"Making a US platoon" Topic

Got my hands on a Wargames Factory WWII infantry box for christmas link and I'm at a loss with what to do with it.

I game 28mm, but have NOTHING in WWII yet. So I am starting with a blank slate. I want to make the boxed set in as much of a stand-alone unit as I can without having to put down money on more things (yet).

I have 3 of this sprue

and 1 of this sprue

It seems to give me a pretty good mix of Garands, carbines, grease guns and thompsons… But how should I fit out the troops? Like TO&E wise… What gear should go to who?

Ideally I want a force that would fit in for late WWII (marching on germany) and if at all historically possible, the korean conflict. Any suggestions guys?

Why not 1944-45?
Normandy seems to be one of the most common battlefield followed by the Desert and Eastern front…
By the way : gothicline.webs.com
Cheers

Also are these only good to paint up as army, or can i somehow paint them as marines. (I know the uniforms "look" different, but is it different enough to need a separate sculpt?) The resident WWII guy at the store told me they are "most certainly" american army, and not marines corps, but I want a second opinion.

I ask because my grandfather was a marine in korea (and had some less than flattering things to say about the army) and would probably be more impressed to see a platoon of marines over a platoon of GI's

Nice figures!

Have you seen these?

TMP link

link

TMP link

I hadn't. I spent most of yesterday searching TMP but my combination of not knowing what terms to enter combined with TMP's Quirky and sometimes less than robust search features…. was a swing and a miss…. Reading these topics now.

Thank you!

(PS guys don't let that stop you from still commenting here… any input is good input)

By my count, the sprues you have give you 30 bodies, with more weaponry possibilities than you'll ever need, apart from the lack of a bazooka.

I would suggest making these up as three reduced-strength squads of nine, plus a platoon leader, platoon sergeant and platoon guide. Practically everyone should have a plain M-1 Garand, including the officer, except for the BAR men. One BAR per squad is pretty normal, and you might easily find two later in the war or with a unit that knows which side its bread is buttered. I can't see if there are any Springfields on the sprues, but you could justify one Springfield-armed man per squad as the rifle grenadier for much of the war.

For the sake of variety, you might give the officer a carbine or an SMG, and perhaps one of the sergeants with a Bilkoish tendency might have picked up an SMG from somewhere, but it would be historically unimpeachable to have a whole platoon without a single SMG to its name. Likewise, maybe have a scoped rifle for one of the squad scouts for added flavour, but these were not standard GI items at the platoon level.

Of course, a lot depends on the rules you use -- if SMGs are much better than rifles, you might want to come up with some story that this is the anti-tank platoon of a mechanised infantry company, who have had their 57mm guns taken away and been re-roled as additional infantry. This might excuse the small squads and non-standard equipment, and let them ride around in M2A1 half-track cars.

Although 30 men rather under the full establishment for a platoon, it is an entirely reasonable strength for a unit that has been in action for any amount of time.

All the best,

John.

John D Salt, that is PRECISELY the kind of input I needed. Thanks.

I went ahead and pulled the 6 crouching guys off the sprues and decided to do them as a bit of a "test batch". Mostly because they'll probably be a demi-unit any time I field 'em anyway… I hate mixing crouching, prone, standing, and running guys in the same squad. makes for a weird "I have no idea what our team is doing" vibe.

I made a guy with the garand in the left hand and a pair of field glasses in the right, a BAR gunner, 2 guys with garands, one scoped springfield and one rifle-grenade guy (not sure if garand or springfield). I'll figure out what insignia they get during painting, but the meat and potatoes of the matter is that they "fit together" as some kind of "overwatch" element for a squad or platoon.

To answer your question, there are scoped springfields, and what appear to be garrands with handgrenades on them, something I'm not very familiar with, but that a quick perusal through one of the above links tells me every squad needs one…

as for rules, i haven't even got an OPPONENT at the moment, let alone rules.

I tend to make armies then look for rules to play. Hence my desire to make these as broadly useful as possible.

BUT the spare weapons may see double duty with the upcoming ARMED CIVILIANS TMP link that I found out about while looking into these…

What do your rules say?

Assuming you want to build a regular infantry platoon, first of all can the Tommy Guns and especially the Grease Guns. These were issued to tank crewmen, half track drivers and the like.

Late war, the infantry company commander got 6 (six) SMG's and an extra 6 BAR's as unassigned spare or pool weapons for special raids or patrols, but the fact is, when the enemy is shooting holes in you from 200 yards with Mausers and MG 42's, your 50 yard effective range Tommy gun isn't a whole lot of help.

An infantry squad has 12 men assigned, but in combat were lucky to have 8 available. One of those men carried a BAR to provide the squad's hard hitting automatic fire. Everyone else, including the squad leader has an M1 Garand. The only men with carbines are the officers at platoon & company HQ, and the men assigned as ammo carriers for the two M1919A4 LMG's and three 60mm mortars in the weapons platoon. The carbine was introduced as a replacement for the .45 pistol carried as a sidearm but many platoon leaders opted to carry a Garand, making them less conspicuous in sniper country.

Rifle grenades were originally intended as anti tank weapons, and should have been issued to assistant squad leaders, but these saw little use after Normandy, being made pretty much obsolete by the bazooka. This item was also an 'extra' weapon, used by whatever unlucky rifleman was told to carry it.

Scoped rifles (M1903 Springfield) were an optional weapon carried by the platoon guide (sergeant) in some units.

link

I suspect that the role of SMGs, in any WW2 army, is a lot less than movies would have us believe.
And having the semi-automatic Garand as standard equipment is pretty good anyway.

Certainly among the western allies, however SMG platoons,companies and even entire battalions were quite popular in the Red Army. Their own semi-auto rifle, the SVT-40 wasn't hugely successful, despite manufacturing millions of them.

The Germans also employed SMG platoons, albeit mainly in Volksgrenadier divisons.

But, as above, a US rifle platoon armed entirely with Garands and BARs is quite normal.

Likewise, maybe have a scoped rifle for one of the squad scouts for added flavour, but these were not standard GI items at the platoon level.

My understanding is that by the official TOE, there was supposed to be one available per rifle platoon, in order to arm some good shot as the platoon marksman. Whether this was always carried out is another issue, but it should be by no means exceptional for a rifle platoon to pack one.

Scoped 03's: Although the US Army set up an advanced marksmanship course at Camp Perry, Ohio, the Army had no official sniper course during WWII. I just read this on another board:

"During WWII, my dad was an infantryman, a replacement sent in just after Aachen was captured. I asked him more than once, he never saw a US Army soldier with a scoped rifle of any kind. He carried an M-1 Garand. The reason I am replying is that he mentioned getting bandoliers with 5 shot Springfiled clips in them and having to chase and save 8 shot M-1 clips, and refilling them. This did not make him happy. He told me they were left over ammo from WWI, but never mentioned looking at headstamps. I'm sure that was just a common soldiers gripe. There would be odd lots of fresh Springfield ammo in the system for a number of reasons.

Among the other things he did NOT carry was a bayonet. He threw his away as soon as he thought no one was looking. He specifically said he wanted no part of a bayonet charge. For that same reason, he kept a single clip hidden in his shirt pocket, just in case the seargant ordered a bayonet charge, took away his cartridge belt. This must have been a common training drill in the states, for 30 years later, at a re-union, he spoke with several other vets who did the same, and they never told anyone about it until years later. "

(NB The 5 round stripper was the prescribed method of reloading BAR mags. So ammo was loaded and sent forward on stripper clips for the BAR men. )

Hollywood doesn't have to worry about magazine capacity.
So smg were less effective than Hollywood has them.
Grenades do not explode like 80mm mortar rounds neither.

On the other hand.
Most decisive combat in nwe was at very short range.
Riflemen were remarkably ineffective at managing to hit anything at all and certainly beyond 50 yards challenged their abilities.
People aren't bulls eyes and it turns out some different hit probability rules apply.
In 44/45 most enemy did not oblige by wandering around stood up in the open.
I seem to recall something about massed charges in Korea though.

Anyhow, weapons choice.

You could go with rifles and a BAR per squad or justify several permutations.
Some units liked carbines, some smg. So squad leaders could have either or a combination.

Rifle grenades were unpopular except with specific units who were particularly involved in street fighting. Difficult to call in support weapons in large BUA.

Some units liked carbines, some smg. So squad leaders could have either or a combination

And the evidence for this is?

It may be boring and it sure ain't Hollywood, but here's a chart showing the evolution of the rifle company link Note that the platoon and squad weapons remain unchanged – M1 rifles and BAR's plus the Lieutenant's carbine, even after the company gained it's six SMG's in mid 1944

Table of Organization and Equipment T/O & E 7-17: Infantry Rifle Company, February 26, 1944 PDF link

It depends on your game style. For a 'cinematic' game you can have a lot more variation and use the carbines/smgs quite liberally.

For a historical game you're looking at M1s and Garands with only perhaps 1 SMG and springfiled to mix it up.

Given the nature of plastic by the time you get the guns off the sprue and stuck to your men, some will likely break and you'll be subbing in smgs are carbines anyway!

Looking again at the sprues I see they have smartly attached the rifles by the butts only – which should help some. I remeber trying to get the Tamiya K98s off the sprues and breaking about 1 in 3! But my skills and tools were limited at that age.