Infantry Unit Tactics, Tasks, Weapons, and Organization

[Fuchs]

The latter definition does not draw a line between brigade and regiment, though. Brigades tend to be combined arms, whereas regiments tend to be one-branch formations.


Infantry should be highly agile, a 2 km cross-country run with equipment should be possible at almost any time (I certainly would need two months of exercise till I reached that fitness level).
Not the least for this requirement, I dislike the idea that infantry teams always need to have heavy AT munitions.
I'd rather prefer to have multiple TO&E per team; and a Plt base / cache / carrier vehicle with the temporarily unnecessary equipment.

[82redleg]

The latter definition does not draw a line between brigade and regiment, though. Brigades tend to be combined arms, whereas regiments tend to be one-branch formations.

Traditional US Army usage (I don't have the definitions handy) was that a Regiment was a fixed organization of (predominantly) a single arm/branch, while a Brigade was an unfixed organization combining multiple arms/branches, but that wasn't always true, since a square division in WW1 had 2 brigades of 2 regiments. It is also not true in the current organizations, since each of the three BCTs have a fixed organization. The Multifunctional and functional support brigades have an unfixed organization, but at least the functional support brigades are predominantly of one arm.

It also depends on the size of your regiment, since some nations' regiments are only battalion sized.

[BushrangerCZ]

The latter definition does not draw a line between brigade and regiment, though. Brigades tend to be combined arms, whereas regiments tend to be one-branch formations.


Infantry should be highly agile, a 2 km cross-country run with equipment should be possible at almost any time (I certainly would need two months of exercise till I reached that fitness level).
Not the least for this requirement, I dislike the idea that infantry teams always need to have heavy AT munitions.
I'd rather prefer to have multiple TO&E per team; and a Plt base / cache / carrier vehicle with the temporarily unnecessary equipment.

I dare to say that right now there is no NATO infantry unit able to do it as a team in equipment they are required to carry on when outside the wire. It´s beating the same dead horse as we do for some years already.

[Fuchs]

Well, I'm not talking about a patrol, but about tactical (area) defence.

[JMA]

Responding to a post from FUCHS containing: "Infantry should be highly agile, a 2 km cross-country run with equipment should be possible at almost any time "

I dare to say that right now there is no NATO infantry unit able to do it as a team in equipment they are required to carry on when outside the wire. It´s beating the same dead horse as we do for some years already.

There are assumptions a commander makes when deploying troops and one is the ability to get to where they are required to be with all their fighting kit over various types of terrain and distances.

I wonder if the now weight restricted movement of dismounted infantry is being factored in at Command & Staff Colleges and during other officer training? It seems it is impossible to expect the Michelin Man to conduct even a 10km approach march overnight and be ready to fight from first light.

This would lead to changes in the definition of "full kit" as required for the 2km fitness test FUCHS mentioned.

Would it be naive to assume that as wearing body-armour is now seemingly a non negotiable that it is now worn throughout basic training for recruits and during all field training (including range work) for trained soldiers?

[Fuchs]

Wearing flak vests during all outdoor training was common in Germany in the 90's, but full body armour incl plates? There are training plates that don't break, but it still makes no sense to burden recruits with 'em. Recruits need to build muscle and bone strength first.


I personally don't think that hard plate level IV body armour should be non-negotiable at all. It's a passive protection response to the specific threat spectrum of small wars and occupations.
Inter-state wars include a much much higher fragmentation threat and OPFOR does punish immobile opponents much more as well.
Both points towards a need for a full body fragmentation protection suit.

Likewise, the optimal APC for a large conventional war would probably not exceed the protection levels known from Cold war APCs (when APCs weren't optimised against a specific single threat).

[BushrangerCZ]

Responding to a post from FUCHS containing: "Infantry should be highly agile, a 2 km cross-country run with equipment should be possible at almost any time "



There are assumptions a commander makes when deploying troops and one is the ability to get to where they are required to be with all their fighting kit over various types of terrain and distances.

I wonder if the now weight restricted movement of dismounted infantry is being factored in at Command & Staff Colleges and during other officer training? It seems it is impossible to expect the Michelin Man to conduct even a 10km approach march overnight and be ready to fight from first light.

This would lead to changes in the definition of "full kit" as required for the 2km fitness test FUCHS mentioned.

Would it be naive to assume that as wearing body-armour is now seemingly a non negotiable that it is now worn throughout basic training for recruits and during all field training (including range work) for trained soldiers?

As far as I experienced, body armour is not worn during basic training (not enough plates and carriers), but it is commonly worn during training in regiments.

[Fuchs]

I attempted to draw a kind of genealogy of infantry tactics. It's least impossible for defensive tactics thanks to the relatively greater degree of order.

Too bad my output was utterly Germany-centric. Do you guy have anything to add?


Leading infantry defence concepts

late 19th century till 1914:
single shoulder-to-shoulder line in simple trench

1915:
interlocking machine gun fire with elaborate trenches, rifle fire is secondary

1916-1918:
forward trenches weak, if possible two better-manned rear trenches in up to several kilometres depth (out of range of most hostile field artillery)

1920's:
elastic defence with weak VRV (FLOT), strong HKL (main line of resistance) at up to 10 km depth, some concerns about use of terrain and mines for AT purposes

1939/1940:
Finnish motti tactics and first huge use of ski troops

1941:
hedgehog defence (company strongpoints) on overstretched front-line (due to inability to man it in depth), if possible one continuous patrol trench at VRV (FLOT), dependence on indirect fire support for domination of gaps between strongpoints

early 1950's (1st German Heer structure):
network of platoon strongpoints and squad or fire team resistance nests in between

early 1960's (2nd or 3rd German Heer structure):
network of platoon strongpoints

1960's: U.S. heliborne infantry
extreme mobility in permissive AD environment, but nothing special once on the ground

around 1970: U.S. LRRP
infantry as mobile forward observers / scouts in an environment with huge "blue" excess firepower (offence and defence difficult to separate)

1968 till 1989 Austrian "Raumverteidigung" by infantry militia
defence of key locations to slow down passage of invaders
(Swiss were similar, only that they considered much of their country as key location and emphasised fortifications more)

1970's German (later also Austrian) Jagdkampf
(similar terminology to offensive WW2 counter guerilla patrols, but different concepts) with reinforced platoon-sized Jagdkommandos as forward or even infiltrated skirmishers

~1980: theory: guerilla-like Jäger (Franz Uhle-Wettler's concept)
elusive infantry does not hold terrain, but persist as threat in a designated area of operations. High degree of autonomy, extreme tooth:tail ratio in favour of teeth

~1980's theory: Simpkin's network of Uhle-Wettler's concept
expansion in depth of the concept in order to make entire regions threatened (Uhle-Wettler was more concerned about how easily difficult terrain can be exploited for flanking movements if not guarded, see Ardennes 1940)

sometime 1990's: distributed operations
(this concept of dispersed infantry small units morphed over time into a mere buzzword)

[kaur]

Fuchs, one comment. Iif you mention Finns with skis, then you should mention also first wide scale use of bicycle troops. Germans? Most famous Finns were long range recce troops. Today their mission is called deep operations. During WWII British SAS had same mission, but they used jeeps instead of skis You just have to make compromise between your signature on terrain and mode of transport. Today you should also mention wide use of ATV's where climate favours this. In winter conditions you use snowmobile. Like Finns do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=51d3s9FevyY

[Fuchs]

More important in winter than means of transport is logistics. You better always have a heated hut and better not operate far away from such necessities.


Military bicycles appeared in army exercises in the late 19th century, especially folding bikes are quite well-documented (as if carrying a 25+ kg bike on the back was somehow an advantage). It's difficult to pin down the first wide-spread use to me, and it surely wasn't a primarily defensive tactic in German use.
Germans used bicycle troops mostly as cheap cavalry and motorcycle infantry substitute, for example in the battalion plus-sized reconnaissance detachments.