The Corps is back to experimenting with its rifle squad configurations after culminating the first phase of the Sea Dragon 2025 exercises that tested infantry Marines with new tech and configurations.
While Commandant of the Marine Corps Gen. Robert B. Neller initially decided to chop the rifle squad to 12 Marines, he is toying with the idea of boosting the squads to 15 Marines for forward-deployed forces.
And come May, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines will have an additional 92 Marines for an upcoming Marine Expeditionary Unit, or MEU, deployment.
The extra manpower will allow the grunts to experiment and deploy with a full complement of a 15-man squad configuration.
In an after-action report filed in the Marine Corps Gazette, Marines with 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, recommended that the rifle squad should be 15 Marines.
The added size was necessary for the new tech, drones and weapons systems being fielded to future grunts for the upcoming bout with more sophisticated adversaries.
This is an excerpt from “19 Things You Need to Know in 2019,” in the 12-31 print edition of Marine Corps Times.
