Manokan Republic wrote:An interesting idea for a squad, more of a generic squad, would be to have a 11 man squad, with a 3 man heavy machine gun team (something akin to an AGS-30 30mm grenade launcher or .50 caliber machine gun), and then two four man fireteams for an 11 man squad, or 12 man if you want to tack on an extra marksmen, sergeant etc.
For a 9 man squad you could have two three man fireteams, but they usually aren't as effective, mostly due to a lack of symmetry for fire and maneuver.
No this is a bad idea(!)
These weapons have dramatically longer range than normal infantry weapons and consequently their potential to create overlapping fields of fire and especially to achieve flanking fire (the best kind of fire) are also far greater. Even at the maximum permissible dispersion for a squad, they will not be able to take advantage of this potential at all because they will all essentially be firing forward at any significant fraction of their effective range. In other words, the lateral dispersion of heavy weapons should be as large as possible given the terrain restrictions, which favours independent weapons teams. They should not be overly worried about providing their own cover during movement because the main purpose of such powerful weapons is to support the rest of the unit, the cover they need to relocate can be provided by the squads they support. They should only be relocating when they can no longer fire effectively from their current position anyway, which during an attack, probably means the unit has already advanced and pushed back the opponent, so movement will be comparatively safe. It is not necessary or desirable for them to advance under fire the way a squad does because they do not need to close with the enemy to deliver effective fire, by nature. Choosing a position where they can deliver effective fire from is among the most basic requirements for effective use of heavy weaponry.
In a platonic formation, the best place for heavy weapons is on the flanks of the unit.
