In 2301, IMS announced a major revision in the Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) for all of its ground military forces. This change was necessary due to changes in military doctrine and the renewed Kafer war offensive up the French Arm.
Under the new TO&E, the formerly autonomous Air Defense Battalions were re-grouped with artillery and anti-vehicle assets into Fire Support Battalions.
Battalions are classified by the standard two digit numerical designation with an FS suffix.
xxxFS Fire Spt Bn (system)
Where xxx is a numerical designation for the regiment, and indicates the chronological order of formation of the battalions,commencing from 10 and system indicates the star system in which the battalion was mustered.
For example, the 11FS Fire Spt Bn (Sol) was the first fire support battalion to enter service with IMS, and was formed in the Sol system.
Each Fire Support Battalion is controlled by a battalion command section, and consists of three fire support companies. Each company is controlled by a company command section, and contains three platoons: air defense, anti-vehicle, and multiple rocket launcher artillery.
The air defense platoons consist of three Kangaroo IV-DS AFVs with their inherent air defense squads. The Kangaroo IV-AD utilizes the Australian Mk 8 triple-barreled plasma gun and sophisticated radar. Each air defense squad consists of four binoms: command, air defense one, air defense two, and vehicle crew (actually three men). The command binom consists of the squad leader (platoon leader in the first squad) and the RTO, both armed with rifles. The air defense binoms each consists of an air defense gunner with an ant-aircraft missile launcher and a loader with a rifle. The vehicle crew consists of the vehicle commander, gunner and driver; all of whom are armed with rifles when dismounted. In ACRs, the vehicle crew is often used as an air defense infantry 'binom' or serves a crew support weapon, possibly a dismounted vehicle missile launcher.
The anti-vehicle platoons consist of three Kangaroo IV-DS AFVs with Aero-12 missile launchers in place of the gun turret.
Multiple rocket launcher (MRL) artillery platoons consist of three M386 MRL hovercraft, and their inherent supply craft, typically one M760 utility hovercraft per M386 MRL.
As of 2301, IMS has eight fire support battalions at full operational strength. Air defense platoons and squads can be found at any Foxx Industries installation, civilian and military. As such, these units are rotated frequently to maintain combat efficiency amongst the units and provide equal opportunity for rest and repair.
These web pages developed and maintained by Terry A. Kuchta