Abandon squad/section levels of organization?

[Uboat509]

Not sure how to explain it better than I did in the article, but here goes.

1. This was written to make people think about the how and why of dismounted operations. The base of the idea comes from a fairly in depth study of MACV-SOG, Ground Studies Branch, and the UKs Royal Marines, based on extensive interviews, and presentation/written feed back to concepts and ideas. - but so what!

I am not sure why MACV-SOG is relevant. They performed a much different mission than modern infantry.

2. Essentially modern infantry are not optimised, either in training or equipment to fulfil core functions in terrain where dismounted operations are the primary enabler. - thus my statement that infantry should aim to fulfil the FIND function. - which is why there is the Recce and OP emphasis.

Are you saying that modern infantry is not capable of performing combat missions other than find? Most infantrymen and commanders I have known might feel differently. Eight out of the ten divisions in the US Army are infantry divisions and the remaining two have huge infantry contingents. Infantry has performed the bulk of our fighting for years.

3. Infantry should operate in a combined arms/joint approach to operations. This impacts on the carried weight issue, and can be looked at in terms of an actual loss in capability the more weapons and protection you have men carry.

We do.

4. Once on foot, all infantry should fight the same way, but the reasons they do not is nothing to do with the role of infantry. It is to do with equipment and organisation issues. A friend of mine who commanded a Para Battle Group, put one of his companies in Warrior MICVs for one exercise and guess what. Nothing changed. They just jumped out and did what they did, and when they needed to go somewhere they jumped back in.

You're saying that this commander put his men in vehicles for which they had little or no training or experience and they didn't spontaneously change their SOPs to reflect the new vehicles over the course of a single exercise? I am not sure what that proves exactly.

5. A UK Lt Col actually wrote to me about this article saying he liked it, but said it was impossible to make work, as raising the infantry bar made people who thought they were "special" or "Elite" less elite, and thus the objection to this concept comes from the people whom it supports!

...which goes a long way to informing my opinions about infantry doctrine, equipment and organisation being primarily the product of emotion and opinion, never held to rigour!

Raising the bar is fine but you have to bear in mind that the higher you raise bar the more people you eliminate from the force. This is why there are only three Ranger battalions. We have eight infantry divisions and manning eight divisions requires finding a standard that is high enough to perform the mission but not so high as make manning difficult to maintain.

SFC W