British Home Guard Battle Platoon (1942-44) By Brendan Matsuyama , Editor

of the British Home Guard from 1942 to 1944. The Home Guard were a reserve force of citizen militiamen recruited to defend the home islands in the event of a German invasion. The Home Guard didn't have the same standards for its men as the regular army, nor the same consistency and quality of equipment (at least until 1944), but did have a structure for its platoons similar to the regular army.

The following was the organization of the Battle Platoon of the British Home Guard from 1942 to 1944. The Home Guard were a reserve force of citizen militiamen recruited to defend the home islands in the event of a German invasion. The Home Guard didn't have the same standards for its men as the regular army, nor the same consistency and quality of equipment (at least until 1944), but did have a structure for its platoons similar to the regular army.

Discussion

The Home Guard Battle Platoon didn't look too much different from the regular army's platoon. It adhered to the same basic organization with 1 Battle Platoon HQ and 3 Sections, each section with a group serving a light machine gun (although the Home Guard equivalent was the "squad", perhaps owing to their status as unconventional drill formations). Each squad was divided into the Rifle Group and Gun Group. Like in the regular army, the Squad Commander led the Rifle Group as assaulting was more difficult than directing machine gun fire and the Squad Second-in-Command would be in a suitable place to observe the movement of the squad as a whole.

The Battle Platoon was the basic tactical unit of the Home Guard and would act relatively independently under the centralized command of an Army officer. However, given the supply situation of the United Kingdom's military early in World War II, the Home Guard was equipped far differently from the regular army. In fact, among some units—especially among bombers who were meant to close with the enemy and kill them with Mills bombs or Molotov cocktails—six foot long pikes would have been common weapons, if nothing more than to simulate rifles with bayonets affixed during drill.

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Generally the most common service rifle within the Home Guard was the M1917 Enfield, an American modification of the Pattern 14 first created as an emergency measure during World War I and exported to the UK during World War II via Lend-Lease. By 1942, most rifles in .303 had been turned over to the Army for service, including the SMLE, Ross and Pattern 14. The British received other rifles, such as the M1903 and M1 Garand, but as an obsolete second-line rifle the M1917 was pressed into Home Guard service in the largest numbers. As .30-06 chambered weapons, these Lend-Lease rifles were marked with red paint bands to avoid confusion with Britain's standard .303 chambered rifles. As rear echelon reserve forces, the Home Guard were armed primarily with the American caliber weapons. The M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle—a weapon that had been replaced by the M1918A2 in US service—was also the most common automatic weapon in the Battle Platoon, although World War I-era Lewis, Hotchkiss, Marlin, Vickers and Browning machine guns were also used. These weapons were largely obsolete, or at the very least had suitable replacements in regular service, although the use of American weapons in the Home Guard was unique as .30-06 chambered weapons would have been unsuitable for the Army. However, the standard Bren gun was sometimes issued to units that were in vulnerable locations early in the war, such as probable sights of German amphibious invasions. It seems these units got priority to standard-issue weaponry, but by 1944 the supply situation had improved to the point where more units could be armed like the regular army.

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The Home Guard were also distinctive in that they made use of Lend-Lease machine carbines, British nomenclature for submachine guns, before the regular Army. In 1940 and 1941, the Home Guard received M1928 Thompson submachine guns from the Americans via Lend-Lease with their iconic 50-round drum magazines and pistol foregrips. These machine carbines would be used by the Section Commander and perhaps concentrated into the Rifle Group, although they would ultimately be transferred to the Army by spring of 1942 as it was realized that the "gangster guns" were of valuable utility. The Home Guard began receiving the new, mass-produced Sten machine carbine in 1942, which would be issued to the Section Commander, Bombers and even riflemen if supplies were sufficient. By 1944, the Sten would have been the most common single model of firearm in the Home Guard's inventory with 40% of Home Guard arms being the Sten.

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If rifles and machine carbines were not available, shotguns acquired from the local populace were also used in their place, particularly in the Rifle Groups of the Squads which would be undertaking assaults. These shotguns were not standardized and were ultimately returned to their owners before the Home Guard dissolved. Typically, most billets with the exception of the Section Commander, Sniper, Riflemen and BAR No. 1 had the option of being armed with such shotguns if necessary.

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Additionally, unlike in the regular army, the EY cup discharger—a device affixed to the SMLE No. I Mk. III to facilitate the firing of rifle grenades—continued to be used by the Home Guard in large numbers until their dissolution in 1944. The Home Guard never adopted the new PIAT, a more mobile and effective replacement for the .55 cal Boys Anti-Tank Rifle, and the 2-inch mortar was more common in regular army service. In terms of anti-tank weapons, the Home Guard did make use of the Boys after was fully replaced in the regular army in 1943, and the 29mm Spigot Mortar continued to be used.

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Home Guard small unit tactics placed an emphasis on the use of hand bombs and Molotov cocktails to kill the enemy. Between these, sometimes improvised, explosives and the doctrinal use of shotguns and machine carbines, the Home Guard seemed to have skewed towards close quarters combat moreso than the regular army rifle section. This was reflected by the preferred strategy of forcing Germans to fight in urban or wooded areas where terrain favored the defender and some of the advantage offered by German armor could be mitigated.

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Later in the Home Guard's existence many units would have equipment on-par with the regular army, with a relatively small number of No. 4 Mk. I Rifles, Bren light machine guns and an ample supply of Sten machine carbines making their way to the Home Guard. The branch was eventually dissolved in December 1944 when the chances of an invasion proved to be exceedingly unlikely and American forces were fully involved.