Marine Infantry Squad - The following is an overview of the US Marine Corps Rifle Company. from April 1943 to January 1944. It relates to the naval offensive after Guadalcanal 1943, including the Battle of Tarawa, the Battle of Makin, the New Georgia campaign, and the first phase of the Bougainville Campaign. This is also known as the E-Series organization, preceded by the D Series (used during Guadalcanal) and replaced by the F Series in 1944. The next level is the marine infantry battalion, which includes 3 rifle companies, 1 company rifle and Headquarters Battalion & Service Company. Contents:
After the battle of Guadalcanal was won and the Marine Corps prepared for another round of a more expansive campaign for 1943, its divisions received new organizations. The E-Series was issued to replace the D-Series organization in April 1943. As far as the Rifle companies were concerned, the basic organization at company level remained the same, but there were some more significant changes at platoon level. the Although following the operations on Guadalcanal, the E-Series organization was in fact an implementation of prewar changes the Marines wanted to make but were unable to make due to time and resource constraints when they updated their D-Series organization in mid-1942. - The Rifle Platoon series actually dimly reflects the experimental organization piloted by the Marines in 1934 and published in 1938, with a withdrawal in 1941. In addition, new weapons will come online, including the M1 Rifle and M1 Carbine that were not 'still common in infantry. units first.
Marine Infantry Squad
The Rifle Company currently consists of 1 Headquarters Company, 3 Rifle Platoons, and 1 Rifle Platoon. The Infantry Battalion will also have enough Naval Hospital Corps (medical) in its Medical Section to provide 6 for each rifle company. The organization as discussed here was effective from April 15, 1943 to January 12, 1944 when it was replaced with the F-Series organization.
The Marine Corps Is Making Some Big Changes To Its Rifle Squads
The headquarters of the company consists of 2 Officers and 26 enlisted men. The entire company is led by a company commander who ideally holds the rank of Captain, but sometimes holds the rank of Lieutenant. A Lieutenant acts as a company Executive Officer (Second in Charge) managing most of the office work, rear echelon, while a First Sergeant of the company is the senior of the enlisted company. A gunnery sergeant was also added to the company headquarters, responsible for weapons and logistics. The remainder was a contingent of rear echelon support personnel, including clerks, cooks, mess personnel, gardeners, couriers, shoemakers, light truck drivers, carpenters, and barbers. 8 Marines Other Duties at Headquarters Company were essentially gunners who could be used as replacements as well as mess personnel (bill was renamed supernumerary for mess duty in May 1945).
They kept the HQ company jeep, and a 1/4-ton trailer was added. This is to help bring ammunition to the newly reinforced armor troops (more from 2 mortar troops and 2 LMG troops to 3 each). Headquarters also kept 3 Bazookas in reserve on paper for self-defense and bunker destruction, although these would not become available to deployed units until late 1943 (after Tarawa) or early 1944.
Weapons Platoon consists of 1 Headquarters Platoon, 1 Mortar Section and 1 Light Machine Gun Section. Platoon Headquarters is 4 people, with a Platoon Commander (Lieutenant), Platoon Sergeant (Platoon Sergeant, equivalent to Staff Sergeant outside infantry) and 2 Envoys (Private). Meanwhile, each Section is led by a Section Leader with the rank of Sergeant and armed with an M1 Rifle and is further divided into 3 Teams each. Mortar troops carry 60mm M2 mortars each and consist of 1 troop leader (corporal), 1 gunner (private), 1 assistant gunner (private) and 2 ammunition carriers (private). The squad leader is armed with a rifle, while the others are armed with M1 Carbine. Each light machine gun squad carried an M1919A4 machine gun from a tripod and consisted of 1 squad leader (corporal), 1 gunner (private), 1 assistant gunner (private), and 3 ammunition carriers. Like the mortar squad, the squad leader is armed with a shotgun while the others are armed with carbines. In practice, mortar sections and light machine gun sections were often broken, with 1 of each squad breaking directly into the Rifle Platoon. This is contrary to Army doctrine holding them together, in general. This is most likely due to the unique environment of the Pacific Theater, where the jungle border forces platoons to take on a greater role in firing and maneuvering than higher echelons (this also leads to faster development and refinement of small Marine units). tactics while small Army units remained practically the same throughout the war).
3 company rifle platoons each with 1 platoon headquarters and 3 rifle troops. Go back to the D-Series BAR/Automatic Rifle Squad era, with that squad's BAR and Platoon's reserve BAR redistributed to the Rifle Squad. The Marines prioritize fire over maneuver while the Army is equally weighted and far more willing to increase official BAR rations for Rifle Troops during the war than the Army. Much of this was due to the environment, as well as the need to project as many weapons forward as possible in order to survive an amphibious assault on contested shores.
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The Rifle Platoon is generally a platoon commander (Lieutenant) led by a Platoon Sergeant (ranked Platoon Sergeant, equivalent to Staff Sergeant in other areas). Platoon Headquarters also includes the Platoon Guide (essentially the Platoon Sergeant's assistant, named for their traditional role of guiding the platoon in formation), 3 Delegates (allowing Platoon Commanders to send one per squad together) and 1 Additional Duty Marine who may act as replacement. .
The Rifles saw a bit of a shake-up in 1943 and the Marines were finally able to make the changes they wanted to make before Guadalcanal but couldn't. These changes were not informed much by combat experience on Guadalcanal itself, but the 1944 F-Series changes would. Billet squad leader promoted to Sergeant from Corporal. This was actually something the Marines tested in 1934 and wanted to do when the war started, but were forced to keep the Squadron Corporal Leaders for manpower reasons. They were also assigned an Assistant Squad Leader from the rank of Corporal to help control the newly added 12-man squad (there are already 9 under D-Series). In theory a squad can be divided into 2 equal teams with a total of 2 BAR Men, 2 Assistant BAR Men and 6 Riflemen. However, this is not done in practice. Command and control is still intact at this point for the Rifle Squad, with the Squad Leader equally responsible for directing the Assistant Squad Leader and his other men. In the absence of a solid firing squad doctrine at this point, this actually increased the workload of troop leaders rather than reducing it, which would have led to a change in 1944.
In late 1943 when this organization saw combat the M1 Garand Rifle would become available. The Marines went on Guadalcanal in late 1942 fighting primarily with the M1903 Springfield bolt action rifle, although some units such as the 3rd Marine Defense Battalion (echelon rear guard unit) had significant supplies of the new semi-automatic rifle. This is mainly due to the way the Marine Corps distributed the M1 rifles when they first got their hands on them. Although it was authorized to use amphibious operations in 1940 (there were fears that the M1 Garand would be less reliable than the M1903 in this environment, which turned out to be true). However, the Marines did not start by arming their front-line infantry units with the M1. They begin with guard units in the United States and work continuously to deploy guard detachments and units overseas. Back when rifles were a private issue and the Marines would issue rifles during recruit training that they would then take to their unit, there is a photo of a platoon of Marine recruits armed with a mix of M1 and M1903 Rifles. Those with M1s are attached to rear echelon units while those with M1903 gunners are attached to infantry. Orders would not appear to begin issuing the M1 Garand to all infantry units until the summer of 1942, but it would be too late for units destined for Guadalcanal. It wasn't until early to mid-1943 that Marine units, rebuilt for operations in late 1943, would get the M1 Garand.
Other weapon changes included the Troop Leader machine gun (in 1942 usually the M1928/M1928A1 Thompson or more commonly the M50 Reising) being replaced by the M1 Rifle. Officially, the Marines abandoned the light machine gun from the official TO&E from here on to simplify logistics and the new M1 Carbine came online to replace the pistol and subgun, as well as in response to the experience gained in 1942.
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