Ideal rifle for ww2?

[Shortround6]

The idea behind the .30 carbine was to give the "2nd line troops" something more effective than a pistol and yet something less cumbersome than a full sized rifle. Giving them Springfields does away with that "advantage". I would note that many european countries had used short barreled carbines for some 2nd line troops although 2nd line isn't quite an accurate description of artillerymen, engineers(sappers) and other combat troops who's primary job is NOT weilding a rifle. The Springfield and SMLE had been given 24in barrels instead of the near standard 29-31in barrels of "full" sized military rifles and the 16-20in barrels of the carbines in the hope that one medium rifle could cover both uses.
Armies had changed from before WW I to the 1930s with many more troops being used in "auxiliary" roles, like truck drivers and support weapon crews. What rifle do you give mortar men if you expect them to carry either mortar parts (barrel, baseplate,etc) or mortar shells on backs or in hands? I believe the "idea" was that the short light carbine would be kept readier to hand (like on the soldier) more often than kept in a rack or stacked in a group at some not so convenient distance from where the work was being done. The US had issued a considerable number of pistols and the idea was that .30 carbine would replace a number of those. Full size bolt action rifles weren't really going to replace pistols and were not going to really free up any large number of full sized M 1 rifles for front line troops.

What the Ordnance Dept thought and what troops did in the field were often different things.

 

[Shortround6]

Couple of charts I found while poking around on the internet.
Windrift.

and for comparison

and for recoil

WW II rifle would weigh more than 7lbs

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

Hello The Basket,
There is no doubt that each case needs to be taken on a case by case basis.
The problem with that idea is that it gives no guidance as to weapons selection and caliber differences and we know there must be some differences.

That is the value of the Marshall statistics; When the results are collected from a significant number of shootings and compared, there are some noticeable differences.
When one caliber results in a one shot stop in 80% of known cases and another results in only a 50% one shot stop, one can be reasonably certain (assuming enough shooting cases) that the first caliber was superior.
When the result is a 65% to a 70% or one does not believe that there are "enough" cases to be meaningful, then the results are not as obviousl.
The raw data is useful. The conclusions are subject to debate especially if they are fairly close in percentages.

Regarding Movie Guns:
As I have always told my kids, Movie Guns are special.
In the hands of a bad guy, they usually miss. In the hands of the good guys, they often hit regardless of how unlikely or absurd that hit would be in real life. Movie Guns also have infinite magazine capacity and never run out of ammunition.
In Dirty Harry's case, the impact of a hit is often so powerful that it throws the victim backwards. Laws of Physics are irrelevant.
Dirty Harry's S&W Model 29 was special in yet another way: Unlike any gun I have ever seen, its barrel length changes depending on the scene and camera angle.to be even more intimidating when needed!

I wish I had a Movie Gun. I may not be a hero, but I think I am a good guy.
I would never need to practice or even to aim. Heck, I would not even have to have ammunition!

- Ivan.

We often, as lads and the Sat. afternoon Matinees and Westerns, wondered how the heroes and villains could keep on firing their Colt 6 shooters w/o ever reloading-and hit a target more in rifle range than for a Colt SA .45 revolver, while riding full tilt on horseback over rough terrain. Here's my "Movie Guns" FUBAR-- The great Clint Eastwood/Gene Hackman movie- Unforgiven: takes place in the West, WY? maybe, in a fictional town named "Big Whiskey"--1881-- near the end, when Hackman rounds up a volunteer posse, one of the members said something like this, if memory serves: "Hey, Little Bill (Daggett-Hackman's character)-- "blank name here-possibly owner of the town gunshop- "Won't give us any 30-30 shells on credit!" Sounds about right, the owner wanted to be paid in cash for any ammo- as always uncertain who would be coming back from such a "excursion" after desperadoes, right? OK- except the 30-30 Winchester didn't come on the scene until 1894- some 13 years later--

Want another, this one in the shotgun motif? OK- the movie "Tombstone" with Val Kilmer as Doc Holiday, Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp- the scene at the OK corral, "Doc" has the double barreled shotgun, fires his first shot skyward, and spooks the riders horse, then shoots the rider, and one more member of the Clanton gang- without ever opening the breech to remove the fired cases, and then reload the chambers- 3 shots from a 2 shot shotgun- some "Hat Trick"???

 

[Hansie Bloeckmann]

The idea behind the .30 carbine was to give the "2nd line troops" something more effective than a pistol and yet something less cumbersome than a full sized rifle. Giving them Springfields does away with that "advantage". I would note that many european countries had used short barreled carbines for some 2nd line troops although 2nd line isn't quite an accurate description of artillerymen, engineers(sappers) and other combat troops who's primary job is NOT weilding a rifle. The Springfield and SMLE had been given 24in barrels instead of the near standard 29-31in barrels of "full" sized military rifles and the 16-20in barrels of the carbines in the hope that one medium rifle could cover both uses.
Armies had changed from before WW I to the 1930s with many more troops being used in "auxiliary" roles, like truck drivers and support weapon crews. What rifle do you give mortar men if you expect them to carry either mortar parts (barrel, baseplate,etc) or mortar shells on backs or in hands? I believe the "idea" was that the short light carbine would be kept readier to hand (like on the soldier) more often than kept in a rack or stacked in a group at some not so convenient distance from where the work was being done. The US had issued a considerable number of pistols and the idea was that .30 carbine would replace a number of those. Full size bolt action rifles weren't really going to replace pistols and were not going to really free up any large number of full sized M 1 rifles for front line troops.
View attachment 481847
What the Ordnance Dept thought and what troops did in the field were often different things.

3 Garands in "tripod mode" with the front stacking swivels employed. My guess, early 1940=1941== I believe that later in WW11 the cotton webbing style sling replaced the leather sling-maybe not 100%, but cotton or fabric would hold up better to wet and nasty battlefield conditions, and would be way cheaper to mfg.-just my guess.. Hansie

 

[Shortround6]

Picture may be from modern re-enactors? But shows the problem of issuing full sized rifles to non-front line troops. They are going to put them someplace out of the way while they perform their normal duties. This was still a big problem in Vietnam and the mideast where infiltrators/suicide attackers were much more common than in WW II.

I had to search a few minutes to find this picture which is probably posed and/or taken for propaganda purposes as you have to look a lot to find an action picture of a gun crew with a rifle or carbine anywhere in the picture let alone slung over the backs of the gunners.

 

[BAGTIC]

Id have to agree on NOT using a rimmed cartridge for an autoloading or select fire weapon. I chose the M14 not only for the reasons stated earlier, but also for the cartridge it was designed around. The 7.62 NATO is 90% of a 30-06 in a shorter package, hits hard, has the range for nearly every conceivable engagement scenario, and a BAR or other squad automatic weapon would also be effective with the same cartridge.
Im not a big fan of intermediate cartridges. While the "average engagement" range is 300 meters, give or take, it really depends on the terrain youre fighting on. A mountainous area is going to require longer shots on average, for example. A jungle enviornment puts you nearly face to face with your enemy. The advantage of a full power cartridge in dense growth is the ability to go thru the vegetation rather than being stopped by it.
Full automatic fire for every infantryman's rifle is an ammo load you dont want to have to carry. Might not mean much for a mechanized infantry unit, but to a leg or airborne infantry outfit, every pound counts.

No difference between ballistics of 7.62 and 30-06. Both too powerful A 7mm similar to 7-08 would have offered better long range trajectory. Even smaller would have been better. 7mm Pedersen was about right, no need for anything heavier. A 7mm rimless version of the 25 Remington loaded to 50-55 thousand psi with 125 grain bullet would have been enough.

 

[Shortround6]

Couple of more charts scanned from an old copy of Jane's Infantry weapons.

This shows the the needs/expected ranges of the rifle and LMG are different. I do question the 2nd graph as to weither it is for bipod mounted machine guns or for all rifle caliber machine guns.

 

[Shortround6]

No difference between ballistics of 7.62 and 30-06. Both too powerful A 7mm similar to 7-08 would have offered better long range trajectory. Even smaller would have been better. 7mm Pedersen was about right, no need for anything heavier. A 7mm rimless version of the 25 Remington loaded to 50-55 thousand psi with 125 grain bullet would have been enough.

I knew a man who worked at Aberdeen Proving ground during the late 40s and early 50s during the time they were working on the 7.62 nato and they had the British .280 there for testing. He became convinced that the 7mm caliber was the way to go, to the point of building several 7mm wildcats including at least two 7mms that started off as .30-30 cases (practically identical to the 25 Remington), since he used an old Winchester 54 action and a Mauser he wasn't too worried about the pressure levels although he did not use max loads.
His theory was that since most bullets use the same thickness jacket (at least at that time) going much smaller than 7mm meant a larger percentage of the bullet was made up of jacket and not lead so you needed a longer bullet, proportionally to get the weight you wanted. Going too small also magnified the effect of any flaws, If jacket material is not 100% uniform in thickness, means the center of gravity is not in the center of the bullet (on the axis). This is not something most people even worry about with modern commercial bullets. How true it was in the 1940s and early 50s with government issue ammo I have no idea. However there are reasons that people use match bullets in rifle matches, they work
I will note that the 7mm doesn't really give you a large reduction in bullet weight compared to the .30 cal and 8mm if you are looking to reduce recoil while keeping your long range ballistics up.

to recap and going by sectional density (you can squash the weight into any shape you wish, I don't want to argue about specific ballistic coefficients )
6.5mm...............107 grains........SD...219
6.5mm...............120 grains........SD...246
7mm..................120 grains........SD...213
7mm..................130 grains........SD...230
7mm..................140 grains........SD...248
.30 cal................125 grains........SD...188
.30 cal................150 grains........SD...226
.30 cal................165 grains........SD...248

When I built my 6.5s I was looking for a bigger change in recoil than the 7mm would provide and in the early 90s there was a bigger selection of 6.5 match bullets than 7mm.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

This is not something most people even worry about with modern commercial bullets. How true it was in the 1940s and early 50s with government issue ammo I have no idea. However there are reasons that people use match bullets in rifle matches, they work
I will note that the 7mm doesn't really give you a large reduction in bullet weight compared to the .30 cal and 8mm if you are looking to reduce recoil while keeping your long range ballistics up.

Hello Shortround6,
I can tell you from personal experience that military bullets (ball ammunition) even 10-15 years ago were pretty poorly made. I have bought a few bulk packs of military 55 grain .223 and 147 grain steel jacket 147 grain and no amount of selecting from a batch of those will give decent accuracy. Sometimes the base closures may have excess lead or slight visible differences.... But they WERE inexpensive and sufficiently good for casual shooting with iron sights.
The generally poor quality is why shooters were making "Mexican Match" ammunition by pulling those bullets and replacing them with Match grade bullets.

Regarding Match grade bullets: I am not convinced that 95% of high power shooters would notice if regular commercial hunting bullets were substituted for their match bullets. I state this from observing the targets of local high power shooters over the years. Some are good enough to tell. Most are not. With iron sights, I am not good enough to tell.
My own experiments with a service rifle capable of around 5/8 inch groups now but at the time was doing more like 3/4 inch groups, substituting bulk pack non premium hunting bullets would give a group size around 1.25 to about 1.5 inch. The only way I can reliably tell is by shooting off a bench with a rest and some pretty good optics.
I have heard a few shooters (some were very good friends of mine) tell me their M1A shoots under an inch and then pull a target that has a pattern that is about 5 inches in diameter.
I have also seen a piece-o-cr*p rifle with only one locking lug making contact go from a 4-5 inch group down to around 1.5 inch with a "bedding job" done with Post-It notes. (That was the only thing we could find to use at the range at the time!) I have seen some pretty fancy looking glass bedded service rifles not do any better because of some not so obvious fault in assembly.

- Ivan.

 

[The Basket]

In my day you had to keep your weapon with you at all times. At least arms reach.
The Japanese and Italians made some very nice carbine but they had the weaker 6.5mm round so having a shorty was less issue.
The 1903 was already short so taking more off would be cutting it too fine as recoil and blast would come into it.
My point is or was that America could have given front lines troops the Garand and others kept the 1903. I would assume that is what armies with less money or industrial horsepower would have done

 

[Ivan1GFP]

In my day you had to keep your weapon with you at all times. At least arms reach.
The Japanese and Italians made some very nice carbine but they had the weaker 6.5mm round so having a shorty was less issue.
The 1903 was already short so taking more off would be cutting it too fine as recoil and blast would come into it.
My point is or was that America could have given front lines troops the Garand and others kept the 1903. I would assume that is what armies with less money or industrial horsepower would have done

Hello The Basket,
Perhaps those other less well-off armies would have just equipped their heavy weapons crews with pistols.
Pistols are relatively cheap to make and make neat souvenirs for the other side as well.
The problem with the M1 Carbine was the same problem as with the Battlecruiser.
A Battlecruiser looks like a Battleship, so Admirals would put it into the battleline where it would face firepower it was not built to withstand.
The M1 Carbine looks like a battle rifle so soldiers used it for the same purpose.

- Ivan.

 

[The Basket]

I can guess why a troop would go for the carbine because it's lighter and smaller. And that goes a long way if your the mule having to lump it around Europe. A few pounds a few inches make difference.
The 1911 was not cheap and it's 45 round was not novice friendly so the carbine was a good shout. Although I have heard said the M1 carbine was not that reliable.
Some armies do use old kit which the Americans didn't have to due to said budget and industrial power.

 

[Fighterguy]

I'll go with what's regarded as the best service rifle of the period, the M1 Garand. Rugged and reliable. Next would be the SKS. Smaller cartridge, easy to maintain, very reliable and rugged.

 

[drewwizard]

as a general rifle available in WWII, I would see Sturmgewehr 44 as the best rifle weapon for the general troops. The smaller lighter ammo means you can carry and transport more using the same truck. Cost in materials and labor to produce the ammo is smaller. A MG43 chambered for this smaller round would be a good complement. 6.5mm would have been an ideal cartridge size with improvement in ballistics, but the cartridge is close to the AK-47 which is time tested. On the allied side, the M1A3 Carbine. (select fire version).

Ideal for a squad - Sturmgeware 44, MG43 as the SAW, and a PTRS with a sniper scope.

 

[Gman109]

I think either a Garand with a more mid-range caliber, or the STG44 - equip either with a decent optic of the day as standard issue as well. Well it's mostly accurate that the vast amount of shots taken in battle at an identified target with a proper sight picture was around 100m in WW2, this was a function of many things. IMO the most critical factor with that was the lack of an optical sighting system. The book "A rifleman went to war", which was in fact written about WW1, had a lot of interesting material regarding this I found, and another major fact that isn't widely discusses is that Hitler himself wanted every issued rifle after 1944 to have the best optic Germany could manufacture mounted on it (he didn't get his wish)- the power of that day would be similar to the combat optics used by infantrymen today, at least roughly similar enough in terms of magnification if not field of view which was obviously much less in WW2 times what with the very narrow diameters of the tubes.

That's what I'd want to equip myself and other troops with in WW2 - a 10 round Garand in a lighter/faster caliber, somewhere in between 556 and 3006, and for the German team the STG44 would serve just fine for the times once a decent optic system such as the Zeiss ZF4 was mounted IMO. A removable box feed magazine would be something I would strongly consider for the uber-Garand, regardless of what it would do to the logistic system. It'd still have the ability to load from stripper clips same as say the M14, but in combat the ability to reload more rapidly with a removable box system would be a +, and a box magazine system would be far faster than the Garand en-bloc 8 round clip system, especially with gloves on, which was 1/2 the war in Europe or more. Box is faster, more capacity, and is more gross motor skill than the en-bloc.

Regarding ammunition - if there were no treaties in play in this experimental world/time, I would absolutely create explosive rounds for both Allied and Axis rifles. Massive effect on lethality.

That'd be my rifles for both sides in WW2.

 

[Shortround6]

When considering rifles you also have to consider the light machine guns/squad automatics and an armies tactical thinking/philosophy.
The squad cannot be considered a world of it's own. It is the building block of the platoon/company and to a large part the Battalion.
Some armies had different ideas as to what level got different amounts of support weapons. A heavy weapons company at battalion level or a heavy weapons platoon at company level? Or...........
Going to an intermediate cartridge for the light machine gun/squad automatic really limits the platoon/company firepower.
While squads on their own may not be expected to fight at over 300-400 meters platoons were and companies most certainly were. Both the British and Germans were supposed to have a certain number of tripods held at company level to fit the squad machine guns on for long range fire or for firing on fixed lines. How often these got lost I have no idea. The Americans simply gave each company a pair of tripod mounted M1919 Brownings. The Russians, once they moved to the 7.62 x 39 in the squad/platoon issued a few 7.62 x 54 machine guns at company level.
Granted city fighting or jungle fighting have different priorities than dessert or open terrain fighting but you don't have trucks of guns following you around and you don't get to draw "weapons of the day " based on mission.

Explosive ammunition for rifles/ground machine guns is pretty much a needless expense and complication. AS are most things, ammunition is a compromise and HE rifle bullets require much more care in both manufacturing and handling than Ball, AP or even tracer. HE rifle bullets also really suck at penetration. Full power rifle ammo will go through 12-24 in of sand (depending on exact bullet and if sand is wet or dry), several feet of wood ( big change from pine to oak) 3-6 ins of masonry and other assorted obstacles. Little tiny bangs on the outside of such barriers can turn conclement into cover. British .303 may not have been the best at penetrating but with the nose of the bullet full of aluminium or some other filler it flopped sideways most of the time pretty quickly. A .303 bullet going sideways has pretty good stopping power

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Hello Gentlemen,

Welcome to the discussion. The original point of the discussion as I saw it was to determine the ideal rifle design and cartridge using the technology available in WW2. Some hindsight and modern knowledge is allowed and surprisingly with the discussion thus far, no one has actually cried "foul" for any of the proposals.

We also seemed to get stuck in the cartridge design phase and never actually got to a discussion of weapons design.
As a bit of history, Shortround6 and myself have probably been the most opinionated but surprisingly there is actually much more in agreement than one might expect. It seems like we all agree that a 6.5 mm cartridge with about a 45 mm to 50 mm case would be about right for size.
The differences are mostly opinions of ideal power level. I prefer a bullet of about 140 grains at MV of around 2600-2650 FPS and Shortround6 preferred a lighter 120 grain bullet moving a bit slower for less recoil for more controllable full automatic fire.

I hope I have characterized the discussion accurately.


Hello Shortround6,

I have no argument that the standard infantry rifle must fit into the "big picture", but how much of that big picture is determined by the weapons that are available? Is the weapon the cause of the doctrine or the effect of the doctrine?
A couple points worth noting in your discussion:
I don't believe the 7,62 x 39 M43 cartridge was a factor with the Russians in the Great Patriotic War. It came way too late to really have much effect on THAT war. As I understand it, the first service weapon to use that cartridge was the SKS-45 which didn't see much if any service before the war ended.
Another factor that is worth mentioning for rifle penetration is that the distance to the target is VERY important. Up very close, the penetration of a rifle bullet tends to be extremely poor relative to backing off 30-50 yards so the bullet has a chance to "go to sleep" before hitting the obstacle.

- Ivan.

 

[Shortround6]

My only real reason for bringing in the Russian short cartridge was as a counter point to the the suggestion that the Germans should have fielded a belt fed machine gun chambered for the the 7.9 x 33 to accompany the STG44. It might have worked fine in heavily forested areas or cities but would have severely limited any armies options in more open terrain.

AS to penetration, some times even 200yds is barely enough to allow a bullet to "go to sleep".
I have never seen any penetration tables for either the short German cartridge or the short Russian but tend to doubt their ability at 200-600yds compared to the full power rifle rounds, not only due to the lower initial power but the short, stumpy bullets will loose power even faster than the full power rounds.
I do have penetration tables for some between the wars US rounds.

 

[The Basket]

10 round Garand with a smaller calibre round? If only.....that actually did happen and was rejected.
StG 44 was on the way out if the war had continued replaced by the StG 45(M).
Explosive rounds was not a mass produced item.
Box magazines are not the miracle cure as an external box magazine can be trouble and the 8 round en bloc clip for the Garand was certainly fast enough and easy enough certainly over a stripper clip.

 

[Shortround6]

Box magazines have two advantages over En bloc clips, neither of which is really critical.
If you want more magazine capacity then a bigger (longer) detachable box is an easy upgrade and retro fit to already existing weapons.

Detachable box magazines make reloading scoped rifles quick and easy and do not require offset mounts and poor head position.