Why did the major powers pay so little attention to a semi-auto battle rifle for their troops?

Come on "Triple C", the Browning "anachronistic"? It is true that the basic design dated from WW1 but the M2 in .50 is still the benchmark for a heavy machine gun yet today in the US military. The .30 was updated in a couple of ways before and during WW2 including the outstanding .30 caliber M2 AN (Army-Navy) aircraft machine gun. The .30 in M2 AN Browning was widely adopted as both a fixed (offensive) and flexible (defensive) weapon on many aircraft, and the Brits used the weapon in the .303 caliber size. Perhaps they stayed with the .303 a bit too long, but when we all went to the NATO round the Browning action remained.

Aircraft machine guns required light weight, firepower, and reliability, and achieving all three goals proved a difficult challenge. The receiver walls and operating components of the .30 1928M2 were made thinner and lighter, and with air cooling provided by the speed of the aircraft, designers were able to reduce the barrel's weight and profile. As a result, the M2 weighed two-thirds that of the 1919A4, and the lightened mechanism gave it a rate of fire approaching 1,200 rpm! Not too shabby for an "oldie but a goodie" huh. There was also an M37 updated version, in the water-cooled only as far as I know, but really; if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

The Browning .30 caliber machine was around a long time, and for good reason, mostly owing to its reputation as a robust and reliable weapon. The Browning gas/blowback LMG design in .30 was in use with the US Military from WW1 until Viet Nam, a span of over fifty years. That a weapon designed in WW1 could serve so long and outlive so many other designs is a testament to the genius of John Browning.

The 1919A4 remained in service in developing countries until the end of the 20th century, and will be showing up in scattered use well into the 21st century. For fun pick up a copy of Hard Rain, by Frank Iannamico. Great resource book on Browning’s designs.

 

I don't see the .30 Browning as anachronistic at all. It is equal in utility to the British Vickers as an excellent medium machinegun. Being able to field it in an air cooled and water cooled version was good. In fact, having a water cooled version was smart for dedicated machinegun troops. This is far better than the German medium using an air cooled MG 34 even with barrel changes.

What the US lacked was a decent squad automatic weapon. The M1919A5 improvisation was largely a joke. But, on the plus side the US did give their infantry an excellent light mortar in the 60mm M1. It was far more effective than the 50mm / 2" mortars other nations chose having a truly effective bomb and a range of more than 1000 yds.
Given enough time to emplace their machineguns and mortars a US infantry company could be effective on the offense or defense. The mortars can be used to neutralize enemy machineguns without much fear of retribution as the Germans don't have an equivalent. The M1919 on a tripod could also be set to fire along fixed lines of fire and on predetermined positions, something the German light squad MG's couldn't do.

 

Let's also keep in mind governments hate "excess" ammo expenditure. MGs, due to their design, are exempt from that scorn. However, the bean counters can exert their mighty power on the lowly grunt. He's forced to deal with bolt Vs autoloader; semi-auto Vs full-auto; burst Vs full-auto. I'm sure lasers and lightsabers will face imposed restrictions so the troops don't use up too much power.

We also have to look at the era. WWI trench warfare, arty and MGs made war costlier in money and lives than ever before. New tactics were constantly bandied about. Economic realities left few countries that could actually field units to try them out (recall GIs with wooden MGs and vehicles painted "tank"). Of course Germany was able to do this at first in secret and later openly.

The sad fact of the US Army is that it trains to fight the last war fought. Late war use of the BAR and Pedersen deviceproduction kept the US Army focused on a semi-auto rifle. Only during war do training, tactics, and weapons development kick into high gear.

Also, I'd like to give a shout out to the Simonov 1916. It's numbers weren't as great as the StG44 but it did see service first.

 

Hard to find too many pictures from that theatre, but here are two:



Soldier with a springfield as denoted by the end of the barrel, M1s had a longer metal barrel which protruded from the wooden body, Springfields had a much shorter metal barrel protrusion.



In this one you see a mix, both Garands and Springfields as denoted by their respective metal barrel portrusions.

However the bottom picture does appear to possibly be rear echelon troops, see one MP in there, two other with white arm bands, and a whole lot of suitcases.

Hard to know for sure and I can't give ya a ratio of how many bolts to semi though at the time. The Combat Mission Afrika Corps has US troops using predominantly bolt actions, but at the same time German SS troops in Normandy get STG 44s which I have seen compelling evidence to suggest the weapon barely saw service, so I am not sure how much faith I would put in that.

 

Well the first picture is that of troops embarked during stateside training as the 45th did not reach the ETO until August 1945; so it is obvious that the picture was taken more than a year prior to their deployment.
The men are also wearing HBT coveralls and no socks.......does not appear like these men are preparing to go into combat.

The second picture has several Garands in it and the soldiers appear to be a mixed group of admin and rear echelon types. Note the type writer cases and the "Broadie" helmeted guy in the back of the boat.

I stand by my statement that the Army did not go into combat, as a whole, with the M-1903. Granted there may have been a few; but, they were no doubt the exception and not the rule.

Brad

 

I agree Browning 50 cal was a superb weapon, but the water cooled M1917 Heavy Machine Gun? The BAR? And the ungodly weight of the M1919? None of them were "poor" weapons--they were inspired designs for their time--but how many of those weapons were in dire need of modernization or upgrading by even the late 30s? I am not denying Browning's genius as a small-arms designer, that his guns were still serviceable in the 40s was a tribute to his quality as an engineer. However, the US were using some rather old guns designed at the end of the First World War, and quite a lot of them could have been much, much better with minor improvements. Bottom line was that France, GB and the USA did not expect or want another war and caught in surprise on a strategic level, and that showed in small-arms designs.

 

The ETO had priority over the PTO. The Garand was late in making a full appearance in the PTO. Perhaps that's what you are thinking? The StG44 was issued one per squad in SS (Das Reich had 41 MP43/s as of 1Feb44) units until after BoB. There were MKb42s from units that participated in the earlier trials (I believe two are in the West Point Museum). Also, units sent in after D-Day did bring MP43/1s and MP43s.

 

Early in the war the Springfield was still being issued in many units on a level of 4 per squad for the grenadiers as the early US rifle grenade attachment and the need to use blank cartridges to fire them had not been satisfactorily worked out with the M1 Garand. This is due to the use of the 7 round clip and the way the rifle loaded. It was very difficult to load a single blank cartridge in the rifle. This was later solved and the Springfields withdrawn.

 

Well thanks for the correction, seems my info was wrong.

No the argument I saw was that besides the handful of MP 43s there were basically no assault rifles in service in the west until around the time of Market Garden. To be honest I can't recall seeing any in German normandy propaganda videos myself. It was pretty convincing but again I have seen info that supports both ways, cant tell which to believe.

 

The basic infantry unit is the squad not the rifleman, a semi auto rifle will not turn a bad squad into a good one though a full auto weapon will give poorly trained troops the capability to stand up to a better trained team (the soviet and german volksturm SMG squads are fearsome in close terrain). Rifle quality is seldom decisive, the last pre-machinegun war saw the Dreyse armed Germans overwhelm the better Chassepot armed French.

 

Ummmm.........NO. The basic Infantry element is the rifleman. The basic maneuvre element is the fireteam consisting of 1 Rifleman, 1 Grenadier, 1 Auto Matic Rifleman, and 1 Assistant Automatic Rifleman. The Fireteam is not built around the Machinegun it is to support the rifleman until he gets to the objective.

There are three of these teams in each Marine Rifle Squad, three squads in a platoon, 3 rifle platoons and a weapons platoon in each rifle company. 4 Rifle companies with a weapons company, a headquarters company make up an Infantry Battalion. Three battalions make a regiment.

The Automatic Rifle is a support weapon; wich means it is there to support the actions of the fireteam; the fireteam does not exist to support the Automatic Rifle.

 

While the US lacked a squad level LMG didn't most US formations have a lot more MGs as you went up the chain than others? In particular the US had 12.7s at a lot lower levels I believe.

 

That fireteam is USMC specific (and is it WW2 or modern? AFAIK the third BAR was a late war addition and there where no M79 equivalents in WW2.
Most WW2 forces did things differently. The German approach was more "the squad exists to protect the machine gun that will then provide the firepower", a typical German tactic was to push forward the LMG and then open fire to force the enemy out of is position rather than assaulting it directly.

Going back to the original point my idea is that a semi auto doesn't represent a sufficient increase to allow the squad to do without a sustained fire weapon so it doesn't allow a chage of tactics, a semi auto armed squad is similar to a bolt action armed one despite the increase of ROF.
Giving a squad more than one full auto weapons allows a split into multiple fireteams but a 4 man team is too small unless lots of specialized support is on hand which is not the case for most WW2 combattants. Looking at pictures of WW2 infantry you see the men carry all sort of "specialized" stuff like stretchers, grenades, additional ammo belts, entrenching tools, AT weapons etc. A 4 man team is too small for that unless it can rely on some sort of vehicle and most WW2 infantry was foot.

 

Nope .....the Fireteam may be Marine specific; but, it was around during WW2 and the M79 equivalant during WW2 was of course the rifle grenade or more often as the case may have been a pouch full of hand grenades.

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I guess I wasn't too clear-- I was trying to back you. More weapons arrived after the invasion than were already issued to troops in the AO. Until '45 though, HEER and FJ units fielded far greater numbers of StG44s than the SS.

 

How were Fallschirmjaeger squads fitted? Max Hastings mentioned several Fallschirmjaeger Divisions (3d and 5th?) were equipped completely with StGs or MP-40s by Dec 44... would be interesting to see how the rifle company was configured.

 

I posted info about FJ units in the MP44 thread.

 

Kbsp wz. 1938M



The Karabin samopowtarzalny wzór 38M, was a Polish 7.92 mm semi-automatic rifle used by the Polish Army during the Invasion of Poland of 1939.

 

The Browning wz.1928 / IMG 28 is a Polish version of the M1918 BAR. It was a light machine gun used by the Polish and German infantry in World War II. The Wehrmacht captured a number of Polish-made Browning wz. 1928 guns and used them until the end of World War II under the designation of IMG 28

 

eddie,
A few problems... your first rifle was basically a prototype as far fewer than 500 were made. Also, the IMG 28 was an LMG. This thread is dealing with semi-auto battle rifles.