Rifle squad composition

[Tom Odom]

I wrote an article for Military Review (with a retired Sergeant Major of the Army and a former CSM of Ops Grp) on the subject of small units. We started at the company and went down to squad.

We argued for a larger squad built on 3's and providing a maneuver, support, and a breach element. We wanted to make the squad as much a combined arms element as we could and we also sought to make it more self-sustaining. I advocated 3 man versus buddy teams; 3s provide greater duration and depth.

My argument also looked at tests run by GEN DePuy as the 1st TRADOC commander. DePuy tested everything; in this case, he tested the various combinations of support and maneuver ; by a clear margin the best ratio of support to maneuver was 2 to 1. A balanced squad cannot do that as it is organized; it must reorganize and/or be reinforced.

You can read about DePuy's tests in Gorman's Secret of Future Victories

My article is at Military Review

Best

Tom

[RTK]

I wrote an article for Military Review (with a retired Sergeant Major of the Army and a former CSM of Ops Grp) on the subject of small units. We started at the company and went down to squad.

We argued for a larger squad built on 3's and providing a maneuver, support, and a breach element. We wanted to make the squad as much a combined arms element as we could and we also sought to make it more self-sustaining. I advocated 3 man versus buddy teams; 3s provide greater duration and depth.

My argument also looked at tests run by GEN DePuy as the 1st TRADOC commander. DePuy tested everything; in this case, he tested the various combinations of support and maneuver ; by a clear margin the best ratio of support to maneuver was 2 to 1. A balanced squad cannot do that as it is organized; it must reorganize and/or be reinforced.

You can read about DePuy's tests in Gorman's Secret of Future Victories

My article is at Military Review

Best

Tom

In support of Tom's point, when you look at the operational requirements of the missions typical to a squad, there are usually three elements there (for instance, in an attack there are operational requirements for an assault force, a suppression force, and a breach force). It seems to make sense that the types of units who will routinely have three operational requirements would have three different sections or teams.

[marct]

In support of Tom's point, when you look at the operational requirements of the missions typical to a squad, there are usually three elements there (for instance, in an attack there are operational requirements for an assault force, a suppression force, and a breach force). It seems to make sense that the types of units who will routinely have three operational requirements would have three different sections or teams.

I think Tom makes a good argument, here. I'd be interested, however, in seeing what people think about this when we take highly varying terrain and ROEs into account. Part of the reason for this is that I have been thinking about possible squad level IO/intel training/use.

Marc

[Stu-6]

Although army doctrine during my time on active duty called for two balanced teams we often used two or sometimes three teams of different compositions due the availability of personal and weapons. While this prevents a squad leader from having interchangeable fire teams it can give some advantages; for instance a heavy team (2-3x M249 1-2x M203) can generate a lot of suppressive fire allowing a lighter team more freedom of maneuver.

[jcustis]

I think Tom makes a good argument, here. I'd be interested, however, in seeing what people think about this when we take highly varying terrain and ROEs into account. Part of the reason for this is that I have been thinking about possible squad level IO/intel training/use.

Marc

While terrain is a factor, I think ROEs are less important. Remember that in the Marine Corps, we already have a mantra that every rifleman is a collector, if that's the thrust of what you're saying marct.

Now, does this translate into profitable collection exercises? Not always, especially if you are in high-intensity COIN ops, conducting multiple offensive ops, or even keeping your head down during the last month of rotation.

[Bill Moore]

You needn't coach me on our personnel system, I am painfully familiar with it, but this is the essence of the majority of our problems, and why I think we'll more outsourcing of security in the future (see John Robb's blog for details on outsourcing). Our military organization does not adapt quickly, so we're forced to fight with inefficiently designed organizations. Our non-state enemy on the other hand can adapt overnight. We're forced to some extent (though commanders can task organize the forces they have within limits) to fight with what we have, and a squad and platoon, and company and so forth we're designed to fight a major land battle in the Fulda Gap (and we're not ideally organized for that). The danger is we design tactics based on the design of our organizations, thus in reality we define the tactical problem to fit our preconceived solution. What is a particular mission called for a 15 man squad, and another called for a 6 man squad? Of course we can do it, but how often do we? Buddy you can't grab my people, stay out of my rice bowl.

METT-TC should drive task organization, not just we need two squad here, a platoon there, but we need two squads that look like this, and a platoon with this capability.

Obviously our MTOE system doesn't allow us to simply have a pool of bodies that we can plug and play with. Furthermore unit adhesion is a combat multiplier, so the risk of too much flexibility is limited cohersion. I think our enemy gets past that with a powerful ideology.

O.K., I got that off my chest, so back to the ideal squad (presumably for combat maneuver). I think it is 12 men. A four man assault/manuever force, a four man support section, and a four man C2/floater section (sqd ldr, medic, two rifle men) that not only direct the effort, but can weight the effort either towards maneuver or support element, depending on where the squad leader places this section. I went with four per section instead of three to facilitate maintaining a viable force even with a certain % of casualties. No I didn't base this off an ODA, a perfect ODA should probably be around 15 men, and they shouldn't be maneuvering like a squad.

[Rifleman]

O.K., I got that off my chest, so back to the ideal squad (presumably for combat maneuver). I think it is 12 men. A four man assault/manuever force, a four man support section, and a four man C2/floater section (sqd ldr, medic, two rifle men) that not only direct the effort, but can weight the effort either towards maneuver or support element, depending on where the squad leader places this section.

So, am I safe to assume that your assault team would be a light team and your support would be a heavy team, sort of like I described in my original post?

[Uboat509]

No I didn't base this off an ODA, a perfect ODA should probably be around 15 men, and they shouldn't be maneuvering like a squad.

So who are the other three guys? When I was in ANCOC last year they were kicking around the idea of a jr. 18F.

SFC W

[Bill Moore]

Rifleman, I allowing one element to be a floater that can either work in the assault or in support situation dependent. Obviously being dual hatted doesn't allow you to arm ideally for both options, but flexibility is more important in most cases. There are definitely times when the support element would serve to be reinforced. Tom mentioned a breacher element, but I'm not sure what context he was making reference to: a breacher element to push bangalore torpedo's through concertina wire obstacles, or a breacher element for a urban environment. If we're talking urban, I think each section needs it own breaching capability, once you enter the structure, it is controlled chaos, and you need the flexibility to operate in separate four teams (another reason for the four man section, closer to ideal for room clearing). If you're breaching a flintstone house in Afghanistan, you may only need one breach, but if you're going into an apartment building or other structure, there may be a requirement for several breaches, thus the requirement for every team to have some breaching capability.

For the ODA, I recommend a MAJ as a Team Leader (CPTs need more grooming time) due to the amount of responsibility. We simply more gray hair at the tip of the spear. UW isn't a kid's a game. The WO will remain the Ast Det Cdr, who most likely will lead specially task organized elements on the from the ODA on speciality missions ranging from intelligence collection to civil military operations. For the additional three pax I would add another intelligence specialist and two additional weapons Sgts.

Justification: The 12 man team is frequently tasked to execute combat missions (hopefully the majority of the missions are through, by and with indigenous forces, instead of unilaterally), which means all MOS's are busy preparing for the next mission, conducting rehearsals, planning, getting kit ready etc. Unless there is a high degree of trust of in the indigenous forces, you want U.S. personnel in all the key positions. The problem this creates is the intelligence Sgt rarely has time to do his job, and his job is absolutely critical. Having a two man 18F (intell cell) could produce volumes of value added intelligence at the ODA level (for ODA use and for higher, which then goes laterally, etc.). The additional 18Bs, gives the team command the addtional bodies needed to combat advise without disrupting the 18F's work.

We have the right MOSs, the ODA has proven to be a versatile organization, but that doesn't mean we can't make improvements on it.

[Norfolk]

I wrote an article for Military Review (with a retired Sergeant Major of the Army and a former CSM of Ops Grp) on the subject of small units. We started at the company and went down to squad.

We argued for a larger squad built on 3's and providing a maneuver, support, and a breach element. We wanted to make the squad as much a combined arms element as we could and we also sought to make it more self-sustaining. I advocated 3 man versus buddy teams; 3s provide greater duration and depth.

My argument also looked at tests run by GEN DePuy as the 1st TRADOC commander. DePuy tested everything; in this case, he tested the various combinations of support and maneuver ; by a clear margin the best ratio of support to maneuver was 2 to 1. A balanced squad cannot do that as it is organized; it must reorganize and/or be reinforced.

Gen. DePuy's tests were certainly rigorous, and as shown in Gen. Gorman's book as well as Gen. DePuy's own papers those tests arrived at what were considered surprising, even shocking results at the time. It's too bad that some of DePuy's innovations were either stillborn or faded out over the years.

The 3-man team, as Tom Odom said, offers greater depth than the traditional buddy team. If one man goes down in a firefight, there still two more to carry one, rather than a lone rifleman left stuck looking for someone to watch his back. And it's a lot easier to construct, man, fight, and maintain a battle trench/foxhole with three guys than just two. The PLA, the PAVN/NVA, and the VC amongst others all insisted on the 3-man cell as the ideal building block of the infantry squad (squad leader and 3 cells). Besides providing either a full crew for a machine gun or rocket launcher, or an assault team for breaking into trenches or clearing rooms, it provides moral (and morale) support in a way that you just can't get with a buddy team. As the saying goes, 'Three's Company". Less isolation and loneliness and more hands to do the work. Except during battle or on patrol, one guy on the parapet, one guy cooking, cleaning, or working, and one guy sleeping.

Of course, there are some issues to deal with. As the Marines found in 1944 after converting to the 10-man squad with three 3-man fire teams, battle losses compelled them to add a fourth man to each team. Gen. DePuy remarked at least a few times that a squad would often routinely operate with only 4, 5, or 6 guys (out of what was in his TRADOC days an 11-man squad). That adds up to two 3 man teams at most; a 13-man Marine squad might make 6 men more or less consistently under conditions of heavy battle attrition. I see Tom Odom's article recommends a 14-man squad for most battle functions.

You've also got to have enough men, for enough teams, to avoid having to constantly reorganize the squad for each task that come up, even after suffering battle losses. Frequent reorganization disrupts and even breaks down working relationships between individuals, and this loss of cohesion is felt afterwards until everyone settles down and gets to know how each person works. And of course, battle attrition lends itself to the need for frequent enough reorganization as it is.

But DePuy (as both Gen. Gorman and Col. Odom point out) had an answer (actually two) to this battle attrition problem, the "One Up, Two Back" formation in the attack, and the PARFOX in the defence. DePuy himself of course tested this using the squads in the platoon, and when platoons used one squad to first make contact while keeping the other two in reserve, then suppressing the enemy with two squads and assaulting with the third, something like 88% of these "One Up, Two Back" platoon attacks were successful. Attacker losses were reduced by something like half if I remember correctly. None of the other platoon attack tactical formations even come close (even the one with attached AT team). Now, given that the squads themselves just had two fire teams each, it's not necessarily proven, but certainly logical that the same tactics would work for a squad with 3 fire teams if it was detached on an independent mission. And in the defence, the innovative Parapet Foxhole (mind you, with 2 guys in the hole) also reduced losses by about half compared to the ordinary foxhole, and led to a much greater rate of success in the defence.

A counter-argument to this might be that, well, the squad is just a fire unit and it's the platoon that is the basic manoeuvre unit, so it's not necessary for the squad to have more than two teams; it just has to alternate fire and movement between teams until one is close enough to assault, and that the other squads in the platoon can provide suppression throughout. Well, suppose that's so. With apologies to the late Gen. DePuy, how are any of those squads supposed to maintain at least 6 men (in two 3 man teams) in order to keep fighting out of just a 9 man squad (which was forced upon DePuy and his successors due to manning restrictions)? And this is assuming a full-strength 9-man squad to begin with, quite an assumption to make. And of course, a two-team squad renders it incapable of using the "One-Up, Two-Back" attack formation that is so crucial to both a successful attack and cutting you losses by up to half compared to other tactics.

I think that when all is said and done, the 13-man USMC rifle squad, for most conventional infantry operations, is the best bet overall (notwithstanding the Marine's 15-man CAP squads in Vietnam, mind you, but that was still unconventional warfare): leadership and supervision (4 NCOs per squad - ideally); tactical flexibility (3 teams and a squad leader free to move where he needs to go, and not have to fight a team of his own); staying power (4 man teams to absorb losses); firepower (3 LMGs, 3 underslung grenade launchers); and enough straight rifleman (6) to clear trenches and rooms while sustaining losses.

As for Col. Odom's making a permanent distinction between breach squads and assault squads, I have to say that each rifle squad should be trained to make the breach even if one squad is already designated as and kitted out for, that task in say, a deliberate attack. Something might happen to that squad or it may become so depleted by losses that another squad may have to make the breach instead. Granted, I'm coming from a Commonwealth Army background, and circumstances in the US Army (or USMC for that matter) may be substantially different, but we certainly trained to make the breach, and doctrinally we were to have an assault pioneer platoon (from battalion) and possibly a field engineer troop (from brigade) in support of an infantry battalion for that purpose. But we weren't allowed to think for a moment that we weren't expected to do that ourselves, with or without the help of the pioneers or the engineers. We had the training and the equipment, all of us in the rifle platoon.

I'd feel a lot better though, if having to do that for real, I had a 13-man squad, and not an 8-man section to do the job.

[Ken White]

13 man Marine rifle squad (prior to the M-79) and the old 11 man Army Rifle Squad (too old to have suffered the current very, very dumb 9 man Squad) in peacetime and combat, I have absolutely no doubt that the 13 man is the best solution. By a very significant margin.

Also agree that a well trained rifle Squad can do all it's jobs; that one going in -- preferably by infiltration -- and two in support is vastly preferable to the old 'two up and one back' routine.

I think that Platoon operations should be the norm but that independent squad action in a great many situations is desirable (particularly in COIN). Such independence is, I think limited by two factors; most commonly fear of loss of oversight and thus being blamed if something goes wrong; and a failure to understand that the average unit can be trained to do far more than we normally allow them to do.

I'm not sure we can afford that hesitation and lack of faith given todays costs in dollars and difficulties in recruiting for other than combat jobs -- the latter meaning that the CSS tail has to be cut because the sharp aggressive kids will not serve there by choice.

Lot of wasted potential...

[Norfolk]

It seems someone in Britain has been testing much the same sort of infantry tactics as Rommel and DePuy were into. David Kilcullen found that the Brits were doing heavy suppression work back in the '90s (I seem to remember that the Brits were somewhat unsettled by the infantry losses they suffered at the hands of poorly-led Argentinian, and must have pondered what would have happened if they'd had to face a rather more competent enemy. Apparently, British Army experiments came to the conclusion that a ratio of 3 suppression elements to 1 assault element produced a successful "repeatable formula" (I cringe when I hear that sort of langauge) to be used in the infantry attack.

Kilcullen subsequently tested this "formula" out on the Indonesians in East Timor in 1999, and he recalls that it worked like a charm. Here's the article he wrote on this whole matter:

http://www.defence.gov.au/army/lwsc/AAJ_I1.asp

It's less comprehensive than DePuy's studies, and more or less follows Rommels' and DePuy's own observations, as it offers much the same sort of tactical "solution" to the infantry attack but from a different perspective. but I think that it's still worth a look. Particularly interesting are his observations on how infantry actually move in contacy; autonomously and without orders, yet doing so fully in accordance with the tactical situation in mind - what he calls "Flocking".

[Ken White]

Most of our minor tactics are marginal to poor. He mentions in there that the lead element often got pinned down and could do nothing. Our doctrine says that the lead element 'returns fire, suppresses enemy fire and develops the situation.' I saw that done repeatedly in Korea -- and I saw that it flat did not work.

I always told folks that the job of the lead element coming under fire -- when they almost certainly were going to be out gunned and have little idea where the opposition was -- was too get under cover and simply stay alive and that the next element in line was to lay down heavy suppressive fire to help the lead element get out or just survive. The third element would do any maneuvering required.

One up and two back -- three back is better -- has always been the way to go.

[Norfolk]

Most of our minor tactics are marginal to poor. He mentions in there that the lead element often got pinned down and could do nothing. Our doctrine says that the lead element 'returns fire, suppresses enemy fire and develops the situation.' I saw that done repeatedly in Korea -- and I saw that it flat did not work.

Speaking of poor minor unit tactics, the reason why I even became interested in the subject in the first place and not just mindlessly accept "the Doctrine" was when my section commander told us that an 8-man rifle section would lose 60% of its strength in the first 24 hours of offensive operations. Well, that got my attention. Here's an article that gives an idea of just how bad the supposedly very "professional" Canadian Army's basic infantry tactics had become when I was in - this was written some years ago by Captain Mike O'Leary, the current Regimental Adjutant of the RCR:

http://members.tripod.com/Regimental..._atk_part2.htm

From this article, you can see that there is some substance to my concerns over the state of minor unit tactics, especially at squad/section level.

At first, I thought that the "solution" so to speak, was simply to increase squad size, and that's when the USMC rifle squad really caught my attention. But I really didn't understand the tactical significance of having 3 rather than just 2 fire teams. It wasn't until I read an article on an RPA rifle squad (organized into 3 teams) attack on a Rwandan Government rifle squad in a house, and win without real loss to itself, that I began to appreciate the virtues of a 3-fire team squad. Go figure; a rebel army from the African-country-in-chaos pick of the year demonstrated what proper infantry tactics were, while the Canadian officer (from a modern, Western, "professional" Army) watching the fight was left scratching his head so to speak and call into serious question the stuff his own army had taught him.

As such, I do rather think that the USMC rifle squad is probably about the best rifle squad organization overall, and when it uses DePuy-type "1 Up, and 2 or 3 Back" formations during offensive operations, then that's proper infantry tactics too. The only major modifcation I would like seen made to the Marine rifle squad would be to do what Tom proposed in his "Transformation: Victory Begins With Small Units" article, and have two NCOs in the Squad HQ; the Squad Leader to fight the squad (while listening in to the Platoon/Company net), and the Assistant Squad Leader to handle squad administration/logistics and to handle sitreps for platoon/company and send in resupply requests, etc., so the squad leader doesn't have to be doing two separate jobs at the same time.

[jcustis]

Your thoughts about a squad 2i/c are interesting Norfolk, especially when one considers the volume of information a squad leader would have to absorb with a future integrated tactical information system.

Given the power of communications, it really only makes sense, but the force structure required to make that happen will pose an uphill battle.

Dave, has the Corps performed any wargames utilizing a SL and ASL construct? I imagine that it could be extremely appropriate in an urbanized environment, thus someone could have looked at it before.