The Provisional Rifle Squad of 1931

The US Army of the Interwar Period

(US National Archives)

The very first issue of the Infantry School Mailing List, which emerged from the print shop in 1931, included an anonymous article that described, among other things, a new type of rifle squad. Like the rifle squad authorized by the tables of organization approved on 27 June 1927, this ‘provisional rifle squad’ rated eight soldiers. However, rather than employing a single Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), the new squad sported two weapons of that sort.

This, explained the author of the piece, changed the role played by automatic rifles. Prior to this reform, he claimed, the fire of a single BAR supplemented the effects achieved by bolt-action rifles. After this reorganization, a pair of BAR gunners provided the lion’s share of the firepower produced by a rifle squad.

This assertion rested on the assumption that, in a given amount of time, one BAR sent as many bullets foewards as four rifles. Thus, while the single BAR of an old squad contributed a third of its firepower, the two automatic rifles of the new squad accounted for two-thirds of its output of flat-trajectory projectiles. (These calculations presumed that the squad leader was too busy directing the actions of his men to do much in the way of shooting.)

In keeping with this change, the four soldiers previously known as ‘riflemen’ received new designations. One traded his rifle for a BAR. A second became the assistant automatic rifleman. Two acquired the title of ‘scout’.

Source

‘The Provisional Infantry Reorganization’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) pages 13-16 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)