Okay, I got to thinking about this the other day while watching the movie Patton. The soldiers in an infantry unit are all assigned equipment, each soldier is issued a pistol and a rifle. How’s the heavier stuff doled out? And who gets what? And does every infantry unit get the same equipment or is there units that only handle certain weapons? (And who’s the guy who gets the flame thrower? Based on what I’ve seen, it doesn’t look like every unit has one of those.)
I don’t know how things are worked now, but they used to work from a fairly bureaucratic level. For example, regarding the German infantry prior to WWI:
But who chooses which person gets to wield what weapons seems to be the province of the small-unit commander. Granted, in peacetime, some guys and gals are checked out better on certain weapons than others, but the decision can still be rather arbitrary.
As an anectodal example, my father was once put in charge of a new squad. For whatever reason, there was a 220 pound guy with an M1 and a 150 pound guy with a BAR. My old man looked at these two guys and made what was as far as I know the only command decision he ever made: big guy gets the BAR.
That may have been as bad of a decision as it was a logical one. As far as I can tell from his story, he’d only just got there; he didn’t know the relative qualities of each guy, or what training they had. But it made sense to the old man to give the big guy the big gun, so that’s what he did.
Oops. Cite.
Each unit has a Table of Organization which details how many of each MOS (Military Occupation Specialty) the unit has at full strength. Personal equipment, such as rifles and handguns comes with the person. Heavy weapons, machine guns, mortars etc., belong to the organization. Or that’s the way it used to be.
You wouldn’t happen to know of somewhere on the web I could look at some of these, would you?
The TOE designates what each unit is “authorized” right down to the number of chairs and desks, helicopters and tents and how many field phones and spools of wire. Ultimately, each item is signed for and someone, technically the commander, is financially responsible for loss or damage. Over the years, lots of “extra” equipment (not weapons, generally, they are too high profile I suppose) accumulates. It’s amazing what gets pulled out of storage during inventory.
Hell, I’ve been amazed at what some guys have pulled out of their kitbags.
Anyway, here’s an equiptment breakdown of an Israeli infantry platoon (just infantry - the IDF doesn’t really differentiate between Light, Armored and Airborne units). It’s hardly secret information; in fact, it’s probably not very accurate - basically, it’s what we had in my day, with a bunch of changes I’ve heard they’ve made since. This is also a textbook platoon at full strength, an animal far more common on paper than in the wild.
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2 Radiomen, one for the Platoon Commander and one for his sergeant. These, especially the officer’s, are usually the all-around best soldiers in the platoon: smart, competent and above all, athletic (since they have to be able to keep up with the lieutenant).
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3 Machinegunners, armed with Negevs (5.56). Usually the biggest, burliest guys in the platoon.
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1 Mortar operator, armed with a 52mm mortar. Also a big guy.
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1 Sharpshooter, armed with a M24 boly-action sniper rifle. During Basic Training, every platoon sends it’s best shot off to a six-week course.
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2 M-203 Granade Launcers. Usually given to the small-but-tough guys.
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2 guys with Rifle Granades (note - these may have been phased out in favor of more M-203s).
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1 RPG-7 operator. For some reason, every one I’ve met was tall and skinny.
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1 LAW operator - a guy carrying a special dedicated pack with 5 LAW tubes, who’s recieved extra training with the weapon. Besides him, other troops are often issued individual LAWs.
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2 or 3 Medics - guys from the unit who’ve passed the three-month Medics course.
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5 or 6 Dedicated Marksmen, armed with M16A2s with scopes and Harris bipods.
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2 guys with stretchers (folded).
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2 guys with jerricans (10 liters).
The Machinegunners, Sharpshooter, Mortar and RPG all have assistants who act as spotters and carry spare ammo.
Besides the Sharpshooter, Marksmen and Machinegunners, all troops, NCOs and Officers are armed with CAR15s with optic sights (M4A1s are currently being phased in).
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/]T O & E
A unit’s Table of Organization and Equipment (TO & E (commonly pronounced Tee-Oh-Knee)) describes what the unit can or is supposed to have. Wander through the link above to find out what different units are allowed to have.
And, as others have already said…which person ends up with what piece of equipment is up to the person in charge. It could be a brigade commander assigning a tank or a squad leader assigning someone as the grenadier.
Sidebar: I was the supply sergeant for an Air Reserve unit. We had semi-trailors full of tools that had to be “donated” to other units before our annual AGI or IG inspections. Of course, the other units donated them back to us before their inspections. The military is exceedingly odd about stuff like that.
Thanks for the info, folks, but now I’m really curious: Who get’s the flamethrowers? Are they doled out on a unit basis, battalion basis or what?
They keep them with the halftracks and BARs.
Seriously - I don’t think any modern military forch has had a flamethrower in service since 1975, at least.
Really? I’m surprised. I mean they look like they’d be really fu-- er, effective in certain combat situations. (Say, when you’ve got some guys cornered in a cave and you want to keep them “busy” for a long time.) Not to mention, that they were one way a foot soldier could stop a tank. (The flames would either heat the tank up to the point where the folks inside got cooked, or the napalm would keep the engine from getting any oxygen.) And BAR is a Browning Automatic Rifle, right?
I think flamethrowers officially violate the Geneva Convention and haven’t been used since WWII.
Actually, they’ve been replaced by phospherous granades, which have a similar effect, and as a bonus aren’t heavy, unwieldy, wasteful death-traps. They’re not Geneva-kosher, though, which really, really bothers military types. Really. A lot.
Tuckerfan - there isn’t a tank in action which will even be tickled by a flamethrower; for lighter AFVs you’ve got LAWs and granade launchers. And a BAR is indeed a Browning Automatic Rifle, which hasn’t been used since the early days of Vietnam.
Actually, no. Flamethrowers aren’t very combat effective at all.
To start, they’re quite short-ranged, heavy, and extremely heavy when fully fuelled. Their fuel is limited (less than 30 seconds, IIRC, for a backpack model). They make the carrier an instant target, and expose the user to the risk of fiery immolation, should something go wrong. They’re only usefull in extremely limited tactical situations, anddo not work against modern armor: Modern tanks would just drive over the user, or drive out of range. Either way, the operator’s life expectanct is measured in seconds after trying to barbeque a modern tank or APC. To winkle hostile troops out of caves, you can use far more effective modern munitions: Everything from CS to FAE/Thermobaric weapons to demolition charges to calling down an ‘bunker buster’ airstrike. If they were to still use flamethrowers, they’d be issued to speciallized engineers.
And yes, the BAR is Browing Automatic Rifle, an effective piece in it’s time, but heavy, and with limited magazine capacity.
The BAR was great in its day, but now there is the SAW gun - the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon.
Hmm. Guess it was WW II era tanks I’d read about that flame throwers were usable against. Don’t really recall. I didn’t think that the A/C units of modern tanks were powerful enough to keep the guys inside cool while the napalm (I think that’s what the flamethrowers squirt out.) burned itself off. Hmph. Learn something new everyday.
Yes, and in WWII it is amazing how many airplanes that crashed just happened to have on board a lot of the equipment that had been “misplace.” Of course, in a combat zone, almost everything is expendable and is easily written off.
This site http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/ will probably give you more data than you really wanted.
For example, this site http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/17377L000.htm is the TOE for a tank company in an armored division.
This is a more general (vehicle-based) TO&E for a current British armoured brigade:
I took a look at the link provided by David Simmons above. I looked at the Air Defense Artillery Battalion since I was anti-air when I was in the army.
From http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/army/unit/toe/44435A100.htm
1, 2 and 3 feel appropriate but take a look at 4. What the …?
Could someone explain this one to me?