For those who might find it helpful, I went out of my way to locate the United States' divison of the Battalion in the US Army. I'll start from the bottom and work my way up.
Unit (one soldier)
Battle Team (two soldiers) {two units}
Fireteam (four soldiers) {two battleteams}
Squadron (eight soldiers) {two Fireteams}
Platoon (twenty-four soldiers) {three Squadrons}
Company (VARIES: seventy-two soldiers to ninety-six soldiers) {VARIES: three to four platoons}
Batallion
The Batallion differs from Batallion to Batallion. USUALLY, a Batallion will contain:
Four regular Companies of soldiers
A Medical Company of sorts
A Signals Company
A Recon Company
It also will have two to three support companies -- heavy machine guns, mortars, SAM, anti-tank -- whatever.
Sometimes, depending if there is armor or heavy equipment, it will also have a Service (matinence of sorts) company to tail along for the ride.
Just thought it might be helpful to some people.
For those who might find it helpful, I went out of my way to locate the United States' divison of the Battalion in the US Army. I'll start from the bottom and work my way up.
Unit (one soldier)
Battle Team (two soldiers) {two units}
Fireteam (four soldiers) {two battleteams}
Squadron (eight soldiers) {two Fireteams}
Platoon (twenty-four soldiers) {three Squadrons}
Company (VARIES: seventy-two soldiers to ninety-six soldiers) {VARIES: three to four platoons}
Batallion
The Batallion differs from Batallion to Batallion. USUALLY, a Batallion will contain:
Four regular Companies of soldiers
A Medical Company of sorts
A Signals Company
A Recon Company
It also will have two to three support companies -- heavy machine guns, mortars, SAM, anti-tank -- whatever.
Sometimes, depending if there is armor or heavy equipment, it will also have a Service (matinence of sorts) company to tail along for the ride.
Just thought it might be helpful to some people.
Squad does not equal squadron. Squadron in the US Army was (is?) a calvary unit roughly midway between the sizes of an infantry battalion and an infantry brigade. Squad is a low level unit, the usual US Army rifle squad has 2 fireteams of 4 and a squad leader, although is not set in stone - some consist of 3 fireteams +leader, some of 2 fireteams + HW team + leader, and there are other variations.
Above the squad there is usually the platoon in the rifle infantry. A platoon might consist of 3 rifle squads (27 persons) + 1 Weapons (MG's and Anti Armour or Anti Air usually) squad (9 persons common) + one Headquarters unit (3 persons). This comes out to 39 personel in case you were wondering, and is considered the standard US infantry rifle platoon.
Above the platoon is the company. The usual US army infantry company consists of 3 rifle platoons + 1 headquarters unit (made up of 2 support sections and one headquarters section). A section is a unit (usually) made up of two squads or three fireteams and might be thought of as half a platoon - although section leaders usually do not have a seperate position but are one of the squad leaders - support sections in the company are usually HW sections, one mortar and one anti-armour is a common combination. The US army (combat) company is usually considered to have about 125 persons, but depending upon function and actual organization might vary in size from about 90 persons to over 150 persons at full stregnth.
This gives a better picture of the oragnization of the US army. One of the problems with this sort of picture however is that is there are variety of different types of fireteams, squads, battlegroups, platoons, sections and companies for various functions. There are, for example, five different types of rifle platoons alone; light infantry, infantry, air assault, ranger, and airborne. Some infantry companies have mixed types of platoons in place of the three similar rifle platoons of the usual infantry company. Each unit is somewhat different.