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Marines Discussion Board
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Subject: sta platoon
stinger    11/3/2007 5:03:24 AM
what is the current make up of the sta platoon and where do they fall in under a division or battalion?????
 
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Carl S       11/3/2007 9:49:51 AM
Battalion. STA is the battalion commanders scout/sniper team & fall under the S2 officers tactical control.  A decade ago the S2 was the STA platoon commander.  Unsure if that is unchanged.

The divsion has a wide variety of permanent & attached reconissance units.  There is a sniper section in the divsion HQ/support group somewhere, but it would be not the same thing as the battalion STA. 
 
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Carl S       11/3/2007 9:58:59 AM
Composition of the STA platoon back then (1995) was a Plt Sgt & 8 to 12 two man teams.  It varied according to how many Marines were available that week.  We also had a extra staff sgt as a sort of assist and a junior Marine who carried the Plt Sgts radio.   Technically my S2 clerks were part of the S2/STA section, but mine were geeks & did not fit in with the fit & aggresive STA team members.  At company formation they would fall in with the S3 herd as their plt sgts beatings were easier.

I never worried much about the finer points of TO/TE since a TO unit hardly ever came in sight.  One works with what you have when you have it and constantly shout for more. 
 
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stinger       11/3/2007 3:19:22 PM
i'm just a little confused please bare with me, so the marines in the sta  platoon are recon guys or scout snipers and what makes them different...
 
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SCCOMarine       11/5/2007 1:41:30 PM

i'm just a little confused please bare with me, so the marines in the sta  platoon are recon guys or scout snipers and what makes them different...



Things may be a little different today.

 

I?m not a sniper but I was attached to 3/2s S/S plt in 2002 for a summer CAX.

 

The way it was described to me was in the 90s there was a unit called SRIG(surge), Surveillance Reconnaissance Intelligence Group, under each MEF.  It was a Combo of a S/S Plt, Force Recon Co, CI Co, & Intel Co which cross-trained & deployed as single unit Dets.

 

From what I was told SRIG was disbanded in 98 or 99.  All snipers went back to the INF BN SS Plts.  3/2s SS Plt had about 30 Marines.

 

They told me the only time a S/S team is designated as STA now is during a MEU(SOC).  During that time the 16 snipers are pulled from the BLT SS Plt, attached to the MSPF, & are trained and re-designated as ?STA?.

 

That was in 2002 it may be different now there isn?t a MSPF anymore.

 
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Carl S       11/5/2007 8:26:20 PM
"
i'm just a little confused please bare with me, so the marines in the sta  platoon are recon guys or scout snipers and what makes them different..."

Both.  When I was a a S2 we used them as sniper teams, or scout teams, or sometimes both.  The STA team members I had were mostly school trained snipers.  Only one had been trained in a Recon battalion.  The reconissance training for the others derived from their other infantry training, or what the plt sgt taught them.  The Combat Readiness Evaluation Standards (similar to the US Army ARTEP of the old days) had a few tasks and eval standards for the STA paltoon that concerned reconissance, so that sort of set a minimum goal.

In one exercise I had the STA teams divided into four OP teams & sitting on some remote hill tops.  In another they were in sniper hides around a Korean airport.  On a third they were distributed to the rifle companys for the company comanders use.
 
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