In 1984 the Marine Corps returned the M-2 .50 cal machine gun to infantry battalions. Designated “heavy machine gun platoon” which was part of weapons companies.
Designed to be deployed in general support of the battalion or distributed to the line companies.
In general support it could be deployed as a reconnaissance element or as part of anti armor killing teams.
T/E was 8 heavy machine guns with tripods and traversing and elevation mechanisms or mounted on M151 jeeps and later hummers.
Then 8 M-60 machine guns.
This configuration was created during the hight of the cold war and was designed to enhance a infantry battalion’s ability to hold the line against a soviet attack into NATO specifically Norway which was the Corps responsibility.
I was assigned as a platoon commander (as a gunnery sgt) for this unit in 1st Battalion 2nd Marine Regiment which was the Corps designated cold weather regiment. We deployed to Norway during that time and moved our equipment vis akios which is a toboggan pulled by 4 Marines in snow shoes.
Needless to say my Marines where bulls.
I retired in 2007 so most likely that unit may no longer exist in that table of organization and equipment.
"I find myself imagining that someone in Berlin divided the number of available machine guns by the number of available lieutenants. (I cannot say that this actually happened. However, if the archival documents I have perused over the decades are any indication, such adventures in arithmetic appealed greatly to folks who wielded pencils in the war ministries of the age of steel and steam.)"
I wonder if you might share some other cases where such a logic was present, or at least very highly probable. It's the kind of oob/personnel-policy detail I find absolutely fascinating, but it can be so rare to find even in otherwise excellent scholarly works.
In 1984 the Marine Corps returned the M-2 .50 cal machine gun to infantry battalions. Designated “heavy machine gun platoon” which was part of weapons companies.
Designed to be deployed in general support of the battalion or distributed to the line companies.
In general support it could be deployed as a reconnaissance element or as part of anti armor killing teams.
T/E was 8 heavy machine guns with tripods and traversing and elevation mechanisms or mounted on M151 jeeps and later hummers.
Then 8 M-60 machine guns.
This configuration was created during the hight of the cold war and was designed to enhance a infantry battalion’s ability to hold the line against a soviet attack into NATO specifically Norway which was the Corps responsibility.
I was assigned as a platoon commander (as a gunnery sgt) for this unit in 1st Battalion 2nd Marine Regiment which was the Corps designated cold weather regiment. We deployed to Norway during that time and moved our equipment vis akios which is a toboggan pulled by 4 Marines in snow shoes.
Needless to say my Marines where bulls.
I retired in 2007 so most likely that unit may no longer exist in that table of organization and equipment.
"I find myself imagining that someone in Berlin divided the number of available machine guns by the number of available lieutenants. (I cannot say that this actually happened. However, if the archival documents I have perused over the decades are any indication, such adventures in arithmetic appealed greatly to folks who wielded pencils in the war ministries of the age of steel and steam.)"
I wonder if you might share some other cases where such a logic was present, or at least very highly probable. It's the kind of oob/personnel-policy detail I find absolutely fascinating, but it can be so rare to find even in otherwise excellent scholarly works.
Our armorers would give a lot for assistants.