Once more unto the breach, dear friends: The British Rifle Section miniatures showcase

Whether you knew them as Tommies, Limeys or les Rosbifs, the humble British rifleman fought and died for his country by the hundreds of thousands. By 1918, the Great War had entered its final phase - the violent shock of the Imperial German ‘Spring Offensive’ catching British forces on the hop.

Matters had just about settled into an attritional stalemate of trench warfare when the Germans debuted their new Stormtrooper tactics - elite soldiers trained to punch through and overrun weak points in the long defensive lines cut right across the European continent. For a while, this new, dynamic era of warfare worked - but the German army was the victim of its own success, and couldn’t hold onto the rapid gains made by its assault tactics.

Although they were overrun at the outset of the offensive, British forces worked with the beleaguered French and newly-arrived Americans to blunt the attack and gradually turn the tide.

At this point in the war, the British Army had undergone massive reorganisation. The standard operating infantry unit became the Platoon: 44 men divided into an HQ and four Sections. There were two Rifle Sections, the Lewis Gun Section, the Bombing Section and the Rifle Grenade Section. Commanded by a Second Lieutenant and up to four adjutants, each section comprised one NCO and eight enlisted men.

The Rifle Section were scouts and sharpshooters, and often featured those men best at fighting with bayonets. They were armed with standard Lee Enfield rifles, but didn’t carry more specialised weapons.

They were however issued with handheld explosives, or bombs, which would later come to be known as hand grenades. Interestingly, while everyone in these sections was trained in their use, there were usually only two designated bombers - everyone else would be carrying spares. The bombers were often chosen according to whether they’d played cricket - one earlier grenade, the No15 ball grenade, was known as the cricket ball grenade by ANZAC troops

The Lewis Gun was one of the more successful British innovations of the Great War (albeit originally designed by an American). This was a lighter machine gun which could be redeployed with relative speed and protected during set-up by squadmates, who would also carry all the spare ammo and parts. A Lewis Gun Section would have one or two of these guns - there’s some debate as to what was standard, and it may just have come down to supply and the preference of a given commanding officer.

The Rifle Grenade Section deployed rudimentary grenade launchers for surprisingly effective closer-range explosive support. These were attached to the rifle itself and had an effective range of almost 200m - you just really didn’t want incoming enemy fire to hit your grenade before you fired it off…

The HQ Section meanwhile took charge of it all. This being the Great War, of course, Platoons were not designed to operate alone - instead, and an entire chain of them would attack in waves across the front. There were four Platoons to a Company, and each Platoon would support its fellows from the flanks and rear - where one met a sticky spot, its comrades would back it up with covering fire, each individual Section offering a different tactical role - be that suppressive fire from the Lewis Guns, or the Rifle Grenades tying up strongpoints with explosives while the Bomb Sections made their way forward to clear them out. 

Each element of the British Rifle Platoon is available to order from the Warfulcrum webstore right now - as finely detailed physical miniatures or STL files to print at home. You can buy individual Sections and HQs, or recruit an entire Platoon in one simple bundle. Sign up to our newsletter to get 10% off your first order.

And finally - the first edition 1918: Spring Offensive rulebook is nearly here. We anticipate beginning the process of dispatching orders from this weekend.