BAOR Late 1980s Stocktake

Continuing with my stocktake theme… this week I tried and work out exactly what I'm missing to complete my late 1980's BAOR force. This force is meant to represent a 1-for-1 reduced armoured infantry company plus some attached Battalion assets.

This force and the other BAOR force are about as large (once they are finished) as I can imagine you could reasonably play in a wargame – especially once you start adding things like recon units or armoured units.

As I understand it, most British Army units were chronically short of their established sizes – and after some limited combat a reduced company is possibly a more realistic representation to play with.

Also, these units would allow me to form a kind of infantry heavy company team, by adding in a platoon of tanks. Or by using 1 platoon of armoured/mechanised infantry I could form a tank heavy company team. Kind of a British version of “Team Yankee”.

This appears to be reasonably doctrinal, at least for the earlier 1980s.

Anyway – on with the show. Here is what I am currently able to field:



Here is the company + additional assets broken down a little diagrammatically (in my own repeatedly amateurish manner).



The Guide
(Things missing are in bold)

Blue - Company CO, Radio Operator, Company Sergeant - should perhaps have more - need to investigate that further – Command Warrior (I have the Warrior – but am waiting to get the Kingfisher Miniatures command conversion set before making them)

Light Yellow - Company 2IC, Radio Operator, Sergeant (?) - not sure about this one - need to investigate that further – Command warrior (as above)

Khaki – on left hand side – sniper section

Light Green – odd shaped box on right – 2 x GPMG Sustained Fire Team

Yellow - 1st Platoon (from Left to Right)
Platoon Leader, RTO, Platoon Sergeant, Light Mortar, Medic
3 Sections
Fireteam A - Section Leader, LSW Gunner, Rifleman, Rifleman
Fireteam B - Section 2IC, LSW Gunner, Rifleman, Rifleman
4 x Warrior

Red - 2nd Platoon (from Right to Left)
Platoon Leader, RTO, Platoon Sergeant, Light Mortar, Medic
3 Sections
Fireteam A - Section Leader, LSW Gunner, Rifleman, Rifleman
Fireteam B - Section 2IC, LSW Gunner, Rifleman, Rifleman
4 x Warrior

Bright Blue - ATGM Section
2 Milan Teams
Platoon Leader, RTO, Platoon Sergeant, 2 Milan Teams, 2 Spartan MCT

Bright Green - Mortar Battery
2 FV432M with mortar teams, Spartan, Sultan (not shown)

White - Artillery
105mm light gun + crew, tractor (not shown).
105mm light gun + crew

2 x Abbot

So that's it for the stocktake. I now have a better idea of what's missing and what I need to pursue to finish off this unit. I still have a couple of things to work out here as well – like how do Javelin Teams (the Blowpipe replacement) fit in here…

Next week – what I painted for my wife’s birthday.

Have fun...

Richard