the.com/platoon
The army's answer to a friend group: smaller than a company, bigger than your patience.
means A small military unit, typically a few dozen soldiers commanded by a lieutenant, that sits between a squad and a company in size.
from Borrowed from French 'peloton,' meaning a little ball or knot of people — the same word that gave cycling its 'peloton' (the bunched pack of riders). 'Peloton' itself comes from 'pelote,' a ball of thread, diminutive of Latin 'pila.' So a platoon and a bike race's chasing pack are, etymologically, the same clump of bodies — one just carries rifles instead of water bottles.
- size
- roughly 16 to 44 soldiers depending on army
- leader rank
- usually a lieutenant, newest officer on duty
- word origin
- from french peloton, meaning little ball
- structure
- splits into smaller squads for actual fighting