Why didn't the WW2 US army issue a BAR to every infantryman?

Why didn't the WW2 US Army issue a BAR to every infantryman? Sure you have to make more BARs but on the flipside you could've made do with only 8 or 9 per squad instead of 12.

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because its heavy and squad machine gunners fill in the role of fire suppression.

  2. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because it's heavy as frick and expensive you moron.

    Frick off tourist.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      too heavy and hard to shoulder fire accurately for the majority of soldiers. Average height and weight of US infantrymen was like 5'8 145lbs.

      Lift and get stronger or use walking fire.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        Holy shit that’s big as frick

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Lift and get stronger
        Conscript army Black person.

        >walking fire
        Have fun dying.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >walking fire.
        korean war GIs already couldn't aim for shit and you want to make the problem even worse?

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          Quantity is its own form of quality. A lot of Korean War GIs sang praises of the Type 50, considering it a better weapon than their own Garands and M1s in many cases. It's a PPsH-41 clone, so bad range and accuracy, but it pumps out lead and could take 71 round drums. It was in many ways inferior to the US weapons, but it worked with the successful Chinese strategy (early in the war) of night time raids using localized numerical superiority because the effective range of US small arms was cut way down and volume of fire counted for more with limited spotlights and lots of night combat in dense forests.

          The burp gun did its job in keeping heads down while more Chinese advanced and then could clear a fox hole at close range great.

          The BAR helped by adding a lot of output while remaining mobile, while also having a lot of range. Obviously, it isn't ideal. They could have shortened the barrel, dropped a lot of weight, and used a pistol grip for a much better weapon. But really, the problem was that the Springfield .30-06 cartridge was made for long ass barrels pre-WWI, and so it was never going to be ideal for an LMG. It's a big, heavy round made for the 1903. The 1919 and Garand used it, so it didn't make sense to switch. But really, for Korea, they could have made some sort of higher capacity M2 type support weapon and had it be useful, even if the M1/M2 cartridge is a bit too weak.

          It's still incredible to me that the Chinese were able to out and out rout the US military with man hauled supply lines, small arms, and an underwhelming number of belt feds and mortars. They had virtually no artillery and no air assets early in the war, and almost all NORK armor was gone by then. Truly a testament to how senile/hubristic MacArthur had become, as the crushing defeat was almost entirely due to him spreading his army paper thin in extremely difficult terrain and ignoring the threat posed by a 2 million man highly experienced army.

          • 10 months ago
            Anonymous

            Ignoring China then was criminal. It had been in an all out, Eastern Front tier civil war since 1911. The Chinese had fought a developed nation with the Japanese and fought the KMT armed with modern weapons. They were a poorly supplied but extremely veteran army. Only way to win was to maximize the dominant US advantage in heavy weapons. Ridgeway did this and turned the war around, but MacArthur created the worst out and out routs in US history, not to the British, the Germans, or even the Japs, but against Chinese with small arms.

            A digression I know, but frick Macarthur.

  3. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    too heavy and hard to shoulder fire accurately for the majority of soldiers. Average height and weight of US infantrymen was like 5'8 145lbs.

  4. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Too fricking heavy and expensive, and the Garand outclassed everyone else's standard-issue rifles from the start anyway.

  5. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Not sure. I think there were a lot of morons in the US Army back in the day, and maybe the BAR was “complicated” to use

  6. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    The bar was not a good weapon, this isnt even something debated anymore.

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      Heavy as shit and if everyone is a machine gunner, who is the ammo guy who keeps it supplied?

      But it wasn't bad enough not to keep in service into the 60s.

      • 10 months ago
        Anonymous

        >But it wasn't bad enough not to keep in service into the 60s.
        Military Speak for god damn expensive enough to might as well use for another 20 years.
        Even the Thompson was technically in service til 1971.

        All Smaller Arms in WW2 with the exception of the M2 .50 And the M1 Garand were over engineered or just outdated as shit but functional in the onset of WW2.
        M1 Happened to be pretty much the ubiquitous service rifle, and the Thompson still worked pretty well but expensive and complicated.
        Everything else is pretty poor comparatively, especially the BAR. It does all of it's jobs poorly. Low Ammo, heavy big ass box mags, full auto basically useless unless supported well mounted. Had it been able to take the belts from the 1919 it could have been excellent though.

        I'll give the 1919 a break, i mean alot of countries went full moron but Germany when it came to LMGs, and compared to alot of other, the 1919 was okay, just outdated as frick

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          The Springfield 1903 still has the longest service life of any rifle in the US. It was an exceptional rifle for WWI and still good for WWII, and then a fine DMR for a while. My grandfather had one as a regular service rifle originally after the US entered the war.

        • 10 months ago
          Anonymous

          the M1919 was a medium machine gun, not an LMG
          it was about average for its role, only downside being awkward to fire standing and its weight

    • 10 months ago
      Anonymous

      the BAR was outdated but still effective
      other than its anemic 20-rnd magazine, it ended up being serviceable in the LMG Role

      the breda 30 or type 96 are actual not-good weapons

  7. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because with the exception of full auto fire whose value is very situation dependent. The Garand is better in every way.

  8. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because the M1 Garand was perfectly acceptable and already provided american squads with a firepower advantage over their german counterparts.
    Why waste money equipping your infantry with an expensive weapons platform that isn't going to provide much of an advantage.

  9. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    Americans are generally too weak to handle BAR no gun fricking tourist

  10. 10 months ago
    Anonymous

    It weighs 10kg you Moron

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *