I too am a fan of moving the 60mm mortar to the company level and having a dedicated mortar section for the company commander to call upon. I can remember that in every company attack I did, this is what was done - may as well make it official.
As for support functions at the battalion level, I like some of the stuff I've seen coming out of the Light Infantry ideas in the CF.
For a LAV-less infantry battalion, the proposal I have in my hand lays out the support assets to be:
- A Combat Support Company consisting of a Recce Platoon, a Signals Platoon, and a Direct Fire Support Platoon.
- Engineer and Mortar assets would be attached from Arty or Engr as needed.
If I had it my way as the usurper, the LAV-less Infantry Battalion would have:
Combat Support Company:
- Signals Platoon
- Recce Platoon (With Sniper Section)
- Mortar Platoon (whether they are gunners or grunts, I don't care - it's the fact that the 81mm tubes are organic that is important)
- Pioneer Platoon (same as Mortars, what would the Pioneer platoon for a Light Battalion consist off - my guess is Assault Troops (flamethrowers, mines, explosives, etc, etc)
- And finally, the Direct Fire Support Platoon: I've been reading some good stories about successful Marine Corps use of the same concept - they term it the Combined Anti-Armour Team (CAAT). The Light Infantry Doctrine Paper I have lays out DFS platoon as follows:
- 10 x LUVW (the example uses the HMMVW, but perhaps a the Mercedes will work as well?)
- Four 8 man sections broken down into 4 man dets (1 car/det)
- One HQ Det containing DFS Platoon Commander, Driver, Signaller, Medic
- One Stores Det (in HMMVW or LSVW
) containing DFS Platoon NCO and Storesman.
Each car is capable of dismounted/mounted capabilities with the following layouts:
- MG: M2 .50 cal ideally (C6 is also suitable, however, each car should have 1 or 2 GPMGs)
- Anti Armour: TOW? If not, Javelin?
- Anti Aircraft: A shortrange Anti-Aircraft missile for point defence of light battalion.
- AGL: M-19 seems to be the logical choice.
This layout gives a Light Infantry Battalion a reasonable amount of firepower that is man portable if necessary, easily inserted into tricky places and yet mobile.
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As for a Mech Infantry Battalion, the fact that the carriers are integral seems to indicate that support assets can be pushed farther down the chain (this is what the Americans have done with their "Stryker Brigade Group" Doctrine. For example, at the company level you can have 120mm mortars in carriers (the new AMOS turret seems to be ideal).
This brings me to an important question of this discussion: Should Mech TO&E be different then Light Infantry TO&E? If so, does this mean that tactical doctrine for the two is going to be different. My current thought is "yes" because the inclusion of the Zulu callsigns (whether piloted by crewman or infantry guys) means a big difference in a whole gamut of factors (footprint, capability, area of "control", firepower, etc, etc).