Rifle squad composition

[SGTMILLS]

Isn't it amazing how the conversation in "Rifle Squad Composition" can switch to you rotary geeks? have a great Thanksgiving!

[William F. Owen]

Isn't it amazing how the conversation in "Rifle Squad Composition" can switch to you rotary geeks? have a great Thanksgiving!

I prefer the term "Student of Airmobile Capability" and "Boring Organisational Pendant", to better describe my area of interest, rather than Geek.

[SGTMILLS]

I prefer the term "Student of Airmobile Capability" and "Boring Organisational Pendant", to better describe my area of interest, rather than Geek.

ha! yeah, i guess geek sounds worse than it's intent. Besides, I LOVED hearing things like "trailblazer element, this is airwolf 2, we will be in your area all evening" or EVEN BETTER was "trailblazer element, this is spectre 6, we will be in your AO this evening." two minutes pass, "roger, this is spectre 7, we will ALSO be in your AO"

[ODB]

The 72 man CH-47 flight isn't classified, it was during my 101st days during OEF I, seems so long ago now. Notoriously aviation always showed up with one less A/C for exfil. We went in with 3 x CH-47s for 3 glorious days of "mountain climbing". On exfil we got word only 2 A/C were inbound, so plan was changed to pick up a platoon plus and take them to Khwost, then get the rest of us and take us to Bagram. Refuel and go back and get the other platoon. 2-3 minutes out the pilots make contact and tell us to load everybody, they're going to check the torque and see if the A/C could handle the load. We did what any good infantry guy does and thermited any extra unneeded weight. We loaded and the pilots felt the A/C could handle the load so off we went. Well unfortunately not so much, as we came upon the mountains the pilots were pulling up and we were going down. The last thing you want to hear is hold on as your altitude is decreasing. We race tracked for some time while the pilots tried to find a lower crossing point, they found one but it was too far out of the way for current fuel levels. The pilots then decided to circle back, fly NAP of the earth and use the propellor blast to keep us off the ground. Basically we did a slingshot down one mountain up over the other. By this time the floor is slick as can be from puke. We ended you refueling in Kabul, where the crew chief broke out the video camera to record the new record of 72, the previous record was 60 as set by us 2 weeks earlier. When we got the pilots got the asses chewed by their command and our command put them in for an award. Neither bird flew in country again as they needed to be sent back for extensive refit.

[Distiller]

Both the ground troop head honcho and the pilot should have their asses kicked for such a stunt. I'm not against stunts, but they have to have some merit. Can't see one here, only the risk of 75 troops lying burnt and crippled on an Afghan mountainside.

[RJ]

and the ensuing hijack down the path of vertical envelopment , I feel the need to redirect to the original track. Rifle Squad composition.

In the past pages a mention of the Marine Corps testing of a 12 man squad under combat conditions surfaced. The Marines were going to test the one man shorter squad in Afganistan in 2007-2008.

Did it happen? And has there been any comments on this "new" size aquad and its effectiveness?

Did the Marine Corps make the first fireteam leader the squad leader with responsibilities to lead his fireteama nd the other two in his squad?

Any comment or statement about how this concept was received bythe troops and what kind of problems stuck their ugly heads up during the testing period, would be appreciated.