Was the STG-44 the best infantryman's rifle of the war?

I don't see the late war German infantry units doing any better being equipped 50% with SG 44s, 50% K98s and a machinegun over the earlier all K98 squads. One thing the Germans do by mid 1944 that offsets any advantage the SG 44 might have offered was reducing the squad size from 12 to 9 men due to manpower shortages.

 

Don't leave out immobile. 6th Army was denuded of transport to help bring supplies forward. Basically, they were static and couldn't have moved any significant amount of their heavy equipment even if they wanted to.

 

Wow.... go back to call of duty. You don't even have a clue that you don't have a clue.

 

What the Germans needed in Stalingrad was an overall weapon that was fully automatic, has a high Rate of fire, robust, reliable, a large clip, and could be found in the 100,000 possibly millions, wait... the Russians already did have just the weapon.

In an urban close quarter battle such as Stalingrad the need for a high rate of fire and large clip is a far greater need then accuracy, especially if you are in a hallway of some sort, because you a too close to worry about aiming. The Russians already had this weapon and no German Assault Rifle will change this or the out come of these particular battles, making the STG not a war saving weapon, just another weapon for the Germans to attempt to field and service.

 

Clearing buildings is best done with grenades. Tossing one in the room before entering is always safer then entering and then spraying and praying. The same was true in WW 1 when grenade usage became nearly a military art form for clearing trenches.

 

You are certainly right, but in terms of a projectile weapons for clearing the buildings around stalingrad the Russian PPSH was bettered by no other sub machine gun.

 

Go back to call of duty?? What the heck does that mean?

 

Only problem is that the PPSH-41, as fine weapon a as it was, wasn't very accurate and couldn't punch through much. Also you by no means need a 850 to 900 rpm rate of fire, thats in excess of what is most useful. 550 to 600 rpm is equally effective and less hard on ammunition consumption.

Also how useful would the PPSH be when assaulting from building to building, where distances sometimes exceeded 200 meters?

The only real advantage the Soviet PPSH-41 had over weapons such as the MP40 was the large drum magazine, it was less wieldly than an MP40, and lack the precision and power of the StG.

 

Grenades are the perfect weapons clearing a room if you're right next to it, but when its 5 stories high and you're not, then they're no good.

Today you don't have to worry much about that however, as the 40mm grenade launcher will take on that job.

A similar weapon would've proven invaluable in Stalingrad.

 

I think he's referring to the wargame "Call of Duty".

 

Proeliator,

Why do you think PPSh couldn't punch through much?

Also, high RoF is very useful at close-combar spraying. Difference between 600 and 900 rpm could mean you could miss someone.

 

Because of the very small and light bullet not packing enough energy behind it to do so.

Leaping out and spraying gets you nowhere in real life, even when using automatic fire you need to try and keep your gun on target. Hence why a 900 rpm rate of fire is more than needed for a light portable smallarm, where 500 to 600 rpm is more useful and still more than fast enough with 9 to 10 bullets being sent towards the target every second. The lower RoF also makes the gun slightly more controllable in full automatic fire.

Only a belt fed machine gun with a bipod for support (or tripod) and a large ammunition capacity will benefit from such a high rate of fire.

 

That is what rifle grenades are for. US soldiers went so far as to substitute 60mm mortar bombs on their rifle grenade base for this purpose. The SG 43 in that instance, not being able to take a rifle grenade launcher, would have been at a severe disadvantage

 

Too bad for your theory that the PPSh41 is VERY controllable in automatic fire as opposed to the MP44. I have a PPSh-41 and have fired the MP44, there is absolutely no comparison for accuracy in full auto.
Watch for muzzle climb (you won't find much):
YouTube - Templar shooting his PPSH-41

Watch the muzzle/front sight post of the MP44 in full auto.
YouTube - MP44
Due to control issues the PPSH-41 is actually more accurate at any range over 25 meters, though in house to house fighting range is not a factor.
As far as the 8mm Kurz punching holes in anything, that is laughable. The PPSh41 is a superior urban environment weapon; shorter/more compact, larger magazine capacity, lighter round (thus carry more), much higher rate of fire, easy to maintain and you can produce them quickly by the millions for next to nothing.
In regard to range at Stalingrad, it was either hand grenade range or long distance, thus the many snipers and reason for everyone keeping their heads down.

 

If you want to make a fair comparison then why not have the same guy fire both weapons?:

YouTube - ppsh41
YouTube - MP44

At any rate I never claimed that the StG was more controllable in full auto fire (odd if it was, since it fires a much more powerful round), only that a lower RoF increases control in full auto for similar powered weapons.

Oh give me a break! I beginning to doubt you ever as much as touched a rifle in your life. The ballistic performance of the 7.92mm Kurz is similar to that of an AK-47s 7.62x39mm round, a 125 grain bullet going at around 700 m/s. And I can tell you for a fact that it will punch straight through thick tree trunks and regular masonry! If you claim otherwise you are clueless!

Since you obviously dont know this from personal experience as I do, watch from 2:55 onwards:
YouTube - AK 47 vs M16 Comparing accuracy, and penetration

Goodbye poor russian hiding behind that brick wall!

Again, 550 to 600 rpm is more than enough, 900 rpm poses no advantage over this for a light hand held smallarm.

Ranges varied between neck & neck and out to approx. 200 meters, and yes thats the range the snipers operated at. They relied on camouflage to save their skin, not range.

 

Why are we een discussing the ppsh in talking about an infantryman's weapon? If I had a choice between the ppsh and the mp44 I would go with the mp44 every time. Here are my reasons why:
It is a better all-round battle arm.
If you survived Stalingrad you may fnd yourself running acroused burned out farm land or snow fields. In the mean time, the mp44 would have been a pratical weapon in urban combat, it was very manageable.
Personally I would take the garand over either of them. Is it as good in street fighting, maybe not, but if I shoot you at 200 meters down the street with the 30-06 you wil go down.
If everyone in my squad is equipped with the garand, and only half of your squad has mp44 I am willing to bet our combined rate of fire would be similar.
The point of aguing past the strong points of each weapon is some what futile in that each weapon in its area of expertice one on one may out do the other. The fact that most wars, and certainly not wwii, are not fought by single individuals with single weapons in single type of combat means an issued battle rifle has to do all things reasonably well. Hence my choice for the garand as the best "all-round" infantry rifle.

 

Really? Show me which facts you are talking about. I'd like to see these well known facts!

I'd also like to know how you can take someone seriously who claims that an AK47 bullet will hardly go through anything while at the same time advocating a pistol round and comparing Stalingrad to Afghanistan ?

Also I will repeat myself by saying a rate of fire of 900 rpm versus one of 550 to 600 gives you no advantage in clearing a room. It sounds like you imagine clearing a room is just about storming in with the weapon at hip height and then swaying it from side to side hoping to hit something, leaving the guy with the fastest firing weapon the winner. Well that is not how it is done.. Maybe by an amateur, but not by a trained soldier. You go in with the weapon shouldered and then you take quick aim at what'ever targets pop up. This is something even the basic recruit is taught today, and spec ops train it till their hands bleed.

Now "oddly" enough I'm just repeating Larry Vickers here, but hey he's only a former Delta Force operative, what does he know about urban fighting and the reason behind weapons choice...

But tell me what is better:

A: Having an SMG which will spray 900 rounds pr. minute but can't do squat to a guy hiding behind a wall and is close to useless past 100 meters, meaning you'll have to seek him out to kill him.

B: Having an assault rifle with a RoF of 550 rounds pr. minute (more than enough) that will shoot through walls and hit individual targets at 300 meters, meaning you can force your opponent to either come forward and shoot back or to piss his pants and retreat.

The SMG is no longer part of the std. infantry squad, and there's a reason for it: The assault rifle fits the bill better, a lot better. The Assault rifle will send bullets through a wall and kill the man behind it, the SMG will do neither thing - which is THE only reason the SMG is still in use today by counter terrorism units, as they unlike the military units don't want their rounds to penetrate through to the next room and possibly kill or injure innocent civilians. Furthermore the assault rifle is accurate out to 300m and often even beyond that, the SMG just 100 m.

And here's a guy who knows how to handle recoil better than the guy before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LNjUxvHbbw

More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmwMY-ON64o

Paints a very different picture compared to the first video.

 

For room clearing a SMG is still the preferred weapon. If you had a group of personnel that thats all they did then the SMG would be the weapon of choice. Unfortunately, a service rifle has to be effective in multiple environments so it is not necessarily the best for anyone environment but performs adequately in the most likely environments it would be employed in. So yes, the Stg-44 would be a better service rifle than the PPsh, because of it's overall capabilities but not the better weapon for room clearing.
Punching holes in walls or long range shooting, then the M1 Garand or BAR in .30-06 would be much superior to the Stg-44. I don't see any medium range employment where the Stg-44, firing semi-auto would really have a decided advantage. As Black6 stated an assault rifle firing automatic is really just a waste of ammo .
The 7.9mm Kurz round was not really a very powerful round. It's modern incarnation would be better because of more advanced propellants but it was still weak compared to the .30-06. The U.S. military in the 1950's looked at adopting the 7.9mm Kurz or 7.62 x 39 Model43 intermediate cartridge, but decided it was insufficiently powerful. Introduction of new propellents allowed the U.S. to develop the 7.62 x 51 NATO round. it was a half inch shorter than the .30-06 but retained basically the same characteristics a the larger round.
.30cal M2 (.30-06) 150gr bullet at 2800fps
7.62x51 NATO (T65) 147gr bullet at 2800fps

compare this to the the 7.62x39, 7.9mm Kurz and .30cal M1 carbine rounds.

7.62x39 Mod43 125gr at 2200fps
7.9mm Kurz 125gr at 2100fps
.30 (for M1 carbine) 115gr at 1970fps

As you can see the Model43 had the same mass with slightly greater velocity and the .30 carbine had only slightly less mass at slightly less velocity as the Kurz. As for your YouTube videos, they really don't prove anything, I doubt they were using the contemporary Model43 7.62 round, in all likelyhood it was of more recent manufacture using more advanced propellents than were available in WWII. The WWII Kurz round would be only slightly less effective than the Model43 round, but the 7.62x39 round of more modern manufacture would be a great deal more powerful than it's WWII counterpart, so you can't take the modern versions performance and extrapolate it to say how effective the WWII 7.62 or Kurz would be.

BTW, house clearing proceedures/tactics have vastly improved since WWII. I am sure the average German or Soviet soldier recieved very little if any training in the rudimentary techniques that existed at the time. Pitch in a grenade, follow it in after it explodes, lay down suppressive fire until you can locate and neutralize your adversary.

 

Your modern day connections to your defense on this subject is meaningless and pointless, as ww2 was the fore barer of all modern infantry tactics and weapon design, so enough with the delta force, modern units, and AK 47's.

The interesting thing is that you are ignoring everything.

I didn't say that the PPSH was all around better then the STG and the Germans should use that weapon. I stated that the PPSH was the perfect weapon for a battle ground like Stalingrad and more precisely house to house fighting.

I never said the 'spray and pray' tactic is the way to go, I am well aware as to how to clear a room in a modern day entry, well sorry but in ww2 they didn't have breaching shot guns, ballistic shields, tear gas and the time for proper breach and entries for every house and room in a city. The need to get in a room and clear it fast is essential to keeping momentum in a battle, this is where the PPSH is better than the STG, its rate of fire and higher clipped drum means that they had to reload less and can fire more, meaning more time to move forward and less time for the enemy.

Now obviously you are going to reply to this with the same zeal as the rest of your posts, and so be it you have the right to reply to this post, however after that it is enough, we are simply ping ponging this back and forth and not adding anything new to this discussion and now it is time to move on.