Quote Originally Posted by Ken White View Post
It is also possible to have NCO Platoon Leaders, thus capitalizing on experience and placing the most capable leader where he -- or she -- can be most effective.
It seems obvious that you commission them rather than mix say warrant officers with officers. One would need to look at their future utilisation after say a maximum of three years as a platoon commander. Training? Admin? Logistics? How many would make it to company commander?

I suggest if one worked the numbers carefully one would be able to calculate the minimum number of (direct entry) officers needed to fill the posts required above the rank of major... because IMHO they have had served their 'apprenticeship' as a platoon commander (preferably in a war).

A company commanded by a Major with a Captain Executive Officer / 2iC plus two Lieutenants as Company Officers with no permanent Platoon Assignments would be a far better approach.
This US business of having a captain command a company with less training/experience/whatever than a major seems strange when compared to the Brit (and probably others systems).

I don't think floating officers serve any real purpose nor does the time so served provide any real experience.

The platoon commanding phase must IMHO mean living with, fighting with and if necessary dying with the platoon. That is the required 'apprenticeship'.

The current process (and in the US, certain procedural efforts and requirements) produces too many Lieutenants.
Easy to fix. Make the selection more arduous.

That is beneficial in producing a large pool of potential Company Commanders but it is costly way to achieve that minor advantage when better selection and initial entry training would negate that cost and the presumed advantage.
Exactly!

When the 'requirement' to keep those excess Officers around for various reasons is considered, it is obvious that a 'requirement' for an excessive number of overly large Staff positions is a natural by product. A study to determine the number of excellent Officers driven out of the Armed Forces by this approach might be instructive.
Excellent officers would be driven out if their careers are being blacked by 'dead wood' blocking their route to command companies, battalions etc for a reasonable length of time (two years). There are also other reason why the retention of officers suffers and those are mainly not service related - wife pressure, chasing higher income etc - and the hidden one which none will admit being not wanting to be exposed to combat again (among those who had a bite of the cherry in Iraq or Afghanistan and found it sour to their taste).

The Lieutenants would be assigned all the myriad peacetime additional duties and for operations, to missions as needed. This would among other things accustom them to NOT working only with people they 'know' (no matter how cursorily or briefly) but with a changing number of persons, tasks and capabilities. It would build in a requirement for and training in flexibility and trust.
Ditch the surplus... don't accommodate them. *

A beneficial side effect would almost certainly be insistence by all four of those officers and all their contemporaries that training be improved...
Training for whom?

* In earlier posts I stated and still believe that young men who have given the best years of their life to the service should be able to exit it with dignity if the service no longer requires there service. This would entail funded study etc etc.