Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: Inkpaduta on June 05, 2021, 06:16:19 PM
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I have checked several sources and I can't find any information on how many, if any, machine guns were
part of an American platoon in WW2. Did they have machine guns? If not, were they assigned machine guns
from the company?
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I might be mistaken, but I think US infantry platoons did not have integral machineguns (only BARs at the squad level).
There were, IIRC, 1 .50cal and 2 .30cal machine guns at company level for each infantry company, to be attached to platoons, and further machine guns in the single(?) weapons company to be distributed as needed to the companies, plus a selection of AT weapons and machine guns in the HQ company.
AFAIK, Armored infantry platoons did have a single machine gun squad each, armed with .30cal MMGs carried in the halftrack (or mounted on pintles, not quite sure), but able to be used dismounted .
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http://www.bayonetstrength.uk/ has a lot of details on the organisation and equipment issued of various WWII battalions.
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https://www.battleorder.org/usa-riflecoy-1942
No machine guns in the platoon but as noted they might be attached at times. The weapons squad with two integral MGs as part of the platoon is a post war development.
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I second the above answers. No MGs or mortars integral to US rifle platoons in WW2. A rifle company had 3 rifle platoons and 1 weapons platoon, and it had 2 M1919 Brownings and 3 60mm mortars. It also had one M2 .50-cal, usually mounted on their jeep. But it could be dismounted and put on a tripod. Rifle companies also had 3 to 5 Bazookas (depending on what point in the war) to issue out as the company commander saw fit. They were not issued with crews, though. They were typically manned by riflemen in the platoons.
Rifle battalions had a weapons company. And that's where you'd find 4 M1917 water-cooled Brownings, and 6 81mm mortars. They also had a .50-cal.
And this all jives with what my dad told me years ago. He was a rifle grenadier in the US's 94th Division in WW2.
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Thanks everyone. What I have found is most other countries did include machine guns for their platoons.
Wonder why US did not. Seems that not doing so would put a US platoon at a disadvantage.
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Thanks everyone. What I have found is most other countries did include machine guns for their platoons.
Wonder why US did not. Seems that not doing so would put a US platoon at a disadvantage.
Our doctrine. It was based on the infantry maneuvering, with weapons that could fire reasonable well on the move - the M1 Garand, and the BAR. Just about everything else supported the rifle platoons. Company and battalion commanders would allocate weapons to support the rifle platoons' maneuvering. Even the tanks' primary roles was supporting the infantry (according to doctrine anyway...).
The MGs we used (the M1919 Brownings), as good as they were, were heavier than, say, the MG42 with a bipod and the Bren. While they could, and were, at times attached out to the rifle platoons, their job was too support the rifle platoons maneuvering, not be a part of it. At least that's how I understand it...
After WW2, the US did eventually make MGs part of the rifle platoons, in particular with the M60 and M240 MGs. And of course, eventually the M249 SAW would even be part of each fire team.
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Thanks everyone. What I have found is most other countries did include machine guns for their platoons.
Wonder why US did not. Seems that not doing so would put a US platoon at a disadvantage.
I would suspect that it was due to not having a dedicated LMG or GPMG at the time - the BAR essentially being a heavy assault rifle and the .30cal, even in the air cooled variant without the water jacket, being a heavy load to carry and set up compared to guns like the MG38, MG40 and Bren gun.
I'm sure there will have been doctrinal reasons (such as relying, later on, on the Garand and BAR to lay out enough volume of fire (dubious, I'll admit) but it might also be a chicken/egg dilemma in that if there is no suitable weapon available, there's no basis for appropriate doctrinal changes, and vice versa.
Edit: well, what Cap'n Jim wrote. lol
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Whilst there was a degree of argument around it, the prevailing doctrinal thought at the time was that the M1 rifle, being semi automatic, compensated for the inadequacies of the BAR. It didn’t of course but that was the theory.
The evolution of US platoon organisation and tactical doctrine around its use in the 20th C is a fascinating topic. So many changes, so many false starts and at times a dogged determination to implement ‘innovations’ that their own troop trials had shown to be impractical or sub optimal.