About the brigade
A brigade that plans before it fights
16X is an Arma 3 milsim community built around a British air assault formation — airborne infantry, light mechanised infantry, rotary aviation and the enablers that keep both moving. We run one operation a week and we take it seriously without taking ourselves seriously.
- Op night
- Sun 1900 BST
- Game
- Arma 3
- Minimum age
- 16+
Who we are
Five formations, one operation
The brigade started as a single platoon of paratroopers who were tired of public servers where the plan changed every time somebody died. It grew because the format worked: a fixed night, a real chain of command, and sections that stay together long enough to learn each other's habits.
Today the order of battle carries 2 PARA as the main body, 1 R IRISH as light mechanised infantry, a Joint Aviation Command flying Chinook, Apache and Wildcat, an Attached Arms wing covering recruit training, medical, signals and mission design, and Staff Shops running the brigade's own personnel, intelligence, operations and logistics. On a given Sunday all five are in the air, on the ground or running the plan from the ops room, on the same net structure, working the same operation.
We are not the largest British unit in Arma 3 and we are not trying to be. We would rather field two full platoons that know their drills than five that do not.
Command philosophy
Give people the intent and the boundaries, then let them fight their own section.
Platoon tells a section what effect it wants and by when. How that section achieves it is the section commander's business. Nobody here is a set of coordinates being dragged around a map by the person with the highest rank, and a commander micromanaging a fireteam is doing their own job badly.
It also means the plan has to survive contact without a radio call. If the section commander goes down, the 2ic already knows what the platoon wanted.
Chain of command
Full order of battle →Who answers for what
Read from the personnel records, not written into this page. Every appointment below is somebody's current assignment record.
C Company, 2 PARA
Callsign 3 0
-
Company Commander
Closed
-
Company 2IC
Closed
-
Company Sergeant Major
Closed
7 Platoon, 1 Section
Callsign 3 1 C/D
-
Section Commander
A/Cpl J. Gallacher -
Section 2IC
LCpl D. Duff
7 Platoon, 2 Section
Callsign 3 1 E/F
-
Section Commander
Cpl A. Otter -
Section 2IC
LCpl J. Pig
7 Platoon, 3 Section
Callsign 3 1 G/H
-
Section Commander
Cpl J. Viking -
Section 2IC
LCpl H. Michael
C Company Aid Post
Callsign 4 6
-
Aid Post Commander
Cpl A. McNab -
Aid Post 2IC
LCpl J. Jackson
B Company, 1 R IRISH
Callsign 3 0
-
Company Commander
Closed
-
Company 2IC
Closed
-
Company Sergeant Major
Closed
4 Platoon, 1 Section
Callsign 3 4 C/D
-
Section Commander
Cpl A. Dwarf -
Section 2IC
LCpl D. Kitt
4 Platoon, 2 Section
Callsign 3 4 E/F
-
Section Commander
Cpl D. Duck -
Section 2IC
LCpl D. Rory
4 Platoon, 3 Section
Callsign 3 4 G/H
-
Section Commander
Closed
-
Section 2IC
Closed
No. 18 Squadron RAF, A Flight
Callsign Vortex
-
OC, A Flight, No.18 Squadron
Flt Lt J. Minstreal
16 Medical Regiment
Callsign 9 6
-
Company Aid Post IC
Cpl A. McNab -
Company Aid Post IC
LCpl A. Kelly -
Company Aid Post 2IC
LCpl J. Jackson
Pathfinder Platoon HQ
Callsign Mayhem Zero
-
OC
Closed
-
2IC
Closed
1 Patrol
Callsign Mayhem One
-
Patrol IC
Vacant
-
Patrol 2IC
Vacant
2 Patrol
Callsign Mayhem Two
-
Patrol IC
Closed
-
Patrol 2IC
Closed
3 Patrol
Callsign Mayhem Three
-
Patrol IC
Closed
-
Patrol 2IC
Closed
Operational rhythm
What a week looks like
One operation, the orders group that precedes it, and the admin that makes both work. This is the actual schedule, not an aspiration.
Orders group
The command team receives the mission from the Ops Cell and writes the plan. Section commanders get their warning order the same night, so nobody turns up on Sunday hearing the ground for the first time.
Slotting
Slots open on the website and in Discord. You take a seat in your own section; if a section is short we backfill from the reserve list rather than reshuffling half the platoon.
Muster
Server up, radios on, kit checked. Fifteen minutes to sort comms problems before they become everyone's problem.
Orders and H-hour
Full orders delivered on the ground, questions taken, then we step off. Typically two to three hours: one insertion, one objective, one extraction.
Debrief
Ten minutes, honest, no theatre. What went right, what did not, what changes next week. Attendance and combat records are written the same night.
Twenty people who know the drills beat sixty who have read about them.
Definitions
What milsim means here
“Milsim” covers everything from casual co-op to units running a fortnight-long selection course. This is where we sit, stated plainly, so you can decide before you apply rather than after.
It is
- Section and platoon drills we actually rehearse — contact drills, break contact, fire and manoeuvre, casualty extraction, entry into a compound.
- Radio discipline. Short, correct, on the right net: section net for the section, platoon net for the platoon commander.
- Orders in a recognisable format, given by someone who has looked at the ground and has a plan for when it goes wrong.
- Kit and roles that mean something — the gunner carries the gimpy, the medic treats, the signaller carries the 117F.
It is not
- Saluting in the car park, drill practice, or performing a rank structure outside of an operation.
- Punishment for mistakes. If you go the wrong way at a junction you get told which way to go. That is it.
- A second job. One evening a week, and we do not chase you if you miss it — we only ask that you say so beforehand.
- Realism as an excuse for tedium. We compress the dull parts and keep the parts that make a fight legible.
Conduct
The standard we hold each other to
Rank is a function, not a status
A section commander directs the section on an operation. Outside of one they are another member of the community and are expected to behave like it. Anyone using an appointment to push people around loses the appointment.
Brief up, correct down, in private
If something is wrong, say so — to the person, not to a channel. Command would always rather hear about a problem on Thursday than read about it in a debrief.
One standard
The same rules apply to a recruit in their first week and to the brigade commander. Discrimination, harassment or bringing the unit into disrepute ends membership, and that decision is recorded on the service record like anything else.
Nothing is silently overwritten
Every promotion, posting, award and disciplinary entry is a dated, attributed record. Staff can void a record with a stated reason; nobody can delete one. Your history is yours, and it is auditable.
Recruiting
If that sounds like the evening you want, apply
You need Arma 3, a working microphone, the Discord client, and to be 16 or over. Everything else — kit, mods, drills, the parachute course — we teach. Applications are read by a member of staff, not a bot, and you will hear back either way.