Best theoretical caliber for WWII

What would be the best standard caliber for WWII?
5.56 comes to mind pretty much immediately since engagement ranges weren't too long and you're not gonna hit shit at long ranges with iron sights anyway and nobody was wearing body armor that could handle more than pistol rounds.
BUT, it kinda sucks for machine guns and designated marksmen/snipers.
Would a Grendel-like cartridge that has the same powder capacity but is longer instead of dummy thicc to allow for greater magazine capacity (after all the short length doesn't matter if you don't try to shoehorn it into a 5.56 platform) be a better choice?
It should do just fine in both light and medium machine guns. Or would something weird in-between the two calibers like a 6mm be better?

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  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Given bullet BC and powder tech for the day, .280 British unironically.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Pretend you're a time traveller, if we limit ourselves to what they randomly cooked up back then the Italian 6.5 probably wins by default.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        In that case, perhaps elongate a .30 rem case by 4-5mm and neck it to .264 or .277. Basically a longer 6.8 spc (6.8x48mm spc, about 1mm thinner case than 6.5 grendel).

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Explain your reasoning player-character-anon.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Higher BC longer bullets, heavier than .223 bullets which gives better barrier penetration at range, adjust shoulder angle to reliably feed in MGs and semis, lighter and lower recoil than .308, standard load would probably be something like a 120gr at 2,650 fps while being thinner than a 6.5 grendel but longer.

            Another one I like is an elongated .300HAMR, make it about 4mm longer and a standard load would be something like a 125gr at 2,750 fps with modern powders.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Hah, anon will be pleasantly surprised to find another of his hypothetical cartridges already exists.

              It’s not quite an elongated 300HAMR, but still very similar. The 7.62x45 Czech. Short-ogive low-overbore 30 cal.

              https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62×45mm

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          6.8x48mm spc is a trash
          https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/04/not-so-special-a-critical-view-of-the-6-8mm-spc/

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            6.8spc is limited by the standard 5.56 OAL, it's actually 6.8x43mm. With modern powders it improves massively if you elongate it slightly, just like .300HAMR does, it goes from a deer hunting gun to being able to legally take Moose in Norway with a 16" barrel.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            6.8 spec Remington is the sub 500 m king the only thing that outdoes is the 6.5 grendel

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            I read that article some time ago. IIRC nathaniels main beef was with the short ogive, low-ish velocity, and total cartridge weight compared to 5.56. But that all changes if you lengthen the cartridge like the other anon suggested. More powder + longer ogive = higher BC going even faster. The round will still be heavier than 5.56, but that doesn’t matter cause we’re comparing it to cartridges in use during ww2, to which it compares favorably.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          What would be the best way to minimax the 8mm Mauser? I've been thinking about it ever since I've seen the 6.5 swedish Mauser that's like 130 years old.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Probably shorten it a couple to a few mm and neck it to .277 and give it the Ackley shoulder angle for bolt guns. But it would end up fairly similar to the 6.5 Swede anyway. For semis and autos a 7mm Mauser is already fine IMO and you might not even need to mess around with the shoulder angle. Also sometimes those old cases have thinner walls than modern ones and thus end up having a lower pressure limit, so sometimes by just increasing the wall strength in a couple area can give you a 100 fps+ boost by itself. One example of a cool minmaxed shortened short action is a .308x1.5" Barnes (130gr at 2800fps, 150gr at 2500 fps, 165gr at 2300 fps), which if elongated just 2mm would rival modern 7mm Mauser loads out of a much shorter case. I want to try building one but the bore reamers are hard to come by.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            8×63 Bofors. Viking twinks had the most powerful GP cartridge. Mogs mauser. Mogs springfield. mogs nagant.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >most powerful
              That's a bad thing, anon.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Period correct
            .25 Remington
            >Modern
            6mm Creedmoor or .25 Souper

            >Obtain long action receiver
            >Punch out 8mm Mauser to 8mm-06
            >Reload

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >6mm Creedmoor or .25 Souper
              Why?
              out 8mm Mauser to 8mm-06

              8×63 Bofors. Viking twinks had the most powerful GP cartridge. Mogs mauser. Mogs springfield. mogs nagant.

              >8×63 Bofors.
              Most powerful =/= best.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Why?
                "Standard cartridge" needs to be used for infantry, snipers, machine gunners, and short range assault teams. 6mm Creedmoor and .25 Souper both offer a combination of acceptable recoil and flat trajectory to allow this without ridiculous muzzle blast, bore erosion, nor recoil, especially if a two-load solution is utilized. Considering that most top brass at the time wouldn't allow for radical designs anyway, and everyone's still reeling from the Great Depression, a quick barrel/magazine swap on all .30-06/8mm Mauser/7.5 French weapons allows conversion of previous stock to the new standard without excess waste. Longer recievers with shorter cartridges allow for much longer bullet seating, which would be for higher BC loads or incendiaries, while also granting the ability to use equally long yet lightened bullet (say by introducing a very large air pocket or dowell) loads for standard issue. Roughly equivalent cartridges can be made for the British/Japanese or Soviets simply necking down their respective .30 caliber cartridges in the same fashion and still work well, the Italians can just keep the 6.5 Carcano, and...am I missing any big powers? Regardless, the infantry weapon designs stay the same unless I am misunderstanding the hypothetical, so all requirements are met with the possible exception of CQB, in which case we just maintain SMGs.

                As for 8mm-06, anon asked for min-maxing. I thought he meant for himself, today, on his personal rifle for hunting or some shit.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          7x46 UIAC is extremely similar to what you’re describing. It’s based on the 6.8 case, 3mm longer, necked up to 7mm (.284)

          https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/04/07/7x46mm-uiac-universal-intermediate-assault-cartridge/

          I wonder if a cartridge more in line with the spirit of the intermediate cartridge’s wouldn’t be better. Something closer in weight to 5.56 than the .264 and up calibers. 6mm WOA (white oak armament) seems like it would be ideal. It’s a 6.8 SPC necked down to 6mm. That’s it. Load it with long ogive bullets and you get pretty close to satisfying the requirements for 6mm optimum. Lightweight cartridge with high BC and high velocity. I dunno ballistics of the top of my head but it should be a ~1700ft/lb cartridge. And if we can use hybrid case tech for this hypothetical, then it would certainly exceed the 6mm optimum criteria.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      That was my first thought as well

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      this, time traveling to 1938 and giving the british the complete plans and development docs for the .280 british and EM2 would get real interesting. as a alternate timeline. throw in centurion design docs and maybe the designs for the mkV hispano and its a whole bunch of stuff that would significantly improve combat performance while being within the UKs technical capability to mass produce

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.276_Pedersen
      Frick the limeys.

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    .308 or 7.62x51

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    6.5×55mm Swedish and 7.62x25 Tokarev.
    >muh 5.56x45 assault rfiles
    WWII industry was not read to mass produce self-loading infantry rifle. Its MG+SMG reality. So 6.5×55mm Swedish and 7.62x25 Tokarev.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >WWII industry was not read to mass produce self-loading infantry rifle
      Based on what? Mass producing G3s is piss easy once the stampings are set up. A lot easier than any standard infantry rifle of the time.
      You baboon.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >WWII industry was not read to mass produce self-loading infantry rifle
      the m1 garand was the standard issue rifle for the us dipshit

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        US, not the whole world. Rest of the world could produce either bolt action rifles or open bolt SMGs. SMG > bolt action rifle.

        >WWII industry was not read to mass produce self-loading infantry rifle
        Based on what? Mass producing G3s is piss easy once the stampings are set up. A lot easier than any standard infantry rifle of the time.
        You baboon.

        >Mass producing G3s is piss easy once the stampings are set up.
        G3 secret sauce is in the precision fit rollers made with German autism. No, its not simple.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          So you're saying the same people making precision rollers for their roller locked machine guns would not be able to make rollers for a roller delayed rifle?

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            MGs were produced in much less quantities and costed like 10 times more than rifles so yeah producing rifles with the same tech is not really an option of the WWII. Also Germany is not the rest of the world.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Any country that could make an engine was already making precision rollers. Roller bearing technology was not exactly new at the time.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Sturmgewehr.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >G3 secret sauce is in the precision fit rollers made with German autism. No, its not simple
          They literally did that with the Stg45. The G3 grew out of it. The difficult part was the math but eventually was figured out surprisingly quickly once they got the idea from accidental double shots in the G43.
          And the tolerances are so lenient that turks and pakis built millions.
          You can build a high quality G3 clone with less than 0.5 MOA if you go hard on precision and have modern tools but it's not at all necessary for a useful gun especially in WWII.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >The G3 grew out of it. The difficult part was the math but eventually was figured out surprisingly quickly once they got the idea from accidental double shots in the G43.
            >And the tolerances are so lenient that turks and pakis built millions.
            20 years after WWII.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              The Stg45 was developed to make the Stg44 easier to mass produce and it was already easier to mass produce than any other rifle.
              And it was less than 15 and the extremely similar CETME only came 10 years later, both delays were mostly due to the war ending.
              Black person you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about and managed to be wrong on every single point.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                WWII started in 1939

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                it started december 1941

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                They could've easily built it even in WWII 1, anon. Germany was ahead of the curve on stampings due to steel toy manufacturers there leading the market. The technology in the G3 is extremely simple, it's just a matter of coming up with it.

                >And the tolerances are so lenient that turks and pakis built millions.
                Witn german supplied tooling

                But Germany would have had the capability to mass produce g3s during ww2 if they had the plans for it

                German tooling has been replaced decades ago. That stuff doesn't last forever.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >And the tolerances are so lenient that turks and pakis built millions.
            Witn german supplied tooling

            But Germany would have had the capability to mass produce g3s during ww2 if they had the plans for it

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Well average WW2 industry was not able to produce ice-cream barges for marines, but they US did anyway

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    .303 with 30% less gunpowder and zinc-aluminum bullets.
    2kJ, 850m/s.

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Arisaka 6.5

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    My dick

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    .45acp yup
    2 world wars

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    .280 brit

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    6.5x55 Swedish.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Still going trong too.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        So is 22lr

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        I'm probably biased, I love those little fricker as much as I love my 96/38, neat little things.

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    .280 in FALs and MAGs is doable for the time and would slap anything

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    30.06 Springfield and 7.92x33kurz

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    7.7 Arisaka. It's rimless .303

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Autistically debating the minute difference between various hipster cartirdges is really a waste of time. Cartridges fall into broad categories and within those categories, the differences between cartridges are not significant enough to overcome the overwhelming popularity/availability of certain cartridges. Unless you have a very specialized use case in mind, just choose the most common caliber in each category.
    (Assumming north america)
    Pistol - 9mm
    Intermediate - 5.56mm
    Rifle - 7.62x51/308

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    easy. Make 90% fewer m1 Garands, and like 200x more m1 carbines, and ideally m2.

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