Squad and Related Topics

Royal Anglian Regiment soldiers during a lull in operations in Afghanistan in 2014; their numbers and equipment correspond to a British fireteam of the period (Left to right: L110A2 LMG, L85A2 with L123A2 UGL, L85A2, L129A1).

Fireteam

Small military sub-subunit of infantry designed to optimise "bounding overwatch" and "fire and movement" tactical doctrine in combat.

US Marines on patrol in Afghanistan, 2009; their numbers and equipment correspond to a United States Marine Corps fireteam (Left to right: M4 carbine, M16A4 rifle with M203, M16A4 rifle, M249).

An example of fire and maneuver in actual combat. Here, during the Battle of Okinawa, a US Marine on the left provides covering fire for the Marine on the right to break cover and move to a different position.

Two or three fireteams are organised into a section or squad in co-ordinated operations, which is led by a squad leader.

A Wehrmacht infantry Gruppe with the MG 34 in the light machine gun role

Section (military unit)

Military sub-subunit.

A British Army section is equivalent to a NATO squad, and the British Army has no organization equivalent to a NATO section.

Standard NATO military map symbol for a friendly infantry platoon.

Platoon leader

Officer in charge of a platoon.

Platoons normally consist of three or four sections (Commonwealth) or squads (US).

Standard NATO military map symbol for a friendly infantry Section.

In the United States military, a squad leader or squad commander is a non-commissioned officer (NCO) who leads a squad of typically 9 Soldiers (U.S. Army: squad leader and two fireteams of 4 men each) or 13 Marines (U.S. Marine Corps: squad leader and three fireteams of 4 men each) in a rifle squad, or 3 to 8 men in a crew-served weapons squad.

Platoon

A platoon is a military unit typically composed of two or more squads, sections, or patrols.

M249 light machine gun

American adaptation of the Belgian FN Minimi, a light machine gun manufactured by the Belgian company FN Herstal (FN).

Initial Belgian-designed Minimi prototype delivered to the U.S. Infantry Board for evaluation, before it received its XM249 designation (note the difference)

A U.S. Marine firing an M249 from an M122A1 tripod at a training range in November 2003

The different rounds that can be successfully loaded into the M249 SAW

A cloth pouch in Universal Camouflage Pattern used for holding belts of linked ammunition, this one being capable of holding 200 rounds.

A "fully improved" U.S. Army-issue M249, circa July 2010

Early M249 "Para" equipped with a M145 Machine Gun Optic, October 2005, Koshk Kowl, Afghanistan

A Ranger with 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment armed with a Mk 46 machine gun provides overwatch security on an objective during a mission in Iraq, November 2006.

The M249 provides infantry squads with a high rate of machine gun fire, combined with the accuracy and portability of a rifle.

Rifle with a wooden handguard/gas tube cover and skeletonized stock used before the change to synthetic black furniture

Dragunov sniper rifle

Semi-automatic designated marksman rifle chambered in 7.62×54mmR and developed in the Soviet Union.

Russian PSO-1M2 military issue 4×24 telescopic sight with the Warsaw Pact rail mounting system.

PSO-1's unique reticle. The rangefinder is in the lower left, chevrons for distances higher than 1km are found in the middle, and stadia marks for windage to the left and right of the center reticule. The reticle is illuminated by a small battery-powered lamp.

Russian-made SVD (top) and SVDS (shortened variant with folding stock) rifles featuring modern synthetic furniture

Pair of Dragunovs imported to the U.S. as Tigers. The top rifle has a cheek pad, two 10-round magazines, and a flash suppressor. The bottom rifle was marketed as a hunting "carbine". It has no cheek pad, two 5-round magazines, and no flash suppressor.

A United States Marine receives instruction on the SVD.

Gold plated Al Kadesiah rifle found in one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, on display at the Parachute Regiment exhibition of the Imperial War Museum in Duxford. Gold-plated Al Kadesiah were a common gift for VIPs of the Ba'athist-era Iraqi regime.

The Dragunov was designed as a squad support weapon since, according to Soviet and Soviet-derived military doctrines, long-range engagement ability was lost to ordinary troops when submachine guns and assault rifles (which are optimized for close-range and medium-range, rapid-fire combat) were adopted.