Dragon’s Teeth:
American Pieces, Part One
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
March 2024

Panzer Grenadier: Dragon’s Teeth is all about the Siegfried Line Campaign of late 1944, when the U.S. Army forced its way through the thick belt of fortifications along the German border, and the German Army recovered from its cataclysmic defeats in France to hold the line and try to throw the Americans back.

The U.S. Army entered the battle as the best-supplied force on the planet. Their weapons varied in quality, from reliable and numerous Sherman tanks lacking the protection and firepower of the best German models, through the excellent M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle and the war-winning 105mm howitzer. The Americans divisions are also, for the most part, in their prime period: enough combat experience to make them effective, not so much that psychological casualties become crippling.

Let’s take a look at the American troops and weapons of Dragon’s Teeth:

Foot Soldiers

The infantry platoon formed the backbone of every army in the Second World War. The American rifle platoon, on paper, fielded 41 men in three squads of 12 each, with a command group of five men (a lieutenant, a sergeant and three runners who could also be deployed as a sniper or a bazooka team).

Nine men in the rifle squad carried the M1 Garand semi-automatic, the only such weapon issued uniformly by any participant. The other three served the squad’s automatic weapon, the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR): one gunner, one assistant gunner, and one ammunition carrier (the latter two also carrying M1 Garands). That proved the organization’s weakness, as the BAR simply could not provide the base of fire needed for modern squad tactics. It had a 20-round box magazine, and when it overheated, the barrel could not be easily replaced.

The U.S. Army tried to address this by adding a second BAR to each squad, but this reduced the number of riflemen in the maneuver group without an appreciable increase in firepower. The U.S. Marines would go even further, officially including a third BAR but many more Marines carried the weapon in place of a rifle and simply used it as a heavy, awkward replacement for their Garand.

Attempts to replace the BAR would not bear fruit until the 1950’s; the weapon would soldier on through the Korean War as well. By 1944 the Army was testing belt-fed versions of the BAR and the Johnson Light Machine Gun, another box-fed automatic weapon. Neither could maintain a high rate of fire. Coming from the opposite direction, a cut-down version of the Browning M1919 medium machine gun was still too heavy for easy use, and suffered from an awkward barrel-changing procedure.

The obvious option of licensing a foreign light machine gun like the British Bren (itself a licensed Czech-designed weapon) apparently were ruled out as those guns were Not Invented Here. Likewise, a field modification by U.S. Marines of the AN/M2 aircraft version of the Browning, known as the Stinger and weighing just 25 pounds with a very high rate of fire, did not receive official sanction and only six were built by a pair of Marine machine gunners.

The American rifle platoon did not have an integral anti-tank capability; the rifle company had three “bazooka” anti-tank rocket launchers (later increased to five) that could be distributed among the rifle platoons. These had no dedicated crews; when issued, the platoon commanders would have to provide the manpower from their runners or by re-assigning riflemen to the task. The rifle company headquarters also had an extra 17 men who could be handed bazookas.

Heavy Weapons

The Army’s battalion organization featured two types of heavy weapons platoon; in Panzer Grenadier games these are represented by the same playing piece.

Each Army rifle company included three rifle platoons, and one heavy weapons platoon. This platoon operated three 60mm M2 light mortars in one section, and a pair of Browning M1919 medium machine guns in the other. We’ve combined them all into one platoon rather than have weak sub-units running around the map.

The Browning M1919 was a weighty weapon, not suited for squad use even in the lighter A6 version, but often deployed to supplement a rifle platoon’s firepower. Sustained fire became a problem, as the barrel could not be changed easily. Even so, the Browning remained in front-line service until replaced by the M60 starting in the late 1950’s.

The infantry battalion included three rifle companies, and one heavy weapons company. This company commanded two heavy machine-gun platoons, and one oversized medium mortar platoon. These assets could be held together of parceled out among the rifle companies at the battalion commander’s discretion. Since enemy tanks purposely targeted machine guns – this was, after all, the initial purpose behind the tank – the machine-gun platoon also received a pair of its own bazookas.

The machine-gun platoon operated four Browning M1917 heavy machine guns. This weapon weighed in at over 100 pounds, and was an awkward machine, difficult to carry and emplace. But once set up, it was extremely reliable, able to sustain fore long after other machine guns had melted into slag. It was water-cooled, with a thick cylinder (the “jacket”) surrounding the barrel that gave it the appearance of something out of the 19th Century. But it worked, and worked well, and would continue as the standard American heavy machine gun until the late 1950’s, and still see action in Vietnam as the M60 slowly replaced it.

The powerful .50-caliber M2 Browning entered production in 1933 and is still manufactured and used. It was seen mostly as an anti-aircraft weapon, and many vehicles within the infantry battalion had been fitted with one in that role. The M2 was not issued as an infantry-support weapon, though the 1st Cavalry Division, when still horsed, deployed it in its machine-gun squadrons.

The battalion’s real firepower came from its six 81mm M1 mortars, a licensed copy of the French Brandt 81mm mortar and a weapon used by nearly every participant in the Second World War. In the hands of a skilled crew, a single tube could pump out up to 30 rounds per minute. The mortar broke into three pieces for transport, each of which could in theory be hauled by a single man, though in practice he couldn’t lug it very far. A special cart would later be introduced to help move the weapon.

With its good range and impressive explosive power, the medium mortar gave the battalion commander his own “pocket artillery,” and the Germans likewise gave each of their battalions six 81mm tubes. The American mortar platoon could also toss smoke rounds, and White Phosphorus ; 20 percent of 81mm mortar rounds issued in the European Theater were “Willie Pete.” While officially noted as “smoke/marker rounds,” Willie Pete ignited on contact with air and would burn through metal, cloth and human flesh.

All of that gave the U.S. Army infantry battalion enormous firepower. But that was only the start of the American arsenal.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children; he misses his dog, Leopold.

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