The curious design imposed upon Marine divisions in 1947 owes much to numbers. To borrow (and, perhaps, butcher) a metaphor used by J.R.R. Tolkien, the Marine Corps had too little manpower butter to spread over the bread of its force structure. The peculiar shape imposed upon the cut-down divisions, however, reflects both the model provided by the command commands of US Army armored divisions of the Second World War and a fondness for formations that could continue to fight in the aftermath of the explosion of a nearby atomic bomb.
The authors of the J-Series tables of organization presumed the separation of the fighting elements of a Marine division into two ‘task units’, each of which resembled a regimental landing team of the latter years of the recent war against Japan. Thus, they provided each Marine division with the means of forming two standard task-organized commands, each of which was assembled upon a combative core of three infantry battalions, three field artillery batteries, and a company of tanks.
Folks fond of logic quickly realized that ‘standard task-organized command’ qualifies as a contradiction in terms. Thus, the establishmentarians (as I like to call the authors of tables of organization) made provision for the formation, out of Marines serving on the division staff, with a ’command group’ a third ad hoc assemblage of battalions, batteries, companies, and platoons. Likewise, they also imagined situations in which the two task units of a division would bring to mind the arms of a crab, with one built around four or five battalions, and the other making do with one or two.
The structure of J-Series tank battalions partook of this essentially binary character. That is, it consisted of a headquarters and service company and two line companies. (The latter, which might be described as identical twins, bore the letters ‘A’ and ‘B’.)
Most of the tanks in the battalion - 34 out of 42 - could be found in the lettered line companies. Of these, moreover, most served in five-tank platoons. Of the eight remaining tanks, two belonged to the battalion headquarters and six to the flamethrower platoon.
The six flamethrower tanks formed a matched set of three-tank sections. Thus, unless directed otherwise, each task unit would receive a company of seventeen gun-armed tanks, a section of three flamethrower vehicles, and (I suspect) one of the two gun-armed tanks of the battalion headquarters.
Sources
A Chronology of the US Marine Corps, Volume III (1947-1964) (Washington, DC: US Marine Corps, 1971) page 4 (Official Website of the US Marines)
‘The New FMF’ The Marine Corps Gazette (May 1947) pages 10-14 (Internet Archive)
For Further Reading
One wonders if the genius’ and consultants that crafted Force Design 2030, had done any reading at all, studied armored and tracked and or mechanized forces in Europe and the Soviet Union, when they figured armor, artillery and infantry were fairly well useless. Of course when one becomes the 38th Commandant of the Marine Corps and has a reconnaissance background and think the world is one dimensional, any thinking that is one dimensional may hold sway. What is most interesting is that these formations more less carried on from the end of WWII to the period of Divest to Invest. It is always odd to come upon a cattle rancher who has sold all his cattle to become a wind farmer.
Happy 250
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(That’s happy 250 in binary)