Redundancy in small unit organization

[Compost]

Wilf, is a Brit - an ex NCO I believe - who no longer posts here.

With respect to him and a number of others who have indulged in speculative theory around here their lack of wartime experience undermines their contributions to such debates.

JMA
Your first comment may be accurate but it was also mindless kidney punching. Your second comment was mostly valid and is a cautionary to me as a self-appointed commentator and incidentally an ex-reserve infantry NCO.

Overall and usefully demonstrating one hazard of self inflation the phrasing of your post revealed a Blimp with bile line showing. Don’t bother to respond because my future reading will exclude anything attributed to you.

[JMA]

Much of these discussions - about the organisation and structure of fire teams/sections/platoons etc - is a waste of time.

What trumps most arguments or motivations for change is the constraints of military budgets.

Thereafter all your planning and training can be undone minutes into the first battle.

Let me explain.

Take the 4th Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry - as part of the 43rd Wessex Division - experience in the taking of Hill 112 for example.

Out of its original strength of 36 officers and nearly 700 other ranks, The 4th Battalion, The Somerset Light Infantry, received reinforcements of 15 officers and 541 other ranks, between the 5th and 18th July 1944 leaving it below its full strength. This is admittedly a radical case.
(source 18 Platoon by Sidney Jary)

So how long will all these theoretical organisations and structures survive after battle is joined?

The answer is how do the units taking casulaties adapt. The key lies in the abilities of the officers and NCOs - who survive - to show initiative and get on with what they have got. History provides those interested with many examples of how soldiers have risen to the challenge in the most dire situations.