It's Official: Top Marine Wants 12 in an Infantry Squad

Thanks to FormerDirtDart for the link!

via Military Times.

The Marine Corps is capping off 18 months of overhauling the way infantry units are trained and equipped by shaking up the structure of the rifle squad.

In an address to an audience of Marines at a Marine Corps Association awards dinner near Washington, D.C., on Thursday night, Commandant Gen. Robert Neller said future squads will have 12 Marines, down from the current 13.

But while the squads are losing a body, they will gain capability, with two new leadership positions, he said.

The new squad will have three fire teams of three Marines each, an adjustment from the standard four-Marine fire teams of today, Neller said.

"That 4th Marine that we're used to having is not going to be cut," he said. "We're not going to fill that billet, but it's not going to degrade your readiness. Because if this doesn't work, and you need to go somewhere where you need four Marines in a fire team, we'll bring that Marine back."

Story here. 

You do get the force of connection here.

Leadership is totally disconnected from what EVEN they see as the future battlefield much less what I predict.

They see fighting in mega cities.  I don't.  But what if they're right.

Ya know what?

City fighting is manpower intensive.  Weight of fire at the lowest level means something.

Additionally if I'm right and we're simultaneously involved in bug hunts around the world stomping on terrorist cockroaches while gearing up for a peer fight then we're still gonna need REINFORCED Infantry Squads.

Ya know why?

Because we're seeing terrorists operate like nation state forces.  They're heavier, have more armor and more mobility as well as MUCH greater firepower than ever before in our history.

Last but not least this idea is batshit crazy because they're pushing the Expeditionary Rifle Squad.

Yep.  Independent Squads acting far from support and probably at the edge of supporting fires.

So the answer is to reduce the size instead of reinforcing them?

I'm just not buying it.  This is batshit stupid.  It will cost lives.  We will see lost infantry squads in the future that will never been found for burial because the enemy will microfragment the entire group AND/OR we'll see them captured in mass only to be tortured on YouTube.

What should everyone research to understand my thinking?  Google the ambush of the Marine Sniper Squad in Iraq.  Good guys lost their lives and were overrun before they even made it to their hide site.

God save us all...especially the Marines that will be part of this new future.