So here we are again, and I feel I owe you more than just another excuse about having too much work to do, true as it may be.  What am I doing, anyway, you may ask?

  1. Finishing a house.  This will be completed in about two weeks, and that means a ton of extra work to chase down all the last minute stuff that always goes wrong.
  2. Working on another house.  This means traveling a lot, because this one is about 300 miles away from where I live.
  3. Advising on a third house.  Because I’ve built this kind of structural system before.
  4. Drawing a piece for an anthology.  The last three anthologies I was invited to join, I ended up missing out on because of time constraints.  I don’t want to miss a fourth.

This means I’m not really only half-assing two things, I’m kind of quarter-assing four things.  Or, more accurately, WHOLE-assing four things, which is a lot of ass.  That might not make a ton of sense, but I’m really overloaded, is all.

However, instead of a two week crapfest like last time, here’s the next tier of the 6-Commando Technical Manual – the Tables of Organization and Equipment for the United Nations Alliance.  I know it’s not actually a page, but until I can really give full attention the way this deserves (early June, at this rate) I want to make sure you guys are getting your money’s worth.  So, first up: the UNA Heavy Brigade.

United Nations Alliance Heavy Brigade
Table of Organization and Equipment
Following the Strategic Posture Review 1985 (SPR-85), the UNA officially moved from a system of force branches organized in the Regimental Structure to a revised force component based on the Combined Arms Brigade Structure.  The goal of the reorganization was to allow the updating of the UNA battle doctrine, commonly known as “MOBAS” or “Mobile Armored Strongpoint,” to meet the challenge of increasingly mobile warfare in smaller deployments worldwide.
One of the main conclusions of SPR-85 was that insufficient armor was available in frontline combat forces, and was improperly integrated with newer Armored Infantry formations, which began to supplant former Light Infantry in battle-line combat starting in the late 1970s.  The advent of lighter and more battle-ready infantry fighting systems increased the combat mobility of Armored Infantry and therefore required integration with heavy armored formations to allow MOBAS to function properly without detaching armored groups from their command formations, as had been the practice up to that time.  This had the effect of actually degrading the tactical effectiveness of armor units operating within a MOBAS environment by fragmenting their command structure, and in practice, junior command officers ended up shouldering heavy strategic command burdens which left them incapable of effectively performing tactical duties, and led to higher stress on the lower command echelons and unacceptably high turnover within the junior officer corps.
SPR-85 sought to rectify this by replacing the individual Armored Infantry and Cavalry, and Armored regiments with combined-arms Heavy Brigades which integrated all three branches into a strategically viable maneuver unit capable of broadly independent operations.  The primary maneuver formations of the Heavy Brigade became Combined-Arms Battalions, which operate in the field in forces of combined nationality as a measure to promote diversity among the UNA forces.  Though the reorganization met with some resistance early on, battle drills undertaken in 1989, 1990 and 1991 proved the effectiveness of the new formation structure, and integration accelerated from then on, and international forces are now known to be operating with a high level of cohesion and integration; since 1990, all UNA deployments have been multinational.
Heavy Brigades contain the majority of UNA armor and armored artillery resources; armored infantry and cavalry are distributed into Combined Arms Battalions for MOBAS support, to give the force organic infantry combat and force reconnaissance resources.  The Brigade also has access to Combat Engineering, Military Police, Medical, Force Support and Supply units.
The United Nations Alliance completed the SPR-85 transition in 1993, and now maintains a total of twenty Heavy Brigades as the main constituent forces of the UNA Multinational Forces.  They operate in conjunction with Light Brigades and Battle Brigades in a revised MOBAS doctrine now officially known as MOBAS-R.  In the event of war between the UNA and the Federated Socialist Republic, the Heavy Brigades would form the main combat arm of UNA defenses, and plans exist for a rapid expansion of Heavy Brigades to 45 total in the event of open warfare with the FSR, 35 total in the event of war with the Arab League, and 32 in the event of war with the Southern Coalition.  Such forces would be drawn primarily from national reserves, and would not be immediately integrated as multinational forces, although plans to expedite this have been recommended by Strategic Posture Review 1995.
Autonomous Armored Vehicles are assigned exclusively to Heavy Brigades at HHQ level.

All the best, folks, and thanks for being so patient with me!  It’s a very crazy life I chose, but I’m working on it.