Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Loose one carrier and you loose a lot of folks.
Quote Originally Posted by Tukhachevskii View Post
Thank you for the above link!

So why, speaking rhetorically to stimulate discussion, do we focus on squad/section carriiers? Why not plt carriers? Or at least half plt carriers; would ease reorg & C2 at the debuss point wouldn't it especially if used as per APC deployment as described above by Wilf and jtan163 rather than IFVs? Also fewer log requirements, etc.?

In addition to Wilf's point re concentrating your troops into one big fat target, you lose flexibility.

I.e. you end up with one manoeuvre element instead of say 3 or 4.

If you want to debuss your troops simultneously you have to debuss them in a bit platoon gaggle, instead of in a formation more like what they would normally deploy in.

No bounding overwatch in less than coy size movements, you can cover less frontage while mounted, you can cover/advance on fewer axis, you have fewer mounted weapons/sensors, less redundancy in both mobility and other areas (weapons, sensors, comms).

All of this I think would make deploying a platoon as a semi independent element fairly unattractive. Just too many eggs in one basket - any problems and your whole platoon is stranded/neutralised and you suddenly have a big hole in your coy.

And such a platoon/half platoon sized vehicle would be a big, heavy, probably less agile target, especially if up armoured/built to namer type levels of protection. Imagine an LVTP7 with 6" steel RHA....

I personally think that the gains of fewer, larger vehicles would be few, and the downsides many.
If it weren't for the various costs I think more smaller vehicles (especially if organic to the inf) might be interesting, especially with the patrol based infantry discussed elsewhere (http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...&highlight=pbi).