I think I find myself like Rifleman here, torn somewhat between the German Group organized around a single GPMG, and the USMC Squad organized into three Fire Teams, each based upon an AR/LMG. Used properly, each gets the job done. However, I suspect that, all other things being equal, a USMC-type Squad with three of the new ARs that would be replacements for the SAW, might prove somewhat more agile, allow for a little bit quicker, quieter movement, and better chances for seeing without being seen and for achieving surprise and shock effect.

The "safe" choice is a Squad/Section based upon a single GPMG, with a Platoon containing up to 4 more or less identical Squads. There are no arguments with the firepower of a GPMG. None. I suppose though, this leads to the the only serious reservation I have about Wilf's proposed Platoon make-up (admittedly one entirely different from the German and old Commonwealth models), in that he proposes only 2 GPMGs per Platoon. The Germans switched to 4 GPMGs per Platoon in 1940, considering this to be the minimum required for winning the firefight quickly. And Commonwealth Platoons usually possessed at least 3 GPMGs or 6 LARs/LMGs plus a GPMG until the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted serious, sustained firepower, there were only GPMGs (or LMGs that weighed almost as much as the GPMGs). However, Wilf may well be right that only 2 GPMGs per Platoon might be needed, and each in its own dedicated gun team separate from the rifle teams. The Germans only had rifle grenades and got rid of their light mortar, but Wilf's platoon has 4 modern grenade-launchers as well as a light mortar. I don't know one way or the other, but that, together with the way his platoon functions, may make all the difference necessary.

On the other hand, the "bold" choice may be to pool the GPMGs at Company level, attaching them out to Platoons as needed, and to have the Platoons composed of Squads/Sections with no less than three ARs or magazine-fed LMGs, firing from an open-bolt and dispensing with belts and changeable barrels. Leaves the Squads (and the Platoon as a whole) more fleet-of-foot and better able to move. Basically, I'm arguing that this maximizes the potential for achieving surprise and shock-effect (and minimizing fatigue). Now with ARs or magazine-fed LMGs being available that are truly light but potent, perhaps GPMGs may no longer be usually necessary at Squad and Platoon levels. But the success of this approach depends in good part upon the usefullness of the AR's/LMG's round. If it is just going to be the old 5.56 (which is what's planned), then it's dubious, though if the Mk 262 round is used more or less exclusively (best of luck there ), it may be doable. Personally, nothing less than something approaching the class of the Grendel (a military derivative of the Grendel would likely be rather more modest in "paper performance" than the Grendel itself) would completely allay my doubts on that matter. However, a pair of ARs putting rounds downrange (while the third is moving) may be able to suppress more or less as well as a single GPMG, but if the rounds aren't killling those people that they do hit, that suppression is partly wasted as you have to spend time digging out and killing folks that may have been hit and stunned or wounded, but not killed as they would have been by a 7.62. I'm hopeful about the potential of the new AR in the USMC Squad, but I still need to be fully convinced that three of the new ARs will be able to suppress more or less as well as having a GPMG in each Squad. And needless to day, I am not a fan of the Minimi/M-249.

In either case, the two-fire team Squad/Section only seems to make sense if the idea is to perform full frontal assaults (especially during mechanized ops) using a maximum of firepower and a minimum of manpower. Squad/Section TO&E and TTPs by bean-counter. Other than that, it doesn't seem to offer anything that either a GPMG-based Squad or a three-fire team Squad with ARs/LMGs can't do better.