I'm still unclear as to your proposal and questions:
- Are you talking infantry, cavalry, armor, engineer platoons?
- Are you taking into consideration combined arms aspects of platoon and troop/company operations? Are you seeking to make the platoon organization capable of combined arms organically?
- Are you looking for a "platoon-in-a-box" that can do everything required in a COIN environment?
- Are we shedding traditional MOS roles and making a "jack of all trades" organization with multiple skills and no specialites?
- What are my enemy's capablilities?
- What is my METL?
Please understand my frustration in my apparent inability to understand your question fully. This is my job and I teach this very thing. Problem is, to quote Bill Parcells, is that I'm asked to make dinner and not being told what the ingredients are....
Example is better than precept.
Which is another reason I'm fairly reserved on this. The obvious OPSEC issues of telling in open forum what I'm missing right now are potentially fatal. I'd imagine a defense contractor would understand this consternation.Originally Posted by Ken White
Example is better than precept.
Obviously not
Then again, as I said; "Great in theory but the harsh reality is actually that the Congress Critter in most cases is merely concerned with any tangible benefit to his or her District." Or something on that line...
I defer to your experience since I think that you said it best in a related thread on battle drill:
Exactly
And it even bears excessive repetition:
(emphasis added / kw)"Been that way for over 200 years I think...
Sad thing is it need not be that way; politics, parochialism and egos are a big part of the problem but our national traits of impatience and unwillingness to think ahead contribute. Those things and our penchant for trying to substitute technology for good training.
The kids generally pull us out of it; bless 'em..."
Noting that the politics, parochialism and egos are a constant of the human condition and all the superior design in the world will not forestall their impact; that 'technology' includes not only hardware but software and even an approach to 'problem solving;' and the the kids are able to take the flawed products of all the foregoing and make it work in spite of the impediments placed in their way by their nominal superiors (to include in presumed intellectual superiority).
Good metaphor!
Hmmm...that was the point of my question above. I'm not proposing anything, I'm asking!
So let's try this.
To all individuals who proposed or commented upon TO&Es in related threads: What were your assumptions that guided your comments?
If you proposed a given unit organization, what was your assumed mission? Your operating environment? ROE? etc. Was it to be a jack-of-all trades? Why did you propose what you did? Was your proposal based purely on conventional OpFor, purely counter-insurgency, or a combination? When two individuals with military experience see "small raiding force" and "set-piece battle" in the same train of thought you know they're on the same planet but from different worlds.
From my amateur perspective, here's what I've observed with respect to the bulk of American front-line trigger-pullers. And by that I mean our light infantry such as airborne and rangers, our marine rifle battalions, our mech infantry and cav in Brads, and our new Stryker-mounted units.
They've been tasked with various missions related to the initial invasion and occupation of a third-world country. They've been asked to engage conventional if poorly equiped/trained/led "regular" forces, civilian militias, experienced foreign fighters, terrorists, and reluctant civilians. And they've been asked to provide security like neighborhood police in the midst of warring factions and outright thugs and criminals. They've faced AFVs with autocannons and tank guns (even if in very poor condition and poorly manned), regulars in fixed positions with heavy machine guns and mortars, civilian militia with AKs and RPGs, experienced foreign fighters with sniper rifles, dads being forced by terrorists to plant IEDs because they need the money, and even kids and moms being used as spotters.
So, from initial invasion to conventional combat to counter-insurgenecy to "police-work" the "line troops" who make up the bulk of our front-line forces have been asked to face all of those things with a paper TO&E that's fairly consistent (either 9 or 13-man squads in 4-man fire teams, a couple of platoon-level GPMGs and AT teams, sometimes company-level 60mm mortars, usually battalion-level 81mm mortars, and a battalion-level recon platoon.)
So, if you (as in vous/y'all) proposed or asserted anything in the related threads about TO&E for squad to battalion, what were your assumptions?
In the absence of your assumptions, just look at the varied operating environment and threats faced by our airborne, ranger, mech, cav, and marines in Iraq and test your ideas against those parameters since they're all real-world based.
And amazingly...
... or they may just have differing experience sets...
... they seem to have made that work out in all those varying scenarios...So, from initial invasion to conventional combat to counter-insurgenecy to "police-work" the "line troops" who make up the bulk of our front-line forces have been asked to face all of those things with a paper TO&E that's fairly consistent (either 9 or 13-man squads in 4-man fire teams, a couple of platoon-level GPMGs and AT teams, sometimes company-level 60mm mortars, usually battalion-level 81mm mortars, and a battalion-level recon platoon.)
With respect, you seem to be confusing form with function. Form is defined by opinion, budget and emotional/human needs. Function follows what the form is capable of. Where the form is not capable of the function you see failure, - which how you know its not working.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
With reference to the weapons summary, DND openly states on its site what is in its possession, along with general characteristics of said. And there is no shortage of professional journals (one of the most comprehensive of which that covers the Canadian Forces is located at a university in San Franciso), industry sites and publications, military enthusiast sites, and US Manuals openly available on-line that state quite publicly the specific performance characteristics of such implements.
That said, the insurgents in A-Stan have a much better knowledge of who has what, and what that can do, than most arms manufacturers. And they have long known what we have and don't have, and what we can do with them. No secret there at all, sadly.
That argument would not defend me at a court martial....With reference to the weapons summary, DND openly states on its site what is in its possession, along with general characteristics of said. And there is no shortage of professional journals (one of the most comprehensive of which that covers the Canadian Forces is located at a university in San Franciso), industry sites and publications, military enthusiast sites, and US Manuals openly available on-line that state quite publicly the specific performance characteristics of such implements.
That said, the insurgents in A-Stan have a much better knowledge of who has what, and what that can do, than most arms manufacturers. And they have long known what we have and don't have, and what we can do with them. No secret there at all, sadly.
Example is better than precept.
Nor, I would add, does that argument address what,
specifically, we do in fact do -- or don't do -- with the equipment available. Conjecture by theorists is perfectly fine and can be an enjoyable and interesting read. Comments with specifics by those serving are an entirely different thing. They have to be careful, the rest of us do not have that constraint.
Not only the potential actual use of equipment or organizational TTP should be considered but any statements made that may be taken out of context and applied in a propaganda mode should be avoided by those in uniform. The rest of us don't have to heed that; whether we should is another matter...
Recall the first item in the ROE; (LINK) "No discussions of current ops that may disadvantage lawful combatants." Disadvantage is a very broad term...
Understood. I had deliberately avoided discussing related matters to put information from said attachment into a useable tactical context. The attachment has been deleted forthwith.
I have not been in uniform for some time now.
Last edited by Norfolk; 01-05-2008 at 02:14 AM.
I don't think you've erred, certainly not to my recollection. I was
just trying to point out why RTK and some others don't comment on some threads.
That comment of mine wasn't pointed at you, it was just an idle and generic reminder. No need for you to have deleted anything...
No, I do not want to even create the appearance of having compromised anything. And if RTK was strong in his point, then clearly there must have been something that I had done for RTK's antenna to pick it up.just trying to point out why RTK and some others don't comment on some threads.
That comment of mine wasn't pointed at you, it was just an idle and generic reminder. No need for you to have deleted anything...
Nevertheless Ken, I am somewhat thick at times, and my civvie years may have rubbed a little off my old edges anyway. A gentle reminder it was.
RTK is a Cavalryman, they don't have antennae,
they have ESP with a 600km range.
As for my background, I apologize for not introducing myself formally. In fact, when rex made his comment I immediately PM'd him last night that I had not noticed the intro area and would post there as soon as I had time (he can vouch for that if you're still feeling any hostility or doubt towards me as implied in your comments).
I have not yet posted in the intro, not out of deliberate neglect, but merely out of great enthusiasm for the forum's excellent content. I was not aware that such weight was placed on introductions and had been simply enjoying the exchange of ideas.
And that is the peril of assumptions, both mine and yours!
Best Regards,
Tim
PS Quick background: have served in senior leadership positions for various companies supplying defense, civilian agency, and the commercial world with underlying technologies related to reconaissance and information retrieval. These technologies are being used in Iraq, Afghanistan, the broader GWOT, civilian space agencies, and even in commerical entities. Not nearly as exciting as many on this forum thus my interest in your comments. Otherwise I'm just an amateur, armchair historian with a "virtual" doctorate in military history according to my wife who says I buy way too many books (in our last move we had more weight in books than furniture!)
Tim, I'm sure that in time you'll discover what a unique and valuable resource the SWC is. Much of the credit for that goes to the owners, the moderators, and most of all, the real-world expertise of the membership. Unfortunately, the very thing that makes this a great place to have discussions also makes it a magnet for people who have less than honorable motives or hidden agendas (and they show up like clockwork several times a month). That's partly why we like to see folks introduce themselves and/or fill out the Profile with something more than "n/a".
I see from your post that you have been involved in developing IR technology. That's my professional specialty as well. Are you a member of SIGIR? Do you have any particular areas of interest in the field, such as deception detection or stylometric analysis?
organisation and distance
I have read with great interest your thread and feel you need oriental perspective too. Here is what we think in the Asian region:
Area of Operational Influence(AOPIN) = Reach of Ground Forces (REAGROF) x Target engagement range of
Fire Support Systems (TERFSS)
Hence the frontage and depth is governed by AOPIN. The Organization is built upon smallest subunit capable of limited independent operations. It may be squad (4) or section (8-10). The smallest frontage x depth covered is 50 m2 for the squad. The entire hierarchy is built upon it as triad or quad aggregation for command and control. The dispersion is a factor of communication, surveillance and target acquisition as well as logistics. Hope it solves some of your issues. I would like to be associated with you since I am a researcher too as long as I am cited appropriately.
I'm not sure I understand this well enough to comment, but I would not agree with the idea that:
"The dispersion is a factor of communication, surveillance and target acquisition as well as logistics.".
These are certainly factors, but a squad, as cited in the example, can in theory acquire targets at 3,000m, so I am not sure why a frontage and depth would be specified
As I say, I may not have understood correctly
Last edited by William F. Owen; 01-09-2008 at 07:40 AM. Reason: Typos
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Back at my computer again after three weeks of different amusements ...
A couple of thoughts (all based on the fact that this here is small war's council):
# How much space/width and how many threat vectors can a single squad defend? Well, if every man has a PGM targeting device thousands of yards and dozens of targets.
On the other hand, in urban combat a squad might be happy to "control" a single small courtyard of a building and a single vector, reducing their engagement width to single digit meters.
# The equipment:
Assuming that in combat operating (i) a man is fully busy with a weapon with a single characteristic/ballistic one is more than enough, and that (ii) a squad does not have the overview for employing indirect fire, the squad should be limited to direct fire weapons and such as are always needed, and enable the soldier to concentrate on his single weapon, plus without being too heavy and bulky. Thus rifle and machine gun only.
On the platoon level then the weapons specialists with things like RPGs and AGLs, which have about the same max range and do not require a lot more overview than a squad has, plus give the platoon that desired direct/indirect/anti-armor mix. The arithmetics should be chosen in a way to re-enforce the squads, meaning one RPG and AGL per squad (2-men teams each, one operates the weapon, the other carries reloads and observes).
Since a squad/platoon can be expected to be employed in very rough terrain, keep weight down, keep ammo resupply requirements down.
On company level then you ad range and punch - mortars, guided missiles. Still everything man-portable. And with enough people to carry ammo, esp for the mortar.
# On the numbers of the heavier weapons:
Mortars I'd say three, maybe six - but then ammo has to transported in trolleys or barrows (only in not too rough terrain). If you have to operate in very rough terrain you need six men per mortar to have anything more than a few moments of indirect fire. Same goes for the missile teams (anti-armor, anti-air).
All these mortar and missile teams should be sized and trained that they can revert to a fourth platoon in the company, if their special weapons are not needed. I think that is one critical point - it gives the unit flexibility.
For the battalion level there are only the support elements to ad.
What weapon you don't have on company level, you don't get (again, small wars).
# The numbers of heavier weapons depends on your heavy precision fire support (155mm, UAVs, helicopters, fighterbombers), and how much you trust in their availability. Environment, enemy, C3.
# I think keeping fire support together on higher levels is a good idea, but there should be enough of it to support each individual lower formation. Re only two mortars for a company is not a good idea when you have three platoons (and nine squads) that each can potentially face a threat vector and require fire support.
# All in all over-organization on those low levels is a bad idea. You give the squads what they always need, the platoon what is needed in some situations, and the company what is rarely needed. All the rest is for the CO to figure out.
If you are too static in your approach you equip formations with weapons they don't really need, adding weight, logistics needs and costs.
Effector ranges are not as decisive as overview.
# I think one of the questions unchanged is, how can you equip a formation like a platoon or company without loading it up too much, giving too many special weapons to them that they don't need and how to balance the unit for assault and sustained ops.
The U.S. forces, due to their logistics capabilities, might not be the best place to look for such answers I feel.
I got in some hot water once for claming my "spidey sense" was tingling - my chain of command was pretty dismissive, to say the least. I had just opined that the insurgents in our AO were about to make a move - later that day, a major car bomb went off in a market - and caused huge problems.they have ESP with a 600km range.
Never got anyone to believe I could sense the events coming! ("Sir, time to up the posture, Cavguy has a bad feeling ... or gas from KBR")
About to read : "Blink: The power of Thinking without Thinking" - I think the real reason is that I was very close to the populace in the AO and picked up some subconscous signs that things were amiss .......
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