The Roles and Weapons with the Squad

[RJ]

"Originally Posted by William F. Owen
As a UK Infantryman, I have never understood, why the US Squad Leader is not part of a Fire team. Both the Army and Marines cling to this, for no good reason that I can see."

William with respect, as a former Marine Squad Leader I submit the following experiences by the Marine Corps as proof enough for we who have been there

Iwo Jima, Okniawa, The Chosin Resevoir, The Battle of Hue City, The March Up to Bagdad and Fallujah II.

The one up and two back configeration needs the guiding hand of a squad leader who has been brought up in this unit configeration to direct the flow of the fight in progress.

I sense some inability from a few that the size of the Marine Squad is to them too big to control in combat.

It isn't, if you have been trained from Private thru L/Cpl to Cpl. to respond in this invironment.

It works for the Marine Corps. When vertical envelopment began in the 50's the air assets could not carry more than 8 Marines. A perfect excuse to break down the big 13 man squads to "fit" the size of the transportation available.

Didn't Happen! I was a squad leader in that period and the decision was made to put the extra squad members on the next chopper to load. The division of the big squad may have been discussed up the chain of command but it was not even considered at the troop level. We liked the way a three fire team squad "flowed" in the assualt phase of our training. 4 man rushes supported by 8 man covering fire is a thing of beauty as it moves forward to close with the enemy.

The forward movement was not a single 4 man unit moving ahead while being supported by the two other fire teams. The assualting fire teams interchanged between assualt and support in coordinated fire team rushes that constantly moved forward. The 8 man support is powerful and can not be duplicated by a 9 man squad with four assualting and five supporting.

The economy of putting a squad leader in the dual role of SL and FTL in an 8 man squad reduces the power of the support base by 35%. As in 35% less rounds moving down range in supressing the enemy.

It , in my opinion, would be the worst of both worlds. A weak unit with a dual-role SL who in the heat of battle is going to fight his fire team and focus on that and not the other fire team.

A Marine SL has the training to focus on manuevering his three fireteams as the terrain and the quality of the enemy's troops and defenses will allow. He is not part of the "uuuunnnnngggg" stress of moving forward under fire,
and he can develop his part of the battlefield as the power of his bigger squad projects itself under his direction. He is under stress and exposed to enemy fire, for sure, but his job is to fight his three fire teams without the distraction of having to lay down the base of fire or jump up and rush at the enemy with three other Marines in the fire team. He is also in direct contact with his platoon leader and keeps him informed on his squads status.

In a smaller 8 man squad, fighting a fire team, commanding a squad and keeping those above us informed seems a bit much, to me.

Running a Marine Squad ain't easy, but it is easier than trying to take the same terrain with 4 to 5 less guns in the fight. Especially when your gun is needed in the fight, while you are trying to figure out what has to be done.

This commentary on the 8, 9 and 13 man squads on up to a 20 man squad has the ability to become the "never ending story".

I submit 6 decades of success in combat with a 13 man squad works for the Marines!

The tour of a Marine Expeditionary Units in Helmand Provience this year seemed to have worked quite well. 500 to 600 dead opponents and only a single civilian casualty and a handful of Marines killed or wounded might be a model to study and learn from.

Please don't think my commentary is a "my way or the highway" kind of chatter. I hope my comments explain the reason the Marines continue to use the big squad configeration.

William Owen, How long has the UK had your squad configeration? And what were the composition of the squads before your current size? What were the squad sizes in WWI?

Were they bigger than today? The huge losses in that war
must have influenced changes that are still being felt.

[William F. Owen]

William with respect, as a former Marine Squad Leader I submit the following experiences by the Marine Corps as proof enough for we who have been there

Iwo Jima, Okniawa, The Chosin Resevoir, The Battle of Hue City, The March Up to Bagdad and Fallujah II.

All testaments to the courage and determination of the the USMC, plus it's supporting arms and fires. It does not constitute empirical evidence in regard to the utility of the separated Squad HQ

The economy of putting a squad leader in the dual role of SL and FTL in an 8 man squad reduces the power of the support base by 35%. As in 35% less rounds moving down range in supressing the enemy.

It , in my opinion, would be the worst of both worlds. A weak unit with a dual-role SL who in the heat of battle is going to fight his fire team and focus on that and not the other fire team.

Economy is the word. The whole argument/discussion on the size and organisation is not about absolute numbers. What the argument lacks is how do you organise X-number of men, for a given mission or task, not "how big is the squad."

This commentary on the 8, 9 and 13 man squads on up to a 20 man squad has the ability to become the "never ending story".

I submit 6 decades of success in combat with a 13 man squad works for the Marines!

Concur

The tour of a Marine Expeditionary Units in Helmand Provience this year seemed to have worked quite well. 500 to 600 dead opponents and only a single civilian casualty and a handful of Marines killed or wounded might be a model to study and learn from.

...and there is a Royal Marine Company, in Helmand that may have achieved a greater Loss Exchange Ratio

William Owen, How long has the UK had your squad configeration? And what were the composition of the squads before your current size? What were the squad sizes in WWI?

Were they bigger than today? The huge losses in that war
must have influenced changes that are still being felt.

The current UK Section dates from 1985 as two mirror Fireteams. Prior to that we had an 8-10 man section organised as a Gun Group and Rifle Group. 10 men was the "War Time" establishment.

In 1918 the Section was 7 men but there were 4 sections not 3. There were 2 x Lewis Gun Sections and 2 x Rifle Sections. In 1934 they scrapped this excellent scheme to have the 3 combined sections, with the Bren Gun.

[jcustis]

Wilf,

I'd offer that the repeated call for empirical evidence that supports the individual squad leader can be countered with the same call for empirical evidence that we need to change. Bottom line is that you'll never get the magic bullet of empirical evidence.

[RJ]

Wilf - 50 Bravo posted "Squad size:
Never felt the rifle squad was realistically designed to operate on it's own but as an administrative convenience to get enough infrastructure (Squad and fire team leaders) to let the platoon operate effectively. Maybe the all-volunteer thing has changed that equation but between rotation, casualties etc. there weren't many full to&e squads running around loose. When you start with nine and pare back from there for reality (rotation, illness etc), you got problems as a maneuver element.

If we were going out to ambush or interdict, we preferred to take 13 to 15 people. You need that many for a decent ambush if you are going to have any security at all and still have a decent KZ. Also some losses don't reduce your firepower in such a drastic fashion.

It looks like the US Army grew its 2 fire team squads to 13 or 15 in Vietnam to provide a realistic size force to meet the minimum size unit to conduct tactically effective ambushes.

50 Bravo, I'll bet that the ambush team included at least one M-60 in the party. We would include a Machine Gunner and assistant gunner in our ambush squads and every fire team leader and rifleman would hump extra MG ammo for the gun team.

jcustics - Empirical evidence seems to be the modern version of the Holy Grail! I'll bet todays Marine Corps still fills out 13 man squads that have battle casualties with Cooks, Bakers, Remington Raiders and the occasional Cannon Cocker until they can get some 0311 replacement parts. I suspect "Every man a Rifleman" is still practiced and the temporary interchangable parts get the job done.

M/3/5 0369 once a'pon a time, long, long ago and far, far away.

[William F. Owen]

Wilf,

I'd offer that the repeated call for empirical evidence that supports the individual squad leader can be countered with the same call for empirical evidence that we need to change. Bottom line is that you'll never get the magic bullet of empirical evidence.

Absolutely agree. - but there are measures of effectiveness that good trials and research would reveal.

[ODB]

Wonder why 12 men was the answer for a SF ODA? Why not 10? 9? or 15? I understand in respect to the quality, experience, and education of an infantryman vs a SF soldier and the differences in mission requirements. My point is that some one much smarter than me saw this as the magic number. With 12 men there is enough redundancy built in to handle casulties and enough firepower to handle many situations. As I stated in and earlier post I am personally a fan of a 9 man squad with a gun team which brings us to the magic number of 12 men. Would like the historical perspective of why SF went with 12 man teams and that may help in figuring out the ideal sized squad.

[Ken White]

plus two each Ops/Intel, Weapons, Comm, Medics and Demo = 12.

Apples and oranges to rifle squads, I think.

[ODB]

lost somewhere in the other jibberish. I was wondering if anyone knew why 12 men or was it more of that is just the way it worked out after looking at leadership requirements and having 2 of everything? Didn't know if some one thought 12 was the right amount of personnel and then tailored the make up to this number or the other way around. Understand the comparison is apples to oranges in some aspects.

A question that arises is also mobility assets. Under the current composition a 9 man squad can move by two gun trucks or 1 UH-60(seats in of course). If the squad size increases then do our mobility platforms need to increase in size as well or do we simply increase the footprint (more vehicles). Might simply be to far into 9 man squads in the Army to change at this point. How do the other services handle this?