guns.
So as you go down in hierarchy, the armour and Arty start decreasing in number.
This means one Infantry company has 120-150 troops (4 platoons of 25-30 troops each + weapons det of 12-15 troops and HQ)
An armour squadron has 10-12 Tanks + HQ (usually 1 or 2 tanks + transport of 1 APC, 2-3 jeeps + trucks for ammo/tents/rations etc), somewhere around 80-85 troops.
The battalions with 900-1000 troops are Infantry or Mech Infantry, S & T, Signals, Engineers etc. Infact, in worst case scenario Signals, Engineers regts etc can be used in infantry role too.
Do bear in mind that the Mountain formations of infantry are smaller in number than regular infantry battalions which means NLI Regt may have less strength than Baloch Regt, Punjab Regt etc.
If Artillery battalions have 24 guns, then the troop strength will increase but PA artillery regiments mostly have 18 guns of 3 batteries. Similarly, western armies have upto 60 tanks in a single armour battalion , which means 4 squadrons and increase in troops also.