Combined anti-armor team

A combined anti-armor team or combined arms assault team (CAAT) is an organization of a United States Marine Corps weapons company where one or more platoons are operated in a detached role to conduct reconnaissance missions and combat ground armored vehicles and air defense vehicles with heavy weapons systems.

In addition to their usual role of dedicated anti-armor operations, CAATs are a vehicle-mounted heavy weapons quick reaction force for the infantry units they support.

Due to their highly mobile, but lightly armored nature, the CAAT will employ ambush tactics or flanking maneuvers to engage the enemy from unexpected directions.

According to "Machine Guns and Machine Gun Gunnery"; in the defense, CAAT could be assigned such missions as "...conducting anti-armor ambushes forward of the forward edge of the battle area (FEBA), supporting a combat outpost, or reinforcing a counter attack force".

(MCWP 3-15.1 6-8) In the offense, CAAT "...can act as a motorized scout element that seeks to find and maintain contact with the enemy while the unit’s main body maneuvers to engage, or they can conduct route reconnaissance and provide reports about the trafficability of a unit’s planned route of march".