Quote Originally Posted by Rifleman View Post
I've read some articles that advocate a squad design made up of a light fire team and a heavy fire team. This is somewhat closer to the WWII squad design of scout group, rifle group, and gun group. The light fire team is usually envisioned as riflemen and grenadiers, with the heavy fire team as some combination of belt fed weapons, rocket launchers, and designated riflemen (squad sharpshooters).

...

I want to know what folks think about the current doctrinal principal of balanced fire teams v. light and heavy teams in the same squad.

...

What say you?
From a practical standpoint, I'm just envisioning a 4-man fire team and a 3 to 5 man "heavy" team, bounding by team. One element is significantly slower than the other. Throw in a third team - you've still got a slow team. Task organize in a way to disperses the heavy weapons guys among the squad - now you've split up fire teams.

From a training perspective, how many skill sets is the squad leader going to be responsible for training and tactically employing? I already see this problem at the BN level, let alone company, platoon, or squad. Now that we've created heavy maneuver battalions composed of engineer, armor, and infantry, the battalion commander is no longer the guy blessing off on platoons. He handles the company of his branch. Hopefully the S-3 is another branch, so that he can take those companies. And then you've got one more branch. With an Armor BC and an Infantry S-3, who blesses off on the Engineer platoons? Delegate down from O-5 to O-3? Find an O-5 Engineer?

The heavy concept might make sense for a mech infantry unit where the vehicles are the designated SBF and provide an array of other benefits (most notably transportation for all of that heavy stuff). My old mech platoon dismounted with M240B's, Javelins, AT-4's - we were ALL heavy in one way or another.

From the standpoint of a light/aaslt/abn platoon, why so many tasks and so much equipment for one squad? Someone mentioned assault and breach - shouldn't this be a platoon effort? We've gone so far as to push out 3-man teams to operate independently for up to 72 hours, but those guys aren't doing raids - and they were not alone when moving into their hide sites. If you're doing an assault that requires a breach, I'm not comfortable sending a squad - not even if it is a 12-man squad. That is especially so if we're talking urban terrain. And as for better maneuver afforded by 3 teams or a heavy team, I again would ask where the rest of the platoon is. If the firepower and maneuverability afforded by 3 teams is necessary, then you might want to reconsider whether the men are embarking upon a mission appropriate for a squad. More often than not, I think the answer would be no. For that less frequent occasion when the answer is yes, a temporary task organization to plus up the squad seems more prudent than changing the MTOE for the less frequent occasions.

I'm just a fan of simplicity for the squad leader and two similar teams seems a good mix of simple and appropriate. He has enough weight upon his shoulders already.