Talk:Squad

The German Wehrmacht and the modern Bundeswehr both differentiate between Gruppe (Section, 8 to 12) and Trupp (Squad, 3 to 6). The German rifle section typically maneuvered in two separate squads, the MG-Trupp and the Schützentrupp. The platoon leader had the option of deploying all three LMG squads of his platoon together, to provide fire support for the three rifle squad advancing upon the enemy position, two up, one in reserve. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ~2026-11460-81 (talk) 21:04, 20 February 2026 (UTC)

Clarification of national terminology

To avoid confusion, I decided to split the table into two. I didn't make any mistakes regarding countries, but I need to check again, plus remove the terms that denote other military units JurKo22 (talk) 09:25, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

I've reverted the changes, as the good ones were inseperable from the bad ones. For starters, they're all sourced to an unreliable source -- we cannot use "Armawiki" as a source here. (To be fair, that reference existed before your initial edits, and I've removed it as well). If the underlying source is supposed to be APP-06, that needs to be cited directly rather than to a video game wiki hosting it. Additionally, the claim about "common english" was WP:SYNTH and I removed that as well. The table changes may have been OK but were intertwined with the other edits. As I indicated on the Section talk page, when making a significant rewrite like this please make sure you're discussing and gaining consensus for these changes and not just pushing them through across multiple articles. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:31, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Since I'm done with the section, I've moved the agreed terminology here, as well as the part of the article about the German squad. The order of the article threads has been changed so that the US comes first, as it was before, and then in alphabetical order. JurKo22 (talk) 14:53, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

Theory from ADP 3-90

I began preparing revisions to this article and found that additional theory from ADP 3-90 Offense and Defense was needed both here and in related articles.

The fact is that ADP 3-90 on page 2-18 contains the following definitions of four small military units:

• A fire team is a small military unit typically containing four or fewer Soldiers. A fire team is usually grouped by two or three teams into a squad or section.
• A crew is a small military unit that consists of all personnel operating a particular system. This system might be a weapons system (such as a mortar or a machinegun). The system might also be a vehicle (such as a tank) or a sensor system (such as a target acquisition radar).
• A squad is a small military unit typically containing two or more fire teams. It typically contains a dozen Soldiers or less. In some cases, the crew of a system may also be designated as a squad.
• A section is a tactical unit of the Army and Marine Corps smaller than a platoon and larger than a squad. A section may consist of the crews of two or more Army systems, such as a tank section or several fire teams.

For these definitions, FM 1-02.2 provides its own symbols (Ø / ● / ●●), but for squad it provides the following note:

• Common English language definition also applies to this symbol, “a small group engaged in a common effort or occupation.”

As for the standard APP-06, it takes these designations from FM 1-02.2 and suggests that other NATO countries use them. However, due to the remark on squad and the fact that in a number of countries section is an analogue of squad, inconsistency begins:

• some NATO countries fully agree with this approach, even if they do not have a fire team (Ø) / squad (●) / section (●●) structure
• however, most NATO countries, for which section is an analogue of squad, use the standard designation (●●) for section, and taking into account that Common English language definition also applies to symbol ●, “a small group engaged in a common effort or occupation”, gives the designation for squad (●) for crew and team.

I believe that this theory should be presented both here and in related articles. I will start in Section (military unit), then this one, and lastly in Fireteams. In my opinion, this repetition is necessary, because it fully explains the reason for the inconsistency to the unprepared reader. JurKo22 (talk) 12:31, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

As I indicated on the other talk page, if there are not reliable sources discussing the existence of your theory and reasoning for such a discrepancy, then we cannot include it as it would be original research. Such a discussion would have to be explicit -- we cannot derive the content from multiple sources that do not actually say this (which would be synthesis. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 16:13, 5 August 2025 (UTC)

all major changes in the article have been made, please check the final result. Thank you! JurKo22 (talk) 12:43, 7 August 2025 (UTC)

Misquotation

The current version states that in American usage, a squad consists of eight to fourteen soldiers. However, the source cited by this statement gives different numbers: 9 to 10 soldiers. I believe it is more correct to take the data from Army Doctrine Publication No. 3-90, which speaks of a dozen or less. JurKo22 (talk) 11:12, 8 August 2025 (UTC)