"It is as if we are fighting a war on the battlefield without a central command and we had platoons operating ad hoc without a sense of the goals," Dr. Redliner said.
That kind of war requires commanders to allow their sergeants and lieutenants maximum freedom to maneuver their 30- or 40-man platoons, operating miles and hours away from the command post.
A couple of years ago a project at RWTH Aachen University in Germany operated a platoon of four trucks spaced at 10m (33ft) intervals.
If we find out you did, you won't like it.' " At the height of the rampage, the Tiger Force platoon was operating a few dozen miles from a Quang Ngai hamlet that the Army called My Lai 4, and where, in March , 1968 more than five hundred Vietnamese civilians were massacred by a task force whose platoon leaders included William L. Calley , Jr
Mayor Daley, who died nearly a decade ago, ruled Chicago for 21 years, usually with quiet moves behind the scenes, lining up support and isolating the opposition so that the Council majority operated like a platoon of steamrollers.
A platoon of Americans, acting on a tip that a torture cell was operating from the main Sadr mosque, surrounded it, only to come under withering gunfire from nearby buildings.
The South American Unification Army receives reports of a rogue sniper operating deep in the jungles of Patagonia, and sends a platoon under the command of Master Sergeant Murdock to neutralize the threat.
"Most of them kind of operate like dons in their areas," said 2nd Lt. Forrest Pierce, a platoon leader with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment.
Is it a platoon situation?
It would serve a platoon of Marines.
