Well, I was referring to what I had seen done quite regularly, but with a much larger and well equipped Army during the Cold War.
The Wavell Room has an interesting article on the subject of a 'Universal' Battalion orbat:
The Universal Infantry Battalion
by Nicholas DrummondAugust 29, 2019
With a smaller army limited to just 82,000 soldiers, the organisational structure of its component units and the number of personnel within individual sub-units starts to become very important. We are constantly reminded that conflicts are resolved on the ground and that infantry mass is vital in seizing and holding contested territory. If a battalion is under-resourced for any reason then its ability to complete its mission may well be compromised.
The Universal infantry Battalion. NIcj Drummond explains why its time to start thinking differently about the future structure of the British Army.
wavellroom.com
I remember reading that last year and I recall being unimpressed with his logic.
The idea that each battalion have a universal structure is a laudable goal but to a large part ignores the fact that these battalions are different primarily because of the vehicles that they have (or don't have), the way that they fight, and the support needed to keep the battalion mobile.
There is a difference in how many people and weapon systems you can fit into any given vehicle which impacts the platoon organization. The Warrior has 3 +7; the Boxer 3 +8; the LAV 3 +6; Foxhound 2 +4; Jackel 1 +4?; 1 +9; and so on. The key here is firstly the design and secondly whether or not in employment the Z vehicle is merely transport or a part of the fight.
A simple example of such vehicle based structure is the three types of US BCTs. In the Armoured BCT - which is designed to fight mounted, each M2 has a TOW as well as a bushmaster and hence there is no weapons company. More recently each ABCT battalion is now a combined arms battalion consisting of two tank and one rifle company. The SBCT, which is designed to travel rapidly under armour but fight dismounted, merely mounted a remote weapon system on each Stryker and therefore needed the integral direct fire within the company of a MGS platoon and even has a mortar sect. Those MGSs have now been reduced in number and assigned to the SBCT cavalry squadron. Finally the light IBCT has very little transport and is designed to move unprotected and fight dismounted has few heavy weapons within the rifle company itself but does have a wheeled weapons coy which has heavy machine guns and TOW. Maintenance and logistics platoons also vary in size because a heavy battalion simply has a much greater need for both than a light battalion.
Vehicle selection for the three roles very much depends on industry availability and the small team tactics to be employed around it. It's not simply a matter that once dismounted, the section fights the same regardless of role but also one of how the Z vehicle supports that fight. Or even if there will be a dismount or if there will be a Z vehicle involved. All those variations require training. Back in the 70s I supported quite a few German Panzer/Panzergrenadier battle runs in Shilo with artillery and I can tell you that notwithstanding the fact that both our armies used roughly the same Leopard 1 in those days, their infantry organization and tactics worked very very differently as between their Marders and our M113s. Absolutely, ... given time, one of our battalions could retrain onto Marders but that training would need to go thoroughly from Level 1 to 6 and would require significant involvement from the armoured battalion, the direct support artillery battalion and the engineers in order for the infantry battalion to become proficient. I think this is why the Americans have gone into combined arms battalions where there is a standard configuration of tanks and infantry within the battalion itself and the troops are all used to working together. As an aside, artillery officers and NCM are assigned as part of the integral infantry battalion's organization to form its Fire Support Officer (basically a bn FSCC) cell and each company's Fire Support Team (basically a FOO/FAC det). They are not part of the brigade's arty bn.
It strikes me that the real problem is that we do not build vehicles to support the small team tactics/doctrine that we have developed but rather build our tactics/doctrine around the vehicles that we have selected which, more or less, fit our general notion of what a section, platoon and company should look and perform like. We adjust manning accordingly. (and let's not even get into casualties, LOBs, HTLA demands etc etc which seriously degrade the optimum structure at the best of times) It's a big problem when budget numbers dictate how many of x or y we purchase because we retailor establishments and tactics to fit what's available within the space of each vehicle and within the brigade as a whole.
Even external factors make a big difference (although we might not give it enough importance in peacetime.) How does an infantry battalion operate when the artillery support is an 18-gun Paladin battalion rather than an 8-gun M777 regiment?
The aim of Drummond's article is laudable, but before we can even begin to debate how we create a uniform maintenance, logistics, direct and indirect fire support system within the battalion, we need to determine how the "universal" rifle platoon is organized and fights in a "universal" manner independent of role. Drummond didn't do that. All he did was parse some numbers. Betcha the CAF or the Brits won't do that either. Quite frankly, I don't think its possible to build a "universal" battalion. The differences are practical ones which should not be squeezed into a common container just for the sake of "universality".
