ARTICLES

Although it may be nice for a CO to have a fourth rifle company as deep reserve, it is not an
absolute requirement in order to complete assigned tasks or enable the battalion to manoeuvre.
Instead of finding methods to raise fourth rifle companies, we are better off dedicating that
manpower to additional battalions or enhanced support capabilities. Therefore, our doctrine
should formally establish the infantry battalion at three rifle companies.
Obviously, the now-defunct pioneer platoon has been excluded from this proposal. The reason
for that omission is as follows. The primary purpose of the pioneer platoon was to assist in
mobility and counter-mobility, along with limited decontamination, essentially conducting
basic engineering tasks to save the combat engineers for the most vital work. This proposal
must take economy into account, and a formed pioneer element is simply too much for too
little capability gain, given that a battalion can find, fix and strike without a pioneer platoon.
This does not mean that the battalion should be without basic breaching and demolition
capability; recreating pared-down basic and advanced pioneering qualifications for the
infantry and building this capability within the rifle companies (perhaps at one to two soldiers
per section) would help to reduce the demand for combat engineers to be penny-packeted out
to the infantry to conduct basic explosive work.
Along with our analysis of the essential elements for the battalion to find, fix and strike is the
requirement to determine the needs of its headquarters. Afghanistan has given us staff bloat,
with majors, MWOs and supernumeraries making their way onto the battalion staff, and the
Force 2013 interim infantry battalion, with a 91‐person headquarters for force employment, is
a perfect example of this bloat. Objective analyses of headquarters and staff are hard to come
by, but those published point to staff performance in process and productivity being related to
smaller size and streamlined rank and appointment; smaller is better and the infantry battalion
needs a small, well-run headquarters. 16
The battalion’s headquarters requires an operations officer at the rank of captain. This is a
suitable rank for the position and maintains the crucial Commonwealth staffing maxim that
staff officers are subordinate in rank to their corresponding line commanders. Assisted by an
operations WO and two pairs of lieutenants/captains and sergeants, these six officers and senior
NCMs, with three soldiers as operations clerks for routine command post assistance and a
battalion intelligence cell, provide sufficient oversight for 24‐hour operations and planning
both in garrison and on operations, all supported by the battalion’s signal platoon. Additional
tactical requirements (ISTAR, liaison, etc) can be filled by the OC, 2IC and CSM of the combat
support company, who have no established tactical role.
Aside from the FSCC provided by the mortar platoon headquarters, the battalion command
post should expect higher fires augmentation to the FSCC from an affiliated artillery battery,
perhaps a TACP for joint air-delivered fires, and a small engineering coordination centre.
The command post, like the battalion itself, must be flexible and deployable through a variety
of means and cannot be fixed to any specific platform.
The final piece is the sustainment function. The infantry learned a hard lesson by moving away
from its proven integral administration company model during the early days of the
72 THE CANADIAN ARMY JOURNAL VOLUME 16.2 2016