Abandon squad/section levels of organization?

[jcustis]

I'll offer these two points, as you guys are demonstrating a grasp of minor infantry tactics that is making my head swim right now.

First it seems that Owen wants a number of absolutes; with more sub-units a coy commander can constitute a full reserve. While I can see he point, a reserve need not be a complete platoon.

Take the movement to contact scenario, for example. Depending on the likelihood of enemy contact, a company commander could assign the flank security task to a platoon and pull a full squad from it and make it the reserve. I've established a small, but capable, reserve in the past. Committed properly, it can seize the day without the need for the entire 40+ man platoon to lumber into the attack.

I'm glad that the business of task-organizing is so ingrained into Marine infantry that we don't need neat structures to facilitate it.

Secondly, we'd have to bring in a former member of the RLI to confirm for me, but IIRC, the Rhodesian equivalent of a platoon in modern sense (for organization purposes) was a "troop" of 16 men organized into four 4-man sticks. These folks were definitely PBI, and for almost no other reason than COIN naturally drives the skill sets to focus on recce patrolling and observation.

The business of organizing in such a fashion could have come as much from the means of mobility as it did the abilities of the troop leaders. We must note that the Alouette could only carry 4 men, and the DC-3 Dakotas (carrying paratroopers for the follow-up sweeps) carried up to 16 men. We are no doubt re-organizing our infantry forces in Iraq due to their mobility. It makes sense to do so because it definitely makes no sense to have Jones from 2nd team in a vehicle manned by 3d team, but reporting to the 2nd team leader.

I think Owen is on point with the training aspect. I think any leader worth his rank has complained about those things limitng his ability to traing, whether it be ammo, batteries, equipment, or "area beautification" details. It hasn't changed much, although I must admit that the current goings-on have openend peoples' eyes and reduced the bull#### to a manageable level.

Permanent squads make the business of assigning subordinate tasks a bit easier because you are dealing with the rule of 3s. I can attest that the more maneuver elements you have, the more friction you inherit. While a looser organization may have some merit, I can only imagine certain tactiacl scenarios where we'd benefit from a more distributed structure.