First of all I’d like to thank Twitter colleagues @battleorder and @spatialillusion for the tactical symbols they’ve made. One thing is to draw symbols from starch, another is to modify existing symbols or have clear guidance, how symbols are made. For the person with low skills with graphic this means a lot.
NATO tactical symbols
are widely used for making orders of battle. However, standard NATO military
symbology, as codified in APP-6 document, has flaws and gaps, making it not
very useful for making detailed OOBs of the lover levels of organization, where
individuals and individual weapons are appearing.
The story of
tactical symbols for individuals (soldiers, civilians, etc.) in standard NATO
military symbology is very strange. Literally every NATO member used and uses
tactical symbols for individuals in their drill or tactical manuals – yet no
standard existed till 2017, when some tactical symbols for individuals were
introduced. They were introduced as provisional measure, yet after 8 years no
improvements were made.
The first weird
thing about tactical symbols for individuals (and individual weapons too) is
their inconsistency.
Own Forces’
individuals and weapons have special shape to put symbols in (hexagon and
circle, respectively). Which is logical, as it allows to quickly distinguish
individual infantrymen from infantry units. But nothing like this was done for
other classes of forces, so the symbol for Enemy Forces’ infantryman looks
exactly like Enemy Forces’ infantry unit. Why bother with special shapes for
Own Forces’ individuals and weapons then?
Second weird
thing is modifiers, which include symbols for individual weapons.
Individual
symbol with a special modifier for… individual – what does it stands for:
person with split personality disorder??? There is a symbol for tazer and
non-lethal weapons, but not for pistols or SMG – most common weapons for police
or undercover militants. There is a symbol for a heavy machine gun as an
individual weapon – which is nonsense, because such weapons are not individual
(a crew of several serves them, not one individual). On the other hand, nobody
bothered to think how to show an individual soldier carrying two individual
weapons: for example, anti-tank grenade launcher and pistol/SMG/rifle (which is
a very common thing).
The system to
show attachment of the individual soldier to unit or sub-unit is even stranger.
Instead of simply using caption below the symbol (officially called “text
amplifier”) to write, that this soldier (or group of soldiers) belongs to “1st
Squad” or “1 sq/2 plat/3 coy/4 bn/5 brig”, every soldier of the squad had to
receive squad “dot” symbol while squad leader is marked by the chevron above.
Now, why all this is needed, if you still have to write, which squad every
soldier belongs to? Because otherwise it’ll be impossible to make even simple
platoon operations drawing, where all 3-4 squads of the platoon are
participating simultaneously.
And the worst
thing about modifiers is: almost all modifiers were put inside the shape
(apparently to distinguish tactical symbols for individuals from unit symbols).
As a result, an individual symbol either has to be made way larger then unit symbol
or it’ll be impossible to understand it without a magnifying glass. And even
with this “symbols squeezing” it’s still impossible to combine symbols for
individual weapons with symbols for arm or service affiliation.
So what are my
propositions to make tactical symbols for individuals more readable when making
orders of battle?
1. Use colors to distinguish arms-services-branches, because in
making OBBs we don’t need to distinguish between Friendly-Enemy-Neutral-Unknown
units. For example, colors used by @Battleorder: green for infantry, red for
artillery, yellow for tankers-scouts-cavalry, white for combat support, brown
for services, blue for Navy and light blue for Air Force.
2. Use the
central part of the shape to show just one type of icon without “symbols
squeezing”. I propose to put only icons for individual firearms. Soldiers usually
carried one, rarely two such weapons. Of course, some modifications and
additions to the standard APP-6 weapons set are in order, which I’ve made:
pistols, SMGs and anti-tank rifles.
3. All other
modifiers are put outside the shape.
For example,
unit commander’s level symbols are placed above the shape with leader’s chevron
below, while deputy unit commander’s level symbols are placed above the shape,
but without leader’s chevron.
Individual’s
rank, category, specialty and even name (if necessary) are placed below the
shape or to the side.
Affiliation of
ordinary unit members is shown either by individual signature in “text
amplifier” (below and to the right of the shape or just to the right of the
shape) or simpler by putting all shapes of the same unit in the area on the
order of battle, so marked.
4. Important
addition is made by me – animals. They are completely ignored in the NATO
military symbology, which has special modifiers for units with pack animals,
but not for animals itself. Weird.
Nothing
outstanding – just elongated hexagonal shape to distinguish animal from both
the human person and any vehicle shapes. Maybe somebody will come with a better
idea?
5. Regarding icons for weapons. I think icons without shape are better, but that’s a question of personal preferences. I can’t say an icon in a shape is bad, but coloring it in the color of the arm or service seems strange to me.
Another thing
I’ve found strange in APP-6 is that various artillery weapons have different
classification. Why is the light gun category below 120mm, while the light
mortar category is below 60mm??? I’ve decided to set the same standards for all
such weapons.
6. Regarding aircraft
and helicopters I’ve chose to revert to old system before APP-6, because in APP-6
air symbology is almost completely abolished. Yes, you can describe every aircraft
in writing – but that’s definitely not good for graphical OOBs.
7. The same
problem, as with aviation, is with naval units. In APP-6 naval symbols are few and
primitive. But I’ve yet to find any good source of inspiration to make naval
OOB symbol I’ve like.
I’ve uploaded my
SVG-files in archive here: https://vijsko.org/temp/Symbols for OOBs byPinak.zip
You can download
and use it in your orders of battle-making. I’ll be glad to hear any ideas on
how to improve and expand it.
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