Squads
| Military organization | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| Typical units | Typical numbers | Typical commander |
| fireteam | 3–4 | corporal |
|
squad/ section |
8–12 | sergeant |
| platoon | 15–30 | lieutenant |
| company | 80–150 | captain/major |
|
battalion/ cohort |
300–800 | lieutenant colonel |
|
regiment/ brigade/ |
3,000–5,000 |
colonel/ brigadier general |
| division | 10,000–30,000 | major general |
| corps | 30,000–50,000 | lieutenant general |
| field army | 100,000–300k | general |
|
army group front |
2+ field armies |
field marshal/ five-star general |
|
region/ theater |
4+ army groups |
Six-star rank/ Commander-in-chief |
In military terminology, a squad or squadron is a sub-subunit led by a non-commissioned officer that is subordinate to an infantry platoon. In countries following the British Army tradition (Australian Army, Canadian Army, and others), this organization is referred to as a section. In most armies, a squad consists of eight to fourteen soldiers, and may be further subdivided into fireteams.
Standard NATO symbol – squad (7 or 8 – 12 soldiers) – in NATO armed forces:
The equivalent to squad is the , a sub-unit of 8 to 12 soldiers, in the German Bundeswehr, Austrian Bundesheer and Swiss Army.
During World War 2 the German Wehrmacht infantry squad or Gruppe was mainly a general purpose machine gun (GPMG) based unit. The advantage of the general purpose machine gun concept was that it added greatly to the overall volume of fire that could be put out by a squad-sized unit. The MG 34 or MG 42 GPMGs were normally used in the light machine gun role. An infantry Gruppe consisted of ten men; a non-commissioned officer or Unteroffizier squad leader, deputy squad leader, a three-man machine gun team (machine gunner, assistant gunner and ammunition carrier) and five riflemen. As personal small arms the squad leader was issued a rifle or as of around 1941 a submachine gun, the machine gunner and his assistant were issued pistols and the deputy squad leader, ammunition carrier and the riflemen were issued rifles. The riflemen carried additional ammunition, hand grenades, explosive charges or a machine gun tripod as required and provided security and covering fire for the machine gun team. Two of the standard issue bolt-action Karabiner 98k rifles in the squad could be replaced with semi-automatic Gewehr 43 rifles and occasionally, StG-44 assault rifles could be used to re-arm the whole squad, besides the machine-gun.
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Wikipedia