Hi Distiller, a full platoon was actually 53 men as I recall. 3 rifle squads and a weapons squad, which consisted of 2 M-60 machine gun teams of 3 mean each plus a squad leader.

I have read your posts about the squad size relative to the vehicle you are using for transport and while not the main consideration of how big a squad can be it does have an impact. Example on Airmobile ops my squad (11 men) would have 8 on 1 Huey helicopter, the remaining 3 would be on another helicopter along with part of another squad to fill up all the spaces. I did not like breaking up my squad like that for movement and then sort them out and put them back togather to continue the mission.