Combat Mission Unit Guide: US Rifle Companies in WW2

A quick guide to US Rifle Companies using the 44 type organisation in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy, Final Blitzkrieg and Fortress Italy.

One note- there are 5 Bazookas in the Company, usually 2 in Platoons 1 and 2, then one more in Platoon 3.

Mods:
Plus I mixed in some of Kieme's textures from CMBS.

#CombatMission

[sproge]

It always gets me when I play US forces after playing as or against the Germans, I go "wow no squad MG, I feel totally outclassed, I hate these units without MGs!". But then I play as the Brits and I go "I take back everything bad I said about the US forces, my squads can't kill anything and I think a bayonet charge would be more effective But then you play as the Enough said 🤣

[MilesStratton]

One slight issue to pick at. It's a common myth that the US was sued for the development of the Springfield, this is false. The US Government and Mauser worked out a very amicable deal where royalties were properly payed out. The issue started when Mauser's parent company DWM (Deutche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken) tried to get the US to pay over their use of pointed bullets. The US Courts at the time threw the case out because the US proved it had experiments with pointed bullets going far back into the early 1890s long before DWM's patent. So the issue was dropped.

DURING WW1 HOWEVER, the US illegally seized DWM's patent, nationalized it, and was sued after the war for illegal seizure for which the US government had to pay damages to DWM for.

Beyond this one issue, excellent video as always m8 :D

[MTrenchGun]

8:00 Few know this but the XO and his 1911 are the Company's dedicated anti-tank team.

[caloha]

The cult of maneuverability and the BAR is still very strong in the American mind. The USMC abandoned the M249 SAW to go to the HK M27 IAR basically giving every rifleman a modern BAR!

[realQuiGon]

I love the unit guide series! I'm hoping for more units guides on the modern titles though.

[Coddykin]

My favorite infantry company in the WW2 games, the whole formation is just so well rounded and has a little bit of everything you could want in it. The 60mm mortars in particular are so useful.

[michaelsnyder]

Tanks, TDs and AA artilery, along with guns and howitzers of 155mm and up (except for the 12 in the DIVARTY GS Bn) were pooled as Bns at the Army level and distributed as needed. At the very least, an infantry division designated the main effort in a corps could expect a tank Bn (17 M5 light tanks and 54 M4 Shermans) and a TD Bn (Towed 36 3" Gun M5/M6 or SP, 36 GMC M10 3". Thanks to McNair, towed Bns began replacing SP Bns in early 1944 based on experience of the Italian campaign. After his death and the experience in NW Europe, most towed Bns were replaced w/SP GMCs M18 and M36). There might be two or three attached 155mm howitzer bns, motorized engineer bns, additional truck companies and one Auto-AA Weapons Bn w/36 40mm M1 or 36 M15/M16 quad .50s or the M15A1 combo 37mm/twin .50s.). Another attachment might be a chemical mortar bn or co. The Bn had 36 4.2" M2 mortars, firing HE and smoke/WP bombs. The HE bombs were introduced in 1943. Tank and TD bns were often attached by companies to RCTs. This means a rifle company could be reinforced by four M4 tanks, 4 M10 GMCs or 4 3" guns.

[Euan_Miller]

The unit guide series is great, you really provide so much value to CM with all the content

[prestongarvey]

I don’t know why but these videos are so addictive to me. But I guess you can count on me being here for any future videos like this.

[kennethruns]

Best company, has completely broken my ability to use other WW2 armies because I get annoyed that they’re so inflexible

[Brille_Zwo]

Wonderful video there again, hapless ! One minor adition I have to make here, and I praise battlefront for the attention to detail, is that a Garand with the rifle grenade adapter is a bolt action rifle, simply put. The adapter itself deactivates the gas piston system because of the resulting overpressure due to the bigger charge that is needed to propell the grenade. So every time those soldiers shoot their rifle normally you see that they cycle their weapons after each shot. Just nice to know maybe. :)

[fvmarrafon]

I can’t wait for the unit guide series to reach some Black Sea units
Thank you in advance

[seanmac]

You know it's a good thing the BAR was kinda underwhelming. Otherwise, these US infantry formations would just kinda be nuts

[seankong]

Just bought CMBN for myself so this is a welcome guide! Can't wait to get stuck in with my GIs

[CCOOKE]

This series is great man, keep it up.

You should do the modern US army mechanized companies!

[ravenwargaming]

I love these types of analysis videos, talking about different unit formations/how they're structured/how to use them.

[ccccccc]

Absolutely! I’ve been waiting on this video for a minute. Great analysis and explanations!

[thewitherchannel]

the holy word from the Pope of CM himself. Congrats on this steady flow of great content

[Sky-jt]

This series is hella good man, it would be very interesting to see other infantry companies, like jagers, fusilers, gebirgsjagers etc, etc...

[MandolinMagi]

A few notes, and yes I'm late

Thompson SMG isn't really a squad weapon, but it's good enough, the US never really seemed to issue SMGs to infantry, and they floated around in company level weapons pools and from vehicles

There should be at least one and possibly two more rifle grenadiers in each squad. Also, they should each have at least five and possibly 11 grenades each, as the ammo bag would hold 11 grenades. I'd be interested to see a rifle grenadier with 22 grenades and no rifle ammo, but that's just me spitballing.

From late 44 the M15 rifle grenade sight is available.

The frag rifle grenade was actually phased out in mid-late 1944, the 0.75oz EC powder/guncotton filling was so underwhelming it was dropped in favor of the M9A1 rifle grenade with its 4oz charge of pentolite. Upgraded Mk II frags with TNT fill and projector adaptors eventually showed up from January 1945 far as I can tell.


M1A1 vs M9A1 bazooka: M1A1 has iron sights with 100/200/300 yard increments. M9A1 has a bar sight with 50 yard increments to 600 yards and later a optical ring with same increments and lead indicators for 10/20/30/40 mph.

M1A1 fires M6A1 rocket with 76mm pen. M6A1 is very sensitive to angles and past 20 degrees probably won't do anything. M9A1 fires M6A3, 100mm pen, good for up to 50 degrees from vertical. M6A5 could show up *very* latewar with 127mm pen.

M6A3C/D/F show up at some point and have more sensitive fuzes, which could increase pen but that's getting overly nitty-gritty and A3C replaced A3 in March 1945, so probably too late to matter. D/F are cold weather rockets

Bazooka...the carry bag holds 3 rockets, so a single bazooka gunner should have 3-4 rockets and any dedicated assistant 8, or just assume each rifleman is carrying one extra so IDK

WP round are available for both bazooka and rifle grenade, though they might get restricted to specialist/engineer units.