The Marine Rifle Company of 1943

Battalion: An Organizational Study of United States Infantry

The estate of the late John Sayen has graciously given the Tactical Notebook permission to serialize Battalion: An Organizational Study of United States Infantry. Guides to portions of this book already published in this newsletter can be found at The Gateway.

On 15 April 1943, Headquarters, US Marine Corps approved a new set of establishments for the rifle companies of Marine divisions. In doing so, it increased, by fifty percent, the number of crew-served weapons rated by each unit of that sort. At the same time, the new framework simplified the internal structure of rifle platoons, turning them into fully triangular organizations.

The new table of organization, which belonged to the E-Series, changed neither the number nor the types of platoons assigned to a rifle company. Thus, both the E-Series and the D-Series that preceded it authorized a standard rifle company that consisted of a headquarters, a weapons platoon, and three rifle platoons.

The platoons of a Marine rifle company under both the D-Series (1941-1942) and E-Series (1943) tables of organization