Yep that was long.

Couple of points that jump out.

A. You keep stating things as though they are well understood rules of thumb, like X number of men to assault, and 30% casualties, or even X has an LMG and a UGL. These are arbitary assumptions. They are not understood as absolutes, so I don't know where these come from. The OA from the Falklands disproves all these assumptions. The Final assualt on Darwin Hill was carried out by 22 men, mostly officers, NCOs and Radio Operators - and no fire support. The rest of A Company stayed put. This was a Paratrooper Company that had suffered IIRC, 3 dead and 12 wounded. A company was organised as 3 platoons of 32 men, with 6 GPMG per platoon, each operated by a 4 man fire team, in an 8 man section. Sections and platoons did re-organise in contact.


B. Kilcullen helped enginner the new Aussie Platoon orbat of 40 men, which is 10 x 4 man fireteams, to be organised anyway the platoon commander sees fit. There are fireteams and fire support teams. The platoon is the basis of organisation and not the squad or section. I had some long talks with him about this when he was in London and presenting to the School of Infantry. I think he's pretty on the nail. We both agreed that section defined concepts had very great limits.

C. Patrolling is nothing to do with dominating terrain. That's a Commonwealth Army's definition and it's provebaly wrong. How do you dominated ground between you and the enemy if you don't know where the enemy is? An advance to contact is reconnaissance. It may even be an advance to maintain contact against a moving enemy. Dismounted reconaissance is patrolling. Patrolling is dismounted or even mounted maneuver aimed at carrying out or supporting the core functions. It's like folks who fixate on AMBUSH instead of an attack on a moving enemy.

D. Fixating on the idea that the Ideal section is 11 or 9 men, or even X-men leads you down the same blind alley, because it is not based on the real world constraints and human factors that define how infantry operates. Redundancy is just a function of absolute numbers. Nothing more.