I watched Platoon last night and Kevin Dillon's character appears to be using a shotgun as his primary weapon. How common was it for soldiers to use a shotgun in battle? Or is this Hollywood making stuff up.
Although only for WWI, these two answers might interest you:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/55iazk/wwi_shotguns/d8b3pqn/