officers' responsibilities

[Guest mat]

Hi:

How standardized would the responsibilities be of a field officer -- say a 2 lieutenant -- in a light infantry battalion? Where would I find a detailed explication of this sort of information?

Mat

[bkristof]

You mean the size of the group they commanded?

a 2nd lieutenant was in command of a platoon +- 50 soldiers

[Guest mat]

Thanks, that's helpful. What sort of rank might an "intelligence officer" in the light infantry hold, and what sorts of methods of intelligence gathering might he employ?

[Guest Biplane pilot]

An intelligence officer (eschewing any of the usual snide comments about "military intelligence"!) would likely be found at the battalion level and above. He would gather periodic (daily-weekly) reports from his sector and analyze them for useful information regarding enemy units, movements, and possible intentions. If the battalion had a dedicated scout-sniper section, reports from those chaps would be a prime source of intel. Obviously, any PoW interrogations also would be closely scrutinized. Aerial photographs would be particularly helpful in seeing "the other side of the hill," as would comments from balloon observers but it's unclear to me how far down the "food chain" such info usually trickled.