Two BARs?

[Myles Keogh]

Noticing that many American rifle squads in CMBN are now equipped with two BARs instead of the standard issue one.   Is that a fairly recent change?  I don't remember that being the case not too long ago.  Ever since I got CMBN in 2011, it was always one BAR per rifle squad and the only way to get an additional one was to buddy-aid the fallen BAR man of another squad.  But now that's no longer the case.

Over the course of the fighting during WW2, many American units found ways to acquire extra BARs. This practice became so prevalent that it eventually two BARs per squad became "standard" which is reflected in late war US Army of CMFB.  However, would it have been common during the early days of the Normandy fighting?

Anyway, I'm just curious about the reasoning for this change in CMBN.

Edited June 8 by Myles Keogh

[PEB14]

10 hours ago, Myles Keogh said:

Noticing that many American rifle squads in CMBN are now equipped with two BARs instead of the standard issue one.   Is that a fairly recent change?  I don't remember that being the case not too long ago.  Ever since I got CMBN in 2011, it was always one BAR per rifle squad and the only way to get an additional one was to buddy-aid the fallen BAR man of another squad.  But now that's no longer the case.

Over the course of the fighting during WW2, many American units found ways to acquire extra BARs. This practice became so prevalent that it eventually two BARs per squad became "standard" which is reflected in late war US Army of CMFB.  However, would it have been common during the early days of the Normandy fighting?

Anyway, I'm just curious about the reasoning for this change in CMBN.

According to this source:

https://www.battleorder.org/post/usa-rifleco-1944

Quote

The Company HQ was allotted five Bazookas for issue at the company commander's discretion (enough for local tank defense of the HQ and each platoon). Six M1918A2 BAR automatic rifles and six M1A1 Thompson submachine guns were added to this weapons pool on 30 June 1944

This is in addition to the 1 BAR per squad allotment; so I guess this should explain the reasoning. But it seems that official TOE never changed until the end of the war so this allotment should be similar in CMFB.

 

By the way, and off-topic, scrolling through this interesting web page leads to that:

Quote

Generally speaking, if the squad was divided, it was divided into half-squads of six men (although it could be divided into any combination all the way down to single soldiers depending on the situation). These divisions were usually colloquially referred to as the Rifle Team (with the Assistant Squad Leader, Rifle Grenadiers, and Riflemen) and the BAR Team (with the Squad Leader, Scouts, Automatic Rifleman, Assistant AR, and Ammo Bearer). Although Googling the Rifle Squad's organization will give you graphics showing an Able (SL/Scouts), Baker (BAR Team), and Charley (Riflemen) three-team structure, this was more reflective of the squad's order during the march than close combat. Documentation on the topic suggests that Able would join Baker, which reflects the more common half-squads used for fire and maneuver. Still, there is little evidence that the Able, Baker, and Charley terminology was actually used by units in the field. Teams were also not considered "basic units" and were more situational concepts than the squad generally.

This confirmed that the team structure in CM engine is much too rigid to reflect reality.

[Centurian52]

8 hours ago, PEB14 said:

According to this source:

https://www.battleorder.org/post/usa-rifleco-1944

This is in addition to the 1 BAR per squad allotment; so I guess this should explain the reasoning. But it seems that official TOE never changed until the end of the war so this allotment should be similar in CMFB.

 

By the way, and off-topic, scrolling through this interesting web page leads to that:

This confirmed that the team structure in CM engine is much too rigid to reflect reality.

According to the GI History Handbook youtube channel the Able, Baker, Charlie designations for the teams were adopted near the end of the war. So it's possible that a freshly trained replacement showed up in an infantry unit in the final days of the war talking about Able, Baker, and Charlie teams, and the old hands would have had no idea what he was talking about.

Back to the BAR. I believe Combat Mission assumes that the BARs in the company weapons pool were distributed evenly. So you should notice six of the nine rifle squads in an average rifle company have a second BAR. In reality the distribution might have been more uneven from time to time. For an extreme case I heard about one squad which had a low opinion of the BAR, so had zero BARs. But another squad in the same platoon thought it was a fantastic weapon, so had six BARs. That 12 man squad operated as six 2 man teams with a BAR and a Garand each.

Edited June 9 by Centurian52
I confused Battle Order and GI History Handbook