Army organization

I'm also interested in this topic. I found lots of interesting information in An Officer's Manual of the Western Front 1914-1918. The book shows how the drive towards small-unit tactics gave rise to specialized section makeups in the British army; though perhaps a bit dated for our period of interest, the lessons learned here are directly visible in force organization in WW2.

Something else I thought was interesting is that the way an army is organized on paper doesn't necessarily reflect how it would be deployed on the battlefield. For example, if I recall correctly, at one point in WW1 every British infantry Battalion contained a Troop or so of cavalry at the HQ level. Such a small amount of cavalry wasn't intended to perform daring charges or to exploit a breakthrough. Instead they were used for an assortment of odd support tasks, like scouting, relaying messages, longer ranged sentry duty, etc. You might not expect it in WW1 but there never seemed to be enough cavalry to go around.

I imagine the same would be true for all kinds of support equipment, which might be pooled at a higher level or even into its own administrative hierarchy like Artillery. I suppose they could be spread about and assigned to support specific missions, even if there isn't a direct chain of command uniting them together. Naturally some organization structures will be more effective than others, but I imagine they all have their drawbacks too.

EDIT: found the quote, it was actually a Squadron of cavalry and a Company of bicycle infantry per British army Division, with strict instructions to use them sparingly lest they become too depleted or exhausted to perform their duties.

So a full company would look like

4 basic infantry units
2 rifle units
2 lmg units
2 hmg or mortar with an additional higher cost soldier unit
3-8 artillery units
2 officers
1 car of some sort

Yeah I had no idea that existed.

I got it pretty close, though.

This how I put together my Canadian AAM Infantry regiment a while back.

axisandalliesunderground.com/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=2267&p=26351&hilit=Canadian#p26351

I couldn't figure out how to find them on wargame vault, could you leave a link to the british TO&E's?

Also consider that the amounts suggested above are what would, in military terms, would be called for in a TOE (Table of Equipment) for a typical WWII company. This would vary from nation to nation and on the condition of that company. So a company that has been in the field for a long time with no reinforcements received might have far less. Or a late war company might have poor quality soldiers and limited artillery to back it up. A company getting ready to participate in an offensive might be beefed up with extra equipment or attached units. For example, a flamethrower unit might be added if the enemy is known to be dug in.

For general gaming the above suggestion works fine. For my own purposes I check history books to get a better feel for the condition of the troops to better reflect what historically happened.