FW: MP organization

The collection thusfar of emails for the list...

> I found an MTOE for a divisional MP company (which
> discusses equipment totals for the company, but not
> much about internal breakdown--it's on the FAS
> website, thanks Laserlight), and an FM on MPs that
> gave a few more details.  Near as I can tell, it's
> supposed to be 3 teams in a squad, with each team
> having a HMMWV and a squad has a total of 1x.50cal,
> 2xMk19s, 3xM-60 (now M-240??) and 3xSAW??  That's 9
> automatic weapons for a unit with 10 men, of whom 3
> are driving vehicles???  Plus every man has an M-16A2,
> one per team having an M-203 mounted on it????  AND a
> pistol?
>
> This does not make sense to me--please ask your wife
> if I'm misreading this or are MPs really that well
> armed?
>

Hi, John.  This is Kiara, David's wife.

No, you are *not* misreading those manuals.  MPs really *are* that well
armed.	It freaks out some of the infantry types we've had to deal with,
but
a combat MP unit is really motorized infantry, just with better
armament,
slightly more specific missions, and a way around the combat exclusion
laws
for women.

PS - By the way - those "garrison turds" you were referring to?  They're
exactly the same folks that pull combat duty - US Army MP's rotate out
between road duty and field duty.  <smile>

> Well, my first question is to ask why you have 3 times
> as many weapons as soldiers?	I mean, you can't
> physically pull that many triggers.  :)

Flexibility.  In short, someone realized that MP's would be assigned to
a
wide variety of specialized tasks in very small teams, and decided to
compensate for it with weaponry.

Understand, too, that the MP corps is only about 35 years old at the
moment.
The doctrine is still very much in the works, so to speak.

Back when I first started out as a platoon leader, each team consisted
of 1
Hummer, 1 M-60, 1 M203/M16 combo, 2 M16's, 3 9mm (or 3 .45's, depending
on
whether the Berettas had been fielded yet.)

A change to the TOE was starting to filter down, and we were starting
to, in
theory, replace the M-60's with Mk19 grenade launchers, and, in some
cases,
.50 cals.  The M-60's didn't come off the TOE, however, so we
theoretically
had them, but they generally weren't fielded if you had the heavier
weapons
available *and* had been able to get your vehicle mounts modified to
handle
the additional stress.	It was pretty funny there for awhile - new toys,
but
they'd break your vehicle if you actually fired them while mounted.

I'm certain there's some commander somewhere who both still has the
M60's
and fields them along with the heavier weapons.  And his troops hate
him.
With good reason.  <grin>

Additionally, as SAWs started being fielded, a SAW generally replaced
one of
the M16's per team, rather than being issued in addition to it.  We were
actually supposed to carry the SAW in addition to the M16 originally
assigned, but that's a pretty ridiculous way to handle weapons, so we
generally just sort of ignored that little piece of wisdom.  Worst case,
you
locked the extra M16 down in your vehicle if you had a mission where
carrying a SAW was a bad idea, and traded it out for the SAW as needed.

So a slightly more realistic version of the armament a team would
*actually*
be carrying in the field is 1 Hummmer, 1 .50 cal or 1 Mk19 or 1 M60, 1
M203/M16, 1 SAW, 1 or 2 M16s, 3 9mm pistols.

That said, that's *still* a lot of armament for 3 people.  But it gets
back
to mission flexibility.  Yes, an MP platoon is *very* heavily armed.  I
used
to have a lot of fun with some of my infantry counterparts as a result.

>
> Do MP units have anything in the way of anti-armor
> capability other than walking off with AT4s?

Not really.  We played around with Hummer-mounted TOWs for awhile, but
it's
generally whatever you can get issued in the way of LAWs.  And hope that
you
have priority for artillery or air support.

>
> What's an MP platoon HQ squad look like?  I've got the
> squads, but unfortunately the source was a bit vauge
> on the rest.
>

That's because the platoon HQ squad is a joke - it doesn't exist, but it
should.

Essentially, you have a 10th Hummer, with the platoon leader, platoon
sergeant, and a driver.  This setup does *not* work, so what happens in
practice is that the squads get stripped of people so that the PL had a
personal team and the PSG has one as well.  Or, if you're lucky, you
have
extra bodies, and you might be able to acquire another Hummer from
somewhere.  The folks who planned out the three-man team concept forgot
that
the PL and the PSG are generally in different places, and should be -
the
PSG running beans and bullets, and the PL out handling operations.

What *should* exist is a six man HQ squad - 2 Hummers, 1 PSG, 1 PL, 2
drivers, 2 gunners.   Oh.  And while we're dreaming, I'd like a medic, a
commo guy, and a maintenance guy.  We're never deployed close enough to
company HQ to actually get our support from company without a huge
hassle.

Ooh - if I get to dream a little bit more, let's dump that garrison duty
stuff altogether and stop pretending that MP's can be both good cops and
good combat MP's.  It's not possible.  What you get are people who are
lousy
cops and nowhere near as good in the field as they should be until
they're
thrown into a combat assignment, and suddenly all that cop stuff goes
out
the window and they get to learn all those infantry tactics that they've
been claiming they shouldn't have to bother with.  <grin>

Best,

Kiara