Operational Plan

In order to get myself up and playing with Platoon Forward as soon as possible, I've come up with a plan to form a "starter" pool of miniatures that should suffice initially, though of course I'll want to expand later. I detailed the why's and wherefore's on my other  blog, but here it is in a nutshell:

1. Limit myself to "patrol" scenarios
2. Limit myself to a single player-controlled squad
3. "Proxy toward the mean." For example, instead of having LMGs, MMGs and HMGs, I move toward the mean and on any enemy MG result, treat it as an MMG
4. "Aim short of the ceiling." About 50% of enemy positions are empty in patrol scenarios, so I should be able to get away with half to two thirds of the maximum possible numbers of enemies
5. "Force pool limit re-roll." If an enemy result would exceed my enemy force pool for any type of troop, I simply re-roll.

With this in mind, the following should work (again, as I say, just to get started):

Americans (my player-controlled force)
One Rifle Squad (1 x SMG, 1 x BAR, 10 x Rifle) = 12 men

Germans
2 x Rifle Squads (1 x SMG, 1 x LMG, 8 x Rifle) = 20 men
2 x Mortar (2 crew) = 4 men
2 x MG (2 crew) = 4 men
1 x Halftrack

Total = 40 men + 1 vehicle