Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
The nine man squad is an abortion; it was introduced in the 80s simply to free up the other two men from the Squad to provide numbers to increase the number of Army divisions -- a process that sliced TOEs to the bone and really hurt the Divisions even as it created two more from the same manpower. Dumb idea then and a dumb idea now. Much more effective was the 11 man squad -- more staying power, also...

Part, not all , of the size of our vehicles is based on justifying that nine man squad -- can't be like anyone else...

Other organizations handle larger sizes with (a) bigger vehicles; and (b) splitting their squads -- just like the US Army has to do all too often...
Whoa, whoa, there Ken, the process only sliced TOEs to the bone for Infantry (and Cavalry). Some other branches (most notably Military Intelligence) have seen their representation consistently increased with every reorg (for little or no corresponding increase in combat effectiveness).

I agree with the vehicle size comment, the USMC, to site the obvious example, does design tracks and helos to accommodate more men. However, I think that there is a limit to how big a heavy APC can be, in terms of volume under armor (such as the Israeli Namer). Perhaps not relevant in this war, but in others such a vehicle might prove very useful. I would submit that as perhaps the one actual limit to carrying capacity.

Personally, I think vehicle carry capacity matters for any ("permanently") mounted unit, as operations go on and entropy naturally increases, the unit will find itself de facto organized along those lines more often than not.