"help organizing my US infantry platoons" Topic

I brought out the FoW USA figures I bought almost 10 years ago. I have never played FoW or any WWII miniatures game. Looking at my old, dated, 1st edition book, it appears a USA Inf platoon is made of a lieutenant command stand stand (small base)and then 3 squads of troops totaling 9 bases (medium bases). Now I don't think it matters when playing the game, but would it be technically correct for every 3 stand squad to have 1 BAR and 1 stand with a leader type figure? or should each 3 base squad have 2 bases with leader figures (2 section leaders)? should the BAR stand contain 1 of the leaders? These old figures get a A+ in my opinion. Can anyone tell me why battlefront replaced them with new figures? thanks!

Can anyone tell me why battlefront replaced them with new figures? thanks!

For the same reason they replaced other figures and books….short term sales gains from new players

Or because silicone molds wear out, and masters get damaged?

It does not matter at all game-wise, but your guess is correct. 3 men on the small platoon command base, 4 on each other base. 1 or 2 BAR every 3 medium bases, 1 or 2 leader figures every 3 medium bases. You can combine BAR and leader on a stand if you want, or not.

Ummm no, silicon moulds are used for mastering, rubber moulds for production, and they will do thousands of spins and when they do wear, you get out your bag of masters and make a new one at the cost of £30.00 GBP and 2 hours time.

Again, this is BF, so "a couple thousand spins" is happening probably one a week.

Once you start talking volumes like that, your masters may get damaged (say, when the new spinner forgets to coat them with mold release) quite quickly, to say nothing of the usual wear and tear on a master caused by running another re-molding every week.

Oh, forgot to mention. You may or may not actually have enough BAR-armed troopers in the package, because that doesn't matter for Flames (firepower is averaged across the entire squad, so you have 2 Rifle/MG teams instead of a rifle team and an MG team in a squad that has ~8 men with one LMG).

For games where it does matter, you can either email BF and ask, or source from another maker like Peter Pig or Eureka (both of them are usually good matches sizewise).

thanks all.

BTW – after careful study of the FOW products available, it looks the vintage figures I own are the Mid/Late rifle platoons. The newer figures are Late war rifle platoons. I guess they have minor uniform differences like gaiters. Both products are available.