Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
Not my place to criticise the USA or USMC, but I can tell you that Platoon Manoeuvre is widely mis-understood and mostly very poorly trained for. I've watched many UK platoons do "bunker busting" drills at the platoon level an they have them down pat. Highly skilled, highly aggressive, and mostly effective. Done it myself and last observed it being done at the NCO school in 2006.
Problem is that template drills do not test Platoon and Section commanders as to their understanding of how a platoon gets forward. Thus in the UK, you have the bones of an excellent system, that mostly people have no idea as to why they are doing what they do. They just do it.
Same thing screwed up the platoon and section tactics training in 1941.
You're on to something, and that is at the root of my frustration with what we do...very few understand the WHY, and far fewer can apply it smoothly when the parameters change.

That in turn results, IMO, with unecessary employment of supporting arms disproportionate to the threat, wildly inaccurate small-arms fires which run counter to our need to protect the populace in small wars, and unecessary casualties. Our men have the capacity to do it, but we fail them when it comes to applying time, resources, and mentorship to the training.