"Fireball Forward Heavy Squad/Section?" Topic

I am reading the Fireball Forward Far East Fury scenario book. I don't play Fireball Fury, but I hope to transpose some of the scenarios for either Bolt Action or Rapid Fire Reloaded. Many of the scenarios refer to a Heavy Squad for the Japanese and a Heavy Section for the British, usually 1 per platoon. This is in addition to mortar and HMG teams. I am unfamiliar with these rules and generally unfamiliar with WW2 organization, so can some kind player enlighten me as to what this Heavy Section does?

Not familiar with the rules in question, but that heavy squad/section sounds like a "wargamerish" term – I haven't seen such term used for the British or Japanese infantry units.

Perhaps it represents a normal infantry squad/section reinforced with a few platoon level support weapons? British platoon had a 2 inch mortar and anti-tank rifle, Japanese platoon could have a few light mortars.

(Not related: US tank platoons of 5 tanks were nominally divided into a "light section" of 2 tanks and "heavy section" of 3 tanks, but that is the only use of those terms that comes to my mind right now in WWII context.)

The "Heavy" squads are a way of avoiding cluttering the table up with zillions of support weapons, so British infatry platoon will have two regular rifle squads and one heavy as it is assumed to have the 2" mortar attached. Iirc Panzergrenadiers with two LMGs per squad are always heavy etc etc. I imagine the Japanese heavy squads also have a light mortar attached.

Being heavy gives them a (small) firepower boost.

FF is a mixture of Squad Leader and Crossfire, so the really critical stats are the morale ratings of the squads and leaders. Formations composed of lots of morale 3+ units going kick some ass, as they are the equivalent of 8 morale elites in SL, whereas the poor saps on 5+ are the equivalent to morale 6 in SL and will spend much of the game running away.

Rapid Fire models platoon level support weapons completely differently, so you'll have to figure it out, as the RF elements are companies, not sections. RF does have sample organisations for British and Japanese units though.