Realities Of Small Unit Tactics

Basic setup; an infantry platoon (standard US Army setup) advances through the woods conducting a movement to contact with one squad in the lead and the other two, with weapons and headquarters following behind. The terrain has a lot of cover and concealment but is still big enough to allow for standard movement and formation techniques with the lead squad performing bounding overwatch as they draw near to suspected enemy positions. Of the two fireteams bounding, Alpha team is engaged by an enemy force to their front right, with Bravo able to assist via suppression fire (the SL is with Bravo).

My question for /k/ and all vets is: what actually happens now? In the field manuals it is supposed to go from the bottom up with the SL deciding whether or not to attack, break contact or hold, referring the decision up the chain to platoon headquarters. From what I've heard from haveserve's on here is that the modern Army fricking hates this with decision making usually starting at the platoon level with the officer in more of a top down control way, rather than letting the squad leads lead the fight with the platoon leader backing them up in an adaptive way.

Which one is it /k/? How would an actual platoon these days finish the fight? Who actually makes the decisions?

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  1. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    SL makes the choice, end of. PL can override if he wants. That's it, that's all the nuance there really is, boiled down to a sentence.

    • 12 months ago
      Anonymous

      Is the PL kind of like an overseer of the battle? At which point does he start making decisions even if he allows the SL's to take the initiative?

      • 12 months ago
        Anonymous

        > Is the PL kind of like an overseer
        The PL is mostly busy talking to the Company commander and relaying information along with his RTO, but yes.
        > At which point does he start making decisions
        Instantly. I don't really understand the question beyond that, there is no arbitrary point at which a Platoon leader decides he should act. The millisecond he decides he has the information he needs (distance, direction, description/disposition of enemy) he decides to let the SL continue his course of action while he (the PL) pushes assets to maneuver. In a typical by the book Platoon attack, an engaged squad will get bumped up by a gun team with an M240 while a maneuver element flanks the enemy.

        • 12 months ago
          Anonymous

          Is the PL kind of like an overseer of the battle? At which point does he start making decisions even if he allows the SL's to take the initiative?

          Also consider, the SL is the closest leader on the ground to the enemy that actually has any rank and experience to make decisions, and he is actively engaged. PL can't magically make him do anything, he has to relay commands and hope it gets to the SL before he conducts a frontal assault or flanks with a fireteam. If comms are good, the PL and SL will agree on an action (Example: 2-6, 2-1, enemy is two riflemen at 200 meters to the 12, I am taking my Bravo team and flanking New York). This is assuming a picture perfect, clear cut scenario, but it is just an example.

          • 12 months ago
            Anonymous

            >If comms are good, the PL and SL will agree on an action (Example: 2-6, 2-1, enemy is two riflemen at 200 meters to the 12, I am taking my Bravo team and flanking New York).
            neverserved but what happens if comms are disrupted? does the PL just kinda guess what the SL is doing and send reinforcements? what happens if the PL wants the SL to break contact but has no radio contact?

            oh also, what happens if this all goes down but the first person to get shot is the SL?

            • 12 months ago
              Anonymous

              > neverserved but what happens if comms are disrupted?
              PACE plan. Try alternate comms, if they fail, use pyrotechnics, if those fail, use IR/chems and a whistle, if those fail, send a runner to verbally relay communications.
              > does the PL just kinda guess what the SL is doing and send reinforcements?
              If it's a very cohesive platoon, and for some reason there is no response whatsoever from the SL (squad got wiped is the only time I've seen this, even in training) yes, but ideally you should avoid operating blind. Many units have SOPs to move up a machine gun team at minimum when a squad is in contact just to help bridge this gap.
              > what happens if the PL wants the SL to break contact but has no radio contact?
              See above
              > oh also, what happens if this all goes down but the first person to get shot is the SL?
              Your Bravo Team Leader (TL) becomes the new SL. If he dies, the Alpha TL becomes the new SL. If he dies, the most experienced Soldier in Bravo team takes over, and so on, and so forth.

              Never served, but does this mean the enemy is facing north (12) of 2-6/2-1 and that Bravo Team is going to take them from the North East since that is where New York is?

              The enemy is to the 12 o' clock in relation to the friendly element. This can be North, South, etc, it doesn't matter, it is merely a way for everyone to orient quickly to the enemy. Nobody has time in contact to pull out a compass, but everyone knows their direction of travel and can picture a clock position in their mind.
              > Bravo Team is going to take them from the North East since that is where New York is
              Not quite, but you understand the intent at least.
              New York and California are pro-words for "right or left". Every American knows California is the West coast (left side on a map) and New York is the East coast (right side on a map). Flanking California = flanking maneuver on the left side in relation to the friendly element, ergo they would come down on the enemy from the enemy's right. New York is the opposite.

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                Never served, but does this mean the enemy is facing north (12) of 2-6/2-1 and that Bravo Team is going to take them from the North East since that is where New York is?

                PACE plans in doctrine are also quite simple, and can be utilized in multiple ways. Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency. This can be as simple as Primary = UHF comms, Alternate = Tac Sat comms, Contingency = signal flares, Emergency = verbal runner, or as detailed as the pic, or even more complex. You can have multiple PACE plans in the same mission for different portions of the operation, and you can have multiple PACE plans in the same portion for different small units or individuals. PACE does not also only apply to communications or fires, but this is usually what you see one used for.

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                >use IR/chems and a whistle,
                How does this work? Like, long blow for retreat, three short blows for commit? Is it a unit based thing? Does it rotate depending on the day?

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                However you want it to work, but your example would be fine.
                > Is it a unit based thing
                Yes. Individual fire teams, squads, platoons, companies, etc can all have their own SOP on communication and signal. Different colored chem lights can mean different things. An infrared chemlight "buzzsaw" or "fox tail" can be used at night to signal differences in approach or action.
                "Buzzsaw" = You tie a string to an IR chem and swirl it around quickly. Pretty visible under NODs. "Foxtail" IR chem taped to a rock and a strip of VIS panel, thrown. Most commonly used to signal a shift/lift fire for friendlies approaching objective, or sometimes in MOUT, thrown out windows facing friendlies to signal cleared floors/rooms.

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                The next war the US fights will be an interesting one since most SOP's have been developed in Iraq and Afghanistan
                >bad guys with gen II nods: You seeing this dude? Yeah, these Americans keep whirling around chemlights in the middle of a field, what the frick are they doing?
                >I don't know my brother in [insert foreign religion here] but lets just send the fire mission anyways.

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                Carl carwindows enlists in the Army and animorphs into Kenny the chemlight whirler

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                Doctrinally already ahead of you.

                (Just don't)

            • 12 months ago
              Anonymous

              I'm not the person you're replying to but I was trained in a unit where our infantry squad did not have a radio, just our APC. If the APC was destroyed or there was some other comms problem the platoon had 2 motorcycle messengers whos job was to take messages from SLs to PL and vice versa. If that wasn't possible there was a dedicated messenger in each squad who would run messages.
              If the SL goes down the assistant SL(I guess fireteam leader in the US?) will just take over. If assistant SL went down we had a kind of unspoken hierarchy of who would take over after that based on leadership skills.

          • 12 months ago
            Anonymous

            Never served, but does this mean the enemy is facing north (12) of 2-6/2-1 and that Bravo Team is going to take them from the North East since that is where New York is?

            • 12 months ago
              Anonymous

              direction call outs like 12 o clock are in relation to movement. 12 o clock being to the front, 3 o clock being to the right, etc. Even if the platoon is moving due South, that is their 12 o clock.

              • 12 months ago
                Anonymous

                So does that mean I was right?

  2. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    Up to SL in the end but PL is going to have much more information about suspected enemy numbers, location and composition of force so plans are naturally going to trickle down. Up to the PL to be proactive so if a SL is for example forced to disengage the PL is ready to issue orders to the other squads

  3. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Realities
    >How would an actual platoon these days finish the fight?
    By crawling around in a hole in a trench dodging dronades. Or by crawling around on the ground dodging drontillery.

  4. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    Look up "Mission Command".

    The Army tries to enable decision making at the lowest level possible. In practice it isn't always realistic, but generally speaking, the people actually in contact have the best view of the situation and therefore are able to make the most well informed decision on how to accomplish the task.

  5. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    do what

  6. 12 months ago
    Anonymous

    This has been an interesting thread, thanks anon the knower for spreading knowledge. Never heard of New York and California and couldn't find it in the NATO phonetic alphabet, but that makes sense with shaky comms.

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