Some observations on WW II small arms, and bit on artillery.

[Shortround6]

Trying to keep from derailing the thread on aircraft maneuverability.

At times you have look at small arms of nation in context. Both in history in time, like designed/introduced in 1898 or in 1938 and how a weapon fit into the intended roles and the roles of the weapons around it.

Many of the bolt action military rifles were designed and built in the era when the infantry battalion or regiment (or larger) had 3 basic weapons that had to cover ALL aspects of combat. While other weapons existed they were extremely rare if a particular army had any at all.
1. The rifle, the basic fire power and provided the 'range' of engagement of the units.
2. The bayonet, close quarters weapon and a holdover from the 1600s, both tradition and tactics.
3. The officers pistols. Depending on the army only a few % of the weapons in the unit and in some armies, more for keeping discipline in their own troops than inflicting casualties on the other side.

Now the rifle was given a tremendous boost in power/range in the 1880/90s with the small bore high velocity smokeless powder cartridge, remember this was only less than 60 years before WW II.
But in 1914 (26 years after smokeless powder) that was the list of weapons most infantry had.
There were NO
Hand grenades, (at least general issue)
Machine guns were issued 2-4 per battalion in some armies, some had less.
infantry mortars
infantry guns
sub-machine guns.

And Artillery was in the midst of a tactical revolution which was colliding with the capabilities of the breech loading, repeating magazine rifle.
Some artillery officers thought you could wheel the guns into position 1000-3000 yds away from the enemy in a parade style formation and and blaze away rapid fire (only 17 years old) with shrapnel shells that would shred the enemy infantry. The more thoughtful officers thought this might not actually be a good idea but given the lack of communications of the time (signal flags?) putting the guns where the gun captains could not see the enemy sacrificed a lot of fire power. Before I go very far down this road let's just say that the rapid introduction of more machine guns saw the Machine gun take over this several thousand yd range area of the battlefield from the light/medium artillery. 200-300 bullets per minute from a machine gun was an effective substitute for 15-20 shrapnel shells per minute from a field gun. Machine guns, expensive as they were, were a lot cheaper than field guns.
With trench warfare came hand grenades, which were somewhat of a substitute for 20yd bayonet charges, and a variety of short range bomb throwers (trench mortars) helped fill up the battalions arsenal. Having found them so useful the infantry was very reluctant to give them up and go back to the 1914 scale of issue. Especially the 1916-1918 provision of light machine guns which could advance in battle and provide a large amount of fire power very quickly after taking position. Now at this point many armies were lucky they could get one light machine gun per platoon.
You also had sharp drop off in marksmanship between the armies of 1914 and the conscript armies of 1918. The rifles were as effective as ever but without training (and it took a lot) most troops could not use the capabilities of the rifles they had, either in speed of fire or in accuracy or indeed range.

Now with the "war to end all wars" over very few countries were willing to spend money on new rifles (or at least new designs) despite some officers/inventors seeing that things had changed and nobody was going back to 1914 with a few new 'toys' like grenades added in. So it takes until the late 20s or 1930 for most armies to start gearing up for the next generation of weapons. And again the guys in the treasury dept. will only come up with so much money. While good rifles are cheap, at least compared to other weapons, you need millions of them for a sizable army and millions of even cheap rifles adds up to a sizable sum of money.
Now with army officers asking for more machine guns, some sort of anti tank weapons (even just really big rifles), some sort of short (and/or medium) range bomb throwers like grenade launchers, small mortars, a few AA weapons or AA mounts for existing machine guns and so on and so forth the money for new rifles keeps sliding to bottom of the pile.
You also need money to pay for the training for all the new toys.

However you also have a much more capable infantry battalion or regiment. The tripod mounted machine guns can range to around 3000yds (give or take) much better than hundreds of men laying on their stomachs and firing at the 2nd hill on the right behind the white barn. You also have limited amount of capability to lob small shells over obstacles and not have to rely on artillery and since I am talking about the 1930s at this moment, the use of radios was just about non-existent. And so on.
What this means is that while the rifle was still the primary weapon of the infantry battalion it's role was changing. It no longer needed to be as long ranged. Infantry fights were becoming shorter ranged, if they were ever really long range in reality.
The 1930s also saw the light machine gun become much more prominent. Some armies were issuing one per squad instead of one per platoon.
Some were putting 3-4 light machine guns in a special platoon to act as a base of fire for the platoons without machine guns. Some armies were doling out the big heavy machine guns (not 12.7) at 8 or more per battalion in a heavy weapons company.
For small units, squad and platoon, the light machine guns were taking over as the unit fire power and the rifles were there to support the machine gun/s, act as security and/or maneuver element and in some cases, lug ammo.

A lot of this is generalities but I think you can see were some armies would up going with this with their gun selections.
The US didn't have a light machinegun. At least not by 1930s standards. The US also paid more attention (or at least claimed to) to the individual rifleman. The squads or platoons got BARs and rifles, the company got a pair of 1919 air cooled guns, Battalion had a platoon or 2 (?) of 1917 water cooled guns. By 1940 they were issuing 60mm mortars on the company level and 81mm mortars at Battalion level, they were also, in theory, up to twelve 12.7mm guns as combination AT guns/ AA guns, and there supposed to be a few 37mm AT guns somewhere. In 1939/40 there was a lot of stuff on the tables of organization that hadn't been issued yet. The US was in the process of issuing the M-1 rifle. Now the US needed the M-1 rifle to, in some ways, make up for the deficiencies in the BAR.
The US had also never issued a short barreled rifle as a carbine for specialized troops, at least not after the 1890s. No 30 in barrel rifles and 16-18 barrel carbines for Cavalry, artillery men and engineers, etc. which left the special troops with either rifles that were too big while they were doing their real jobs or they wound up with pistols. The M-1 carbine was supposed to solve that, not be a junior battle rifle.

You can look at some other countries and see different paths that were taken. But for the most part, the main rifle was overlooked while they kept sorting out the other stuff that had become more important to the battalion/regiment job/function.
Field phones and radios also allowed for faster artillery response, assuming that the country could actually supply artillery ammunition in quantity.

Artillery moved several miles back behind the front lines compared to 1914.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Interesting post.

One quibble - I don't know how common grenades were in 1914, but they had grenadiers as a troop type (with hand grenades or some kind of small bomb they could throw) going back centuries before WW 1.

 

[Shortround6]

Well I had to try to squeeze a large book into a few paragraphs.

Grenades did exist for hundreds of years as you say. But they were not general issue and depending on the army, they were either issued to special units (Queen's Grenadier Guards)
or were issued for special operations. Like assaulting a fortification.
Having average troops wandering about with cast iron bombs filled black powder for weeks at a time was considered hazardous
Until after the US civil war you either stuck a cord style fuse (cartoon) in it or once percussion caps came out. they started making two hollow spheres, one held the black powder and and was fitted with the bunch of percussion nipples to be fitted with percussion caps before throwing and a second larger sphere (two piece) was fitted over it and then thrown to hopefully explode on impact as the outer shell crushed one of the percussion caps.

This is one reason that some of those old units got to be elite units. What they were doing was dangerous and they were being used in very dangerous. desperate situations.

These old black powder bombs were rather hazardous to use (read unsafe). Aside from the whole black powder thing and trying to keep them dry they took a bit of skill and luck to use.
Cut the fuse to long and the enemy might be able to throw it back. Cut it too short and it explodes before it gets to the target. This assumes you have decent quality control on your fuse material (in the 1600s?) you also needed a way to light the fuse while carrying a sack of extra bombs around.

In WW I once they had settled down to trench warfare all sorts of homemade (trench dugout ?) made devices appeared see this wiki entry for one.

Jam tin grenade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Most of these gave ordnance officers the heebie-jeebies at the very least.

 

[Shortround6]

Few things on speed of firing and let's agree, it takes practice, training. Something that most war time soldiers didn't get.

In the use back in 50s through 90s (?) they shot service rifle competitions with bolt guns and M-1s (M-14s) before the AR invasion. Bolt gun catagory was a bit loose, yes you had to use the 30-06 or .308/7.62x51 cartridge. NO it did not have to be a 1903 or 1917 rifle, 11lb Winchester M-70s with very fancy sights and very nice triggers were allowed, just use a 5 round magazine feed by a stripper clip.
The rules allowed 10 more seconds for the bolt guns than for the semi autos.
200 yds rapid 10 rounds sitting was either 50 seconds for the semi-auto or 60 seconds for the bolt guns.
300 yds rapid 10 rounds prone was either 60 second for the semi-auto or 70 seconds for the bolt guns.

Semi autos were loaded with 2 rounds and then reloaded with 8.
Bolt guns were loaded with 5 and 5.
Time started with the targets in the pits (if the ranged was set up for it) and the shooters standing, crouching, or imitating a pretzel.
Shooters had to drop down into their desired position for sitting (or for prone) which often took about 20 seconds to start shooting.
when the initial load of ammo used up the semi auto gunners either stuffed a an 8 round clip into the M-1 or changed boxes on the M-14.
Bolt gunners used a 5 round stripper clip.
This often took another 10 or more seconds.
Good bolt gunners could fire about one shot every 3 seconds.
Semi auto gunners were a bit faster. I was couched to count to 4 between shots. fast count to keep form shooting too fast.

targets changed from the 10in A-5 to the 12in SR target during that time. A5 was a 5 - V scoring system, hit the black and you got the 5. The SR target black included the 9 ring.
This was for 200yds. At 300 yds the SR target was enlarged to 18in but the black now included the 8 ring. The 9 ring was the same nominal 12ins.
Everybody used slings and shooting coats and gloves.

We had better sights (gas guns had their front sights cut down to the exact width of the black instead of being too wide like service sights) and most bolt guns shooters used an aperture front sight. Put the ring around the black.

If you are over about 22 years old trying to use a Mauser, or Japanese or Italian or French rifle is NOT going to work. Trying to use what ever front sight they are using with those little V notch rear sights was too much of a handicap unless you have 20/20 vision (or better). The Enfield No 4 with the good rear sight may be doable.

Now this was target shooting and the good shooters were keeping everything in the black or at least 8-9 shots in the black and perhaps they kept them in tight enough to make up for the one 8 or 7 on the SR target.

We also were shooting on a buff colored target that was over 5 ft tall and close to 4 ft wide with that black dot in the middle, not some soldier trying to hide next to bush or tree or wall in crappy light. We also were at known distance. Not guessing if the target was at 280 yds or 340 yds or????????
Nobody was shooting back either.
If you have crappy sights and poor light you need to take more time with either gun. IF all you want to do is hit that 5ft by 4 ft target you can shoot really fast (although I have seen people only get 5-6 hits on the whole paper when beginning)

What some guy can do on You-tube in a demonstration is not what most people can do, I have been driving for over 50 years, doesn't mean I can drive a race car at over 120mph on an oval track.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Well I had to try to squeeze a large book into a few paragraphs.

Grenades did exist for hundreds of years as you say. But they were not general issue and depending on the army, they were either issued to special units (Queen's Grenadier Guards)
or were issued for special operations. Like assaulting a fortification.
Having average troops wandering about with cast iron bombs filled black powder for weeks at a time was considered hazardous
Until after the US civil war you either stuck a cord style fuse (cartoon) in it or once percussion caps came out. they started making two hollow spheres, one held the black powder and and was fitted with the bunch of percussion nipples to be fitted with percussion caps before throwing and a second larger sphere (two piece) was fitted over it and then thrown to hopefully explode on impact as the outer shell crushed one of the percussion caps.

This is one reason that some of those old units got to be elite units. What they were doing was dangerous and they were being used in very dangerous. desperate situations.

These old black powder bombs were rather hazardous to use (read unsafe). Aside from the whole black powder thing and trying to keep them dry they took a bit of skill and luck to use.
Cut the fuse to long and the enemy might be able to throw it back. Cut it too short and it explodes before it gets to the target. This assumes you have decent quality control on your fuse material (in the 1600s?) you also needed a way to light the fuse while carrying a sack of extra bombs around.

In WW I once they had settled down to trench warfare all sorts of homemade (trench dugout ?) made devices appeared see this wiki entry for one.

Jam tin grenade - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Most of these gave ordnance officers the heebie-jeebies at the very least.

Yes I happen to know a little bit about this. Sure it was dangerous, so was the use of any firearm prior to the smokeless powder, brass cartridge era, but many many thousands of men did get used to it and became very capable of managing the extreme risks associated with pyrotechnics. Grenades (or more recently, dynamite) with too long a fuse could of course be thrown back, so could modern hand grenades, and they often were. This is why in boot camp in the US Army they taught us to pull the pin, drop the spoon, then count to three before throwing. So there is only two seconds for the other guy to catch it and throw it back which ain't easy.

Grenadiers as a troop type goes back at least to the latter part of the 30 Years War in the 17th Century if not before. Sappers and more experienced soldiers were less formally using gunpowder hand grenades or thrown bombs since the Hussite Wars in the early 15th Century, and even wheel-lock grenade launchers (aka 'hand mortars'), as far back as the early 16th Century. All very dangerous. But so was climbing a siege ladder. People did that too.

Long before that, centuries before, they were using naphtha and other flammable substances as bombs. An Arab memoir mentions their use in Crusades in the 13th Century.

I get your main point about how limited equipment was but I think grenadiers were not as rare as you are suggesting. Both the German and Russian armies had grenadier units as early as the 18th Century. They were standard troop types in 1914 already. Not every soldier had grenades though that much I certainly agree with.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Few things on speed of firing and let's agree, it takes practice, training. Something that most war time soldiers didn't get.

In the use back in 50s through 90s (?) they shot service rifle competitions with bolt guns and M-1s (M-14s) before the AR invasion. Bolt gun catagory was a bit loose, yes you had to use the 30-06 or .308/7.62x51 cartridge. NO it did not have to be a 1903 or 1917 rifle, 11lb Winchester M-70s with very fancy sights and very nice triggers were allowed, just use a 5 round magazine feed by a stripper clip.
The rules allowed 10 more seconds for the bolt guns than for the semi autos.
200 yds rapid 10 rounds sitting was either 50 seconds for the semi-auto or 60 seconds for the bolt guns.
300 yds rapid 10 rounds prone was either 60 second for the semi-auto or 70 seconds for the bolt guns.

Semi autos were loaded with 2 rounds and then reloaded with 8.
Bolt guns were loaded with 5 and 5.
Time started with the targets in the pits (if the ranged was set up for it) and the shooters standing, crouching, or imitating a pretzel.
Shooters had to drop down into their desired position for sitting (or for prone) which often took about 20 seconds to start shooting.
when the initial load of ammo used up the semi auto gunners either stuffed a an 8 round clip into the M-1 or changed boxes on the M-14.
Bolt gunners used a 5 round stripper clip.
This often took another 10 or more seconds.
Good bolt gunners could fire about one shot every 3 seconds.
Semi auto gunners were a bit faster. I was couched to count to 4 between shots. fast count to keep form shooting too fast.

targets changed from the 10in A-5 to the 12in SR target during that time. A5 was a 5 - V scoring system, hit the black and you got the 5. The SR target black included the 9 ring.
This was for 200yds. At 300 yds the SR target was enlarged to 18in but the black now included the 8 ring. The 9 ring was the same nominal 12ins.
Everybody used slings and shooting coats and gloves.

We had better sights (gas guns had their front sights cut down to the exact width of the black instead of being too wide like service sights) and most bolt guns shooters used an aperture front sight. Put the ring around the black.

If you are over about 22 years old trying to use a Mauser, or Japanese or Italian or French rifle is NOT going to work. Trying to use what ever front sight they are using with those little V notch rear sights was too much of a handicap unless you have 20/20 vision (or better). The Enfield No 4 with the good rear sight may be doable.

Now this was target shooting and the good shooters were keeping everything in the black or at least 8-9 shots in the black and perhaps they kept them in tight enough to make up for the one 8 or 7 on the SR target.

We also were shooting on a buff colored target that was over 5 ft tall and close to 4 ft wide with that black dot in the middle, not some soldier trying to hide next to bush or tree or wall in crappy light. We also were at known distance. Not guessing if the target was at 280 yds or 340 yds or????????
Nobody was shooting back either.
If you have crappy sights and poor light you need to take more time with either gun. IF all you want to do is hit that 5ft by 4 ft target you can shoot really fast (although I have seen people only get 5-6 hits on the whole paper when beginning)

What some guy can do on You-tube in a demonstration is not what most people can do, I have been driving for over 50 years, doesn't mean I can drive a race car at over 120mph on an oval track.

If you will forgive yet another detour, you might be interested to know how far back this kind of thing goes. Organized shooting contests, originally with crossbows, were being run by Free Cities in Germany, Czechia, Flanders, Poland etc. from the 13th Century. By the early 15th Century they were also organizing these with firearms.

This is an invitation to one of the competitions, for both firearms and crossbows, from Zurich in 1504. The circles represent the size of the target and the maximum diameter of the bullet or crossbow bolt. The dark line is a representation of their unit of measure - in this case, a quarter 'ell', because every town and region had slightly different units of measure then. That is so the invitee can understand how far the target is. The prizes range from 1 gulden to 100 gulden for the first prize. A gulden is about a one ounce gold coin, quite valuable. The worst shot gets a sow. The town put up a total of 972 gulden, divided into 32 prizes and 8 bonuses. Most of this is paid for by a lottery and an entrance fee at the event, which was like a big party or a town fair, with all kinds of other lesser competitions ranging from foot and horse racing, to broad jumping and stone throwing, and fencing. These also had prizes.

Shots are also timed, like in your contest, and the towns paid for (back then quite expensive) clocks to be operated at the site of the range. The invitation gives the number of shots and the amount of time allotted for each contestant.

The firearms were supposed to be typical muzzle loaders but they were sometimes confiscating weapons with a removable breech and / or rifling, which was considered cheating at the time. In 1437 Augsburg confiscated two firearms at a 'schutzenfest' which were then kept in the town armoury.

This is a firearm from Nuremberg which was made with three removable breeches, in the late 15th Century

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Anyway, in boot camp in the 1980s in the US army, for our final rifleman certification we had pop-up targets, which looked like silhouettes of human head and torso, in black, which pop-up for a moment and then drop back down again. They ranged in distance from 50 to 350 meters. You were in a prone position with two 20 round magazines and you had to shoot at forty targets. I think if you hit all 40 you got expert, 36-39 you got sharpshooter, 31-35 marksman. Below that, you failed which could be a big problem.

Targets were only up for a brief interval. 50 meter targets (very easy to hit) maybe 1 second, 350 meter targets (hard to hit, at least for me) maybe 3-4 seconds.

You definitely couldn't get expert in the allotted time with a bolt action rifle. You would have to be one hell of a badass crack shot to pass, IMO.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

On the other hand, you would almost certainly hit 350 meter targets more easily with an M1 Garand, Mauser K 98 or a Lee-Enfield SMLE than with our M-16A1s we had back then.

 

[yulzari]

Field reports comparing the performances of existing British small arms late in WW2 estimated the value of the Lee Enfield and the Sten as about the same with the Sten having a very small edge. This acknowledged that effective fire over 200 yards was the province of the LMG, or MMG over even greater distances.

Folk today scoff at the very long bayonets and 'volley' sights on the rifles of the early 20th century but the paucity and late entry of the machine gun still left a need to reach up and poke a cavalryman off his horse and to lay down a beaten zone over 1,000 yards with the weapons to hand. When the machine gun and magazine rifle dealt with those threats bayonets shrank and 'volley' sights disappeared.

The lesson in looking at small arms history is seeing them in the context of the time. Like 18th century fighting standing in lines close together in several files using smooth bores seems the act of idiots today. But, in their time, it made perfect sense with the arms available. Rifles existed then and were used but, whilst rifles can kill more selectively and at longer ranges, they were expensive, the trade could not make very many and took too long to load when you want to seize and hold ground. The combination of the smooth bore and the bayonet was the available optimum to do that.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The Sten is a flimsy, pistol caliber (9 x 19 mm) submachine gun, it's not an assault rifle or semi-automatic rifle. It's range is no more than about 200 meters, realistically more like 100 meters. So it's advantage is limited to scenarios such as in cities or in the jungle or forest or other 'close' terrain where the enemy can't be seen at long distances. I guarantee you though that in urban combat for example the Sten was far more useful than the Enfield. A PPsh-41 would be better. But an Ak-47 would be better than both weapons, at any range.

Because yes an assault rifle like an FN FAL, M14, G3 etc. is in fact an order of magnitude more effective than a bolt action rifle for infantry. So are the medium caliber types like Ak 47 or M-16. That is why no army in the world issues bolt action rifles to their infantry any more. The only niche still held by bolt action weapons is as a sniper rifle.

The reason is simple.

The job of infantry is to take or hold ground. It is very hard to push infantry that is dug in, with some cover or concealment, out a given piece of ground they hold. An infantry platoon can fend off a much larger force, company size or larger, with the help of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Conversely, an attacking force can much more easily suppress and overwhelm defenders when using automatic weapons than with bolt action weapons.

This is where the much higher rate of fire comes into play. The caliber of the rifle, whether file rifle size (7.62 x 51 etc.) or cut down medium sized (7.62 x 39, 5.56 mm) affects the range, weight, and size of the weapon. The lighter weapons are more effective at closer ranges, such as in urban areas, jungles or forests, while the heavier guns are more effective at longer ranges, such as in mountains or desert. But they both have a pretty similar effective range for the average troop, and in both cases, much better range than a Sten or any other SMG.

Claiming that a bolt action rifle is roughly equivalent to a semi-automatic weapon is ridiculous.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

And Artillery was in the midst of a tactical revolution which was colliding with the capabilities of the breech loading, repeating magazine rifle.
Some artillery officers thought you could wheel the guns into position 1000-3000 yds away from the enemy in a parade style formation and and blaze away rapid fire (only 17 years old) with shrapnel shells that would shred the enemy infantry. The more thoughtful officers thought this might not actually be a good idea but given the lack of communications of the time (signal flags?) putting the guns where the

Rapid firing cannon also go way, way back. This is a demonstration of disassembly, movement, and reassembly of a Czech style houfnice, which was a small wheel mounted, breech loading field gun. Basically the first. Note that they were able to get off two shots in under 1 minute. This was how they defeated multiple Crusader armies in the 1420s-1430s, and a bit later as mercenaries, the Ottomans, repeatedly.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk_bNFUqzo4

Breech loading field guns like that were common from the 1430s-1600. By the 17th Century they started being phased out in favor of simpler weapons basically due to political and economic reasons. Same with the more advanced types of firearms like wheel lock and snaphaunce in favor of simpler match-locks.

Now that is solid shot of course. Exploding shells did come a good bit later.

This is a demonstration of a 7 barrel volley gun from roughly the same era. Both of these medieval crew-served weapons were typically carried on small 'war' wagons.


View: https://youtu.be/0mKVdMNcG48?t=148

These things came with up to 40 barrels or more. This one is from a books of armaments from 1502. They were of course very slow to reload compared to a modern crew served weapon, but if their use was timed right, they could be extremely effective. A weapon like that would also be designed so as to fire in rows or columns so that you didn't have to blow the whole wad at once, so to speak.

This is the reason for the curious name of German tanks - panzerkampfwagen - armored war wagon. This is something they were contending with since the 1420s and were already imitating by the 1430s.

This is from a German 'housebook' from the Rhineland in the 1480s. Depicts the German or Rhennish version o the original Czech war-wagon concept, both on the move and in laager.

This was actually the precursor of the tank. These kinds of weapons remained in use in various forms in East Central Europe and Eastern Europe into the 19th Century. The Cossacks fought with Czech mercenaries against the Ottomans in the 15th Century and adopted these weapons. This is the Ukranian version with a maxim machine gun, which had a 'moment' during WW1 and in the Russian Civil War.

Tachanka - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Sorry for yet another diversion into very ancient eras, just wanted to make the point that some of this military technology was the result of more incremental improvements. I think while the sum of human technical knowledge did continue moving forward, the military technology actually in use actually went backward for a while due to political and economic considerations. But a lot of these ideas go all the way back to the Renaissance.

 

[yulzari]

The Sten is a flimsy, pistol caliber (9 x 19 mm) submachine gun, it's not an assault rifle or semi-automatic rifle. It's range is no more than about 200 meters, realistically more like 100 meters. So it's advantage is limited to scenarios such as in cities or in the jungle or forest or other 'close' terrain where the enemy can't be seen at long distances. I guarantee you though that in urban combat for example the Sten was far more useful than the Enfield. A PPsh-41 would be better. But an Ak-47 would be better than both weapons, at any range.

Because yes an assault rifle like an FN FAL, M14, G3 etc. is in fact an order of magnitude more effective than a bolt action rifle for infantry. So are the medium caliber types like Ak 47 or M-16. That is why no army in the world issues bolt action rifles to their infantry any more. The only niche still held by bolt action weapons is as a sniper rifle.

The reason is simple.

The job of infantry is to take or hold ground. It is very hard to push infantry that is dug in, with some cover or concealment, out a given piece of ground they hold. An infantry platoon can fend off a much larger force, company size or larger, with the help of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. Conversely, an attacking force can much more easily suppress and overwhelm defenders when using automatic weapons than with bolt action weapons.

This is where the much higher rate of fire comes into play. The caliber of the rifle, whether file rifle size (7.62 x 51 etc.) or cut down medium sized (7.62 x 39, 5.56 mm) affects the range, weight, and size of the weapon. The lighter weapons are more effective at closer ranges, such as in urban areas, jungles or forests, while the heavier guns are more effective at longer ranges, such as in mountains or desert. But they both have a pretty similar effective range for the average troop, and in both cases, much better range than a Sten or any other SMG.

Claiming that a bolt action rifle is roughly equivalent to a semi-automatic weapon is ridiculous.

I certainly would not claim that a bolt action rifle is roughly equivalent to a semi automatic one. But the difference, whilst very, very real, is by no means as vast as 'ridiculous' or 'order of magnitude' might imply. I have had both semi automatic rifles and machine carbines as a personal weapon in an infantry regiment and have used and owned assorted bolt action military magazine rifles dating from 1886 to 1957 so I have some practical appreciation of their characteristics.

The wartime No4/Sten comparison was in terms of what was found in action in North West Europe in late 1944/early 1945 when infantry losses were in WW1 numbers so the reports were coming from experienced users who had seen years of action. They knew what they were talking about. Some, like my father, for the full 7 years from the BEF in France to Austria via Italy and Iran to Morocco and fighting the Germans, Italians and French. I would submit that the conclusions were accurate for the time and more reliable than even well informed warriors of t'internet.

My point is that of course I would choose a semi automatic rifle today. But, the bolt action rifle is not to be totally despised in spite of its weaknesses. I would still be at risk of ordering clean underwater from B Echelon were I to meet even bolt action armed skilled soldiers as an enemy. I do acknowledge that if were they armed with 'assault' rifles instead then a pair of bicycle clips too would be a wise added precaution to wear in battle.

 

[Shortround6]

The military technology certainly took a lot twists and turns. Some of it was due to "political and economic considerations" much more the later though.

Black powder itself did not stay consistent for hundred of years but advanced in fits and starts, sometimes with a few hundred years between changes.

Back in the medieval era it was common (or at least not uncommon) for each gunner to mix up his own powder using his own recipe. Maybe it did the best results in his gun
But it made standardized supply impossible. Even getting the three components to mix the powder with gave a lot of variation. Only willow charcoal? and made how?
Purity of the sulfur and saltpeter was also a bit suspect.
And back then it literally "powder", the larger grains we are familiar with today came much later. This also meant that 'pre-mixed' powder tended to separate out when carried in barrels/casks in wagons, or at least the powder at the top was different in performance to the powder at the bottom.

Powder "quality" improved with "corning". The mixing was done (to a bit more modern recipes) in a water slurry, which cut down on explosions in the powder factory, and then dried in large chunks or cakes and dried. When dried the cakes were broken up or ground and the resulting granules were sorted by size. It had been found that different sized grains burned at different rates and you wanted small grains for pistols (and priming) and larger grains as the guns got bigger.

Now the breechloaders went away because they didn't work all that well. They often didn't seal all that well and a fair amount of gas escaped out the breech, Making one or tow breech pieces may have been OK, trying to make a 1/2 dozen for "rapid fire" gets a lot trickier.
The muzzle loading gun was stronger and would stand up to a larger amount of powder charge for higher velocity and range. AS the powder got better this became more important.
Andin the 1400 and 1500s trying make a tight fitting bore with either system was very, very expensive.

People's ideas ran ahead of the supporting manufacturing technology. This is one of the things that doomed the wheel lock. You could make them and they worked, now pay for enough wheel locks to equip a few thousand men.

Ships kept breech loaders for a while longer. The ability to reload in the confined spaces on a ship's decks was an advantage. And most of the time the distances were shorter, trying to hit with gun on rolling deck dictated short range.

Breech loading artillery made a big comeback about the time of the American Civil war. As did breechloading guns. Breech loading guns had hung around the edges for most the black powder era but there were too many problems and they were too expensive to make by hand.

Ferguson Breech loader of the 1770s. perhaps 200 made? In a test with modern powders it tended to get fowled and jammed with under 6 shots fired?

For artillery the bog problem was not just getting a 2nd or 3rd shot into the barrel and firing it off in the general direction of the enemy. The Problem was hitting the same spot or close to it and here recoil comes into play, big time. Unlike modern demonstrations field cannon with service loads (powder chargers and full bore projectiles) could make the entire gun recoil around 3-4 feet after each shot. Depends on the slope and the ground. There were accounts from the American Civil war when batteries firing 'rapid' fire didn't bother (not enough time) to roll the guns back to the start line after each shot and would up dozens of feet in back of where they started.
A Breech loading gun solves the swab out the bore and ram the new charge into the bore problem, it does not solve the having to heave the gun a number of feet forward after each shot and get the gun pointed back at the target again. However inventive minds were working on it.

It doesn't show up well here but there two devices for controlling recoil. The first and used first where wooden blocks that acted like brake shoes that could be forced against the iron tires and then released for towing or for just running the gun forward, the set the brakes again for the next shot. Not surprising, this was not accepted as the last word and the device seen here was developed and often used in conjunction with the wheel brakes.
This thing, when traveling, had the part between the wheels hinged up and link (wire rope) allowed the coil spring in the casing in the trail to hinge up out of the way for towing.
When firing the spade was lowered to the ground with a bit of shovel work and heaving on the gun (or a couple of quick rounds fired off) after which with the spade dug into the ground well when the gun fired entire gun pivoted on the spade and recoiled rearwards, Added hopefully by the wheel brakes? and after the spring in the trail had reached compression the spring, with the aid of the wire rope connect to the spade heaved the gun forward to some near where it started. Probably very entertaining to watch from a distance. Not so entertaining for the gunners leaping about trying to get out of the way.
Notice no hydraulics or pneumatics.
A few guns tried adding hydraulic cylinders to slow the the whole thing down a bit.

The French 75 mounted the barrel on a recoil system that used hydraulics and pneumatics that just about completely controlled the recoil. It still used the wheel brakes.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiwCbVgCOw

Note this is precision fire as one crewman checks the elevation for each shot. The gun aimer has been able to keep his seat and either checks the line of aim or makes a minor adjustment. This was the start of the LAND quick fire field gun. Navies sort of cheated and used a heavy gun bolted to reinforced deck plates to control recoil, at least until they made even bigger guns.

The predominate shell was the Shrapnel shell that held 290 lead balls and a six gun battery firing even 10 shots a minute could obviously saturate an area with unprotected troops in very short order.

Now up until about 1913-14 these and their counterparts were deployed within line of sight to the targets and mostly could not use the max range of the guns.
However this also meant that they were within line of sight of several hundred (or thousand) very upset men with long range rifles, perhaps a few tripod mounted machine guns (which have much lower firing signature than 75mm cannon even with smokeless powder) or even a few enemy 75-77mm field guns. Losses mounted quickly and the Field artillery moved behind cover and started using forward observers even if it was just a couple of men on ridge a few hundred feet in front of the guns with loud voices a perhaps megaphones. But this caused problem with getting the shells over the ridge but falling on the targets only 1/2 mile to 1 1/2 miles away and not sailing well on passed the intended targets.

Now this all took place between 1897 and 1914. Some countries called some of their guns quick firers or rapid fire or breechloading but unless the crew could stick with the gun and not be run over by it between shots they were not true quick firers in sense it was known after the French 75 became known. And there was perhaps as much espionage/spying and scandal's about the French 75 around 1900 as there was about the atomic bomb in the late 40s. the French 75 was the first gun that could be fired at much more than 2 rounds per minute and actually hit (or come close) to a target several miles away.

Now just the announcement that such performance was possible spurred other inventors get busy and using the same principles or combinations (British used spring reciprocators instead of pneumatic) most the worlds major nations had similar performing guns by 1914. Some had even gone to the next step, variable recoil distance depending on elevation.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I certainly would not claim that a bolt action rifle is roughly equivalent to a semi automatic one. But the difference, whilst very, very real, is by no means as vast as 'ridiculous' or 'order of magnitude' might imply. I have had both semi automatic rifles and machine carbines as a personal weapon in an infantry regiment and have used and owned assorted bolt action military magazine rifles dating from 1886 to 1957 so I have some practical appreciation of their characteristics.

I'm a gun owner too. Looking a bolt action rifle as I type this. Maybe not a good of a shot as some guys around here but I have squeezed a few triggers.

The wartime No4/Sten comparison was in terms of what was found in action in North West Europe in late 1944/early 1945 when infantry losses were in WW1 numbers so the reports were coming from experienced users who had seen years of action. They knew what they were talking about. Some, like my father, for the full 7 years from the BEF in France to Austria via Italy and Iran to Morocco and fighting the Germans, Italians and French. I would submit that the conclusions were accurate for the time and more reliable than even well informed warriors of t'internet.

I never said anything to imply that the study was wrong so I don't know which 'warriors of t'internet' you are referring to, or what dragon you are slaying here. My point is that it was a comparison of a pistol caliber, and rather hastily made, submachine gun vs a bolt action rifle. It was not a comparison of Garand with an Enfield or an StG 44 vs. an Enfield. Or an M-14 or FN-FAL or G3.

In some situations, say marshes around Market Garden, I would think the Enfield plus a couple of Brens would be more useful. In the villages, forests and towns, I bet the Sten was. But I wouldn't say that is at variance that the Sten was only marginally better overall. What i am saying is that a Garand, or in particular something like an FN-FAL or Ak-47 would be much better overall.

My point is that of course I would choose a semi automatic rifle today. But, the bolt action rifle is not to be totally despised in spite of its weaknesses. I would still be at risk of ordering clean underwater from B Echelon were I to meet even bolt action armed skilled soldiers as an enemy. I do acknowledge that if were they armed with 'assault' rifles instead then a pair of bicycle clips too would be a wise added precaution to wear in battle.

I think maybe we are just coming from this from two different angles. You are thinking in terms of an individual Sure, for an individual, one gun that can shoot again and again and has 400 meter range isn't that different from another. Where it becomes an order of magnitude of difference, IMO, is when you think in military terms, which would be a platoon, company, battalion or brigade of infantry. Then, I say, it's an order of magnitude in terms of difference.

 

[Frog]

I recently saw a video of an interview of Pierre-André Moreau, one of the conceptor of the 155 mm Caesar gun.
He gave interesting explanations of the reason why the French Artillery Committee decided in 1874 on the adoption of this caliber that is now a NATO standard.
The French troopers of this time were mainly workers, laborers or peasants, and it was estimated that the max average weight they could regularly handle without exhaustion during a prolonged time span was around 45 kg. It was then decided that a corresponding gun or howitzer shell should have a 155 mm caliber.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The military technology certainly took a lot twists and turns. Some of it was due to "political and economic considerations" much more the later though.

Once again, interesting post. But I have some more quibbles. I hope you will forgive another brief discursion

Black powder itself did not stay consistent for hundred of years but advanced in fits and starts, sometimes with a few hundred years between changes.

It changed, but not quite for as long as you are suggesting. The original formulae used in Europe, the first published by Roger Bacon in the 13th Century, had different ratios from modern powder but had the advantage of being free of the other extraneous ingredients used in various types of Chinese powder. It was basically powder for use in fire crackers which is exactly what Bacon said it was. Gradually they worked out different

Back in the medieval era it was common (or at least not uncommon) for each gunner to mix up his own powder using his own recipe. Maybe it did the best results in his gun

This was true for some expert gunners all the way into the 17th Century, though the pressing need to do this was over by the 1440s or 1450s. Powder was pretty standardized by that time.

But it made standardized supply impossible. Even getting the three components to mix the powder with gave a lot of variation. Only willow charcoal? and made how?
Purity of the sulfur and saltpeter was also a bit suspect.

The sulfur used in the 15th -16th Century in Central Europe and Italy was mainly being imported from Iceland, and the purity was pretty good. The processes for processing the salt of St. Peter were largely worked out by alchemists in the 14th Century, and are fully described in the anonymous (pseudononymous) pyrotechnic manual, the Liber Ignium.

Liber Ignium - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This manuscript, which was widely disseminated by the early 15th Century (even appearing, in full unabridged form, in many 'housebooks' and some early fencing manuals) gives detailed instructions for processing salt of St. Peter so as to exclude the calcium compounds leaving mostly the potassium nitrate. The calcium made it highly vulnerable to moisture. The alleviation of this problem by the early 15th Century is what enabled the Venetians and Genoese to start putting guns on their warships for the first time (originally mostly small pintle mounted breech loaders).

And back then it literally "powder", the larger grains we are familiar with today came much later. This also meant that 'pre-mixed' powder tended to separate out when carried in barrels/casks in wagons, or at least the powder at the top was different in performance to the powder at the bottom.

Yes this was true until the advent of 'corned' and 'crumbled' powder in the second quarter of the 15th Century. Of course, not everyone knew the trick. The pre-corned powder is often referred to as 'serpentine' powder and it actually performs better with some of the earliest firearms (it burns at a different rate and the chambers are made for it) but it will separate for example in a saddlebag.

Powder "quality" improved with "corning". The mixing was done (to a bit more modern recipes) in a water slurry, which cut down on explosions in the powder factory, and then dried in large chunks or cakes and dried. When dried the cakes were broken up or ground and the resulting granules were sorted by size. It had been found that different sized grains burned at different rates and you wanted small grains for pistols (and priming) and larger grains as the guns got bigger.

Yes this is true, and the gradations went finer than that. This is from the Kriegsbuch of Ludwig von Eyb, a soldier and fencing master in the service of the Wittelsbachs of Bavaria. Note the symbols next to the guns, on the bags of powder, and on the shot.

Probably you can understand the meaning.

Now the breechloaders went away because they didn't work all that well. They often didn't seal all that well and a fair amount of gas escaped out the breech, Making one or tow breech pieces may have been OK, trying to make a 1/2 dozen for "rapid fire" gets a lot trickier.

That actually isn't true, it's kind of a canard. We know that the early breechloaders not only worked, they worked very well and in some cases, for centuries. These are a pair of breechloaders given as a gift to Henry VIII, and currently held at the Royal Armoury at Leeds. He used them personally for hunting dozens of times, and they continued to be used until the English civil war. But by that time, the technology for making these, or the culture of the smiths who made them, was basically no longer extant.

Collections Online

collections.royalarmouries.org

It's a myth that they couldn't seal the breech. It was just hard to make a weapon like that, and only the most skilled gunsmiths in the most advanced metalworking centers (like Nuremberg, Augsburg, Venice, Brescia) could do it.

The muzzle loading gun was stronger and would stand up to a larger amount of powder charge for higher velocity and range. AS the powder got better this became more important.
Andin the 1400 and 1500s trying make a tight fitting bore with either system was very, very expensive.

Expensive yes, but hardly beyond the reach of an even moderately wealthy person of the period. The issue was more that the pike and shot armies of the 17th Century were made to be as cheap as possible, along the idea of an economy of scale.

People's ideas ran ahead of the supporting manufacturing technology. This is one of the things that doomed the wheel lock. You could make them and they worked, now pay for enough wheel locks to equip a few thousand men.

They did equip more than a few thousand men, but they were mostly cavalry. They were in wide use in the northern parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the Low Countries, and in what is now Poland.

Reiter - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ships kept breech loaders for a while longer. The ability to reload in the confined spaces on a ship's decks was an advantage. And most of the time the distances were shorter, trying to hit with gun on rolling deck dictated short range.

Again that depended a lot. Breechloaders were in quite wide use on freshwater waterways, such as rivers and lakes. Even saw some use in the Americas. The economics is what changed it.

Breech loading artillery made a big comeback about the time of the American Civil war. As did breechloading guns. Breech loading guns had hung around the edges for most the black powder era but there were too many problems and they were too expensive to make by hand.
View attachment 722065
Ferguson Breech loader of the 1770s. perhaps 200 made? In a test with modern powders it tended to get fowled and jammed with under 6 shots fired?

For artillery the bog problem was not just getting a 2nd or 3rd shot into the barrel and firing it off in the general direction of the enemy. The Problem was hitting the same spot or close to it and here recoil comes into play, big time. Unlike modern demonstrations field cannon with service loads (powder chargers and full bore projectiles) could make the entire gun recoil around 3-4 feet after each shot. Depends on the slope and the ground. There were accounts from the American Civil war when batteries firing 'rapid' fire didn't bother (not enough time) to roll the guns back to the start line after each shot and would up dozens of feet in back of where they started.
A Breech loading gun solves the swab out the bore and ram the new charge into the bore problem, it does not solve the having to heave the gun a number of feet forward after each shot and get the gun pointed back at the target again. However inventive minds were working on it.

View attachment 722066
It doesn't show up well here but there two devices for controlling recoil. The first and used first where wooden blocks that acted like brake shoes that could be forced against the iron tires and then released for towing or for just running the gun forward, the set the brakes again for the next shot. Not surprising, this was not accepted as the last word and the device seen here was developed and often used in conjunction with the wheel brakes.
This thing, when traveling, had the part between the wheels hinged up and link (wire rope) allowed the coil spring in the casing in the trail to hinge up out of the way for towing.
When firing the spade was lowered to the ground with a bit of shovel work and heaving on the gun (or a couple of quick rounds fired off) after which with the spade dug into the ground well when the gun fired entire gun pivoted on the spade and recoiled rearwards, Added hopefully by the wheel brakes? and after the spring in the trail had reached compression the spring, with the aid of the wire rope connect to the spade heaved the gun forward to some near where it started. Probably very entertaining to watch from a distance. Not so entertaining for the gunners leaping about trying to get out of the way.
Notice no hydraulics or pneumatics.
A few guns tried adding hydraulic cylinders to slow the the whole thing down a bit.

The French 75 mounted the barrel on a recoil system that used hydraulics and pneumatics that just about completely controlled the recoil. It still used the wheel brakes.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiiwCbVgCOw

Note this is precision fire as one crewman checks the elevation for each shot. The gun aimer has been able to keep his seat and either checks the line of aim or makes a minor adjustment. This was the start of the LAND quick fire field gun. Navies sort of cheated and used a heavy gun bolted to reinforced deck plates to control recoil, at least until they made even bigger guns.

The predominate shell was the Shrapnel shell that held 290 lead balls and a six gun battery firing even 10 shots a minute could obviously saturate an area with unprotected troops in very short order.

Now up until about 1913-14 these and their counterparts were deployed within line of sight to the targets and mostly could not use the max range of the guns.
However this also meant that they were within line of sight of several hundred (or thousand) very upset men with long range rifles, perhaps a few tripod mounted machine guns (which have much lower firing signature than 75mm cannon even with smokeless powder) or even a few enemy 75-77mm field guns. Losses mounted quickly and the Field artillery moved behind cover and started using forward observers even if it was just a couple of men on ridge a few hundred feet in front of the guns with loud voices a perhaps megaphones. But this caused problem with getting the shells over the ridge but falling on the targets only 1/2 mile to 1 1/2 miles away and not sailing well on passed the intended targets.

Now this all took place between 1897 and 1914. Some countries called some of their guns quick firers or rapid fire or breechloading but unless the crew could stick with the gun and not be run over by it between shots they were not true quick firers in sense it was known after the French 75 became known. And there was perhaps as much espionage/spying and scandal's about the French 75 around 1900 as there was about the atomic bomb in the late 40s. the French 75 was the first gun that could be fired at much more than 2 rounds per minute and actually hit (or come close) to a target several miles away.

Now just the announcement that such performance was possible spurred other inventors get busy and using the same principles or combinations (British used spring reciprocators instead of pneumatic) most the worlds major nations had similar performing guns by 1914. Some had even gone to the next step, variable recoil distance depending on elevation.

This part is all interesting and beyond my ken so very glad to learn! The French 75 is a favorite, it had a lot of influence in WW2.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Those guys working the 75 in the video are amazingly skilled!

 

[Shortround6]

Another video on the French 75. It was a revolutionary weapon in 1897 and into the 1900s, by 1910 not so much but still very good.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tW4GRWhue4

But here we run into the changes in tactics and technology in 1914-18.
The British 18pdr wasn't adopted until 1904 and aside from a bit heavier shell didn't really do anything the French didn't do, except break recoil springs more often.

however even before this picture was taken (1917) the British were far from happy with the 18pdr and working on something better.
Which showed up at the very end of the war with 4 guns going into action before the Armistice.

This gun has the 3rd generation recoil system and box trail like the later 25pdr allowing for a bit over twice the elevation and much more range.
Ammo was going through a bunch of changes.
By 1923 the British had progressed to this carriage but with wooden wheels.

which allowed for the high elevation plus 25 degrees of traverse each side of the centerline. Such was the rate of progress.
And within a few years they wanted more and work was in progress for the 25pdr.
The French put the old 75mm barrels on new split trail carriages with rubber tires between the wars, and started fooling with 105mm howitzers. Or perhaps they were continuing to fool with them from WW I but they never really ordered that many.


Now something to note in the first picture. The scale of artillery use was way beyond what they had planned for before WW I. Note the stacks of ready ammo next to the gun/s.
Even in WW I they were sometimes firing 600 shells a day. Expensive as the guns were they were just a fraction of the cost of feeding the guns in a long war.

Edit. A problem with the French 75 was not the gun or even the ammo, to was that it both blinded the French to the need to improve it and the rest of French Artillery and also blocked funding for improvements. The French Politicians telling the army "If the 75 is as good as you have told us, why do need anything else?"

 

[Shortround6]

Getting back a bit to small arms and how things interrelate.
From about 1888 up to WW I there was a change over, for most countries, from long round nosed rifle bullets to lighter spitzer pointed bullets.
this increased ultimate range and flattened trajectory over close ranges, close in this case being under 1000yds or so Please see some of the long range sights of 1800yds or more.

Now even in 1910 the artillery guys were doing tests and discovered that while, for the most part, the old round nosed bullets wouldn't penetrate gun shields at much over 80-100 yds the new spitzer bullets could penetrate the same plate at hundreds of yds. The gun shields had been a fairly recent addition to field guns as they didn't make much sense for the older guns that tended to leap about with each shot and the gunners were more likely to get run over by their own gun than get hit by an enemy rifle bullet. Once they figured out to make the guns stay put while firing the idea for a shield to protect the gunners from both rifle bullets and shrapnel bullets made a whole lot sense. There was also a fair bit of work/experiments done as to how thick a shield you needed to stop the shrapnel bullets. I have a reprint of a 1910 book on artillery that goes into a bunch of this stuff and includes a chart on how much armor you need to stop a German S bullet at different ranges. Like 6mms will stop it at 5 meters, 5mm will stop it at 80 meters and every 1/2 mm down to 3mm that will stop it at 600 meters. Other bullets, like the French solid bronze bullet will penetrate a bit more.

Now we get into things interrelating. Since all the guns were horse drawn and there was only so much weight the standard team of horses could pull, there was a limit to how thick you could make the shield. You also needed a big enough shield to protect 3-4 gunners if not the entire crew. Things were so carefully considered that even the size of the wheels were considered. The US used 4ft 8in wheels because of the poor state of their roads (British author) while the British used 4ft 8in wheels for better mobility and most of the rest of the world used 4ft 4 in wheel for lighter weight and the French may have used 4ft wheel for greater stability (gun was closer to the ground). Although 2-4 difference in radius seems to be pushing some these differences.


Again this 1910 or before and machineguns are not the force they would become in just 4-5 years.
They were starting to debate if the gun shields still made sense if the rifle bullets could penetrate the shields at hundreds of yards or if shrapnel shells that used bigger diameter balls that penetrated better would make the shield obsolete. This was a pretty big question as at this point in time some armies believed that the shrapnel shell was the Lord and Master of the battlefield. Most of the gun shields of the time did provide protection against shrapnel bullets/balls and armies were only issuing enough HE ammo to deal with enemy field guns they could not knock out with shrapnel shells. Basically they needed a direct hit.
It was considered that the field guns (roughly 75mm) did not hold enough explosive to wreck fortifications. Again this was 1910 and TNT was not being used or at least not much. Preferred explosives were ammonal types as it had better 'keeping qualities' (storage) than gun cotton and was less 'sluggish' than picric acid.
There also may have been some low grade steel being used for HE shells as there is a description of two different types. A thick walled man killing shell and a thin walled "mine" or "torpedo" shell. The thick walled shell for a 2.95in (75mm) is described as having 4-7 ounces of HE (gun cotton?) while the thin wall shell held 12-14 ounces of HE.
By WW II the 75mm shells used by the US in their French 75 derived guns held 1.5lbs of TNT or 1.36lbs of amatol.
Things changed and going back to small arms, the targets and threats that most of the bolt action rifles had been built to deal with had either changed or disappeared from the battlefield by 1940. Nobody was parking field guns at hundreds/thousands of yds distance for the average infantry to man to plink at. The infantry was certainly going to find field guns but they were going to be at much closer ranges and the infantry would have lmgs, sub machine guns, grenade launchers or small mortars and other stuff aside from rifles only.