Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
It's not the squad. It's the platoon.
Unless a platoon is the sum of multiple identical squads. That would trivialize the difference that you see.
The platoon is the sum of multiple identical (TO&E) squads in many if not most countries...


Another problem is the limitation that the independent employment of a platoon sets on its stealth. A squad or a smaller team can remain undetected or at least thwart tracking efforts much easier than a platoon.
A platoon hasn't much superior capability to call for indirect fires in comparison to even a two-man sniper team.
The use of directional fragmentation mines for an ambush is also pretty much a fixed size and doesn't vary much with friendly head count beyond the first squad.
Armies that focus on indirect fires (or ambushes) in their infantry tactics will find the squad organization more important than platoon organization - because a platoon would often just be 2/3 excess fat.

I think you rest your platoon emphasis a lot and probably too much on thinking about platoon assaults. The advantageous differentiation between assault and suppressive fire elements in a platoon looks very much like an exception that's limited to assaults.

The use of identical squad TO&E would instead lead to squad-centric thinking.