Things Hitler could have done to win WWII

World War II German Military
#81

Hmm, remember Sgt York? Relying on machine guns to carry the fortunes of squads & platoons to compensate for slow rifles didn’t work very well for them. He killed over 20 & captured over 100 of the rest. (Why didn’t they pretend to surrender, then rush him when he came into view? Or call for a few mortar bombs to be dropped. Unless the story of him single-handedly picking off an ENTIRE machine gun company, [battalion?] was an embellishment. I always felt it was far-fetched, that a hundred Germans could fight so poorly as to lose a single American. He’s not Chuck Norris or Rambo:rolleyes:)

Plus, if a well-thrown grenade hits the squad MG & damages it, the rest of the squad is kaput. Plus, when the gunner is reloading, the squads firepower drops VERY sharply.

Does any one know the shots per minute each type of WW 2 squad could fire?

I think the Marine one, w/ THREE BARs is the most powerful.

“The current world record for aimed bolt-action fire was set in 1914 by a musketry instructor in the British Army—Sergeant Instructor Snoxall—who placed 38 rounds into a 12 inch wide target at 300 yards (270 m) in one minute”

That is from the Wikipedia entry for the Enfield. What is the record ROF for the Mauser?

A good redesign for the Kar 98 would be the inclusion of a 10rd en bloc clip & a bolt w/ more than 2 locking lugs, allowing a decrease in the number of degrees required to turn the bolt.

Didn’t the Canadians try a straight-pull rifle in WW1 (the Ross?). IIRC it was rapidly dropped in favour of the SMLE as being not much use outside a range, with the SMLE being a massively superior Battle Rifle.

“its tight chamber dimensions were unsuitable for larger tolerance British cartridges. With the Mk III, it was also possible for a careless user to disassemble the bolt for cleaning and then reassemble it with the bolt-head rotated a half turn, causing it not to rotate and lock into the receiver. This could result in a highly dangerous and sometimes fatal bolt blow back on firing. Snipers, however, who were able to maintain their weapons carefully and use them to maximum effect, retained a considerable fondness for the weapon”-Wikipedia, Ross Rifle

So it’s problems weren’t the straight-pull bolt per se, but other design flaws, which could be & WERE compensated for.

#82

He was an exception. All the major armies had similar doctrines going into the war (that the major firepower in the attack was provided by individual riflemen, with limited support from artillery and support weapons). The Americans maintained it into 1918, but all other armies had since dropped it as a bloody failure. Support weapons (MGs, artillery and tanks) suppressed the enemy to allow the infantry to get up close and personal.

The former is hardly an argument not to have an MG - because if you replace it with rifles your firepower is much the same as it is when the MG is damaged. As for reloading, that’s just an argument for better individual skills & drills and for comms within the sub-unit.

The BAR wasn’t a great section automatic weapon - no barrel change and bottom loading magazines. A Bren would always outperform a BAR in practice, and any belt-fed weapon will outperform both.

Rate of fire is pretty low. IIRC the problem isn’t with the number or angle of lugs, but their position - the Enfield has them at the rear, IIRC, enabling a much more ergonomic throw to the bolt at the cost of reduced strength. The whole reason the rate of fire was so high on the SMLE was that you could hold the bolt between forefinger and thumb while pulling the trigger with your little finger, radically reducing the hand movements required. Reloading with stripper clips is a minor improvement - all sides used 5-round clips, so expanding the box magazine to 10 rounds will only save 1 reload per engagement - a minimal improvement given the extra weight.

#83

Subject to the problem that belt fed weapons are more prone to stoppages when used in fire and movement as they pick up dirt in the belt, and are also more likely to need a No.2 to feed or assist with stoppages which reduces the squad firepower by one or carries an extra man who isn’t a rifleman.

A Bren / BAR / whatever is more likely to be a better weapon in a squad fire and movement attack than a belt fed weapon, where it is less likely to suffer stoppages and is more likely to be fired in short bursts from changing positions.

A belt fed weapon is much more useful in a static position, even an improvised one such as responding to an ambush, where its (relative to a magazine weapon) sustained fire ability is better suited to resisting attackers.

#84

You’re right about that, it’s possible to do some very quick shooting - but unless I’ve been doing it wrong, you hold the Bolt with thumb & index finger, while you pull the trigger with the ring finger.

Also, even though the Enfield has a 10 round mag, this only really gives it an advantage during the initial stages of an engagement, as you have to reload it with 2 stripper clips, leading to a longer reload time if you want the full mag, and probably causing soldiers to only reload with one clip at a time in a heated battle.

#85

No, Hitler miscalculated when he struck both north at Moscow and south towards the Caucasus oil fields, when he had long known that oil was at a premium and crucial even to his largely horse-drawn war effort.

Had he pursued the latter objective alone and then pushed on to the oil fields to the south such as in Iraq, where Britain barely managed to retain control even without German forces there, he would have had more than enough oil to do pretty much what he wanted. As well as denying oil to the Allies, which would have had a significant impact on their ability to continue their war.

And if the Axis powers had operated on a unified basis as the Allies did, Germany might have derived some benefit from the huge resources in the Netherlands East Indies, which were not as well exploited as they could have been by the Japanese because of their failure to protect their merchant shipping. Assuming that the Axis forces had the shipping to do that, which largely they didn’t when it mattered because they didn’t anticipate properly the impact the Allies would have on their merchant shipping.

#86

Very probably - it’s about 15 years since I got my paws on one…

#87

If Hitler was clean and good in his intentions for his people and the nation ever since he started, He could have captured the hearts of many people and not leave a negative impression on some. When you are remembered that way, you are truly victorious.

#88

The Americans maintained it into 1918, but all other armies had since dropped it as a bloody failure.

Um, what do you mean? The US tried what, which failed bloodily?

The former is hardly an argument not to have an MG - because if you replace it with rifles your firepower is much the same as it is when the MG is damaged.

Whoa whoa whoa! I wasn’t saying that! I was saying that it was a bad idea to have a MG which was 99% of a squads ROF in a battle. If the gun is taken out the rest of the squad can pretty much be ignored for more serious threats. But a squad w/ high ROF rifles or SMGs should at least be 25% of the squads rof. A US squad which lost it’s BAR, (or 3) can still beat any other squad w/ it’s Garands alone.

The BAR wasn’t a great section automatic weapon - no barrel change and bottom loading magazines. A Bren would always outperform a BAR in practice, and any belt-fed weapon will outperform both.

A BAR has 20 shots, most belt-fed Squad MG had 50 shots, so the BAR must reload 2.5 times for every Belt-fed reload, but the BAR reloads more than 2.5 x as fast so it is in action for longer periods of time!

Plus, I saw a picture of a MG 34 w/ it’s barrel being changed. It’s awkward at best. (the MG 42 barrel change was a vast improvement)

Lets compare Bren, Bar & MG 34/42

Bren 30rd box 500 rpm, 3.6 sec to empty

BAR 20 rd box 350-600 rpm 2-3.4 sec to empty

MG 34 50 rd belt- 75 rd twin drum 800-900 rpm 3.33-3.75 (50 rd)/5-5.625 sec (75 rd)

So you see the belt fed runs out of ammo at pretty much the same time, but is FAR slower to reload.

Reload sequence

Bren/BAR

  1. press magazine release. 2. Remove box. 3. insert fresh box 4. chamber rd. 5. FIRE!

MG 34/42

  1. remove belt box 2. attach new belt box 3. open cover 4. place belt on feed tray 5. close cover 6. chamber round 7. FEUER!!!

How many seconds pass? Another thing to remember is that the belt drum weighs quite a bit more than a bren/bar box & is more tiring to handle a lot of them in a sustained battle.

Rate of fire is pretty low. IIRC the problem isn’t with the number or angle of lugs, but their position - the Enfield has them at the rear, IIRC, enabling a much more ergonomic throw to the bolt at the cost of reduced strength. The whole reason the rate of fire was so high on the SMLE was that you could hold the bolt between forefinger and thumb while pulling the trigger with your little finger, radically reducing the hand movements required. Reloading with stripper clips is a minor improvement - all sides used 5-round clips, so expanding the box magazine to 10 rounds will only save 1 reload per engagement - a minimal improvement given the extra weight.

only ONE reload? :rolleyes: how many shots does a soldier fire in a typical engagement? Lets say he fires 30 shots. W/ a 5 rd clip, he reloads 5 times. w/ a 10 shot enbloc, only twice. It takes the same amount of time to load a clip. The longer the battle goes on, the more noticeable the advantage.

The only advantage a German sq had w/ it’s MG 34/42 is that the sound of the thing firing scared the S*** out of the other side. As long as a UK sq w/ it’s 10 shot SMLEs could keep from getting wiped out by the bullet spam
It would eventually outgun the German squad. Consider ‘Saving Private Ryan’, the battle at the end involved LOTS of firing over a long period of time. Also, that one kid took all those Germans prisoner w/ his Garand. If he had a Mauser, they’d have tackled him. They had no MG whatever to help them, as happens in a real war.

Making a rifle w/ a single 10 rd clip rather than 2 5 rd clip isn’t that hard, our Garand had 8 rds, ‘10’ is only 2 rds more.

#89

Um if that WERE the case… it WOULDN’T have BEEN Hitler. Everyone leaves a bad impression on someone, no mater HOW much of a saint they truly are.

Remember a guy called Jesus? Really nice guy, fed the hungry. But some chafed at his style & he died a gruesome death.

And let’s not forget certain politicians who shall remain unnamed who invaded other countries & truly pissed off much of the world. At least Hitler looked cool & made really awesome speeches. (the other dudes speeches I fell asleep trying to watch, didn’t help I had to take a second job juist to survive his presidency) Was he ‘clean’ & ‘good’? WMDs? Freedom in Iraq? Most of the Christians have fled, never to return to the ‘democratic paradise’

If he just kept focus on Bin Laden, 4,000+of us would be alive today.

Err, sorry to digress, but a politician of a set philosophy is unlikely to ‘do the right thing’ if it contradicts his ‘ideals’ remember Truman’s unconditional surrender’? Churchill & STALIN were said to be appalled at his insistence to cling to this objective & refusal to show flexibility. Hundreds of thousands died as a result. Maybe millions.

BTW, what is that image in your post? A pile of books?

#90

I have no idea what you are getting at with this, but the small unit infantry formation that gets out the most overall lead usually wins the fight. That includes general purpose machine-guns, which are vastly more effective. That’s not to say that there weren’t other factors, nor that the Allies didn’t have advantages of their own. But it is worth mentioning that the US Army based much of its post-war infantry tactics on the GPMG system largely perfected by the Heer. US infantry training during WWII was seen as inadequate and US soldiers needed to be effectively re-trained (if they survived as “replacements”) by their NCOs and junior officers to break them of the “one-shot, One-kill” mentality when the US Army had in practice developed tactics of mass firepower in the field…

And I have no idea how you can “prove” that a US squad with Garands is going to “beat any other” with any certainty as many US squads were slaughtered at little places such as The Kasserine Pass, Omaha Beach, and in the Hurtgen. And their super-rifles didn’t save them…

A BAR has 20 shots, most belt-fed Squad MG had 50 shots, so the BAR must reload 2.5 times for every Belt-fed reload, but the BAR reloads more than 2.5 x as fast so it is in action for longer periods of time!

Plus, I saw a picture of a MG 34 w/ it’s barrel being changed. It’s awkward at best. (the MG 42 barrel change was a vast improvement)

Lets compare Bren, Bar & MG 34/42

Bren 30rd box 500 rpm, 3.6 sec to empty

BAR 20 rd box 350-600 rpm 2-3.4 sec to empty

MG 34 50 rd belt- 75 rd twin drum 800-900 rpm 3.33-3.75 (50 rd)/5-5.625 sec (75 rd)

So you see the belt fed runs out of ammo at pretty much the same time, but is FAR slower to reload.

Reload sequence

Bren/BAR

  1. press magazine release. 2. Remove box. 3. insert fresh box 4. chamber rd. 5. FIRE!

MG 34/42

  1. remove belt box 2. attach new belt box 3. open cover 4. place belt on feed tray 5. close cover 6. chamber round 7. FEUER!!!

How many seconds pass? Another thing to remember is that the belt drum weighs quite a bit more than a bren/bar box & is more tiring to handle a lot of them in a sustained battle.

The above calculations are utter crap and meaningless. A fixed German machine-gun was supported with reams of ammunition, and a few attacking BAR wielding soldiers would be no match. That’s not to say that the BAR wasn’t a great gun, it was.

But it was designed to be used as a true infantry rifle, not a section support weapon…

only ONE reload? :rolleyes: how many shots does a soldier fire in a typical engagement? Lets say he fires 30 shots. W/ a 5 rd clip, he reloads 5 times. w/ a 10 shot enbloc, only twice. It takes the same amount of time to load a clip. The longer the battle goes on, the more noticeable the advantage.

I have no idea where you are getting these calculations from, but it is generally recognized that video games do not count…

The only advantage a German sq had w/ it’s MG 34/42 is that the sound of the thing firing scared the S*** out of the other side. As long as a UK sq w/ it’s 10 shot SMLEs could keep from getting wiped out by the bullet spam
It would eventually outgun the German squad. Consider ‘Saving Private Ryan’, the battle at the end involved LOTS of firing over a long period of time. Also, that one kid took all those Germans prisoner w/ his Garand. If he had a Mauser, they’d have tackled him. They had no MG whatever to help them, as happens in a real war.

Making a rifle w/ a single 10 rd clip rather than 2 5 rd clip isn’t that hard, our Garand had 8 rds, ‘10’ is only 2 rds more.

Complete crap. The MG42 was a cheaply made, accurate, and effective gun system not because of its rate of fire so much -that was just the icing on the cake- but because it was an ergonomic weapon system that could be quickly and flexibly redeployed in a fluid battle situation. In contrast, the Browning was mostly fired from a tripod and was far more cumbersome just because of its design and canvas ammunition belt feeding system.

The German soldiers carried belt after belt of ammo and I believe it to be significantly more than the average squad of GIs or Tommies would have carried for their Brownings or Vickers (not to mention their BARs and Brens)…

#91

It should be mentioned though that in most situations, the Allies would have been encountering Germans in static positions and their MG42s… :shock:

#92

I’ll try this again, this time using a modern squad for an example.
A US squad w/ 11 men, which are armed w/ 9 x M 16 & 2 x Saw. The m16s have 30rd mags & the Saw have 200 rd belts. The ROF is 800 rpm (M16) & 750 rpm (SAW) giving the M16 2.25 sec of firing & 16 sec for the SAW. In those 2.25 sec, the squad M16s fire 270 rds, the Saws fire only 56 shots. So in the first critical seconds, the rifles actually outgun the SAWs. I can’t calculate the ROF for the M16 beyond that, since I don’t know how many sec it takes to reload. I don’t understand why no one bothers to find out & post in wikipedia articles. The whole point I’m getting at is that despite it’s massive fire power, a belt-fed MG takes a long time to reload, due to its numerous steps, so a squad w/ better rifles will have a great edge. And don’t forget, the US Army is undefeated, the same can’t be said for the German, Japanese or Italian Armies. And our casualties were significantly less (cheap shot I know, but it’s irrefutable proof)

And I have no idea how you can “prove” that a US squad with Garands is going to “beat any other” with any certainty as many US squads were slaughtered at little places such as The Kasserine Pass, Omaha Beach, and in the Hurtgen. And their super-rifles didn’t save them…

Omaha was us advancing over open terrain engaging Germans in concrete bunkers w/ 250 rd belts in their MG 42s. It’s rather hard to aim at tiny openings when the whole beach is being shredded. But remember, by days end, we were in charge & all the Germans were dead, captured or fleeing inland. We lost 2,000 men, the Germans around 6,000. Hurtgen was under the worst tactical conditions imaginable, beyond the Omaha slaughter.

The above calculations are utter crap and meaningless. A fixed German machine-gun was supported with reams of ammunition, and a few attacking BAR wielding soldiers would be no match. That’s not to say that the BAR wasn’t a great gun, it was.

A FIXED gun, I’m comparing the MG 34/42 in it’s mobile, bipod version, a point you continue to ignore. In it’s fixed role, it goes up against the Vickers & M1919 Browning. Stop bringing a gun to a knife fight. And I’d appreciate if you’d stop calling my figures crap, I spent several hours researching & cross-checking them for accuracy. Meaningless INDEED.:evil:

YOU try to find figures for the shots per minute these guns can achieve, instead of mocking mine. Plus the attacking side would use grenades & flame throwers to take fixed MGs out. Or try sniping w/ the few Springfield bolt actions, or try flanking the position. Those Omaha pillboxes seemed very vulnerable to attacks from the rear by guys who dashed between them

But it was designed to be used as a true infantry rifle, not a section support weapon…

A soldier is just as dead if he is shot by a BAR used as an ‘infantry rifle’ as he is if he’s shot by a BAR used as a ‘Section support weapon’

I have no idea where you are getting these calculations from, but it is generally recognized that video games do not count…

Video games? VIDEO GAMES?! How dare you! I have NEVER once played a WW 2 video game! I was giving a # as an example!I would like to see someone else weigh in on this to see if they can understand.

Here’s a math lesson, 10 bullets in a gun is BETTER than 5! It means you spend less time reloading in battle! Like the M16, which has 20 & 30 shot magazines, both of which take the same amount of time to reload the one w/ more bullets is BETTER! Thus a Mauser 98 K which has an enlarged 10 shot box is vastly better than a 5 SHOT! And while it was said that this WOULDN’T give an advantage because it would STILL be reloaded w/ 5 shot clips, even an IDIOT would be able to design a 10 shot clip!:rolleyes:

The Germans were fools for sticking w/ a rifle w/ as many flaws as the 98K when improving it would’ve taken little time or effort. The Nazis had 6 years, from 1933 to 1939 to make these changes. But they did make a Cold War rifle, the G 3 that was superior to our Cold War rifles.

Complete crap. The MG42 was a cheaply made, accurate, and effective gun system not because of its rate of fire so much -that was just the icing on the cake- but because it was an ergonomic weapon system that could be quickly and flexibly redeployed in a fluid battle situation. In contrast, the Browning was mostly fired from a tripod and was far more cumbersome just because of its design and canvas ammunition belt feeding system.

Ergonomic? Can you fire it while standing like a BAR? Bonnie from ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ used one as her personal weapon AND she was less than 5 ft tall. How’s THAT for ergonomics? And IIRC, the Brownig M1919 wasn’t used in INFANTRY squads as much as the BAR, it was in units like the HEAVY WEAPONS Squad, Platoon, ETC

[/QUOTEThe German soldiers carried belt after belt of ammo and I believe it to be significantly more than the average squad of GIs or Tommies would have carried for their Brownings or Vickers (not to mention their BARs and Brens)…[/QUOTE]]

How much do these belts weigh? I thought the Myth of Germans being ‘Supermen’ was Busted by Jessie Owens BEFORE the war started.:rolleyes: Last I checked, canvas weighed LESS than steel. And costs less to manufacture. How many Panzers could the Germans have built for all those steel links?

#93

Concentrating on rates of fire, magazine capacity, canvas versus link belts and various other technical aspects of small arms is not a reliable guide to who is likely to win an engagment, battle, campaign or war.

Training, experience, battle-hardening, motivation, morale, leadership and tactics appropriate to the purpose are far more important.

A squad with the best weapons but which is deficient in all or most of those other qualities will generally be defeated by a squad which has most or all of those qualities but supposedly technically inferior weapons.

This ignores other battlefield factors of greater importance than who has what small arm, such as cover from view, cover from fire, ground favourable to defender versus ground favourable to attacker, distance of open ground over which to attack, whether it’s an ambush or contact, and so on.

#94

Ummm… no. Light automatic weapons like the Minimi are capable of reasonably accurate suppressive fire in automatic, rifles like the M16 are not. Practical rate of fire for any automatic rifle tops out at about 60 RPM if you’re in mad minute territory, 15 RPM in normal situations.

Ummm… depends on the nature of the target, but in pure rate of fire terms they don’t.

A few seconds. It’s irrelevant anyway - fire like that for more than a couple of magazines and your rifle will start to melt, and unless you’ve got arms like a gorilla you’ll end up giving your targets a hell of a fright rather than actually hitting them at any sensible distance.

Not really. When I was in Gibraltar recently (running around the tunnels carrying a GPMG), reloading in the dark took perhaps 5-10 seconds longer than it would for a rifle. This being a big, heavy weapon that I’d not fired before being reloaded in the dark when I was hanging out of my arse. Flip up the top cover, throw the rounds in the feed tray and slam it back down. Simple.

Infantry weapons were only a tiny fraction of the firepower deployed here on both sides - the Allies in particular had an enormous quantity of support firepower, right up to 16" rifles. Overall casualty figures may therefore be rather misleading.

Awww, diddums. You realise that the three of us are all ex or serving members of various armed forces? We’ve done for real what you’ve read about.

Can is irrelevant. A light role GPMG in deliberate fire mode should only fire at 30 RPM for instance, according to British doctrine. The sheer weight of ammunition you have to carry precludes you firing at the full cyclic rate except in very, very unusual circumstances.

You forgot the MFC, FOO, FAC, Armoured support and organic support weapons (MGs, anti-armour weapons such as PIAT or Bazooka, etc.) that would also be on call.

Depends on your rate of fire. At a deliberate rate of fire, you will be able to reload between shots and keep up the same rhythm of fire. If the ergonomics are wrong (e.g. 10 round clip being a pain to load) or doing so causes stoppages, then a 10 round clip is a bad thing.

Nope

Uh huh. Would said idiot be able to redesign and replace the webbing for the entire army, the ammo boxes, the factories producing the ammunition, etc.? Changing something like that is a MASSIVE undertaking, which is for instance why the British stuck with .303 for so long, despite having wanted to change since before WW1.

Nope, compared to an FN-FAL it was a piece of junk. The only reasons the Germans used it was because FN Herstal refused to sell it to them (while giving the design for free to many of the Allied nations in WW2).

Utter bollocks. Steel pressings as used in Link ammo are very, very cheap and compared to the empty brass cases weigh the square root of naff all. On a strength to weight ratio, canvas is many times weaker than steel (which is why they build skyscrapers out of canvas, right?) and is significantly more expensive - canvas belts require people to sew them, steel link can be pressed out automatically by the millions.

Two or three, maybe. Steel was not the limiting factor here.

#95

That’s part of what I was getting at in my last post.

Any weapon, its feed, cyclic (as distinct from real) rate of fire, and whether or not it comes with cup holders, GPS and satellite phone generally doesn’t have a lot to do with its effect in battle against weapons designed for similar purposes.

A weapon’s effect in battle is determined mostly by factors such as those I mentioned in my last post and, as you have pointed out, by other factors such as siting and whether it is in a prepared defensive position.

Which gets into various other factors, such as whether the defender is in a prepared weapon pit or an earth and log bunker or a concrete bunker, and the extent of interlocking arcs of fire and the width and depth of mutual support, the extent to which flanking moves are possible or impossible, the availability of artillery and air support to the attacker and defender etc, etc, etc.

#96

Also, canvas absorbs moisture and it ain’t the best material in the tropics where, among other things, it rots.

Would these tanks have been linked? :wink:

#97

pdf27 has already adverted to this, but how’d you like to calculate how long it is before the weapon gets barrel droop; deflection in degrees; and how long before the barrel is overheated?

Probably because the people who know such things wouldn’t waste their time posting on wiki where any idiot can change their post.

A belt-fed MG doesn’t have any more firepower than a magazine fed one of similar calibre. It just has a greater sustained fire capability, which often doesn’t matter all that much as nobody is going to put full belts straight through one unless the enemy is about to crawl over them like ants.

A long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I did a bit of training on MGs of various sorts.

I’d rather be behind one, magazine or belt fed, facing an attacking squad than be in the attacking squad.

And I’d rather be behind one in a squad attacking rifleman than be a rifleman I was attacking.

Actually, the same can be said, for the Germans and Japanese anyway.

They, like the Americans and other Allies, were both undefeated in their attack phases.

#98

True, very true. Most people think the Gulf War was lopsided due to us having a vast technological edge over Iraq, but many of the star performers, B-52, F-111, A-6 & A-7 as well as the F-4 Wild Weasel were Vietnam Era. The Iraqi weapons were of a similar generation of ours, & even the ‘crude’ MiG-25 scored their only A2A kill (one later survived a fight w/ EIGHT f-15s w/ AMRAAMs! Their loss mostly came from unimaginable incompetence. Like having the bulk of their Army in the Desert, rather than in the cities.

I was comparing squads on their weapons alone, since quality of squads training & experience varies. The vast # of Hitler Youth were mere cannon fodder to us regardless of their weaponry. Those armed w/ Panzerfausts were essentially Suicide Bombers since they were usually killed after they shot, if not before.

#99

It doesn’t take long at all to reload an M-16A1/2 --seconds maybe… The problem with your “calculations” and “mathematics” is that you are completely removing the human factor and the “fog of war” aspects of combat and distilling it down to simplistic averages deduced on firing ranges where no one is actually shooting back at you.

For instance, as I have seen in training, what good does quick reloading of a weapon do if they are blindly firing into a plume of smoke, darkness of night, or worse --even mistakenly at their own side?

You’re forgetting the aspects of fear, confusion, and the fact that those will excess ammo will simply use up their excess ammo with little more real effect in many cases - which is one of the reasons the US Army refused to mass issue the BAR to begin with (along with the fact that it was too heavy for sustained combat). And I’ve said here that overall I thought the BAR was a good weapon when used properly, and the US military did have a firepower advantage in some circumstances. But there are a couple of points that you miss.

The US Marines enjoyed an overall firepower advantage in combat over Japanese attackers, even when most were armed with the Springfield at Guadalcanal, as the Japanese infantry weapons along with their command and control was vastly inferior. This was shown early, when carry out attacks on Henderson Field against a well emplaced, motivated foe. We could even mention that at Wake Island the Marines were never overrun and surrendered prematurely largely out of error. So, it isn’t just about personal weapons, the effectiveness encompasses a whole host of factors such as training and small unit leadership, both at which the Japanese and Germans excelled. After all, I think artillery kills far more soldiers (in conventional war) than small arms fire does by at least a 3:1 ratio IIRC.

It has been calculated that during the Vietnam War, US forces fired 6000 rounds for every ONE the NVA or NLF fired at them! What good was their firepower of the M-14, M-60, M-16, etc., then? We still lost.

Omaha was us advancing over open terrain engaging Germans in concrete bunkers w/ 250 rd belts in their MG 42s. It’s rather hard to aim at tiny openings when the whole beach is being shredded. But remember, by days end, we were in charge & all the Germans were dead, captured or fleeing inland. We lost 2,000 men, the Germans around 6,000. Hurtgen was under the worst tactical conditions imaginable, beyond the Omaha slaughter.

Okay. Then what about the Normandy battle were the US was bogged down in Hedgerows against Heer and SS armed with mostly weapons no heavier than anti-tank guns and mortars? They were able to bottle up the US Army in what amounted to an infantry battle for weeks of bloody, hard fighting despite undergoing a pummeling. The Japanese did similar in the PTO and were able to still inflict heavy casualties and mask their firepower deficiencies through clever uses of fortifications and terrain…

A FIXED gun, I’m comparing the MG 34/42 in it’s mobile, bipod version, a point you continue to ignore. In it’s fixed role, it goes up against the Vickers & M1919 Browning. Stop bringing a gun to a knife fight. And I’d appreciate if you’d stop calling my figures crap, I spent several hours researching & cross-checking them for accuracy. Meaningless INDEED.:evil:

YOU try to find figures for the shots per minute these guns can achieve, instead of mocking mine. Plus the attacking side would use grenades & flame throwers to take fixed MGs out. Or try sniping w/ the few Springfield bolt actions, or try flanking the position. Those Omaha pillboxes seemed very vulnerable to attacks from the rear by guys who dashed between them

Well, seeing as the Heer/SS held out for a long time considering they were locked in a death vice of a two front War against relentless enemies outproducing them in nearly every facet of weaponry, I’d say they did well. Wouldn’t you? And the Omaha pillboxes and trenches served their purpose. A sustained German counterattack might have rolled up the unfortunate early waves on Omaha. But the Germans were never trained nor told to counterattack and US artillery interdicted any reinforcements…

A soldier is just as dead if he is shot by a BAR used as an ‘infantry rifle’ as he is if he’s shot by a BAR used as a ‘Section support weapon’

So? The Bren was better suited for sustained firing. I never said anything but the BAR being a very good weapon when used within its limitations, usually in twos or threes mutually supporting each other…

Video games? VIDEO GAMES?! How dare you! I have NEVER once played a WW 2 video game! I was giving a # as an example!I would like to see someone else weigh in on this to see if they can understand.

Well, maybe you should then…

The Germans were fools for sticking w/ a rifle w/ as many flaws as the 98K when improving it would’ve taken little time or effort. The Nazis had 6 years, from 1933 to 1939 to make these changes. But they did make a Cold War rifle, the G 3 that was superior to our Cold War rifles.

The K98 was reliable and easy to produce. They did in fact have other self-loading rifles and even managed the first practical assault rifle. But they had a whole host of difficulties in all production. And you’re forgetting that all of the Nazis main potential enemies -France, Poland, Britain, and the USSR- all had bolt-action rifles in service. The US was the only nation doing a significant effort to produce a working self-loading rifle in the near term, despite a crippling depression…

Ergonomic? Can you fire it while standing like a BAR? Bonnie from ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ used one as her personal weapon AND she was less than 5 ft tall. How’s THAT for ergonomics? And IIRC, the Brownig M1919 wasn’t used in INFANTRY squads as much as the BAR, it was in units like the HEAVY WEAPONS Squad, Platoon, ETC

Um, I believe you can fire an MG42 from the hip actually just like one can the M-60. And Bonnie did wield a BAR that was “cut-down,” but not all day under battlefield conditions. But I guess Bonnie was pretty good at wield all sorts of guns. :slight_smile:

And what do you mean regarding the Browning? It was issued to platoons as a fire support weapon.

How much do these belts weigh? I thought the Myth of Germans being ‘Supermen’ was Busted by Jessie Owens BEFORE the war started.:rolleyes: Last I checked, canvas weighed LESS than steel. And costs less to manufacture. How many Panzers could the Germans have built for all those steel links?

Um, the canvas had to be reloaded, the disintegrating links didn’t. The belts didn’t weight that much. But then, how much did the standard load of .30-06 ammo weight in bandoleers? And the biggest problem with panzers was that the Germans shelved plans for their next generation early on, and had to react to the T-34. Then they faced a whole host of production difficulties as they failed to convert to a full war economy until it was too late…

#100

Practical rate of fire for any auto rifle tops out at about 60 RPM if you’re in mad min territory, 15 RPM in norm sits.

15 rpm? w/ a 30 shot gun? I do better w/ a civilian semi auto .223 (Ruger Mini-14, hate the caliber, love the gun!:cool:) As I recall, changing mags is no problem speed wise. 4 seconds at most. Though I have no military service, I frequently outshoot guys from the nearby base on the range. I generally take bets regarding speed & accuracy ($5 or an MRE is my price) I bought a Ruger Mini-30 for myself last Xmas. Using the same round as an AK to outshoot Vets of Iraq & Afgh is an interesting experience. One such match involved popup targets, I got well over those 15 shots you mentioned. I emptied 2 x 30rd boxes & was well into the 3rd when the whistle blew. The other guy was just changing to his 3rd mag. It was pretty close. I got 2 less targets (out of 60 total) because I reloaded 1 extra time (he missed a few at the end), but had tighter groupings & 1 extra hit on each one. I put 4 shots (my natural rhythm) in each while he went for 3 shots. So, he hit 20, I got 18. Course, when I take on the 30-40 yr old Reservists, I lose quite often. I prefer the 18-20 yr olds.:oops:

fire like that for more than a couple of mags and your rifle will start to melt, and unless you’ve got arms like a gorilla you’ll end up giving your targets a hell of a fright rather than actually hitting them.

really? My arms are kinda stringy, but I have no problem w/ the recoil on my Ruger Minis, course, civilian loads tend to be much tamer than military in those calibers, right? Probably why I have little trouble w/ the heating too. And the scenario was at urban distances, 75-100 yards/meters.

Not really. When I was in Gibraltar recently, reloading in the dark took perhaps 5-10 seconds longer than it would for a rifle. This being a big, heavy weapon that I’d not fired before being reloaded in the dark when I was hanging out of my a$$. Flip up the top cover, throw the rounds in the feed tray and slam it back down. Simple.

How fast would you have reloaded if you had good lighting? BTW, I never really got how the ammo in the Luger/Mp18 ‘snail drum’ moved up the angled neck, since it’s rather long & very ‘bent’.

Infantry weapons were only a tiny fraction of the firepower deployed here on both sides - the Allies in particular had 16" rifles. Overall casualty figures may therefore be rather misleading.

UGH, I KNOW! Whenever I read a casualty figure, I scream, “There’s a HUGE diff btwn a guy w/ a toe shot off & a guy who’s a red smear at the bottom of a crater!” I can never find fatality figures for D-Day. I never really understood, when it was clear that the pillboxes were still operational, why we didn’t hold off the further waves of landing craft & fire our battleships until they were out of ammo or Omaha was turned into an estuary. We just kept shoving cannon fodder at the Germans until we overwhelmed them. And why, when the Brits took their beach earlier, didn’t they try to outflank the beaches slaughtering us? On the Longest Day, they were shown lounging & having TEA! (creative license probably) Or once the first LZ was secure, to send ALL the soldiers to that sector. And what about the LSTs? They can beach, right? Why didn’t they accompany the 1st waves of infantry? a dozen Flame thrower tanks per every 200 infantry would’ve given the Germans some real food for thought. (Those DD tanks didn’t succeed too well right? I saw a PBS documentary where a postwar light tank was given a DD screen. As soon as it was in the water… It sank! It was a Scorpion or Scimitar IIRC)

Aw, diddums. You realize that the three of us are all ex or serving members of various armed forces? We’ve done for real what you’ve read about.

It’d be nice if those books were actually PROOFREAD before being published! For all the typographical errors that were obvious to me, there are God knows how many that aren’t. Oddly these military books are overwhelmingly published in the UK. Salamander, Amber, but the worse by far is the WW 2 encyclopedia by Rand McNally (American, not British of course) It was bloated w/ errors & it was grossly biased. Calling Hitler the incarnation of evil but completely glossing over Stalin’s heinous crimes. Like Katyn or Nemmersdorf (disputed I know, more civilians died in (Koenigsberg by a factor of 1,000)

A light role MG should only fire at 30 RPM for instance, according to British doctrine. The sheer weight of ammo you have to carry precludes you firing at the full cyclic rate except in very, very unusual circumstances.

An machine gun limited to… 1 shot every 2 seconds?! On Extreme Marksmen, this pistol expert was clocked at 400 rpm w/ a semi auto. Documentary footage from battles tent to show machine guns fired far more vigorously.

You forgot the MFC, FOO, FAC, Armored support and organic support weapons (MGs, anti-armor weapons such as PIAT or Bazooka, etc.) that would also be on call.

MFC? FOO? I get the Forward Air Control. But, the MG. If you saw an advancing enemy try to set up an MG, or 2 guys lugging a bazooka around, you’d be pretty sure to let them have it ‘w/ both barrels’ I left out all that support on purpose, since I was comparing pure infantry squad vs pure infantry squad, w/ no support weapons at all. I mean, on D-Day, the Germans were doomed, their heaviest weapon was 6 x 15 cm howitzers that they abandoned after pulling them away from the Pont du hoc battery. We had multiple battle ships to pound them into dust.

(A smart German commander would’ve concentrated all his weapons in the Cities of Carentan Bayeux & Caen, w/ only a few observation posts on the beach to direct long range fire. Creating 3 ‘hedgehog’ positions, rather than the easily compromised linear defense the Atlantic wall was stuck with. (Surprisingly, the Game Warcraft 2 supports the idea that the hedgehog is superior to the linear style of defense.) We’d have had to hold back on our carpet bombing & naval barrage w/ all those civilians in the area. & the buildings… well it was well known by 1944 that urban warfare benefited the defenders far more than the attackers. I’ll post a picture of the Normandy area map w/ the defenses as they were & in an optimal ‘hedgehog’ style

Depends on your rate of fire. At a deliberate rate of fire, you will be able to reload between shots and keep up the same rhythm of fire. If the ergonomics are wrong (e.g. 10 round clip being a pain to load) or doing so causes stoppages, then a 10 round clip is a bad thing.

True, the G41 semiauto apparently had issues

Nope

I can’t imagine that the Germans never captured any SMLE rifles during WW 1 to study, then to redesign the Mauser to have a similar capacity.

Would said idiot be able to redesign and replace the webbing for the entire army, the ammo boxes, the factories producing the ammunition, etc.? Changing something like that is a MASSIVE undertaking, which is for instance why the British stuck with .303 for so long, despite having wanted to change since before WW1.

the webbing according to the article I found on German small arms, said “each ammo belt, of which the soldier carried 1 or 2, had 3 pouches. Each pouch held 3 x 5rd clips” Redesigning a fabric bandoleer to accept 10 rd enblocs shouldn’t have crippled the industry, it wasn’t like designing the Me 262. And how complex were those ammo boxes anyway? At most, 4 things had to be redesigned, the Clip, the rifle magazine, the bandolier, the ammo box (I’m guessing that the clips were stored in smaller boxes, which were then stored in larger boxes, right?). The other things you state (factories producing ammunition), seem to imply changing the very ammunition used. Which, BTW, happened w/ the Sturm Gewehr w/ it’s 7.92 Kurz.

Nope, compared to an FN-FAL it was a piece of junk. The only reasons the Germans used it was because FN Herstal refused to sell it to them (while giving the design for free to many of the Allied nations in WW2).

Compared to a FAL, maybe, but how about an M16? which jams constantly & which needs 30 hits, or 5 minutes to kill who it shoots. I’ve read too many articles written by soldiers who fought in Vietnam, Somalia & the war on Terror on the lack of stopping power the .223 has, even w/ fragmenting ammo, to think the G 3 w/ it’s hard-hitting 7.62 is a sucky rifle. BTW, wikipedia says the Germans HAD the FN FAL & called it the G 1. While the Wiki is notorious for unreliability, there were pictureso f GERMAN soldiers carrying them in the field, the fact the Germans had over 100,000 of them then REPLACED it w/ the G 3 is rather telling, plus the G 3 spawned a very large family of weapons and a LOT of countries still use it.

Utter bollocks. Steel pressings as used in Link ammo are very, very cheap and compared to the empty brass cases weigh the square root of naff all. On a strength to weight ratio, canvas is many times weaker than steel (which is why they build skyscrapers out of canvas, right?) and is significantly more expensive - canvas belts require people to sew them, steel link can be pressed out automatically by the millions.

Skyscrapers, :lol: but fabric making machines were made during the industrial revolution and canvas can probably be sewn in huge quantities by them. BTW, how hard would it have been to make aluminum cases instead of brass? I always hear about STEEL cases, but those rust & are heavy. Is aluminum too weak?

2 or 3, maybe. Steel was not the limiting factor here.

Hm, I guess you’re right, armor steel needed nickel & chromium whereas links probably didn’t. That’s what you’re driving at right?