Fireteam

A fireteam or fire team is a small modern military subordinated element of infantry designed to optimize "NCO initiative", "combined arms", "bounding overwatch" and "fire and movement" tactical doctrine in combat. Depending on mission requirements, a typical "standard" fireteam consists of four or fewer members: an automatic rifleman, a grenadier, a rifleman, and a designated fireteam leader. The role of each fireteam leader is to ensure that the fireteam operates as a cohesive unit. Two or three fireteams are organized into a section or squad in co-ordinated operations, which is led by a squad leader. Historically, militaries with strong reliance and emphasis on decentralized NCO-corp institutions and effective "bottom-up" fireteam organization command structures have had a significantly better combat performance from their infantry units, when in comparison to militaries limited to officer-reliant operations, traditionally larger units lacking NCO-leadership and "top-down" centralized command structures. Fireteam organization addresses the realities of 21st century warfare, where combat is getting exponentially faster and more lethal, as it identifies and removes anything which slows down the reaction time between first detection of an enemy and rounds impacted. U.S. Army doctrine recognizes the fire team, or crew, as the smallest military organization while NATO doctrine refers to this level of organization simply as team. Fireteams are the most basic organization upon which modern infantry units are built in the British Army, Royal Air Force Regiment, Royal Marines, United States Army, United States Marine Corps, United States Air Force Security Forces, Canadian Forces, and Australian Army. The concept of the fireteam is based on the need for tactical flexibility in infantry operations. A fireteam is capable of autonomous operations as part of a larger unit. Successful fireteam employment relies on quality small unit training for soldiers, experience of fireteam members operating together, sufficient communications infrastructure, and a quality non-commissioned officer corps to provide tactical leadership for the team.