User:Laui.M

Starter Platoon (D/DEVCOM)
Staff
CO	MAJ Mark Mann
XO	CPT Noah Manser
COS
RSO
ROO
AG
AG
RFO
CSM
IMO
SGM
1SG
NCO
Aide to Starter Platoon (D/DEVCOM)
Aide to the XO
Aide to the SecOps
IC
2IC
Lead	SGT Phillip Sparrow (Star Citizen)
Lead
Lead
Lead
PL
PSG
Hierarchy
Superior Unit	Development Command
Reporting Units
Esprit De Corps
Unit Motto

Mission

The Starter Platoon exists to provide an environment in which members can grow newly adopted games, known as Areas of Operation (AOs), into full-sized Companies. It is a sub-unit level organization of Development Command (DEVCOM), 7th Cavalry Regiment. It is administratively known as D/DEVCOM, an abbreviation used in MILPACS and for all official operations and documentation. The Starter Platoon currently supports Star Citizen.

Mission Statement

The Starter Platoon's purpose is to incubate prospective Areas of Operation: to recruit and train their first members, establish their leadership and standard operating procedures, prove their viability through regular operations, and prepare them to graduate as independent Companies within the Regiment.

Order of Battle

The Starter Platoon serves as a starting point for new games that may be adopted into the 7th Cavalry Regiment as a Company. Each platoon slot under Development Command Headquarters houses a single prospective Area of Operation.

Development Command — Starter Platoon Slots

Element	Current Area of Operation	Status
Headquarters	Development Command Headquarters	Permanent
1st Platoon	—	Vacant
2nd Platoon	Star Citizen	Active
3rd Platoon	—	Vacant
4th Platoon	—	Vacant

Traditions and History

Starter Platoons have existed in some form since the founding of the 7th Cavalry Gaming Regiment. The concept began in 1st Battalion (1-7) roughly between 2011 and 2019, before 2nd Battalion (2-7) was stood up for the second time. Starters then mainly found a home in 2-7 from 2019 until the tail end of 2021, when the Auxiliary Combat Detachment (ACD) was stood up. They fell under the ACD umbrella until the establishment of Development Command (DEVCOM), which formally separated the starters from the Detachment. The D/DEVCOM designation comes from repurposing the deactivated D/ACD on the forums and associated media such as Discord.

Prior to the establishment of ACD, starter platoons usually existed in the Echo or Foxtrot Companies of 1st or 2nd Battalion. 1st Battalion became ARMA-exclusive in mid-2019, and 2nd Battalion became Hell Let Loose-exclusive with the standing down of Squad (the second time) in early 2021. After ACD was stood up, a number of duplicate naming conventions appeared; for example, Escape From Tarkov was variously recorded as A/ACD, D/EFT/HHC, and EFT/SP.

Leadership and Oversight

The way Starter Platoons were led evolved over time. In the early Auxiliary Combat Detachment era (2021–2022), a new Area of Operation typically formed as a numbered Starter Platoon slot and operated for its first weeks under Headquarters and Future Concepts Center (FCC) oversight, with an internal Section Leader or Platoon Leader appointed only at or near the point the unit stood up as a Company. Escape From Tarkov, Hell Let Loose (Console), and Battlefield 2042 all followed this pattern, with their leadership structures crystallizing around their stand-up rather than at founding. It was also common in this era for senior personnel to take voluntary reductions in rank to help establish a prospective Area of Operation, as seen with the officers who founded the second Star Citizen platoon and the War of Rights effort.

With the establishment of Development Command, each Area of Operation was instead assigned a dedicated DEVCOM Lead — a full-time billet responsible for the platoon from its founding through to graduation. Battlefield 6, Foxhole, Grey Zone Warfare, and the third Star Citizen platoon were each owned by a DEVCOM Lead in this manner. Some Areas of Operation saw more than one DEVCOM Lead over their lifespan; Battlefield 6, for example, was led by Major Enzo Argentini before First Lieutenant Marcel Laui took over and brought it to graduation.

Areas of Operation

The following Areas of Operation have been incubated by the Starter Platoon program. Roster figures are reconstructed from MILPACS service records (see the appendix for methodology). Peak Active is the largest number of troopers concurrently assigned at one time; Total Members is the distinct troopers ever assigned; Reached PVT+ is the distinct troopers who graduated Boot Camp (rank of Private, E-2, or higher) during or after their service in the platoon.

Starter Platoon Areas of Operation (most recent first)

Game	Designation	Era	Active	Platoon Lead	Peak Active	Total Members	Reached PVT+	Outcome
Star Citizen (3rd)	2/D/DEVCOM	DEVCOM	2025 – Present	SGT Tyler Washock	26	53	51	Active
Foxhole	4/D/DEVCOM	DEVCOM	23OCT25 – 22MAY26	SGT Ryder Leifried	50	73	68	Graduated to D/ACD
Battlefield 6	3/D/DEVCOM	DEVCOM	08MAY25 – 31JAN26	2LT Marcel Laui	37	46	42	Graduated to C/ACD
Grey Zone Warfare	1/D/DEVCOM	DEVCOM	29JUN25 – 15NOV25	2LT Albert Keif	10	15	14	Disbanded
Counter-Strike 2	CS2 Start-Up	ACD	05MAR24 – 01JUN24	SPC Nazmul Ahsan (de facto)	9	11	10	Disbanded
IL-2 Sturmovik	A/1/A/ACD	ACD	22APR24 – 19JUL24	SSG Edward Dallas (coordinator)	6	6	5	Disbanded
War of Rights	War of Rights/SP/ACD	ACD	07AUG24 – 29SEP24	CPL Alexander Grgich (operations)	8	8	8	Disbanded
Star Wars RPG	SWRPG/SP/ACD	ACD	04DEC23 – 06JUL24	CPL Maxwell Lombardi	18	26	26	Disbanded
Star Citizen (2nd)	Star Citizen/SP/ACD	ACD	01AUG23 – 26JUL24	CPL Donald Moore-Allen	21	36	35	Disbanded
Call of Duty (MW2)	MW2/SP/ACD	ACD	30NOV22 – 03FEB23	SGT Spencer Harvey (HQ)	11	11	11	Disbanded
Ready or Not	4/SP/ACD → D/ACD	ACD	14FEB22 – 14JUN23	2LT Jonathan Teddy	18	29	27	Graduated to D/ACD
Battlefield 2042	BF Starter Platoon	ACD	25OCT21 – 01JUL22	2LT Albert Keif	—	—	—	Disbanded
Hell Let Loose (Console)	B/SP/ACD → B/ACD	ACD	25OCT21 – 08FEB22	1LT Travis Cree (first leader; founding B/ACD CO)	5	5	5	Stood up as B/ACD (active)
Escape From Tarkov	A/B/C/D/EFT/HHC	ACD	15JUN21 – 02APR22	SSG Joshua Murdoc	15	17	17	Disbanded

Proposed Areas of Operation

Not every game advanced to a Starter Platoon. The Regiment periodically gauges interest in prospective titles through interest threads and polls; those that did not gather enough committed troopers to meet the minimum stand-up threshold were never formed. The following is a record of proposed Areas of Operation that did not stand up.

Proposed Areas of Operation (interest gauged, not stood up)

Game	Proposed	Proposed By	Result
Call of Duty: Vanguard	OCT21	1LT Tony Rav (with General Burgundy)	Insufficient interest; never stood up. (poll, interest thread)

Graduated Starter Platoons

The following Starter Platoons met the requirements for graduation into full units.

Squad carried multiple designations (including E/1-7, B/2-7, E/2-7, and finally C/ACD) before graduating to the 3-7 Battalion, having served as a starter platoon three separate times over roughly ten years. It was formally stood up as a battalion on 14JUN25.

Hell Let Loose was designated C/2-7 as a starter platoon before branching out across the active 2-7 Companies (A/2-7, B/2-7, E/2-7) and becoming a flagship title of the 7th Cavalry.

Digital Combat Simulator was designated A/ACD as a starter platoon, then stood up as the 3-7 Battalion from 01APR24 to 07JAN25.

Hell Let Loose (Console) was designated B/SP/ACD as a starter platoon and stood up as B/ACD on 08FEB22, where it continues to operate today.

Battlefield 6, designated 3/D/DEVCOM and led by 2LT Marcel Laui, stood up as C/ACD on 31JAN26.

Foxhole, designated 4/D/DEVCOM (and later expanding into 3/D/DEVCOM under D/DEVCOM Headquarters) and led by SGT Ryder Leifried, stood up as D/ACD on 22MAY26.

MILPACS Reconstruction Appendix

This appendix is a research aid for editors and historians. It lists every starter-shaped unit designation discovered in the MILPACS records, allowing the figures in the Areas of Operation table to be traced back to their source.

How to use this appendix. Each row is a unit designation as it was actually written in MILPACS. The "Distinct Members" and "Recorded Events" columns count the troopers and service-record entries tied to that designation. The "Activity Windows" column shows how many separate periods of activity the designation saw; a designation with multiple windows was reused for different purposes across eras (for example, A/1/A/ACD served as an infantry section, then the IL-2 Sturmovik platoon in 2024, and later the Digital Combat Simulator pilot unit). To attribute a designation to a specific game, cross-reference its date window against the Areas of Operation table above. Designations with very few members or a single short window are typically administrative artifacts or brief test entries rather than full platoons. The table is sortable by clicking the column headers.

Methodology. The records were reconstructed from the live MILPACS roster and an archived MILPACS snapshot, cross-referenced against unit announcements and operations on the forums. Membership figures are derived from transfer and assignment records tied to each designation. Where a designation was reused across multiple games or recorded inconsistently, figures in the table above were attributed by date window; where attribution could not be made cleanly, the figure is marked as not verified ("—").

Discovered starter-platoon designations (MILPACS)

Designation	First Recorded	Last Recorded	Distinct Members	Recorded Events	Activity Windows
1/SP/1-7	19FEB16	07JUL21	83	108	7
3/SP/1-7	19FEB16	14SEP20	50	84	3
2/SP/1-7	23APR17	04AUG20	59	82	4
2/SP/ACD	20OCT21	16SEP22	77	78	2
B/1/SP/1-7	09JUN19	18SEP21	45	66	5
4/SP/1-7	02AUG18	08AUG20	36	58	2
1/SP/ACD	12JAN22	24JUL22	51	51	1
SP/ACD	01AUG23	08AUG24	41	47	1
C/1/SP/1-7	22APR20	29SEP21	26	43	4
A/1/A/ACD	18NOV21	10JUN26	100	116	3
B/ACD	08MAY22	13FEB26	28	35	8
A/ACD	01NOV22	06APR26	27	33	5
SWRPG/SP/ACD	04DEC23	07JUN24	25	30	1
4/SP/ACD	09FEB22	27OCT22	29	29	1
4/D/DEVCOM	27FEB26	28APR26	27	29	1
5/SP/1-7	18NOV18	30NOV18	13	18	1
3/SP/ACD	25OCT21	17FEB22	17	18	1
A/1/SP/1-7	18JUN19	25SEP21	16	17	4
B/SP/1-7	10JUN19	14JUN19	12	16	1
MW2/SP/ACD	30NOV22	11DEC22	11	14	1
1/SP/HHC	24FEB20	10APR20	9	13	1
A/2/SP/1-7	26APR21	25SEP21	10	10	1
C/ACD	02JUN24	10MAY25	5	6	3
ACV1/SP/1-7	26JAN16	16FEB16	5	5	1
5/SP/ACD	28NOV21	09DEC21	5	5	1
B/SP/ACD	13JAN22	13JAN22	5	5	1
SP/1-7	26NOV16	08NOV20	3	4	3
A/SP/1-7	15JUN19	16JUL19	3	4	1
3/SP/HHC	25JUN20	18OCT20	2	4	2
4/SP/HHC	22AUG20	23AUG20	2	3	1

Call of Duty (MW2) was organized into three gameplay sections under MW2/SP/ACD — Multiplayer, Warzone, and DMZ — reflecting the standard Multiplayer, Warzone 2.0, and DMZ modes the platoon set out to support.

Development Command-era games (Star Citizen, Battlefield 6, Foxhole, Grey Zone Warfare) are recorded under sub-section designations such as A/2/D/DEVCOM, A/3/D/DEVCOM, and A/4/D/DEVCOM; their consolidated figures are reflected in the Areas of Operation table above. The A/1/A/ACD designation reflects all three of its historical uses combined, of which the 2024 IL-2 Sturmovik cohort was one.