Well, your room-clearing concerns are ones I certainly had, which is also the reason you see some of the pistols and the MP7 in the squad as well. The pistols show up entirely because of the experiences I've had relayed to me from the men that have been serving in Iraq multiple times.

For that reason, every man in the squad has a weapon available to them for that role. Most likely the worst off is the DM, but he could easily use one of the pistols assigned to the squad leader or asst leader. Even the DM, though, has a weapon with a 20" barrel, the same as a standard M16A1, not an impossible weapon to use in buildings.

On the matter of DMs, I know that that's another subject where opinions are divided, but your concept is interesting, especially for training. That being said, I definitely see their value being part of the squad in combat on a permanent basis. You need someone in the squad who is both equipped and trained to make very accurate shots at literally a moment's notice. It's the difference between an enemy gunner in window holding up a squad for 30 seconds or holding them up for 10 minutes.

On that note, however, you earlier stated that you feel that the current USMC squad is the most capable one out there, yet the four-man fireteams--each fireteam with a belt-fed machine gun and a grenade launcher--and the designated marksman can all be found in their organization.

Logan Hartke