A Reader Responds: Create the Big "G" Grenadier
Capt Michael Downing
Editors’ Note: This submission is in response to our call for ideas to improve the infantry. Have an idea on how to make us better tomorrow? Fire it over.
To improve the lethality of squad-organic HE weapons, we need to formalize and fund the training and employment of Grenadiers who will employ 40mm weapons and serve as squad SMEs for the M32, M320, AT-4, and M72. Initial training for those assets is done at SOI, but the level of experience and technical proficiency within the fleet is insufficient to improve performance and lethality with those weapons. The “Big G” Grenadier will earn a formal certificate and additional MOS (just as an MAI/T or CMT does) through a short course that enables them to employ those weapons and train others, so even if each squad or platoon only has one Grenadier, all of that unit’s grenadiers (“little g”) can still be trained by a SME. A mandate for requalification intervals and a deploying T/O requirement for Grenadiers, just as we have DIVBUL requirements for school-trained squad leaders, can ensure their initial training and sustainment is a priority within infantry battalions.
The Grenadier Course will intentionally be limited in its scope. It will not teach demolitions or MAAWS employment. It will not train young Marines to become formal school instructors – we only need them to teach effective classes in a barracks lounge, at the armory, or at a range to a handful of their peers who already have some basic familiarity. It will not teach the orders process, land navigation, or even how to camouflage the weapons. Its sole purpose is to teach the fundamentals of operation and employment of select HE weapons and to provide teaching materials for Marines to take that knowledge back to their units.
The advantage of this short qualification course, instead of altering instruction at SOI, AIC, or ISULC, is found in its concentrated nature and its ability to provide a focused SME. In other words, it is better for both the Marine receiving the instruction and the other Marines who will receive instruction from them. Who can argue that a Marine six months removed from SOI is practically a different person from the one who first checked in? Once an above-average junior Marine has the confidence and renewed mental capacity that comes from a few months in the fleet, those top performers are primed to learn new skills in a way that they are not in entry-level training. Once they finish the course – one that they have attended with the knowledge that they are expected to teach others – they have the benefit of being solely focused on their area of expertise, in a way that a team leader, squad leader, or a platoon sergeant cannot be. By providing squads with Grenadiers, we will enhance their ability to destroy the enemy with HE, their primary killing asset.
Captain Michael Downing is the Charlie Company Commander for 1st Battalion, Sixth Marines.
