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Subject:
Re-organizing light infantry?
longrifle
7/26/2006 1:12:18 AM
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| An interesting article that suggests breaking the infantry platoon down into big fire teams and eliminating the squad echelon. I've thought this sounded interesting for quite a while, especially since that often becomes the de-facto organization anyway after extended combat. Since platoon numbers would be way smaller, the author advocated a fourth platoon to make up the end numbers somewhat.
Comments?
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Organising Infantry
William F Owen
?Organisation should be an expression of doctrine and doctrine should be an expression of experience.?
Lt Col Robert Leonhard ?20031
A small amount of study will reveal that the vast majority of the world?s infantry units are organised along roughly the same lines. This is often interpreted as being indicative of certain well-founded principles. Close examination shows this to be less than certain.
Modern infantry organisations are essentially arbitrary, and underpinned with a rationale that supports the status quo. The size and shape of squads, platoons and companies, as we see them today, were and are far more shaped by cost, career, and manpower issues than they are by doctrine or tactics. For example, the operationally proven four-section platoon of 1918 had sunk to three sections by 1938, purely to satisfy economic constraints and the need to procure less automatic section weapons2.
This leads to a debate between soldier and accountant, where the soldier states that a section must be eight men, and the accountant then asks ?can 6 men with the right equipment, do the same job as 8??
Few have yet asked, ?how do I best organise infantry to perform operations?? In fact the British Army did ask this question, but only in relation to operating in Northern Ireland, where they re-organised the platoon into the multiple, which was based on ?bricks? of 4 men. This was only ever done in Northern Ireland and the question has to be asked, that if the platoon cannot operate in that environment, then how valid an operational grouping is it? Do you need to re-organise for urban operations? Current operational analysis strongly suggest that you might be forced go from rural to urban as part of the same action.
The first question that has to be asked is how many men can leaders control effectively? ?Regardless of the technical ability to communicate with every formation or unit within the span of command, studies have shown that a ratio of more than four or five subordinates of command to one headquarters is the maximum that a commander can effectively manage.? ? Army Doctrine Publication 2 ? Command, paragraph 0411.
The above is telling, in two ways. Firstly it was the product of some detailed research by the British Army in the early 1980s and secondly because it reached exactly the same conclusions as the General Ivor Maxse, who was responsible for the British Armies pre-WW1 reorganisation.
So the first principle we have is that there should be a maximum of 5 sub units under each HQ.
The second key question to be asked is what is it I want my various units to be able to do? This is near impossible to answer, unless you have a method of operation already defined. But resources also limit what you can do, so this quickly becomes a circular argument. The answer would seem to lie in looking at existing practices and drawing conclusions from them, but beware. How operationally valid is it to have platoon advancing across country, bunker busting as it goes? This might be good training, but is it a good model for your organisation?
The third question is how will we know if we are achieving our aim - that is to seek effective principles on which to organise infantry? The answer would appear to be that you do not need to re-organise for different operations or conditions, and that operations have become quicker and simpler. If not, then perhaps the principles are not coherent.
It really isn?t important how many men are in a platoon or if you call X number of men a platoon. Making statements that ?you cannot have 16 men in a platoon, because a platoon is 32,? gets the process nowhere. Therefore we aim for broad principles, not absolute numbers.
Every infantry training pamphlet since 1917 states that platoons and sections will have to be able to operate with less than the optimum number of men, so we should be able to organise any number of men into viable groupings.
The Fire-Team
The smallest viable grouping of men is 3. You would not give a task or mission to a smaller group. Take any number between 3 and 15 and see how you can organise that many into viable fire-teams of 3-5 men.
Examples:
6 men ? worst case, and can either remain as one team or split to 2 x 3 teams.
11 men ? 2 x 4 man teams with 1 x 3 man team.
There is good evidence this works. Special forces operate for extended periods of time in 4 or 5 man teams. The British Army recommended 3-5 men as the basis |
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