The current 7 men section was a result of shortages in
manpower.
Prior to that, the batch before my NS intake had 9 man sections.
Also each MG team had 3 men, and each 84mm crew consisted of 3 men.
The battation had 4 front line companies plus the support and HQ
companies.
There will always be pros and cons a smaller unit. With a larger
unit, your first man reaches the FUP but your last man is still 1KM
behind for example. With a smaller unit, movement is faster but
there is a general shortage of manpower.
Doctrine is also different. The US Marines with more manpower is
expected to cover more ground or frontage width. For us I guess,
its a smaller area, or covered at a brigade level for larger
areas.
I always thought that the SAF would mechanise the infantry and
guards units with basic APCs - considering the small 7 men section.
In general, only mechanised or armoured infantry units are found
with smaller 7-8 man sections around the world. I think only
Finland (??) has the same 7 man sections for infantry units. Until
now, our infantry and guards are mainly foot infantry with some
soft skin vehicles.
I've been on exercise with the US Marines in tekong a long time ago
- and yes they sometimes do fire and movement at whole section or
whole platoon level.