Wilf - 50 Bravo posted "Squad size:
Never felt the rifle squad was realistically designed to operate on it's own but as an administrative convenience to get enough infrastructure (Squad and fire team leaders) to let the platoon operate effectively. Maybe the all-volunteer thing has changed that equation but between rotation, casualties etc. there weren't many full to&e squads running around loose. When you start with nine and pare back from there for reality (rotation, illness etc), you got problems as a maneuver element.

If we were going out to ambush or interdict, we preferred to take 13 to 15 people. You need that many for a decent ambush if you are going to have any security at all and still have a decent KZ. Also some losses don't reduce your firepower in such a drastic fashion.

It looks like the US Army grew its 2 fire team squads to 13 or 15 in Vietnam to provide a realistic size force to meet the minimum size unit to conduct tactically effective ambushes.

50 Bravo, I'll bet that the ambush team included at least one M-60 in the party. We would include a Machine Gunner and assistant gunner in our ambush squads and every fire team leader and rifleman would hump extra MG ammo for the gun team.

jcustics - Empirical evidence seems to be the modern version of the Holy Grail! I'll bet todays Marine Corps still fills out 13 man squads that have battle casualties with Cooks, Bakers, Remington Raiders and the occasional Cannon Cocker until they can get some 0311 replacement parts. I suspect "Every man a Rifleman" is still practiced and the temporary interchangable parts get the job done.

M/3/5 0369 once a'pon a time, long, long ago and far, far away.