Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
Even worse, he's breaking the tight bond at squad level to place people in an amorphous Platoon -- and that's why it's a bad idea
Ken has hit on the the bottom line regarding the failing of the proposal.

Small units need to be small in order to prpoduce the bonds and interoperabality that makes actions on contact become second nature and instinctive. Even in sports, teams with more than 5 or 6 players on the field subdivide into smaller "teams": Football--5 linemen, 6 backs; baseball--infielders and outfielders; rugby--8 forwards, 7 backs; soccer--3-6 offensive players, 3-6 defenders. Even with these various sub-arrangements, I think they usually further sub-divide into even smaller "teams" that are in the 3-5 person range. As some one noted elsewhere on a thread, three's company.

I suspect a better answer at platoon level would be to keep the squads (although I want 10-man squads--2 5-man teams,one led by the SL and the other by his A/), add a large weapons squad with 3 3-4 man MG teams (gunner, a/gunner, 1-2 ammo bearers at least one of whom could also be a grenadier) that can be tasked out to the squads or held back as a GS base of fire for the Platoon as a whole.
At the company level along with the 3 line platoons include a robust weapons platoon that has both 2-3 MG squads of 3 guns each and 1 or 2 mortar sections with at least three tubes in each, which again can be attached to platoons or used in a DS, GS, R, or GSR role as mission, enemy, and situatiuon dictate/warrant. (Irwin Rommel considers MGs indirect fire weapons in his discussions of small unit tactics at company level and below in Infantry Attacks. I agree with that perception.)
I would probably also add a section equiped with a small UAS (like the Raven) to the Company HQs section.