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Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

One of the most worrisome things I’ve seen about the soldier’s load: Undermanned units carrying more weight

This is from a detailed 82nd Airborne briefing that involved weighing soldiers wearing their basic loads: Force cap has reduced the size of the infantry platoon. The overall weight carried by the individual would be lower, but due to being force capped most rifle squads are running at 7 men. Machinegun teams are either 2 ...

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U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air Force
U.S. Air Force

This is from a detailed 82nd Airborne briefing that involved weighing soldiers wearing their basic loads:

This is from a detailed 82nd Airborne briefing that involved weighing soldiers wearing their basic loads:

Force cap has reduced the size of the infantry platoon. The overall weight carried by the individual would be lower, but due to being force capped most rifle squads are running at 7 men. Machinegun teams are either 2 or 3 men. This leaves most platoons around 28 personal instead of the 40 they would usually have.

Thomas E. Ricks covered the U.S. military from 1991 to 2008 for the Wall Street Journal and then the Washington Post. He can be reached at ricksblogcomment@gmail.com. Twitter: @tomricks1
Tags: Military, National Security Agency, North America

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