US Mech Platoon

When my granny was ninety one!

"Wars are fought with weapons but they are won by men" ~ Colonel Chester Philips

The average American Soldier is a member of one of the finest fighting forces in the world. The US Military is an all volunteer force, highly trained and highly motivated. Standard Platoon size is 50 men, commanded by a fresh faced Lieutenant. These men wield a variety of weapons from the standard issue M16 Assault Rifle, to the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, to the M47 Dragon Anti Tank Missile.

In Team Yankee

The Stat Card

Highly skilled and well armed, these troops can hold key positions on the battlefield and help protect your Tanks from getting overrun by the soviet hordes. Mech platoons do best when they are dug in while concealed with medium range firing lanes for their missiles. They are smaller than their soviet counterparts, and will struggle in a head on confrontation. Use their superior defenses and skill to drive back the enemy before they get too close. Remember that they have thermal imaging, which means smoke can be used to great effect to help preserve their numbers while they bleed the enemy of their troops and support vehicles. With their transports around, they threaten every type of unit out there, but they excel at nothing in particular beyond killing lightly armored vehicles. Use them to defend friendly objectives and get a foothold near enemy objectives. Their best asset is their durability as they get a 3+ infantry save against EVERYTHING.

IRL

Give me a rifle, one round and point me to Berlin Moscow!

The latest mechanized units of the United States Army are the last in a long line of similar units stretching all the way back to WW2. Today most Mechanized Infantry Units are equipped with either the M2 Bradley Infantry fighting vehicle or the IAV Stryker, though reserve units and other less important formations my still roll around in M113s. The Dragon ATGM has been replaced by Javelin ATGMs and improved TOW missile varriants.

Oh, here's an interesting tidbit about the M47 Dragon. The Dragon was guided by a wire that trailed from the launcher. This wire would relay commands from the sight, which the operator would point at the intended target. Basically wherever you looked at through the sight, the missile would home in on. This lead to some issues with inexperienced operators accidently firing their multi-thousand dollar missile (one that they have humped across a battlefield for possibly days mind you) strait into the ground. See, the whole contraption weighed about 30 lbs, and when preparing to fire, the operator would have to brace himself against it. When the missile was fired, the majority of the weight was quite literally lifted from his shoulders, and all of that tension required to keep the missile steady would suddenly no longer be restricted by gravity, which would cause the soldier to rock forward a bit. Not much, but enough to send the Dragon burrowing into the ground, possibly alerting the enemy to the fact that someone is shooting missiles at him. Experienced soldiers would aim a bit high to give themselves some room to correct that inevitable issue.