Battle group

A battle group, also sometimes known as an assault group or a battlegroup, was a unit of many military and naval forces. After the Clone Wars, the battle group was a level of command and organization in the Imperial Army, replacing the Divisions that had been widespread in sector and planetary forces under the Old Republic, and comparable to the Legions found in both the Grand Army of the Republic and the Stormtrooper Corps.

Organization and usage[]

A typical Imperial battlegroup consisted of four Regiments, and four Battlegroups in turn formed a standard Corps. Although precise numbers varied depending on the specific type of unit, the overall strength of most Battlegroups was on the order of roughly 15,000 men, including a little better than 10,000 front-line troops. A Battlegroup was committed only for major offenses against a known concentration of enemy resistance.^[1] During the first years of the Empire, a Battlegroup was composed of 8,192 troopers, and was composed of four regiments.^[2]

A Battlegroup's commanding officer (CO) was typically at least a High Colonel, although it was possible for the CO to be as senior as a Major General (the 1st Tapani Assault Battlegroup based on Tallaan was one such example).^[3]A Battlegroup had the usual principle staff of five officers (SG1 to SG5), but in addition the SG5 (Battlegroup "Headquarters" officer) had a 4-man "substaff" (SG51 to SG54). In addition there were 188 support personnel and two security platoons of 76 troopers for a total of 274 personnel.^[1]

A battlegroup could also be augmented per their Order of Battle (OB), in which case the additional units were commanded by the battlegroup's second-in-command.^[1]

The Plescinia Entertainments CS-Mark 10 allowed players to control full assault groups while playing the Great Battles of the Empire series.^[4]

Line Battlegroup[]

Main article: Line battlegroup

Battlegroups with three line and one assault regiment were considered "line" formations. However, in the wake of the Battle of Tiems this unit was considered obsolescent as the Rebellion grew in strength. Within the military there was much debate about converting all line battlegroups into assault battlegroups, but resource and reorganization difficulties prevented any wide-spread changes. A line battlegroup had 10,219 troopers, 4191 support personnel, 511 repulsorcraft and 53 heavy tanks. It could be augmented with two artillery regiments, a fourth line regiment and a repulsorlift regiment.^[1]

Assault Battlegroup[]

Main article: Reinforced battlegroup

Also known as a reinforced battlegroup, assault battlegroups consisted of two line regiments, an assault regiment and an armored regiment. These formations were seen as a good mix of offensive and staying power. They had 10,210 troopers, 4,680 support personnel, 676 repulsorlift vehicles and 212 tanks. Fully augmented it had an artillery regiment, two additional assault regiments and a repulsorlift regiment.^[1]

Armored Battlegroup[]

Main article: Armored battlegroup

Armored battlegroups were used to attack the enemy when they had several concentrations of strength spread over a sizable area. With four armored regiments, two vanguard and two line, the battlegroup could hit these concentrations in succession one or two at a time. There were 10,090 troops, 6,256 support personnel, 1,132 repulsorlift vehicles and 318 tanks in a battlegroup and it could be quickly doubled in size with four more regiments thanks to augmentation.^[1]

Mobile Battlegroup[]

Main article: Mobile battlegroup

A mobile battlegroup was composed of three repulsorlift regiments and one line armor regiment for a total strength of 10,248 troops, 5,858 support personnel, 1,342 repulsorlift vehicles and 265 heavy tanks. The advantage of this battlegroup was its speed: On planets where the Rebellion held areas close to the Empire's, or the area was sympathetic to the Rebellion, this battlegroup could quickly respond to any incursions or perform it's own lighting attacks. It was augmented with an artillery regiment, two more repulsorlift regiments and a second armor regiment.^[1]

Auxiliary Battlegroup[]

Main article: Auxiliary battlegroup

Unlike traditional battlegroups, auxiliary battlegroups had no commander and did not operate as a unit. This battlegroup was merely a concentration of available resources for their Corps commander and was composed of three CompForce regiments and a Ground Support Wing. In total the battlegroup had 7,674 troopers, 2,456 support personnel, 390 repulsorlift vehicles and 40 TIEs. If needed it could be augmented with three line regiments and a repulsorlift regiment.^[1]

Ground Support Wing[]

Main article: Ground support wing

The Army insisted on its own wing of support fighters for ground missions, while the Navy wanted to keep control of its TIEs. The result was this downsized wing of 40 TIEs organized into ten flights. Six flights made two squadrons of TIE/LNs, while three flights made a TIE bomber squadron and one flight of TIE/fcs served as spotters. These wings were also stationed in prefabricated garrison bases. The wing had forty pilots, twenty-five sensor techs, twenty-five controllers and one hundred and ten ground crewmen.^[1]

History[]

It was most commonly used to denote groups of naval flotillas, commonly grouped fleets, and in a few cases, such as in the Republic Navy during the Clone War, referred to specific fleets themselves.

In the Confederacy of Independent Systems, the name was applied to units within ground armies, though these often had fleets attached to them for galactic deployment with which the name was used in conjunction.

The Galactic Empire used the term for both naval and army units. Imperial battlegroups were usually deployed in full strength in situations where a sizeable enemy force had to be destroyed in the field: they were capable of stand-alone operations where a well-organized military resistance controlled an area of a planet, and they also served as the primary tactical subdivisions of a Corps deployed for a full-scale planetary conquest campaign. Of course, not all battlegroup deployments were for offensive operations, and not every operation required a full battlegroup. For instance, the 1st Tapani Assault Battlegroup at Tallaan were the primary Imperial Army presence in Tapani sector, representing a largely defensive deployment that due to political considerations nevertheless warranted a Major General in command. And in all Battlegroups, individual Regiments or Battalions could be detached to deal with low-level insurgency or a specific focused target, or to support a Navy operation—although Imperial tactical thinking did restrict the use of Armor Regiments to full-scale Battlegroup offensives.