When were platoons and squads first used?

[Sequoia]

I believe the company is probably as old as the regiment, but in which war were platoons and squads first used as tactical maneuver elements?

Thanks in advance.

[Denwad]

Cold Harbor, Civil War?

[Breakthrough]

'Peletons' as sub units of a company were used at least as far back as the Napoleonic Wars in the French Army. The 'platoon' is dereved from that...

[Pvt. Ryan]

As Inspector General, Alexander Hamilton took it upon himself to create a table of organization for the US Army that was to be created in 1798. He wrote that "a company is subdivided equally into two platoons, a platoon into two sections and a section into two squads, a squad consisting of four files of three or six files of two." Whether or not that precise system was used or not, it indicates that platoons and squads were contemplated at least as early as that date.

[Yeknodathon]

Roman legions had "squads" of contubernia which were composed of eight men sharing a tent and fire. An understrength century might represent a platoon?

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Yeknodathon:

Roman legions had "squads" of contubernia which were composed of eight men sharing a tent and fire.

That sounds more like a housekeeping arrangement. Were the contubernia used as tactical units either on march or in actual battle?

Michael

[Yeknodathon]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

That sounds more like a housekeeping arrangement. Were the contubernia used as tactical units either on march or in actual battle?

Erm.... err.... well... could not the same be said about squads used in massed ranks of muskets? Out of my depth here, hasty retreat... back to silliness.

[Michael Dorosh]

The First World War saw the first use of the platoon and section as a maneuver element, at least in the Canadian Army, in the modern sense. Skirmishers, etc. were used before this, but in 1915, the company was still the unit of maneuver.

By 1917, platoons and companies were "rediscovered" according to WHEN YOUR NUMBER IS UP. The company was reorganized into platoons, which contained sections of bombers, riflemen, and Lewis Gun crews.

My own regiment may have been typical; our first action on 21-22 April 1915 saw the battalion lined up in company waves, and ordered forward shoulder to shoulder. 816 men went into battle, fewer than 150 were left 3 days later or so. Most fell in the initial attack at Kitcheners' Wood, near St. Julien during the first German poison gas attack on the Western Front.

By Vimy Ridge, on 9 April 1917, that had all changed, and the Canadians were using section-based tactics, similar to the Stormtroop stuff the Germans were using.

It was a slow process; company waves seem to have still been in vogue on 1 July 1916, though they may have been divided into platoons as well.

[Michael Emrys]

Platoons would actually have been used in battle during the musket era, though they might not have been named as such. Companies in line would have been formed in ranks and the firing drill would have had one or more reloading while the front rank was engaging in salvo fire. Those who are better versed in this era than I are invited to comment.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Platoons would actually have been used in battle during the musket era, though they might not have been named as such. Companies in line would have been formed in ranks and the firing drill would have had one or more reloading while the front rank was engaging in salvo fire. Those who are better versed in this era than I are invited to comment.

Michael

I won't pretend to be better versed, but we were talking about maneuver elements. The platoons may have fired as, well, platoons, (if they were called that) but the company still drilled together and the platoons did not exercise independent tactical mobility on the battlefield. ie the companies moved together and fired at the same targets, even if the different lines fired at different times.

I believe that the real change to semi-independent platoons and sections was made between 1915 and 1917, at least in the CW armies.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I won't pretend to be better versed, but we were talking about maneuver elements. The platoons may have fired as, well, platoons, (if they were called that) but the company still drilled together and the platoons did not exercise independent tactical mobility on the battlefield. ie the companies moved together and fired at the same targets, even if the different lines fired at different times.

I can think of nothing that disagrees with that, other than I have the impression (perhaps erroneous) that even companies were too small to maneuver independently and that the fundamental maneuver unit, called by whatever name, was battalion in size.

Michael

[Breakthrough]

I already have. I can provide the written reference.

[Michael Emrys]

So you did. Expansions on your thesis are welcome.

Michael

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Breakthrough:

I already have. I can provide the written reference.

Not really. They may have invented platoons as an administrative entity, but I think Mr. Emrys is correct that companies or even battalions remained the element of tactical maneuver - which was what the original question was.

If you have evidence that platoons acted independently on the Civil War battlefield, I'd be interested in seeing that.

Even if so, by 1914, at least in Britain and Imperial forces, those tactics had been forgotten. On the set of Legends of the Fall, we drilled right out of 1914 drill manuals, and the company was definitely the lowest level of maneuver. For the attack, we advanced in waves at arm's dressing. On approaching the enemy, we moved in shoulder to shoulder, fired two rounds rapid, and then charged with the bayonet.

This matches the historical account of the attack of the 10th and 16th battalions at St. Julien, as recounted in

GALLANT CANADIANS by Daniel G. Dancocks

WELCOME TO FLANDERS FIELDS also by Dancocks

and

WHEN YOUR NUMBER'S UP by Desmond Morton

This is the action I reference above, taking place 21-22 April 1915.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I won't pretend to be better versed, but we were talking about maneuver elements. The platoons may have fired as, well, platoons, (if they were called that) but the company still drilled together and the platoons did not exercise independent tactical mobility on the battlefield. ie the companies moved together and fired at the same targets, even if the different lines fired at different times.

I can think of nothing that disagrees with that, other than I have the impression (perhaps erroneous) that even companies were too small to maneuver independently and that the fundamental maneuver unit, called by whatever name, was battalion in size.</font>

[Michael Dorosh]

From FACE OF BATTLE, perhaps the greatest work ever written on the nuts and bolts of how men went into battle, from the section of the book regarding the Somme in July 1916

French small unit tactics, perfected painfully over two years of warfare, laid emphasis on the advance of small groups by rushes, one meanwhile supporting another by fire - the sort of tactics which were to become commonplace in the Second World War. This sophistication of tradtional 'fire and movement' was known to the British but was thought by the staff to be too difficult to be taught to the Kitchener divisions (British Army units formed in the midwar period). They may well have been right. But the alternative tactical order they laid down for them was oversimplified:...two battalions each of a thousand men, forming the leading wave of the brigade, would leave their front trenches...extend their soldiers in four lines, a company to each...and advance to the German wire.

The Somme may be a poor example; it seems they dumbed down the tactics deliberately to accommodate the large number of fresh recruits. The snippet above also hints the French were using smaller subunits and had perfected them over the course of the two years of war. I believe earlier discussions along these lines on this forum revealed the Germans experimented with smaller subunits from early in the war also, but I don't recall the specifics.

Michael - just read your last - the Waterloo chapter suggests no mention of platoons, but plenty of company and regiment (battalion). Cavalry regiments also seem to have operated as such.

Another random thought of mine is that in action, companies and battalions were often at much lower strength - but just because a company has has many men as a platoon, doesn't mean the lower echelon is actually the unit of maneuver....

And from Morton WHEN YOUR NUMBER'S UP

In the months after the Somme, Canadian infantry battalions rediscovered platoons. Officially they had always been there: thirty or forty men...In practice, pre-1917 tactics and the lack of reliable, experienced offiers persuaded Canadian Expeditionary Force battalions to rely on companies....

Now, instead of advancing as companies in line, as most troops had on the Somme, (General) Byng insisted that his battalions organize four platoons per company on a permanent basis, each with four sections...

A permanently contituted platoon with four specialized sections represented a fighting team that an officer might be able to control. Instead of companies advancing in line...attacking infantry could manoeuvre against an enemy post that held them up. An infantry company would have four teams, each capable of fighting its own small battle...

Byng's transformation of his corps's (sic) organization and tactics was hardly unique. By late 1914 the Germans were already feeling their way towards the all-arms teams they called Stosstruppen...So were some French divisions.

[ October 15, 2004, 11:22 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[Aguirre]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Yeknodathon:

Roman legions had "squads" of contubernia which were composed of eight men sharing a tent and fire.

That sounds more like a housekeeping arrangement. Were the contubernia used as tactical units either on march or in actual battle?

Michael </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Any other insights into this from anyone?

[Paco QNS]

Organizationally speaking, the minimum maneuver element depends only on shared motivation and goals. How many men is it? It is however many you can train to work as a team, for an immediate goal which they did not set, in a cause that they share.

The idea did not revolutionize infantry tactics on the spot. In fact, the British considered "fire and movement" small-unit tactics impractical to teach, at least "too difficult to be taught to the Kitchener divisions."38But it infiltrated below the surface, as ideas do. And the next time German infantry faced the insoluble problem, it sprang forth from the children of those who went to South Africa, as mature as Athena from the head of Zeus.

On 2 March 1915, the German War Ministry ordered the formation of an Assault Detachment (Sturmabteilung) from men provided by the combat engineers to develop the new assault doctrine and train other units. From August 1915 the training unit was commanded by Capt. Willy Martin Rohr. Rohr was born in Metz in 1877, a professional soldier, son of a professional soldier. His commanding officer gave him a free hand plus support in obtaining men and materials. Over the next two years, Rohr's unit redesigned the assault organization, adopted a name for troops they had trained as assault specialists (stosstruppen). They experimented with changes to the uniform, replaced jackboots with laced mountaineer boots, sewed leather patches on knees and elbows, and added body armor. As it turns out, the only item of experimental armor which Captain Rohr finally adopted was the stahlhelm, the coal-scuttle helmet whose latest Kevlar incarnation is known as The Fritz.

The second innovation by Captain Rohr addressed this challenge. He put a mix of weapons into each squad. Exploiting improvements in weapons design and manufacture, he redesigned the sturmabteilung's small-unit organization and doctrine around a variety of newly available man- portable weapons. Captain Geyer's handbook, The Attack in Trench Warfare(companion volume to The Defensive Battle,which he co-wrote with Colonel Bauer) said that "infantry were ... expected to use the fire of their own rifles, grenades, mortars, and machine guns to get forward, which represented a [doctrine of] fire effect combined with movement." Their maneuver element was a trupp or fire-team of four to seven men with self-contained bases of fire: rifles, a light mortar and a light machine gun. A light machine gun trupp, for instance, comprised an NCO plus three men; a rifle trupp consisted of an NCO plus six men.44

This organizational structure has not changed significantly in 80 years. For comparison, the smallest maneuver element depicted in the current FM 7-8, in figure 2.4 on page 2.28, shows two riflemen, a light machine gunner, and a grenadier.

According to Liddell-Hart, giving power of maneuver to the smallest infantry units was an "epoch-making change." According to John English, "Battles depended as never before on the tactical knowledge and ability of junior officers and NCOs. And herein lay the greatest change of all."45

From various pages on

Evolution of Infantry Assault Tactics 1850-1918 by Frank W Sweet

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Aguirre:

[snips]A century only had a single officer plus a few 'NCOs' in the form of the centurion's adjudant and a couple of standard bearers, musicians, etc., so I very much doubt that the contubernia were tactical units (I've certainly never read anything to suggest that they were).

I don't know what period of Roman history you are referring to, but in late Republican times a contubernium of 8 would be led by a decanus. The officers, musicians and standard-bearers were additional to the men organised into contubernia. The strength of the contubernium increased to 10 in the 2nd or 3rd century, and the commander's title apparently changed to semisallis.

By Byzantine times the basic elements were lochagiai of 16 men.

Originally posted by Aguirre:

I'm not certain, but off the top of my head I don't think that hellenistic armies were divided into units of less than a one or two hundred men.

[snips]

Xenophon's "ten thousand" was organised into lochoi of about 100.

Spartan lochoi after Luctra are believed to have been sub-divided into two pentekostyes, each of two enomotiai, each of 36 men.

The Athenians used ten-man groups each led by a dekadarchos.

The Macedonians used files (dekades) of 10 men under Phillip, 16 under Alexander, and the latter could be split into two half-files. ISTR reading (I cannot recall where) that the file leader, who stood in the front rank in combat, received double pay, and the bringer-up, at the rear of the file, pay-and-a-half.

"Leaders of ten" appear to be (considering the relative sparsity of material on the detailed TO&E of ancient armies) not uncommon in ancient armies, occurring at least in the armies of King David and the Maccabean Jews, the Sumerians, Akkadians and Assyrians, and probably the Minoans.

[sources: Phil Barker, "The Armies and Enemies of Imperial Rome", 4th edn, WRG, 1981; Duncan Head, "Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars", WRG, 1982; and Nigel Stillman and Nigel Tallis, "Armies of the Ancient Near East", WRG, 1984.]

The use of terms like "files" and "half-files" suggests to me that these were very much tactical units, taking "tactics" in the classical sense of the handling of troops in the presence of the enemy. They did not maneouvre independently, of course, but until the advent of the magazine rifle using mixed-base propellant and firing conoidal bullets, such tiny elements did not need to, and there did not need to be any great difference between organisation for drill and organisation for combat.

All the best,

John.

[dieseltaylor]

Ah yes the geat Wargames Researcg Group -- what a resource.

Anyway working on the basis that small units probably evelved in small wars and a professional army I will research Boer War back : )

Peleton, still used by the french, were groups/knots of men who reinforced the corners of hollow squares - this in a military context not carpentry : )

[dieseltaylor]

Post 1870 in the British Army advancing indispersed order a company would be split into two under subalterns and then in two, sections, under sgts. I reckon tops about 20 men.

The longer range found in the Boer war meant wider dispersion than previously so at that stage we might see corporals being responsible - but this is guesswork.

The other point seems to be the growht of sections seems to come with the increase in fire power. A certain degree of lethality is required before smaller units were possible.

[klapton]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Yeknodathon:

Roman legions had "squads" of contubernia which were composed of eight men sharing a tent and fire.

That sounds more like a housekeeping arrangement. Were the contubernia used as tactical units either on march or in actual battle?

</font>

[dieseltaylor]

The WRG book Egypt and the Assyrians quotes

{3200-612BC]

"The spearmen and archer units were organised into platoons of 40 men consisting of four squads of 10 men eaching marching 4 abreast."

Obviously not a tactical unit in its own right but jagain shows hoe the limitations in counting have reinforced the size of the smallest unit - I think.: )

[Philippe]

Originally posted by klapton:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Yeknodathon:

Roman legions had "squads" of contubernia which were composed of eight men sharing a tent and fire.

That sounds more like a housekeeping arrangement. Were the contubernia used as tactical units either on march or in actual battle?

</font>