Is 2 x 4 better than 3 x 3???

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Subject: Is 2 x 4 better than 3 x 3???
Robbo 1/23/2010 10:41:40 PM

Hey guys I've just come across this board and had a look at some of the threads and it's great to see some intelligent informed dicussion happening!! So many other places uninformed idiots drag conversations on these issues down to kindergarden levels!!! Just wondering peoples thoughs on the new 4 man building blocks the Army is moving towards for light infantry and as I understand the wider Army. Hand in hand with having native DFSW in each now larger platoon of 40 Digs? As far as implementation goes, the battalions deploying are using the 4 man Teams as far as I know, but doctinally the 9 man section is still being taught throughout training establishments. Possibly still ironing out some of the finer point berofe they train all the green newbies??? (I've decided to move to the Dark Side and doing my GRES FAC through MUR and there has never been a mention of 4 man team at Duntroon) Robbo.

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YelliChink 1/23/2010 11:52:00 PM

More men is always better to every infantryman you ask. You can get some tactical manual and you'll see that most old field battle manuals are often with 3x3 squad, and most urban combat manuals suggest 4x2 or even 6x2 squad. 4-man team is typical smallest entry unit that I've read so far. Different tactical situation, different approach to organization.

However, do not stick too hard with rigid squad ensembles. Military units are designed to have multiple redundancy. It means that you can take 20% out of your force and the unit can still function effectively. Also, a squad leader should be flexible and adaptive to different situations. A lot of times the traditional military thinking is wrong, and only compensated and overcome by ingenuity of men on the front line.

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Raven22 1/24/2010 6:11:14 AM

The Infantry 2012 organisation has pretty much been implemented, but only for the infantry. The SOI is teaching the 2012 structure to IETs and ROBCs and most if not all of the battalions are now using at least a bastardised version of the 2012 structure. All other units and initial training establishments are still teaching and using the 9-man section. There is a lot of debate about whether to stop teaching the old organisation and move to the new one or continue to keep the old organisation for everyone but infantry. The idea being that the new section/platoon structure requires far more training, equipment and competent leadership that probably won't be available for the rest of the army.

They can't teach the new organisation at Duntroon unless the change the TMP for the whole course, and that always takes a very long time to implement. Mind you, most competent instructors will ensure that their trainees have a good understanding of the new structure and how to command it before graduating anyway. Mine did.

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Raven22 1/24/2010 6:24:07 AM

I should add that I don't think they've even decided whether to implement the 2012 structure for the reserve infantry battalions for the same reasons. Currently reservists struggle to maintain competencies with the old structure - add in the requirment for far mores soldiers to be current in Mag-58, QCB, AGL, marksmen weapons etc and it gets a whole lot harder.

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Aussiegunneragain 1/24/2010 6:50:18 AM

I personally don't see the point in re-organisations for the sake of it. The old structure works well and all they need to do if they want additional heavy weapons in a platoon is to attach them as needed from the support company. All of the faffing around with structures just confuses everybody and wastes time that could be better spent on other skills, especially if as you say they teach one thing at Duntroon and 1 RTB and another in infantry IET's. Officers and soldiers from any Corp and from the ARA or the Reserve are supposed to be able to act as infantry when called upon. If there are two different tactical doctrines being used, what happens when you plug gunners in to re-inforce the infantry, as was the case in Timor? What about when we reinforce with Reservists? Utter confusion and lost operational efficiency, thats what. Its stupid and it is probably just a result of some staff officer wanker wanting to see how his staff college thesis stacks up in real life.

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Raven22 1/24/2010 7:40:43 AM

Ah, no - the infantry 2012 structure is far superior to the old structure and is not just a reorganisation for the sake of it. The old structure may work fine for section level light infantry patrolling, but it has an awful lot of negatives for modern combat. The main idea of the new structure is flexibility and ease of combat teaming/battlegrouping- you make the four man brick/fireteam the building block of everything. No matter what task organisation you want you can just pick and choose from the different four man bricks. You can't do that with the old organisation.

Of course, the other big difference is the massive increase in firepower. Its not just putting the heavy weapons at a lower level, it is massively increasing them. Instead of the old organisation where you had two Mag-58s/84s at company level, and another 8 SMFG Mag-58s at battalion level, the new organisation has three Mag-58s/84s/QCBs at platoon level, plus a heavy weapons platoon of 8 Javelin/AGL at battalion level. IE, an old battalion might have at most 16 Mag-58s/84s, whereas the new one might have, say, 18 Mag-58s/84s, 9 QCBs and 8 Javelins/AGLs. That's without including the differences like marksmans rifles at platoon level, larger mortar and recon platoons etc.

Eventually the army will fully implement the new structure, but as with any change there will be a bit of chaos while it happens.

BTW, it is hardly a staff officer's initiative. The use of 4 man bricks was already being used by diggers on ops years before the army made it official. The old structure wasn;t working, the new one was, so they stuck with it.

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Aussiegunneragain Raven 1/24/2010 10:34:01 AM

Eventually the army will fully implement the new structure, but as with any change there will be a bit of chaos while it happens.

Yeah, I was thinking about it after I wrote it and I can see legitimate benefits. My initial reaction was perhaps a reflection of having seen the "battle grouping" initiative in the late 1990's when they fucked around with the way brigades were organised for no good reason, confused the hell out of everybody, and then changed it back to the way it used to be when it didn't work.

The benefits as I see it would be that in many instances recon patrols might not require an entire section but would not want less than a four man team, so a brick would be just the right size. Same goes for building clearances. Also, if you were firing and moving during an attack you would move a lot more quickly with one moving and one firing at a time rather than one and two. The increased firepower of modern weapons and the additional heavy weapons would compensate for the reduction in the number of soldiers shooting at a time. The section would also fit into most of the modern IFVs, which are built to seat eight diggers. Its interesting about the boost in heavy weapon numbers, it makes sense for a small army. Are they going to provide ATV's or whatever to the light infantry battalions, to transport them and all the extra ammo?

They will probably be best off getting on and implementing it Army wide though, including through recruit training, so that other corps soldiers can work effectively with the infantry as required.

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Robbo 1/24/2010 10:42:58 AM

Thanks Raven,

That's about what I had guessed, it is a "2012" structure after all, and of course us chocco's are at the end of a long list.

Without the DFSW the basic four man team with one of each F88, F88GLA, F88marsksman and F89 minimi seems a great improvement, each block has a full capability set without having to split up a section ad-hoc and having to juggle tradeoffs with different weapon systems. The ability to seamlessly 'plug in' heavy bricks to platoons and companies depending on the mission will make a world of difference on a two-way range.

Obviously they are still implementing the structure, but once they are finished it would seem a waste of time to keep units on any level be it non-Inf or reserve, training in a different structure than what is actually used on deployment. Thinking of the hours spent training in small team tactics, TEWTs and crawling through the scrub training on a structure that you know will never be used in a real situation, and having to start from scratch at IET and ROBC seems a waste of time and resources. In any career in the Army you will inevitably be posted in and out of units, training establishments, full-time, part-time and even corps surely it makes sense to at least at a basic building block level have a standardised approach?

It's hard to keep up competencies for any Reserve unit, most of the time this is because the money isn't there for the training, rather than the commitment of the soldier in my experience, especially currently where some units are lucky to get the funding to parade twice a month and let alone get out field to keep up the competencies/skillset, but I digress. Reserve units will only ever get their troops up to a certain level, if/when they are deployed they will always need intensive pre-deployment training to bring them up to scratch. If they are trained on current structures and have a few competencies and are used to working in four man teams it's better than having to start all the way from basic contact drills and hand signals.

My 2 cents.

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Robbo 1/24/2010 10:46:31 AM

Yeah current thinking is each heavier brick will get a light 4x4 to get the heavy weapons and ammo around in.

I know that 2 cav has been using the 4 man teams for recce's since Timor, makes a lot more sense.

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YelliChink 1/24/2010 10:17:36 PM

How about you regroup your soldiers into different tactical teams and swap weapons and/or specialists in order to perform different tasks?

I don't see why a tactical entry team (4 men) should have a grenade launcher, and I don't see how a Gustav is needed when there is no target to shoot at. Also I don't see why a fire support team would need short barrel carbines while there are grenadiers to protect machinegunners. And not all infantries are in armored cavalry regiments. There are light infantry (on foot), motorized infantry (use unarmored trucks or wheeled vehicles). You build your armed forces based on what type of war you plan to fight. For the moment, it's guerrilla type warfare either in remote area of Afghanistan, or in dilapidated area of urban Afghanistan. There is no obvious front line and every single units can be attacked from any direction. Even when you do have a legal enemy and a definitive, but dynamic, front line, more men is still always better. The only reason to stick with 3, 4 or whatever men in a team or squad is organizational, managerial and bureaucratic decision, not strategic, scientific, tactical one that is based on common sense. The unit roll call reflects their capability, not how they should operate.

Whatever way you choose to build your army structure, you always end up with more weapons, ammo and supplies than your men can carry. For armored or motorized infantry, they can utilize motor vehicles. For light infantries (paratroopers, SOF, mountain division, cannon folders etc), they always need more men to solve the problem.

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Raven22 1/24/2010 10:44:03 PM

How about you regroup your soldiers into different tactical teams and swap weapons and/or specialists in order to perform different tasks?

That's pretty much the whole point of the exercise. You can task organise a team with the arms room approach to whatever task you require. For instance each brick in the support section can either bring a Mag-58, 84 or QCB to the fight depending on what they are doing. Just need another rifle section, then just leave the heavy weapons at home. The role of each man in the brick is for flexibility - if you don't want a member to have a grenade launcher for room clearing, then don't give him one (although, I might add the grenade launchers are particlarly handy in urban fights so I don't know why you wouldn't).

The army also understands the difference between light, mot and mech inf. What has been described is a light organistaion. A motorised organisation is the same except that each section also has an PMV and a driver. A mech organisation is different as there is no support section at platoon level as the vehicles provide that manoeuvre support, but there is a section of two Javelins fire teams at company level.

The only reason to stick with 3, 4 or whatever men in a team or squad is organizational, managerial and bureaucratic decision, not strategic, scientific, tactical one that is based on common sense.

Um, no. Having infantry made up of bricks of four soldiers is the best solution that all major armies have worked out by constant operations in varied theatres, terrains and roles over the last ten years at least. It is hardly a bereaucratic decision - it most definantly common sense in action.

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