Of the big four combatants in the ETO it's investment into small arms development seems to be the least. No semi-automatic rifle adopted, late adoption of the sub machine gun, no anti tank rockets for the infantry, no belt fed machine gun for the infantry. Why was the UK unable to field, even in limited numbers, modern domestic designs?
>Water cooled fixed machine gun weighing 80 lbs.
Good for static defensive positions.
Worthless for basically anything else. Mobility is king.
SMGs are not expensive.
The Lanchester and Thompson were for a country that was very much under the risk of an invasion
hmmmm
>no belt fed for the infantry
a belt fed used by the infantry
Moving the goalposts
i think after the succeses of operation compass they just didnt really give a fuck. second battle of el alamein just reinforced that.
didn't any fancy smancy semi autos a Lee Enfield, a bayonet and a load of norfmen guts were enough to send the hun running.
UK has economic crash along with France after ww1
>Why don't they have expensive guns?
You are comparing them to a dictatorship who spend 12% of their annual gdp on defense spending, and the United States
It's not like the M1 Garand was a relevant jump up in capability. A semi-auto rifle with a 8 round clip is just as shit as a bolt-action rifle with a 8 round mag.
Only the Germans were actually pushing the envelope on infantry rifles, stepping up to build the first assault rifles.
>tfw mexico did it before everyone else
Why did Mexico go from having a domestic industry at least on par with Italy or Japan's to being unable to make anything more sophisticated then a narco sub on its own?
Mexico would've been a first world country on par with france if they didn't try the whole socialism/ communist shit
mexican gun culture used to be based as fuck too, but the goverment banned guns after a mass shooting
>the mass shooting was done by the government
>but the goverment banned guns after a mass shooting
And now only cartels can have guns.
Same reason Argentina declined from a world leading economy to over 100% inflation today: shitty culture. Spanish retardism + catholicism intentionally keeping the population under-educated and deferential to authority.
>Why did Mexico go from having a domestic industry at least on par with Italy or Japan's to being unable to make anything more sophisticated then a narco sub on its own?
Single party rule from the socialist aligned PNR. Keep in mind every issue Mexico is facing is because of this.
>this is your brain on PrepHole
Here are Mexico’s exports.
>0.41% Liquid
>4.4% unclassified transactions
KEK
Mexico still looks undeveloped from that graph.
Danes and Italians were doing it before everyone with the m1896 and cei rigotti
>A semi-auto rifle with a 8 round clip is just as shit as a bolt-action rifle with a 8 round mag.
You're the dumbest motherfucker to ever post here.
>It's not like the M1 Garand was a relevant jump up in capability. A semi-auto rifle with a 8 round clip is just as shit as a bolt-action rifle with a 8 round mag.
It IS a big jump in production costs and engineering, though.
>A semi-auto rifle with a 8 round clip is just as shit as a bolt-action
I think you mean, "is just as awesome," cuz you're not a retard. You're not a retard, are you, anon?
>Only the Germans were actually pushing the envelope on infantry rifles, stepping up to build the first assault rifles.
Which required a whole different calibre to be produced and many thousands of which ended up sitting in warehouses due to a lack of magazines. Meanwhile the average German soldier was still riding around in a horse cart if he was lucky enough to have any transport at all.
>Only the Germans were actually pushing the envelope on infantry rifles, stepping up to build the first assault rifles.
Found the delusional weraboo.
How were the Swedes and Egyptians able to get a semi automatic rifle in frontline service? Even the Poles develope a semi automatic rifle that would have entered mass production had Germany not invaded in 1939.
Low IQ
Low IQ
>muh semi-automatic
Unless they had 30-round mags, it's inconsequential. 97% of infantry combat is suppression and not seeing the enemy. For those situations you need hundreds of rounds by design. Whether your clip-fed, full-power rifle is semi-automatic or bolt action doesn't really matter.
Low IQ
>97% of infantry combat is suppression
gl carrying around the ammo
NTA but German doctrine literally had riflemen carrying around extra ammo for the GPMG.
also to carry about spare barrels and an oven mit
god help the guy who has to move the tripod
That too. The rifleman was the GPMG's bitch. Sensible doctrine though.
Less effected by the great depression because they wernt as reliant as Britain on international markets, also way smaller army
Small nation, small military, fewer big ticket items like navies eating up the budget, can afford to splurge a little on the infantry rifle.
So then how were the US, Soviets, and Germans able to do it?
>US
Was a small army at the time, never mind being the richest nation on earth.
>Soviets
Once again, fewer big-ticket items like battleships eating up the budget, and even then they went full banic mode and went back to Mosins the moment shit went sideways.
>Germans
>implying
The Germans produced 150,000 G41 Rifles and 403,000 G43 rifles. They then went on to produce half a million MP43s/STG44s. The entire time the UK only had Enfields in mass production. There is no implying.
So, Germany changed it's main service rifle 3 times in 4 years. Yes, that is very much
>implying
and entirely typical of their schizophrenic need to always be changing shit up and fucking their production efficiency all to hell.
Ask me how I know you're entire frame of reference is hearts of iron.
>oh, no, he used a word that [GAME I DON'T LIKE BUT KNOW INTIMATELY] uses
Did you know that the design of the Tiger changed every six vehicles on average? The Germans are fanatic tinkerers, and when you are engaged in a fight with the majority of the world's industrial capacity over who can throw the most shit into a warzone, that is a very fucking bad thing to be.
Did you know Germany produced more Panthers than the UK did Cromwells? Did you know the US switched submachinegun production multiple times? Did you know the Soviets changed rifle and submachine gun production multiple times? Did you know the UK changed aircraft production constantly, like every other nation. Did you know that you're a retarded homosexual?
>Did you know Germany produced more Panthers than the UK did Cromwells?
And lost 70% of them to bad design and production. Yes, you're going to go "muh goalpost", but the shit you throw into a warzone does actually have to function to count.
>Did you know the US switched submachinegun production multiple times? Did you know the Soviets changed rifle and submachine gun production multiple times?
By making them simpler and cheaper, and thus increasing output by ever greater numbers. German small arms did the opposite.
>Did you know the UK changed aircraft production constantly, like every other nation
Wow, it's almost like air combat is particularly unforgiving of technological gaps, mandating that any air power go to great expense to keep on top of the game or suffer grievously. I wonder which Mongolian basket-weaving forum I heard about that on.
Brits made 4 million stens lol, don't just throw numbers around
>Soviets couldn't get a reliable self loading rifle until 1940 and even the SVT-40 wasn't that great. and then Germany invaded and they went back to bolt action production.
>Germany fucked around with a gas trap until 1943 when they finally got their deranged braincells together and copied the SVT-40.
>Egyptians able to get a semi automatic rifle in frontline service?
What?
>How were the Swedes and Egyptians able to get a semi automatic rifle in frontline service?
The swedes produced 30,000 m/42s starting in 1942. Egypt's production was post-war. Neither were during WW2.
>Even the Poles develope a semi automatic rifle that would have entered mass production had Germany not invaded in 1939.
Poles prioritised that sort of thing also like improving the BAR. Still would have taken them years to fully equip their frontline units alone and given that they didn't get them in service in time for the war that's kind of the point.
>Neither were during WW2.
How is 1942 not WW2
Neither nation was producing them while fighting in WW2 is what I meant. Sweden shitting out a tiny handful of rifles by ~1943 while at peace isn't anything like the UK equipping its frontline troops with rifles relevant to the war effort while being bombed and actively fighting.
The M1 Garand was a pre-war development. You have no excuse.
The M1 Garand is a different situation entirely to claiming Sweden and Egypt did something they did not do.
>mortgage the Empire for Lend Lease gibs
Costs savings. This
Because artillery, mobility and logistics win wars. The UK had an overhelming artillery advantage that rarely gets talked about. The BEF was 100% mechanised/motorised at the start of the war and our logistics were superb. Americans regularly mention the importance of logistics because they got a lot of it wrong and learnt some valuable lessons early on. Many of those from Britain.
Don't even get me started on combat medicine, our survival rate blew everyone else out the water, we were a decade ahead in terms of combat medicine, largely due to penicillin and casualty logistics. Burns and prothetics developments also get a big shout out.
Oh and the commonwealth had 26 million men fighting for it, it was fuck huge and less agile for rolling out kit.
That's the sad part about growing up and understanding warfare, small arms aren't really that important in the end.
The reference to medical care got me looking and I ended up going down a rabbit hole ending in the US military medical trucks. The amount of resources in the field...
Truck, 2 ½-Ton, 6×6, Dental Equipment for Dental Operating
Truck, 2 ½-Ton, 6×6, Laboratory, Dental
Truck, 2 ½-Ton, 6×6, Dental Operating
Truck, 2 ½-Ton, 6×6, Medical Equipment for Surgical Operating
Truck, 2 ½-Ton, 6×6, Optical Repair Unit (a truck for repairing spectacles)
Mostly untrue post.
Not liking something doesn't make it untrue
Correct, the post was still mostly bullshit though.
Post WW1 economic woes prevented development and adoption of viable British semi automatic designs, despite the fact they were enamored with the Winchester 1907's they acquired.
The Bren (and the ZB) were excellent LMG's much more suited to sustained fire roles than say a BAR.
The Vickers was adequate as a HMG but obsoleted by newer MMG's, there's a reason they adopted the Besa.
The Enfield No.4 has a higher rate of fire and better combat sighting than the equivalent mauser.
The Lancaster was a MP28/34 clone
The Sten was a dogshit oversimplification of said clone
PIAT was shit, but really they just needed a quick to develop way to throw a mass produced shaped charge beyond throwing distance, le Spigot mortar was the design they could mass produce.
If the war had lasted longer =
>All earlier than MkV Sten's get relegated to second line service.
>Mass issuance of the Patchett/Sterling SMG
>Ordnance 3.5-in Recoiless Rifle replaces PIAT in late 1945
>More HI powers
>PIAT was shit
>A contemporary (1944–45) Canadian Army survey questioned 161 army officers, who had recently left combat, about the effectiveness of 31 different infantry weapons. In that survey the PIAT was ranked the number one most "outstandingly effective" weapon, followed by the Bren gun in second place.[32]
It was a good enough weapon for the time, inferior to the Bazooka, but it wasn't shit.
If the round connected it would absolutely fuck whatever it hit up to be fair
I think the ability to fire it in enclosed spaces and odd angles is very under rated. The dance might not be great but in urban fighting, which is the only time infantry portable AT is really relevant, it's a pretty big boon
It was used alot against bunkers, buildings and infantry. Additionally it could be used as a pseudo mortar and was very quick to load.
It's not like as if any other the other combatants were any better. You probably have a counter-argument prepared for this obvious answer, but no doubt it will be based on cherry-picking, semantics and framing the question.
How were they not? The US, Germans, and Soviets all had semi automatic rifles in frontline widespread service. The US and Germany had belt fed machineguns for use within the infantry squad, the Soviets developed the RPD during the war even if they didn't adopt it until it was over. The US had the Bazooka and M18 Recoiless Rifles, Germany had the Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust. The US, Germany, and Soviets all had widespread use of submachine guns and didn't have to play catch up by mass producing a mediocre design such as the STEN.
>How were they not?
He was probably speaking of individual infantry training. The Soviets for instance were known to be notoriously incompetent in combat and won every single victory while suffering far more casualties than Nazis. The Russians of today have fully inherited the Soviet doctrinal incompetence for infantry combat.
Of course Britosh infantrybwas better than the Soviets. But the thread isn't about training or personnel quality, just the weapons they had.
>But the thread isn't about training or personnel quality, just the weapons they had.
Fair enough.
He called it, but you went ahead and posted your bullshit anyway. lmao.
How is any of that bullshit?
Bongs have to cope. It’s just the way it is
>Germans, and Soviets all had semi automatic rifles in frontline widespread service
lmao
>The US had belt fed machineguns for use within the infantry squad
The .30 was at high echelons, by that metric the British had them too
>Talked about the RPD for no reason
>Carefully worded the anti-tank to exclude the PIAT
>The US, Germany all had widespread use of submachine guns
Submachineguns were a tiny proportion compared to rifles, even for the Soviets.
>and didn't have to play catch up by mass producing a mediocre design such as the STEN.
Ignoring that everybody ended up mass producing an expedient submachinegun.
NTA but what a retarded post.
>The US, Germans, and Soviets all had semi automatic rifles in frontline widespread service.
Only US had viable semi auto inf mass production. Germans had low number and SVT was unredeemable dogshit that soviets dropped as hot potato.
MG 34/42 was ahead of the time indeed (just like US Garand) but that's it. Others dont have good deal with MGs. US lad lol BAR. Soviets MGs on paper were kinda of ok but was countered by terrible soviet logistics and TOE (people dont know but for their DP they had only 1-2 spare magazines IRL and soviet squads ended with pathetic 150-200 rds combat load for MG, smallest among all). Brits squad small arms were ok
Brist the had ok MG and ok rifle
Germans gad excellent MG but meh rifle
US had excellent rifle but dogshit MG
USSR squad had dogshit and power gap behind all. Their infantry had notoriously bad firepower and combat capability.
>catch up by mass producing a mediocre design such as the STEN.
Shittest SMG was actually Thompson. Because stupid boomer fudi faiv caliber. Two much recoil and poor burst accuracy, total fail despite good gun build. Sten is indeed looks trashy but does job ok, its not far behind PPSh and is on part with MP40.
>US lad lol BAR
>32 pounds
>first combat use in late 1943
>never replaced the BAR in most rifle squads
LMAO, cope.
>Germans had low number
150,000 G41 rifles
403,000 G43 rifles
>SVT was unredeemable dogshit
SVT38 sucked but the SVT40 was fine and there were 1.6 million made
>150,000 G41 rifles
A tiny number in the grand scheme of war and the G41 was a deeply flawed design. This would be production from 1941-1943 as well.
>403,000 G43 rifles
Still a fairly small number and that's production through to the end of the war.
500,000 total semi automatic rifles by 1945 is a low number for any serious military. To say otherwise means you have no idea what you're talking about.
>Germans gad excellent MG but meh rifle
>US had excellent rifle but dogshit MG
My dude, wtf are you smoking? The Mauser is probably the best bolt action rifle ever designed. Almost all bolt action rifles you can find in stores today are based on the Mauser design. Oh, but it's only "meh."
And the US had a "dogshit" MG? The M1919? Again, wtf are you smoking?
>The Mauser is probably the best bolt action rifle ever designed
for hunting. in a fight at combat ranges, its less effective than a SMLE, lower capacity and slower to cycle, and the round isnt any more effective either
bruh
>Almost all bolt action rifles you can find in stores today are based on the Mauser design.
Because it's a strong design that lends itself to larger magnum rifle cartridges, and is easy to produce. The Lee-Enfield is a much faster shooting bolt action, with double the capacity, better sights(aperture over leaf is not even a contest), and similar accuracy. The Enfield was a much better combat bolt action rifle.
Both get shit on by the M1 Garand.
>Shittest SMG was actually Thompson. Because stupid boomer fudi faiv caliber.
You are absolutely high. Or retarded. My money's on your being a retard who's high.
>Germans
>widespread semi automatic rifles in frontline service
Retard
>Gerrmans
>widespread use of submachineguns
Less retarded but still pretty dumb. The MP38 was slow and expensive to produce and the MP40 unsurprisingly didn't show up until 1940. Before then a lot of German SMGs were a smorgasbord of stuff from other nations they bought or stole.
>the Soviets developed the RPD during the war even if they didn't adopt it until it was over
If you want to go down that path then the SKS and Sterling are WW2 weapons and the latter actually was used in combat.
>The Germans didn't have mass produced semi automatic rifles
Do you wear a helmet to bed?
Add in half a million MP43s and StG-44s
>Do you wear a helmet to bed?
The G41 was a clunky and half-working glorified trials rifle produced in small numbers. The G43 was essentially an expensive SVT clone and finally got into service in small numbers in early 1944. Neither was particularly relevant and those are poor production numbers for actually equipping a lot of men since the lag time on getting them to the front is months.
>Add in half a million MP43s and StG-44s
Many of which didn't see service until the war was already lost yes. And many of which sat around in warehouses without magazines or ammo while frontline German troops were using last-ditch rifles made from scraps. ~500,000 guns produced years after they were needed really don't make much of a difference.
>The Germans producing over a million self loading rifles is irrelevant and means nothing. The UK wasn't behind and the The average bloke with an SMLE would not have done better had the UK produced a self loading rifle.
Is this your point?
>Is this your point?
From 1939-mid 1941 they had, in frontline service, 0 semi-automatic rifles.
From late 1941-1944 they had at most 150,00 half-working G41s in service + whatever SVT-40s they'd captured not counting for battlefield losses.
From 1944-1945 they had however many of the 400,000 G43s they actually managed to ship to the frontline in service.
So yes from 1939-1944 German production of semi-automatic rifles was essentially irrelevant on the battlefield. During this time the Germans were struggling to produce enough K98ks to equip their men without looting from conquered nations never mind having enough MP40s or MG34s both of which were lacking in number. Even when they finally did get into service they are not significant improvements over bolt action rifles in small numbers. Given that they were already at war the Germans would probably have been better to just produce more standard rifles or MP40s. The Soviets actually largely flipped back from SVT to Mosin-Nagant production for the same reason and they made many more SVT-40s in the first place.
You've decided to increase the scope to also talking about the MKb/STG series of rifles which are not full-power semi-automatic rifles but select-fire intermediate calibre rifles. In that case there's a bigger difference in actual effectiveness yes but the MKb barely totalled 8,000 rifles. The MP43 hit service in late 1943 and in decent numbers by 1944 where it ended up constrained by ammo and magazine availability since it needed its own cartridge unlike the G41/G43s.
>The UK wasn't behind and the The average bloke with an SMLE would not have done better had the UK produced a self loading rifle.
That's not the question. The question is if 10 men with SMLEs are better than 1 man with a half-working semi automatic rifle and 9 men with nothing. Everything in war is a trade-off and rushing to put prototypes into mass production in war is usually not worth it unless they are far superior.
>The question is if 10 men with SMLEs are better than 1 man with a half-working semi automatic rifle and 9 men with nothing.
That isn't the question, and that isn't the case. You're just handwriting away 1 million self loading rifles produced by Germany it's really astounding how you think that isn't insane. The question is why we're the British infantry hamstrung by having firearms that were behind the curve. Germany was being bombed into oblivion by 1944 and still produced half a million assault rifles. The USSRs industry was in ruins and totally reliant on lend lease and still produced 1.6 million semi automatic rifles. Why were the British the only major power in the ETO that lacked a corresponding rifle, even in limited numbers?
>Why were the British the only major power in the ETO that lacked a corresponding rifle, even in limited numbers?
Uneducated guess, but I suppose it was part conservatism (SMGs are gangster weapons) and part technological optimism (what do the rifles matter when they're going to be supported by armour at all times anyway)
The British started the war using Thompsons. The rapid expansion of the army at the start of the war + the high price of the Thompson pushed them to the sten.
They produced 4.5 million stens during the war, many of them being parachuted into Europe for use by resistance movements.
The NCO of a infantry section was equipped with sten. Airborne & marine units would have about 11 SMGs (stens or Thompsons) per a platoon.
I wouldn't say to British didn't understand the utility of SMGs, they produced and equipped them quite heavily. They were limited by quality outside of elite units though.
>The NCO of a infantry section was equipped with sten
This was the theoretical loadout for the Germans too but only for units that had the guns.
>I wouldn't say to British didn't understand the utility of SMGs, they produced and equipped them quite heavily. They were limited by quality outside of elite units though.
They definitely did at the start of the war. There was essentially no major smg production because they were seen as gangster guns. Anecdotally the British also loved to steal any MP40 they found.
>You're just handwriting away 1 million self loading rifles produced by Germany it's really astounding how you think that isn't insane. The question is why we're the British infantry hamstrung by having firearms that were behind the curve.
Until 1944 the British Infantry would not face Germans armed with such weapons. You are conveniently ignoring that fact. How could they be hamstrung by fighting an opponent with weapons that essentially did not exist? The weapons you actually have in the field matter.
>Germany was being bombed into oblivion by 1944 and still produced half a million assault rifles.
In large part because their opponents spent their resources more sensibly and had actual airforces yes. Prioritisation of resources and industrial capacity matters. The Germans were retards in a lot of ways famously by wasting their time on dumbshit like the V2 which famously killed more slave labourers than western civilians.
>The USSRs industry was in ruins
Large parts were shipped to safety.
>and totally reliant on lend lease
Which allowed them to focus on building small arms and tanks instead of trucks and ammo.
>and still produced 1.6 million semi automatic rifles.
As I already said they correctly identified that the SVT-40 was expensive and not wildly more effective and they actually swapped back to producing the Mosin and particularly the PPSh-41 and 43 in huge enough numbers to equip entire companies with them. Millions of PPSh-41s were produced in the time it took the Germans to shit out a handful of G41s.
>Why were the British the only major power in the ETO that lacked a corresponding rifle, even in limited numbers?
Because it wasn't identified as necessary and they preferred to focus on what worked in large numbers so they could use resources elsewhere.
And to really emphasise this: the UK produced ~4x as many STEN guns as the Germans did MP38/MP40s despite starting 2 or so years later and having a much smaller overall army meaning more submachineguns per soldier. Although a not-insignificant number did end up dropped over europe as resistance weapons too. Later variants largely solved the early reliability issues and as mentioned the MP40's magazine design was pretty similar and also had reliability issues when loaded to capacity or held incorrectly. The UK could have made a better submachinegun but they produced a cheap one and that was what was needed.
Even if you add all semi auto and assault rifle production you get ~2 million vs the STEN's 4 million again the latter for a smaller army so ignoring the fact they weren't really even in service until 1944 anyway the average British solider had a far higher chance of being armed with a submachinegun facing a german with a K98k than being armed than with an SMLE vs a G41/G43/MP43/MP44. Thus not hamstrung.
They did actually put an early version of the Sterling into field trials in 1944 with special forces making it compatible with STEN mags and they probably could have rushed that into service earlier but why bother? What worked worked and was around in large numbers.
>The question is why we're the British infantry hamstrung by having firearms that were behind the curve
They weren't.
Or essentially in either case you're saying realistically mid-late 1944 before you can talk about large numbers of men with either type of weapon. This is the same reason the UK never dropped .303 even though they'd planned to before WW1 because what they had was good enough and what matters is the equipment you have now for the budget and men you have now.
priorities mostly.
they started the war with an excellent bolt action rifle, a pretty good AT rifle (AT rifles as a type became obsolete but the Boys was good for a AT rifle in terms of weight accuracy and penetration capability) and a excellent LMG in the Bren
they also started the war with significant advantages in artilliery notably the 25lbr the 2lbr and the 3.7inch AA gun.
but for an island the navy and the airforce were always going to take more funding and in those the british had either a clear lead or parity at the wars begining in terms of technology and clear superiority over all but the USA by the wars end.
the PIAT is much maligned by everyone except those who read the combat reports.
but the main thing they did was focus on the areas that were actually decisive, developing better artillery in the 6 and 17lbrs for AT and better control and coordination for the field guns, better tanks and the universal carrier. better planes in the lancaster, the mosquito, typhoon and tempest. the infantry small arms were the least important area and received the least funding but even there the british started development of what was to become the EM2 which was leaps and bounds ahead of the american or soviet developments.
funds were limited and other things were more important.
>EM2
Oh that's neat, shame it was defeated by the US obsession with shoving unusable rounds in infantry rifles.
well yeah, the US fucked it up, my point was that the british small arms development and indeed weapons development in general in ww2 was a pretty intelligent and well thought out program with a logical allocation of resources
The extreme excellence of the the Bren delayed the need for a semi auto rifle; the Germans didn't have one and the BAR and DP suck so they needed to compensate by increasing the firepower of the rifleman.
>extreme excellence of the the Bren
Overhyped.
The MG42 is better at what the Bren does exclusively and fills many more roles.
>The Germans didn't have one
Retard
>The BAR sucked
Sure but the US had the 1919 which was better than the BREN in almost every way.
>The DP sucked
Retard
>Sure but the US had the 1919 which was better than the BREN in almost every way.
But not at the squad level.
What LMG did the germans have?
M1919 is an HMG not an LMG, its comparable (and probably better than) the Vickers, not the Bren.
>The DP sucked
>Retard
Why retard? the thing was garbo.
Ok Lindybeige
A bong infantry section with SMLE & Bren had a comparable weight of fire to an American one with M1s & Bren.
Bong small arms were fine, not an area where investment was a smart choice when resources were not infinite.
>Bolt actions are just as good as semi-automatics
How can you say this unironically?
the current pop history meme is that infantry weapons do not matter
They do, but not nearly as much as weapon nerds think they do.
I didn't say that. I said SMLE + Bren had a similar weight of fire as M1s + Bar.
The M1 was great. But the SMLE represented the peak of the previous generation of bolt action battle rifles. The difference in rate of fire wasn't massive, particularly when talking about aimed shots.
The Bren was just superior to the Bar, so made up any deficiencies of the SMLE in comparison to the M1.
>I didn't say that
>Goes on to say it's just as good as the M1
>Even if it isn't as good the BAR sucked and the Bren was better
That's not the point though. US infantry had access to beltfed machine guns, British infantry didn't.
Yeah that's not what I was doing. Learn to read.
The 1919A6 was dogshit but technically true anyway
>I said SMLE + Bren had a similar weight of fire as M1s + Bar.
No you didn't :^)
They made enough Stens that they were literally arming 4 out of 5 men with them for urban fighting by mid 44.
And after production issues were solved in mid-1942 they were generally reliable too. The earlier guns were by most accounts fine as long as you test-fired the batch to discard the failures and also held the magazine well not the mag.
>No semi-automatic rifle adopted,
Pretty common for most European participants because it's not necessarily worth the cost of adoption vs the hassle of re-equipping everyone when riflemen don't matter that much in the grand scheme of things and the SMLE was fine. Germans barely shit out enough G43s until very late in the war and that was after copying the Soviet design.
>late adoption of the sub machine gun
Autistic traditionalist officers at first though the Sten did eventually outproduce the MP40 despite the difference in industrial capacities and turned out to accidentally be an effective resistance weapon. Despite the common perception the Germans were very limited in SMG numbers for most of the war basically NCOs only with a similarly flawed magazine. The Thompson was wildly expensive and heavy. Soviets probably did the best of all until the grease gun.
>no anti tank rockets for the infantry
PIAT was more or less acceptable.
>no belt fed machine gun for the infantry.
Offset by the Lewis and Bren guns being pretty damn good.
The real answer though is everything is a trade-off. UK spent most of its resources on the Navy, followed by the air force and then for land forces on heavy motorisation/mechanisation leading to the BEF in 1940 actually being fully mechanised/motorised and again later in the war to the sheer spam of bren/universal carriers. Infantry equipment was way down the list of priorities and most of what they had worked and was interchangeable across the entire empire. Being able to know that the Indians from halfway around the world were using the same basic stuff as you was more important than minor improvements in combat performance. For elite units where it mattered like commandos they just bought Thompsons from the americans.
The sten gun...? And they didn't adopt a belt fed because the Bren was so good.
Hamstrung by the .303 round, being skint (that means having no money in British) and a bad habit of can kicking. I think it's clear from the EM-2 rifle that Britain was technologically capable of designing something better than a bolt-action, but for several compounding factors it didn't happen.
One thing the Germans and the British had in common during the later WW2 period was a serious manpower shortage. This is one primary reason the Germans were keen to adopt the MP44/STG44, in order to expand their infantry firepower and make up for having less infantry. I understand was their ultimate aim to replace every squad level weapon with an MP44, but they were obviously totally unable to do this before they lost the war. The British solution to shortages of manpower was, boardly speaking, to use the Royal Artillery and the RAF to flatten as much of Axis Europe as possible. The only reason they tempered this approach in occupied France and Benelux is due to a rather odd incident at the Battle of La Havre. However, in Germany no such considerations were made and practice coninued unabated. It's just one of those wartime problems that is solved by circumstance as much as anything. Germany was fighting a highly mobile war in the East against Red Army battalions equiped with LMGs and SMGs, plus they'd already been alarmed in 1941 when they saw the amount of semi-automatic rifles the Soviets had. If Britain had experienced similar events maybe they'd have done things differently, but what I'll call their "fix and flatten" approach was fine for the Western Front and Italy.
Plus think about all the extra tanks the Allies had by the later war period. I don't even know how that would change the calculation on this, and I don't want to know, I have to stop typing, this is too much words.
imho if we are talking about guns that saw larger use and not some unique
>best pistol:Browning Hi-Power
>best shotgun: M1897
>best smg: PPSH
>best bolt action: Enfield
>best carbine: M1 Carbine
>best semiauto: M1 Garand
>best assault rifle: Stg. 44
>best machinegun: MG-34
>best shotgun: M1897
Did shotguns see much use on WW2?
NTA but no, so by definition it probably was the best shotgun.
>best smg: PPSH
PPS-43 probably has it beat. Even cheaper and a better magazine design.
>best machinegun
LMG would be Bren but for an overall GPMG the MG34 easily wins.
The bren was better than the Mg34 at almost nothing.
Just for single/two-man highly mobile light mg work was my thinking, the things that being mag fed were a benefit for or basically the role the BAR filled in American thinking. But in practice it probably got pushed into the standard MG role that the MG34 was far superior in that's true.
>best
Depends on what metric you go by, it was cheap, easy to make and worked. But it was crude and had zero frills.
The Bretta 38 on the other hand was expensive and time-consuming to produce, but Germans and British alike would go out of their way to steal them for themselves and they were widely regarded as one of the 'best' SMG's for the end user.
The weapons we had were "good enough". Frankly, infantry weapons don't matter in the grand scheme of things as long as you have something which basically does the job.
Britain's priorities were a huge navy and air force. The army came very much last in funding and everything else. Bomber Command of the RAF alone had a bigger budget than the entire British Army.
By the end of the war, every fourth infantryman was equipped with a Bren gun, no need to introduce a complex new design mid-war.
1 in 7 at best
>In 1944, the establishment was increased 18,347 men, 6,525 sub-machine guns, 1,162 light machine guns, 359 mortars, 436 PIAT anti-tank weapons, 72 field guns, 110 anti-tank guns, and 4,330 vehicles.[113] Out of the overall total of men within the division, around 7,000 were frontline infantry and the rest allocated to the various divisional supporting arms and services.[119]
And this if the TOE was actually met which it usually wasn't.
The large majority of those 18k men are not infantry.
Holy shit an actual retard
Surely you mean Sten not Bren.
That is a ton of PIATs.
>No semi-automatic rifle adopted
only the US had widely-issued semi-autos
> late adoption of the sub machine gun
the had 1-2 SMGs per squad, same as the germans and more than the americans
they actually overproduced SMGs and could afford to have some units with more than standard-issue amount
it was really only the soviets who went overboard with SMGs, with 2 per squad, provisions for a third, and a dedicated platoon where all riflemen had SMGs instead
>no anti tank rockets for the infantry
by the time the US had the bazooka and the germans the panzerfaust, the british had the PIAT, since it first entered service in 1943
>no belt fed machine gun for the infantry.
other than the germans who used belt-fed MGs at the squad level, everyone used mag-fed LMGs (BAR, type 99, breda 30, DP MG)
the british also did possess the belt-fed vickers MG at the platoon level, which is how everyone who didnt load their machine guns with oversized clips or trays did it (italians and japanese)
>Why was the UK unable to field, even in limited numbers, modern domestic designs?
some british weapons were ancient, like the enfield and vickers
but that kind of held true for every country because a loot of them were still reeling from pre-war budget cuts and had to be selective about where they spent that
the US still used 1920s era designs like the M1919A4 and M1918A1
and the germans had the equally ancient K98
Age of design is insufficient evidence of obsolescence.
small island, millions of colonial troops to arm
differing priorities. It was actually the law that the UK had to have a navy: "maintaining a number of battleships at least equal to the combined strength of the next two largest navies in the world".
So I guess focusing on ship spam was the priority for the island nation
An englishman with state of the art weaponry is too OP and would make the muttified white armies look incompetent
>island Ziggers
>OP
Lol
Had your ass handed to you and your survivors and pacific fleet remnant literally fled to Africa
I like their weapons
The British Empire threw everything it had in WW1, and during the interwar years was facing a lot of anticolonial resentment on top of the usual economic woes eventually everyone would come to know. Add in the fact that an entire generation was basically maimed and traumatized by the war, to where it wasn’t uncommon to see entire villages that were effectively entirely depopulated from how many died, and very few were eager to start up into another large war unless they got backed into a corner. That said the Brits for the most part always relied more on artillery and especially the Royal Navy for military power, and looking at the typical small arms fielded in the war they weren’t really that out of the ordinary, and if anything fared a little better given the SMLE. America was really the odd one out with the fact that the Garand was the standard issue rifle, and even them the USMC were still primarily rocking Springfields along their tommy guns and shit well into 1943 before they got the M1.
>The British Empire threw everything it had in WW1, and during the interwar years was facing a lot of anticolonial resentment on top of the usual economic woes eventually everyone would come to know. Add in the fact that an entire generation was basically maimed and traumatized by the war, to where it wasn’t uncommon to see entire villages that were effectively entirely depopulated from how many died, and very few were eager to start up into another large war unless they got backed into a corner.
This applies to every single participant in WW2 baring the US. The bongs arguably suffered least of all the major participants of WW1, with a far lower casualty rate.
What about the French? From what little I know they had started producing some good semi-autos and machine guns but never in an amount that actually mattered due to boomer military leadership and socialists fucking with army budget.
better question would be why didnt any country beside Germany have proper belt-fed LMGs despite the MG34 being so old. The M1919A6 was a stopgap piece of shit so it doesnt count
Painfully obvious 'britain bad' by the fart huffer