The U.S Army is conducting a study to determine whether it should change the size of its infantry squads as it adds next generation technology to the forces fighting unit.
Col. Alexis Rivera Espada, head of the Army's Maneuver Battle lab at Fort Benning, Georgia, referenced the "squad study" Thursday during the presentation at the National Defense Industrial Association's Virtual Armaments, Robotics and Munitions annual event. The study commenced this year and will include experimentation in Force events next year.
The Colonel called the study, directed by Army Headquarters, the first of it's kind in decades.
In recent years, the Marine Corps ran it's own series of Experiments, eventually shifting it's size from 13 to 15.
The 15 Marine squad adds systems operator to take on the new array of small drones and coming ground robots available to the unit. The other add on was an assistant squad leader to better manage coordination fires and the flood of information coming to the squad.
The Army has held infantry squads in 9 soldier formations for decades, preferring to keep the company as a base of maneuver for its dismounted troops, meaning the smaller squads were simply components of large group. But in just the next 2 years, 2 key pieces of gear are headed to that smaller squad.
The Integrated Visual Augmentation system, or IVAS, a do it all goggle that adds augmented reality for navigation, communication, facial recognition, targeting, bio-tracking and text translation is expected to go to it's first units within a year.
The Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW), will add extended range, accuracy and lethality once fielded. The 6.8mm weapons will replace both the squad Automatic Weapon and the M4 Carabine.
But those are just the tangible items in the hands of soldiers. There will also be the provision of more expanded and robust weaponry for combat units for a more efficient job in the field with a limitation of casualties.