1920-1950: Alternative 'little' arms and ammo (3 Viewers)

[tomo pauk]

A 1980s YU company had much more firepower in total than a 1938-40 company in just about any army.
The support platoon/s could take over the long-range fire mission for the company/battalion.

Making decisions in peace time should take a lot of factors into account. In war time things can be over-looked,

No surprises there.

If there are fewer belt-fed MGs of tripods, no recoilless rifles and no 82mm mortars at company level what takes their place, however poorly?

Historically - instead of RLRs, infatry guns were used in most of the armies. The other two crew-served weapons were a known quantity even in ww1, so it was up to the armies of the 1930s to mix and match their gear.

What was the scale of issue of radios in YU infantry companies to call for artillery support for targets 1000-2000 meters away?
What was the transport situation? how many trucks or even tractors pulling trailers per company?

Incomparably better than what a big & typical 1930s army will have.

Germans also had training issues and not just with rifle training. They were running out of NCOs and junior officers that could plan offensive and defensive actions using different weapons in small groups. Just having a variety of weapons does not mean that commanders can use them in an integrated fashion.

It is not that I'm applauding the Germans and their decision that StG is for everyone, just to denote that sometimes the over-simplification might occur.
For the best number of armies/militaries, they will want a good mix of infantry weapons, just like they wanted the best mix of mortars, artillery, trucks, tanks and aircraft. 'Horses for courses' and all that.

The US Army has been rather schizophrenic over the last 80-90 years about small arms.

Might use that as a sig

Post WW II logistics are much better and that is at all levels. Even in the 1930s intermediate cartridges may have made sense but the doctrine needed to accommodate them.
If you are going to issue 400 meter rifles instead of 800 meter rifles what else are you going to give the platoon, company and battalion commanders to fight with in the 400-800meter range band? Even if it is just radios to call in regimental (4.2in/120mm) mortar fire. Such mortars could be 1000-2000 meters (more?) from the company commanders positions.

Mortars, infantry guns, full-power MGs, LMGs, snipers - all the usual suspects, and stuff known to work before 1920.

 

[Shortround6]

Mortars, infantry guns, full-power MGs, LMGs, snipers - all the usual suspects, and stuff known to work before 1920.

True. But we are looking at it from a very modern perspective.
It is 80 years since the end of WW II. It was about 75 years from the end of the American Civil war and the start of WW II.
Those 75 years saw the end of muzzle loading rifles and the start of cartridge firearms, but it took another 25-30 years for black power to really go away.
Leaving the Americans and their "armed mobs" aside the French and Germans were duking it out in 1870-71 with Chassepots and Dreyse needle guns that were both breechloaders with paper cartridges.
Before the Crimean war infantry weapons and artillery had remand static for around 200 years and so had the tactics. What worked when an officer was a young Lieutenant in his 20s still worked when he was general in his 60s. With Crimean war that changed and changed fairly rapidly. Before books could be written and widely distributed (and absorbed) some other invention/development made the existing book/s out of date. Practical ranges and rates of fire went up by leaps and bounds. Practical ranges were still governed by men lining up shoulder to shoulder, often in two ranks (more?) and shooting at other large masses of men. With smokeless powder, higher velocity and repeating rifles ranges got pushed out even further. in order to be "safe" field artillery had to pushed back even further. French 75 changed that somewhat. But now we are only 42 years from WW II. French 75 was one of the first guns it was worth putting a shield on because it didn't move 3-6ft with every shot and needed to be manhandled back into firing position. Gun crew could stay behind the bullet proof shield and fire shrapnel shells at the enemy direct fire.
Things slowed down somewhat from around 1900 to 1916-17. The tripod mounted machine gun really came into it's own and pretty much eliminated maneuver on the battlefield or at least maneuver in the 'classical' sense. See how long bayonet charges with closely spaced men took to finally go away. French were pushing "walking fire" or "marching fire in 1916-17.

Marching fire - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Apparently, some American officers were still pushing in much of WW II. Some were not.
But even the Americans were calling for support weapons like 81 mortars and heavy machine guns to provide suppressive fire.
Many armies did learn from WW I, it just took 10-15 years for some lessons to really sink in. Horse cavalry did not really end in many armies until the mid 1930s? Ceremonial use aside?

From Crimea and onward the 'rifle' was a very important part of the battlefield and no longer a convenient "thing" to hang a bayonet on after the artillery pounded the enemy position/s. Reducing the power and range of the rifle meant that other weapons (Mortars, infantry guns, heavy machine guns, snipers) would have to fill in or play a larger role.
Without battle experience will the lesser 'cost' of the smaller rifle/ammo balance the larger cost of the increased issue of support weapons?
It turns out that yes, better weapons are cheaper in the long run. For some reason the 'cost' of the soldiers did not seem to count for very much in some calculations.
Needing fewer soldiers to inflect the same number of casualties on the enemy (or loosing fewer of your own) doesn't come up as much.

Snipers/DMR are very effective per man. They also cost a lot to train, and not all men can actually do it. The heck with 1000 meter legendary kills. Just trying to hit at 600-800 meters with WW II equipment was not easy. Maybe 400-600 meters with any sort of regulatory.
British at times in WW II had 2-4 men per battalion or sometimes 2 per company. Trying for 2 per platoon or 1 per squad means a lot more rifles and a lot more training.
And again, this is for WW II standards and not even American/Viet Nam standards.

 

[tomo pauk]

True. But we are looking at it from a very modern perspective.

Infatry guns were a thing from the time of Gustav Adolphus and the 30 years war; the king was very keen to have these in his ranks. Sharpshooters were also a thing well before ww1, eg. soldiers issued with over-under guns - one barrel was more tight than another, for a more precise shot, another was a bit wider for easier reloading, or just the rifles with rifling in the US CW.
Mortars were all the rage alredy in the Great War, ditto the LMGs and heavy MGs. Gatling guns did the untold damage to the enemies of the US Army, as well as to these of the British collonial forces in the 19th century.
The semi- and full-automatic hand-held weapons - besides the LMGs - were also entering the service in 1918. The RSC rifles were made in about 90 thousand, the Mondragon rifles were also used. The almost assult rifle was made by Fedorov, that checks alls the boxes - can fire in bursts controlably while being hand-held, it has what can pass as an intermediate carridge, has a detatchable magazine. The SMGs were introduced, as well as stocked pistols, both semi-auto and full-auto. Ribeyrolles 1918 was in the works, the BAR was actually introduced (another weapon that would've been much more useful if tailored for a less powerful cartridge).
(granted, it was a bit too complicated, but that goes for every new machine in a category)
Italians almost introduced an intermediate cartridge & a weapon for it in the 1920s, while the Germans thikered with an intermediate 7mm.
Many countries have had 6.5mm cartridges, these woul'de been just fine in a semi-automatic and in a full-auto hand-held weapon. Either of these will make a better intermediate cartridge than the 7.92mm Kurz.

tl;dr - the dots were there, trick was to connect them

Without battle experience will the lesser 'cost' of the smaller rifle/ammo balance the larger cost of the increased issue of support weapons?
It turns out that yes, better weapons are cheaper in the long run. For some reason the 'cost' of the soldiers did not seem to count for very much in some calculations.
Needing fewer soldiers to inflect the same number of casualties on the enemy (or loosing fewer of your own) doesn't come up as much.

Sorta yes and no?
The cost in human lives was not fully lost on, at least, the British and French. It soured the taste of a peer war for the British for the next 20 years, and French were looking disfavorably at what they can mobilize in the 1930s vs. in the 1910s.
Granted, a lot of the painful lessons were forgotten, in all the countries.

 

[z42]

What might've been the alternatives to these developments, and was there some weapons and/or ammo that warranted a second look? Steal the idea from a friend or a fow? Double down with something that was, in perspective, an advantage? Granted, there will not be the 'one size fits all' to happen, nor everyone will have the resources to diverge a lot from what was made historically, but still.

I suppose the big thing would be to somehow invent the concept of the assault rifle earlier? The concept of gas operated self loading mechanisms was certainly well known by then. Then again, I suppose there was an entirely justified fear of whether the logistics could keep up if you gave each infantryman a semi or even full auto weapon. The US could do it with the Garand rifle (as an example of a semi-auto weapon, not an assault rifle as such), other combatants maybe not so much?

But if we're staying with bolt action rifles, the advantages of an intermediate cartridge may not be worth it?

I'd start out with two, IMO, obvious changes - Italians forget the 7.3mm and 8mm Breda, and go with existing 7.7mm and the spitzer bullet for the 6.5mm. Together with 9mm, that overs all the small arms needed, from rifles to thick-barreled MGs for vehicles. Saves them a lot of money and time, while improving the overall firepower. Of course, make something else instead of the good-awful 6.5mm LMG.

Adopting a Spitzer bullet for the 6.5 and forgetting the 7.35 adventure seems like such an obvious choice for the Italians that I wonder what we're missing when they decided to go for the 7.35 instead.

As for the 8mm Breda, instead of reinventing the wheel here, just adopt the 8x57 IS (also called 7.92x57 Mauser) that was already well established and widely used in the region by that point. Question then is do you want the squad LMG in 6.5 or 8mm?

7.7mm, while already in use, was AFAIU used only by the air force, so the volumes were way smaller than what the army needs. If anything, the air force should be thinking about moving to HMG's or even autocannons rather than spreading use of the 7.7mm wider.

For pistols and SMG's, 9x19 is certainly good enough, no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Oh, and for all combatants, realize a pistol or revolver is not a battlefield weapon, give frontline officers a SMG instead. Shooting a pistol accurately is surprisingly difficult, even more so when under the stress of combat. Might also help make officers a less conspicuous target when they're not waving a pistol around.

 

[tomo pauk]

I suppose the big thing would be to somehow invent the concept of the assault rifle earlier? The concept of gas operated self loading mechanisms was certainly well known by then. Then again, I suppose there was an entirely justified fear of whether the logistics could keep up if you gave each infantryman a semi or even full auto weapon. The US could do it with the Garand rifle (as an example of a semi-auto weapon, not an assault rifle as such), other combatants maybe not so much?

But if we're staying with bolt action rifles, the advantages of an intermediate cartridge may not be worth it?

Inter-war, at least the French, Germans, Soviets and Americans were not just looking beyond the bolt-action rifle, but were also investing good money to get to the mass produced - or at least series-produced - semi-automatic rifle. Soviets even tried with the full-automatic rifle with the AVS, that was not a good idea.
Taking a long, hard look at the Fedorov's Avtomat and making it simple should've brought the firepower of an infantyr unit as the end result.

Adopting a Spitzer bullet for the 6.5 and forgetting the 7.35 adventure seems like such an obvious choice for the Italians that I wonder what we're missing when they decided to go for the 7.35 instead.

+1 on that.

As for the 8mm Breda, instead of reinventing the wheel here, just adopt the 8x57 IS (also called 7.92x57 Mauser) that was already well established and widely used in the region by that point. Question then is do you want the squad LMG in 6.5 or 8mm?

7.7mm, while already in use, was AFAIU used only by the air force, so the volumes were way smaller than what the army needs. If anything, the air force should be thinking about moving to HMG's or even autocannons rather than spreading use of the 7.7mm wider.

Autocannons are needed, the Italians did a good job with their 20mm AA guns, apart from mass producing them /:
Anyway we cut it, the 8mm Breda was reinventing the whell - not good when the budgets are tight, and industrial might is lacking in the era of ever more expensive mil tech.

For pistols and SMG's, 9x19 is certainly good enough, no need to reinvent the wheel here.

Oh, and for all combatants, realize a pistol or revolver is not a battlefield weapon, give frontline officers a SMG instead. Shooting a pistol accurately is surprisingly difficult, even more so when under the stress of combat. Might also help make officers a less conspicuous target when they're not waving a pistol around.

Fine by me

 

[tomo pauk]

Case for the 'non-standard' ammo types, like the 10mm and ~15mm? Mostly for aircraft, but not limited to.

French necked-down the 11mm Lebel to 8mm, so it can take advantage of the new propellants and new, modern bullet. Necking out the 8mm to 10mm, obviously with even the newer materials and propellents, might've gave them a MG that carries a lot of incendiary material, perhaps twice that a current 8mm has. The resulting weapon will still be handy and practical, both as a defensive weapon (unlike the Hispano cannon), even as a twinned installation, or as a replacement for the LMGs in the fixed instalation.
Necked-down German MG 131 ammo, as well as the 11.35 Madsen ammo to 10mm might've been good to pierce the light armor on the aircraft and even the light vehicles. Germans were actually mooting the MG 131/8 and 131/10 for these purposes, but I'mnot sure this ever materialized.
The resulting guns will never equal the sinlge-shot power of full-power HMGs like the .50BMG or the Beresin, but will be handy, compact, and well suitable for hand-held positions and turret installations. For the German gun, this also removes the pipsqueek HE shell for the 13mm from being made, thus saving them a pretty penny.
Installation as the pintle guns on vehicles should be very easy.

15mm - I would not go with the very powerful historical types, but the more modest guns, talk ~750 m/s instead of ~950 m/s, since the historical 15mm guns were of size and weight of the 20mm cannons of the day. The 13mm round from the Great War will be a suitable candidate here as a parent cartridge, but a bespoke rimless catridge will also do. Action - Browning is fine, so is the API/Oerlikon and so are the newer developments. We might get a 25-30 kg gun for the aircraft use, and heavy-barreled 35-40 kg gun for ground use?
Usage case - aircraft, both as fixed and movable gun, but also as the light AA gun; firing the self-destructing HE shells instead of AP(I) ammo as on the HMGs will be much healthier to the friendly troops.

 

[Shortround6]

Infatry guns were a thing from the time of Gustav Adolphus and the 30 years war; the king was very keen to have these in his ranks.

The thing was that while infantry guns of the time ( early 1600s to early 1880s?) were powerful they had range problems of their own. muzzle loading cannon could, with most types of ammo, out range muskets for effective range.
This was no longer true when minie balls showed up in the 1850s. Or at least the ranges got a lot closer. By the time the cannon backed up enough to get out minie ball range they were out of cannister range and had to use solid shot or shell which had it's own problems, although solvable.

Sharpshooters were also a thing well before ww1, eg. soldiers issued with over-under guns - one barrel was more tight than another, for a more precise shot, another was a bit wider for easier reloading, or just the rifles with rifling in the US CW

Sharpshooters existed, but they were not common for a number of reasons. Cost was one.

Mortars were all the rage alredy in the Great War,

Mortars go back to nearly medieval times. Modern mortars (steel tube) date from about 1915/16. Germans had muzzle loading mortars in 1914 but they were usually with the engineers for attacking fortifications. They were also complicated, expensive and heavy. British Stokes mortar was light, cheap, crude and in WW I rather short ranged, 800 yds? British improved that to around 1600yds in the 1920s or early 30s and then sat on their hands while everybody else went to Brandt's shop and bought mortars with 50-100% more range. But that is in the 30s for most nations.

ditto the LMGs and heavy MGs. Gatling guns did the untold damage to the enemies of the US Army, as well as to these of the British collonial forces in the 19th century.

All very true and in WW I the US and British changed their full power rifle ammo to gain roughly 1000 yds of effective range from the tripod mounted heavy machine guns. Everybody was scrambling to add more range to their guns had had been for a number of decades. However, they were pushing things beyond visible/observable range except in the most extradentary circumstances. The mortars in most armies took over a lot of 2000-4000yd work but that took a while.
Even small support weapons (mortars and water-cooled machine guns) needed extra transport.

 

[Shortround6]

Taking a long, hard look at the Fedorov's Avtomat and making it simple should've brought the firepower of an infantyr unit as the end result.

It might have. I have trouble with the 6.5 Arisaka and Carcano as "intermediate" rounds. Yes they were less powerful than the US .30 cal or German 7.9mm but they are sbout 25% more powerful than the Soviet 7.62x39. This is mainly through using heavier bullets so recoil reduction is sort of marginal? overall length with existing bullets is also close so reduction in size of the action/s is also minimal. Except for comparisons to the US .30-06 was 6-9mm longer than just about anybody else to begin with.
For some reason ammunition consumption was a big, bit fear in many armies in the 1920s and 30s. Armies were presented with workable semi-auto guns for 30 years before WW II.
Maybe not the best but many armies rigged the requirements so no design was going to actually pass.
The insistence that semi-auto guns not use detachable magazines to keep soldiers from losing them tends to negate the improved firepower.
A lot times it was not technical ability that was holding things back but poor thinking.
Poor goals lead to poor decisions. What do you want the ammo and new gun/s to actually do? Cheaper manufacture? less raw materials? Less recoil for easy of training? lighter guns for easy of carrying (and can lug more ammo)?
Is there a minimum barrier test? What thickness gun shield penetrated at what distance? Perhaps you can move the distance 200 meters closer? OR????

French necked-down the 11mm Lebel to 8mm, so it can take advantage of the new propellants and new, modern bullet. Necking out the 8mm to 10mm, obviously with even the newer materials and propellents, might've gave them a MG that carries a lot of incendiary material, perhaps twice that a current 8mm has. The resulting weapon will still be handy and practical, both as a defensive weapon (unlike the Hispano cannon), even as a twinned installation, or as a replacement for the LMGs in the fixed instalation.

The French and British had used the 11mm Gras cartridge as a machine gun round in WW I with a light-weight incendiary bullet. It was a stopgap in 1917 and would be even less satisfactory in 1930s and later. They got a 17.5g bullet up to about 610m/s and you aren't going to get much more out it than that. You just don't have enough powder capacity.
The 11.35 Madsen is just over 2mm larger in diameter and the body is longer due to the shorter neck.
If you are going to design new guns in 1920s/30s just design a new cartridge case and not try to use legacy manufacturing equipment from the 1870s?

Necked-down German MG 131 ammo, as well as the 11.35 Madsen ammo to 10mm might've been good to pierce the light armor on the aircraft and even the light vehicles. Germans were actually mooting the MG 131/8 and 131/10 for these purposes, but I'mnot sure this ever materialized.

Do you want a hole puncher or do you want incendiary?
Germans mooted a bunch of things, a lot of them were not practical in real life. The entire German 7.92mm AT gun saga should have been shit canned before they made a single metal part. The goal is NOT to put a hole through the armor. The Goal IS to damage what is behind the armor.

15mm - I would not go with the very powerful historical types, but the more modest guns, talk ~750 m/s instead of ~950 m/s, since the historical 15mm guns were of size and weight of the 20mm cannons of the day. The 13mm round from the Great War will be a suitable candidate here as a parent cartridge, but a bespoke rimless catridge will also do.

German 13mm WW I cartridge was close to the American .50 in size.
It was supposed to fire a 52gram projectile at 770-785m/s
Very similar to French 13.2mm Hotchkiss.

German 13mm on the right. French Hotchkiss may be the Bespoke rimless case?
There was a problem in some countries getting good propellent powder for some cartridges.
US added about 350-380fps to the US .50cal only in 1940 with a new powder.

 

[tomo pauk]

It might have. I have trouble with the 6.5 Arisaka and Carcano as "intermediate" rounds. Yes they were less powerful than the US .30 cal or German 7.9mm but they are sbout 25% more powerful than the Soviet 7.62x39. This is mainly through using heavier bullets so recoil reduction is sort of marginal? overall length with existing bullets is also close so reduction in size of the action/s is also minimal. Except for comparisons to the US .30-06 was 6-9mm longer than just about anybody else to begin with.

Yes, these cartridges - especially the Arisaka? - are a bit on the powerful side. The energy figure for the 80cm (!) Arisaka rifle barrel is mostly quoted, though; firing them from the 'normal' barrel lengths shows as low as 660 m/s on the Fedorov's gun. 660 m/s instead of 770 m/s will bring down both the felt recoil and, especialy, the muzzle energy. Talk about 2000-2100 J instad of 2600-2700, IOW in the ballpark of the AK-47.
FWIW, the 6.5mm Carcano from the short barrel did about 2300J at 660 m/s, with a 10g bullet vs. 9g of the Arisaka.

Granted, a bespoke 6.5mm intermediate cartridge, perhaps something of 6.5x45 dimensions and of ~2000J would've been the best?

For some reason ammunition consumption was a big, bit fear in many armies in the 1920s and 30s. Armies were presented with workable semi-auto guns for 30 years before WW II.
Maybe not the best but many armies rigged the requirements so no design was going to actually pass.
The insistence that semi-auto guns not use detachable magazines to keep soldiers from losing them tends to negate the improved firepower.
A lot times it was not technical ability that was holding things back but poor thinking.

Agreed a lot.
A way towards a modern intermediate cartridge to be introduced might've been the decision to go with semi-auto rifles + a box-fed LMG in the same calibre. A switch to the assault rifle should be very easy and timely in the later day.

If you are going to design new guns in 1920s/30s just design a new cartridge case and not try to use legacy manufacturing equipment from the 1870s?

It is sorta the engine business - the nominal dimensions remain the same, materials and production are modern? But I have nothing vs. the all-new cartridge.

Do you want a hole puncher or do you want incendiary?
Germans mooted a bunch of things, a lot of them were not practical in real life. The entire German 7.92mm AT gun saga should have been shit canned before they made a single metal part. The goal is NOT to put a hole through the armor. The Goal IS to damage what is behind the armor.

A 10mm MG that sends the bullet downrange at 1000 m/s - I'd prefer a hole puncher. That kind of MG will weight 15-20 kg.
A 10mm MG that does ~750m/s - I'd prefer that incendiary ammo is the main type. These guns should've been possible at about 12 kg, even 10 kg if we can use more fancier materials and really new tech?

Germans mooted a bunch of things, a lot of them were not practical in real life. The entire German 7.92mm AT gun saga should have been shit canned before they made a single metal part. The goal is NOT to put a hole through the armor. The Goal IS to damage what is behind the armor.

Oh, yes, they would've done themselves a better deal if they went with something like the "Tankgewehr+", IOW a souped-up 13mm.
Aircraft MGs that pierce the head armor or the BP glass will probably kill a pilot - there is far more of empty volume in a tank than it is in a cockpit, and oftentimes there is nobody to jump into the pilot's seat after teh pilot is incapacitated. Also, the aircraft MGs will send a rain of bullets towards the enemy vs. the AT rilfles sending a handful towards the tank (if they are lucky). Better have the AP shot counts in the later case.

German 13mm WW I cartridge was close to the American .50 in size.

Advantage of the ww1 13mm cartridge is that it is semi-rimmed, so the push towads 15mm still leaves a place for headspacing. Yes, mix up the new powders etc. for the 1930s.

 

[Elan Vital]

FWIW the French did push a modern 11x78mm cartridge for aircraft HMGs for much of the interwar period (the 13.2mm caliber wasn't used in planes and presumably 11mm was found more optimal for what they wanted to do), but it was always in an awkward position between the 7.5mm MG (Châtellerault was also waiting to make belt-feed 7.5mm work before focusing on the 11mm as it was to be belt-fed with at least 250 rpg) and 20mm autocannons.

For ground calibers, they ended up settling on 8mm Mle 32N bullet in a modern rimless case in late 1939, so perhaps if they had been more prescient they could have settled for this from the start in the late 20s for MGs with heavy bullet, instead of the heavy 7.5 Mle 33D bullet and 9x66mm light AA bullet. Then they'd have a more simple combo of light bullet 7.5mm Mle 29C for rifles, LMGs and tank MGs and modern 8mm for fortress MGs and MMGs.

 

[Shortround6]

Granted, a bespoke 6.5mm intermediate cartridge, perhaps something of 6.5x45 dimensions and of ~2000J would've been the best?

It certainly has possabilities.

It is sorta the engine business - the nominal dimensions remain the same, materials and production are modern? But I have nothing vs. the all-new cartridge.

I have used two different 6.5mm cartridges as you may remember. The first was simply necking the 7.62x51 down to 6.5mm bullets. Goal was to put holes in paper at 300-600yds with less recoil while matching (mostly) the trajectory and wind drift of the 7.62x51 using a 10.9 gram bullet. Constraints were (not having lots of money) were being able to buy 300-500 empty brass cases and not having to modify the rifle very much (use existing bolt face and extractor).
Swedish 6.5x55 would certainly do the job but factory brass was expensive (many times what 7.62x51 was at the time) and 6.5 Swedish is just a bit bigger (about the thickness of 2 sheets of paper) around the backend. 6.5 Carcano and Arisaka brass was not cheap either and they use a thinner case which might need a custom extractor.
Turns out the 6.5x51 case had more room for powder than I needed and after around 5 years I had a new rifle built in 6.5 Rem BR (6mm Rem BR necked up) which is 6.5x39 or 6.5x51 with 12mm taken out of the case length. Same rim and body diameter as the 7.62X51.
It will do about 790m/s with 7.77g bullets fairly easy (2430 joules). It may be a bit over what is wanted but I have no doubt that a slightly shortened Arisaka or Carcano case would do the trick. It may not punch armor like 7.62x51 NATO or carry as much incendiary but it will shoot flatter than 7.62x39 and hit harder when it gets there (more streamline bullet). The short round needs about 85% of the same propellent to get the same velocity (if I want I can get 80-90m/s out of the bigger case).
I don't think the short round would be a good Assault Rifle case/round. It just looks a little too short and fat and may give feeding troubles. Good feeding beats a few mms off the groups size.

Left to right.
6.5 Carcano
.276 Pedersen
6.5 Grendel (my round is a bit fatter)
7.62x39
7.62x45 Czech.

.276 Pedersen doesn't kick as bad as a .30-06 but it may kick somewhat more than the 7.62x39 and you sure don't get a smaller gun. You also don't save as much in raw materials.

 

[tomo pauk]

7.62x45 Czech.

This one, but necked-down to 6.5mm might've been just the ticket pre- and in ww2.

.276 Pedersen doesn't kick as bad as a .30-06 but it may kick somewhat more than the 7.62x39 and you sure don't get a smaller gun. You also don't save as much in raw materials.

Agreed.
What the .276 might've offered is more rounds in the clip of an alt M1 Garand, 10 vs 8, and would've made that rifle, as well as the BAR and Johnson LMG being much more comfortable to use, and to be lighter (although the Johnson's gun was very light to begin with).

 

[Shortround6]

M. Johnson jumped through hoops trying to get to get his guns approved. One thing he did was to provide for "topping up" the magazine with loose rounds or even 5 round stripper clips (same as the 03 used) while keeping a round in the breech ready to fire. How important this was I don't know but trying to get around the built-in magazine (detachable was not allowed) problem took a lot of ingenuity and machine time and a higher parts count. Garand either didn't try or gave up. It might be possible to add rounds to an M-1 but I have no Idea how or how many hands and fingers it would take (or injure). Some committees can request all sorts of things. Actual usefulness can be doubtful. Some troops would eject a partial magazine/clip and just put in a full one.
Failure to change to box a magazine and provide spares was a major failing.

 

[tomo pauk]

Magazine feed was a normal feature on the BAR, so I'm not sure why it would be a bogaboo to have the Johnson LMG outfitted with one from day 1.
Granted, the US military views on the infantry weapons in the last 100 years is a story of it's own.

 

[Shortround6]

Magazine feed was a normal feature on the BAR, so I'm not sure why it would be a bogaboo to have the Johnson LMG outfitted with one from day 1.
Granted, the US military views on the infantry weapons in the last 100 years is a story of it's own.

Sorry I wasn't clearer. The Johnson LMG did use 20 round detachable magazines.

You could also use a 5 round stripper clip in the right side of the gun to fill the gun with 25 rounds and use 5 round stripper clips to top up the gun during pauses in firing.

It was the Johnson rifle that did not use a detachable magazine but could be loaded using 5 round stripper clips through a port in the side like the LMG. This was roughly 20 years after the BAR had the 20 round box magazine so I have no idea if the Army Committee didn't like box magazines or if Johnson was trying to offer something that Garand did not.
In a photo of 6 Johnson rifle prototypes the 1st had no magazine (and not stock, just bare metal) 3 had box magazines out the bottom and the last two have the curved built in magazine of the production guns.

 

[MikeMeech]

Hi
There have been some questions on WW1 weaponry and their use on this thread, so I am adding some information for interest (although most of this is from a British perspective). The book 'Battle Tactics of the Western Front - The British Army's Art of Attack 1916-18' by Paddy Griffith is a good general introduction to any discussion, it includes this info on weapons ranges:

The 'Fourth Army Tactical Notes' of May 1916 has interesting details of the thoughts on tactics and weapons of the time:

At this time the Lewis Gun was a 'company' weapon, it later became a platoon weapon after production had increased to meet demand (late 1916), also the 3 inch Stokes mortar is mentioned with it going forward with an advance. The problem was, as with other weapons, getting good supplies of ammunition forward. There are large numbers of 'after action' reports in War Diaries, some are also in the Official History publications, here is one from April 1917:

The organisation of platoons changed throughout the war, usually due the introduction of 'new' weapons; hand grenades, rifle grenades, Lewis Guns etc. Here is an extract from SS 143 giving the organisation in February 1917 (a lot of trials were undertaken before this was published):

This has one Lewis Gun per platoon, by the 100 Days in 1918 there was more likely to be two LG per platoon, as indicated by the GHQ I.G. Training Leaflet No.4 'Attack Formations for Small Units' of September 1918:

I hope that is of interest.

Mike

 

[tomo pauk]

Hi
There have been some questions on WW1 weaponry and their use on this thread, so I am adding some information for interest (although most of this is from a British perspective). The book 'Battle Tactics of the Western Front - The British Army's Art of Attack 1916-18' by Paddy Griffith is a good general introduction to any discussion, it includes this info on weapons ranges:

Many thansk for the excerpts.
The stated 300m 'normal' combat range of the .303 rifle is a pretty big surprise there.