Suppressive Fire

[jcustis]

I entered in 1984, four man fire team (all M16s), sometimes 1 m203s, and we could upgrade in a squad to M60s.

I turned around and pulled my "Guidebook for Marines" (circa 1979) and what was issued to be in bootcamp off the shelf. It says (Chapter 29):

The current Marine Corps Rifle Squad... is made up of 13 men, a sergeant (squad leader) and three teams of four men each .. each fire team consists of a corporal (fire team leader), a lance corporal (automatic rifleman), and two privates or privates first class , one designated as grenadier/rifleman and the other as rifleman.

Picture included.

Excellent find Sam! That's just what I thought would be true. All M16s eh? I take it these were M16A1 models with a full auto sear assembly?

And does that guidebook offer any tidbits on employment of that automatic rifleman?