Rifle Platoon

This article is fucking 'Murican. Expect copious amounts of Freedom with an infrequent side of Awesome.

The American Rifle Platoon was an organizational unit used during WWII, and is a unit available in Flames of War. American Rifle Platoons typically had anywhere from 16-50 men, inluding a Lieutenant.

IRL

The Platoon as an organizational unit can trace its roots back to the early era of gunpowder, and derives from the French word "peleton" which meant a small detachment of soldiers. Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden organized his the firing unit Platoon in the early 1600s, and by the latter part of the Century the French had adopted the system as well.

In WWII, the American Rifle Platoon consisted of the aforementioned number of men, mostly armed with M1 Garands, due to the American infantry philosophy built around Rifle Doctrine. In the early war, officers, sergeants, and messengers would be equipped with the Thompson Submachinegun, but post 1942 this weapon was phased out by the more accurate but controversial M1 Carbine. A single B.A.R was present for each platoon, as well as a single M1903A4 Sniper rifle to be given to a man at the unit leader's discretion. M7 Rifle Grenade Launchers were intermittenly passed through the unit to add long range indirect fire against fortified positions or to get shots over obstacles such as walls or hills.

As for a brief rundown of every weapon:

• The Garand was the best rifle in the whole damn war, not having the janky problems of emergency build SVTs, the bolt action inferiority of pretty much everything else and the logistics line complicating STG with it's separate caliber at a time with no fuel to go around.

• The B.A.R was probably the worst LMG outside the Type 99 or Breda. When it was introduced in WWI it was ahead of its time, but by WWII it was very outdated and military thinkers failed to give it even basic design upgrades like a pistol grip, muzzle break, or interchangeable barrel - features that plenty of foreign copies and non-military versions of the BAR all had.

• The Thompson was heavy, but a reliable weapon provided it wasn't equipped with a drum magazine. Not the match of the sheer firepower of the PPSh, but manufacturing and magazines were significantly superior. Not quite as controllable as the MP40, but fired faster. The replacement M3 Grease Gun was a cheap and simple gun used by tankers and other crew served far longer than it.

• The M1903 was and still is a solid bolt action rifle, but it was clearly on the way out for the line of battle. Did well in the early war at the Pacific before the Garands got sent out at numbers and after that served an excellent sniper rifle.

• The M1 Carbine was not terrible, but the marines often complained it had insufficient stopping power, though the M1 Carbine had always been intended as a backup weapon for support troops, not a frontline weapon. It worked best in close combat for units that were not expecting infantry combat but still needed something better than a pistol. M2 Carbine with automatic fire and M3 with night vision paved the way for the assault rifles.

• The Bazooka was a mediocre AT weapon and one of the first rocket launchers. While it performed well against bunkers and tanks, it struggled against the heavier armor that was deployed later in the war. Ironically, the Germans reverse engineered Bazookas and developed the Panzershreck and Panzerfaust as a result.

In the Modern day, the US Rifle platoon officially consists of 42 men, including the Lieutenant in charge of the unit.