A question about Rifle Platoon organization (Field Manual)

[phenixfulcrum]

Hi, sorry for my english because i'am french.

Field Manual tells that a Rifle Platoon generally made of 3 squads.
Each squad is made of :
-1 squad leader
-2 team leader
-2 grenadier
-2 rifleman
-2 Automatic Rifleman

Sometimes, there is one more squad, a weapon squad, made of 2 machine gunners and their assistants, and anti-armor soldiers.

My question is:
- What is the weapon for the rifleman ? M16 ?
- What is the weapon for the automatic rifleman ? SAW 249 ?
- What is the weapon for the machine gunner ? M60 ?


Thanks for your help. Phenix Fulcrum.

[macguba]

For the US army you are correct.   Obviously the grenadiers have M16+M203.

The "4th squad" is the Platoon headquarters.    This would normally consist of

Platoon commander
Radio operator
Platoon sergeant
Medic
2 M60 teams each of 2 men

Common attachments from Company HQ might be:-

Forward mortar or artillery observer + Radio operator
Anti Armour team(s)

In general an anti armour team of 2 men would have one Carl Gustav and a few rounds.   The squads themselves would carry LAWs at a rate of about 4 per squad (i.e. 2 in each fire team.)

In the real world these things are never as clear cut as the textbooks (or games!) would have you believe.    Formations vary from unit to unit, from place to place and from time to time.

And your English is absolutely fine, Phenix Fulcrum.

[phenixfulcrum]

hi macguba,

thx for ur answer, i forgot the platoon headquarters.
i understand that the weapon squad comes from the company HQ.
But for the others 3 squads, can u tell me what is a rifleman and a automatic rifleman ?

thx for ur greetings about my english level. i learn by reading field manuals... there's not interesting french books about US Army.

Phenix

[Cplme]

The British infantry has different platoons each platoon consits of rughly 30 Soldiers now in that you have three squads normaly 8 men section

which consits:
section IC
section 2IC
Scout
between 1 and 2 gunners depending on the squads mission
and the rest are riflemen usually

Now but the british Infantry has different sorts of plattons
Armoured infantry equipped with four warrior tanks or Scimitar one for each squad and one for platoon HQ
and then the soldiers which is roughly about 30 again maybe more.
then they have Airmoblie infantry (not paras)  Air mobile infantry are equipped with rougly 3 Lynxes

then obvioulsy you have the Paras you should know about them.

anyways normally men are equippeed with SA80s LSWs GMPGs  a load of rounds and grenades and specialist equipment if required.....    

regards cplme

[macguba]

A rifleman has an M16 which can fire in single shot or burst mode, just like in the game.    I think there are versions of the M16 which fire full automatic, but they are not usually issued to ordinary infantry soldiers because the ammo expenditure/hit ratio is very poor.    In any case, the M16 is essentially a rifle not a machine gun.

An automatic rifleman has a SAW249.   I don't know anything about this weapon except that it can fire on full automatic.    It is a light machine gun, not an automatic rifle.    

The difference (in general) between an auto rifle and an MG is that the MG can take belt feed;  is usually equipped with some kind of tripod or stand (though some auto rifles have a bipod at the end of the barrel);  you can change the barrel;   the barrel is usually longer;   and the chamber is designed to cope with a greater volume of rounds.

How to reflect this in OFP?   Well, since its a squad based game not a platoon based game I tend to forget about platoon HQ .... the game doesn't have the units for it anyway.     Carl Gustav soldiers are not very effective - 3 LAWs is usually better than a CG - and there is no SAW.   So in OFP I would make a platoon up like this:-

HQ - whatever you want really, mission specific.  Or don't bother

3 squads of 9 men.    Each squad:-

1 officer
1 medic
2 machine gunners
2 grenadiers
1 or 2 LAW soldiers}   or 3 dudes each with 1 (or 2) LAWs and grenades
1 or 2 soldiers       }

Remember that the medic and the officer are like soldiers too.

[phenixfulcrum]

thx for ur answers macguba and cplme,

i understand now the difference between rifleman and auto rifleman, and have a better idea about platoon orga.

I have seen somewhere  SAW249 addon for OFP.
I will try to find it again.

see u soon, phenix.

[Ronin]

Hi everyone,

Yeah, there's a couple of M249 models over at ofp.gamezone.cz, but they have the muzzle flash problem in resistance.  They were great guns when I wasn't using Res, hope someone fixes the muzzle flash problem soon.

Ronin

[phenixfulcrum]

ok, i  will look at this add-on and see if there will have a update for resistance.

thx, phenix.