Why didn't Germany get it's infantry weapons right

infantry weapons literally don't matter

>>2175754

Care to elaborate?

>>2175764
a majority of casualties come from artillery, the only vaguely relevant small arm is the medium machine gun and maybe some light anti-tank weapons. The wehrmacht had good (some argue the best) of both of these

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overcompensation for lack of mass production and thinking the war would just be WW1 pt 2

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>>2175682
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having bolt action rifles in WW2.

>>2175754
Moronic over-exaggeration

>>2175682
because despite war-experience and officers constantly bitching about shitty weapons it took several years for german small arms engineers to not be completely high on memes all the time.

>>2175834
fuck you idiot

>>2175682
>9mm submachine guns?
Are excellent weapons in any situaiton where you're fighting in and around vehicles/buildings against people who aren't wearing armor.

>>2175782

Fucking saved.

>hey von braun wanna make rockets?
>ja!
>many exploded rockets later creates V2
>Ok we can make V2 rocket which is single use and costs as much as the me262 or we can make more me262s

>make more V2s you idiots, the angols will surrender any day now with each rocket

>>2175682
Because Germany realized the main firepower and the core of an infantry squad comes from the machinegun and the rifle and smg are just there to support.

>>2175834
Over-exaggeration isn't a word and is redundant. Just say exaggeration.

Being late on the stg44 was the only mistake they did with rifles. Their doctrine around the mg34/42 was better and more effective than any otherside. Because of its central importance on a squad level, I will argue that having a low capacity semi-automatic rifle, such as the garand or g41/43 would be neligible in the overall combat effort over the k98 so long as the mg34/42 are issued and emphasized on a squad level. The magazine size, firepower, and weight of the stg44 is another story, and would be worth to mass issue them over the k98 and mp44. But with the g41/43 you have not so much improvement of firepower capability on a squad level when issued over the k98 when it's just relative to the mg34/42. You're losing out with its unreliability and being more complicated and harder to maintain for a disposable and quickly trained conscript. The k98 is so simple to use that you can trust any simpleton to get accustomed to knowing how to use it in case they don't pay attention during training or forgot the steps.

I personally like the whole basic infantry small arms doctrine being the whole k98, mp40, and mg34. It seems to be more simple and versatile than any other major nation at the time.

>"Studies conducted during the Italian Campaign found that 11 percent of the casualties were from small arms and 89 percent from artillery, mortars, and grenades."
>"During the XIX Corps penetration of the Siegfried Line 1944, the US Army found that 18 percent of casualties were caused by small arms and about 80 percent by artillery and mortars."
>"Another study from Korea found that small arms were responsible for 7.5% of casualties."

https://books.google.com/books?id=KeiEAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA73&dq=what+percent+of+casualties+in+ww2+were+due+to+small+arms&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjPorKg_qfRAhVW5mMKHR9ID78Q6AEIGjAA#v=onepage&q=11%20percent%20of%20the%20casualties&f=false

>bolt action rifle
2/3 of their enemies' standard issue rifles were bolt action
>9mm submachine gun
2/3 of their enemies' standard issue submachine guns were 9mm or a rough equivalent. The other one fired a .45 round but had a smaller standard magazine so they're easily comparable

>>2176851
>>2175768
if you understand game theory a bit you may be aware that doesn't actually mean they don't matter

>>2176904
lol fuck off

>>2175754
Hello Lloyd

>>2176853
>The other one fired a .45 round but had a smaller standard magazine
Got replaced in service with a 9mm during the war.

>>2177077

Protip: his name is Nikolas

>>2175782
Is there more of this? This shit is fucking amazing.

>>2175782
Sides are in orbit.

>>2175782
More of these comics

>>2176851
>Just bombard the enemy and eventually they'll give up because everyone's dead
This really works only with nuclear weapons senpai
You need soldiers to claim territory and they need good small arms to do that

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>>2175682
Reasons are as follows:
1)Wrong priorities and criminal incompetence at the highest levels of government.
2)Lack of funding/wastefulness and mismanagement of existing resources (see Wunderwaffe program, Atlantic Wall, etc)
3)Bickering between different armament companies chasing contracts and inefficiency of both industry and logistics, further exacerbated by non-stop Allied bombing
4)Tremendous difficulty of training recruits and officers on the capabilities of the revolutionary new weapon system and its cartridge.

At the point they were actually able to produce it, StG 44 was a mistake. Jerry never managed to outfit even 20% of its army with the new weapon, and by 1945 he completely ran out of money, so he had to scramble whatever shit he could to outfit the Volkssturm with inferior bolt-action rifles so that they can at least distract the invincible Allied war machine before it steamrolled them.

>>2177245

hm?do you mean the sten?

>it's another "Germany would have won WW2 if I was Führer" episode

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The German doctrine for infantry was that the machine-gun was the main weapon of the infantry squad. This page explains it well : http://www.dererstezug.com/TacticalPhilosophies.htm

We need to keep in our minds that the italian front is pretty extreme in its use of and effectivness of artilley.

>>2176851
>>2178938
This needs to link here

>>2175754

So did the soviet mass production of SMGs never matter? i heared it served as compensation for the poor training.

>>2176717
But that's wrong. The MG is there to support the infantry.

>>2178938

Why? It's in line with the casualty numbers by other belligerents on other fronts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artillery#Indirect_fire

>>2179930
Germany probably wasn't capable of mass producing SMG for urban fighting, even if they wanted to

>>2179946
Not within German doctrine. In nearly every combat scenario, their first call of action was centered around deployment of the machine gun crew.

>>2179946
in the same sense that artillery and tanks are there to support infantry

>>2180095
Yeah and they lost which proves that using the infantry to support the MG is a stupid fucking idea.

>>2180102
Shut up, the German army was brilliant with tactics with the machine gun and the allies envied the MG42

>>2180102
and what is the better idea

>>2180133
>the German army was brilliant with tactics with the machine gun
They lost.

>the allies envied the MG42
And the Germans envied the Garand. So what?

>>2180135
Using MGs as infantry support? You know, like every other military does?

Most armies equipped their infantry with bolt action rifles at the time, Germany was not unique in this. Germans learned to build squads around the MG-42 just like in WW1 but made the mistake of attacking Russia without automatic weapons for the grunts meaning they were outgunned by the PPSh even with the MG-42.

>>2180160
Also they had trouble supplying ammunition for the StG-44.

>>2180157
Interesting idea. With sort of machine guns ought they use in this role? Water cooled tripod mounted ones? Maybe something with a 20 round magazine, but otherwise light enough to lug around?

>>2180157
>They lost.
This has nothing to do with Germany being great with their machine gun
Have you read anything about WW2? Why did Germany lose the war? They were outnumbered, their war economy was outproduced and they made strategic mistakes. Not because of their machine gun tactics. How dense can you be?

>>2176117
this, the mp40 was noted for its almost-perfect lack of recoil

albeit this probably led to shitters not properly aiming the thing because of it, however that is useful in an urban setting when you can fire around corners and over cover

>>2180175
How about a .30 caliber belt-fed Kraut-killing son of a bitch? Seemed to work well last time.

>>2180180
If it was so brilliant, why didn't everyone switch to it? Probably because it's shit and LMGs are for fucking infantry support.

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If only it wasn't limited to paratroopers

>>2180193
>why didn't everyone switch to it?
They had different fighting styles. The Soviets, for example, just threw men at the Germans and they got mowed down in the millions. That's just how they rolled. They won so who cares (the Germans were superior fighters nevertheless)

>>2180237
>The Soviets, for example, just threw men at the Germans and they got mowed down in the millions
But that's wrong you retard. Stop getting your fucking information from Call of Duty and /his/ memes.

>>2180240
The Eastern front saw twice as many soviet deaths as it saw german ones.

>>2180193
A great gun, after you lay down the tripod in a stable position, fixed the gun into position, and both the loader and the gunner took a breather. If ones in more of a pinch, an american soldier could use a bar, for which he could lay down fire with for about a few seconds before reloading.
The german? Well he just plopped the gun down, threw in rounds, and away he went.

>If it was so brilliant, why didn't everyone switch to it?
I mean, everyone did. Modern light machine guns are modeled on the MG-42, at least in its functionality (a light machine gun with a bipod that can mountain box or drum magazines).

>>2180255
1941 was a bad year for the Soviets. Later on, when soviet infantry could properly go toe to toe with german infantry, they still did not have superiority (and often not even equivalency) with german artillery and air power. Whenever either of those two were in the fray, the soviets got fucked.

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Gun that can fire past a mile coming through.
Step aside Springfields and Karabiners.

>>2180240
>But that's wrong you retard
No. One of the primary reasons the soviets won was that they outnumbered the Germans and they were ready to sacrifice themselves in infantry attacks. And yes, they literally got mowed down by German MG fire

>>2180255
>>2180277
>it's a /his/ falls for the Zhukov memes episode
Jesus, you retards need to stop watching Enemy at the Gates.

>>2180277
They did outnumber the germans. That does not mean their tactical plans involved "run at them until they run out of ammunition."

>>2180206
>gets issued to everyone
>Wehrmacht experiences severe ammo shortages in 1942

>>2180282
>That does not mean their tactical plans involved "run at them until they run out of ammunition."
I'm not saying that's all they did, but their readiness to sacrifice infantry in futile attacks was an important element in the way they waged war. The other Allies were much more cautious with infantry, and you can see that in the casualty figures

>>2180102
>>2180157
They didn't lose because of their machine gun tactics you idiot.

>>2180240
Yes, we should rather consider Soviet propaganda sources.

FUck you idiot, soviet operational commanders were THE best in the world bar none, attackers are supposed to achieve 3:1 local superiority when attacking ANYWAY

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>>2175682
Why didn't USA get its squad support weapons right? I mean automatic rifles with 20 round magazines? For suppressing fire?

>>2180644
To be fair the FN FAL only had a 20 round clip and is somehow still in service.

>>2180670
Different roles, though.

>>2180180
If it was so brilliant, why didn't everyone switch to it? Probably because it's shit and LMGs are for fucking infantry support.


Because Russia equipped the entire eastern hemisphere with automatic rifles for every grunt, massively changing the paradigm of infantry firepower.
America continued with the cult of the rifleman until the 60's and then did the same thing.

Machine guns are less important to an infantry squad when EVERYONE is capable of several seconds of sustained automatic fire.

If we still used bolt action rifles, we'd all be aping the Germans.

>>2180670
Completely different role.

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>>2175682
Because of Hitler. He had no interest in developing the assault rifle or the jet fighter until the war was almost over. Instead Hitler wanted to focus on new and fancier tanks, each less reliable than the last. In an age where the best tank can be taken out by a single guy with an RPG/Recoilless, Hitler thought that giant 4 story super tanks would win the war.

>>2180788
But literally every military did adopt to using the machinegun. Many armies today even use the MG3 in that role.

>>2180828
You may wish to enroll in remedial reading courses.

>>2180277
you find a better source for deaths then other than in the country they occurred in
according to russian sources something like 40% of red army deaths came from german pow camps when they were captured while attempting to mobilize

>>2180670
>clip

>>2180788
>Because Russia equipped the entire eastern hemisphere with automatic rifles for every grunt, massively changing the paradigm of infantry firepower.
In WW2?

>>2181371
We're talking about post war changes to world infantry doctrines.

Guess what the Russians did two years after the war?

>>2181390
Not the guy you're talking to, but wasn't your argument that German infantry tactics in WW2 were shit?

>>2181403
No.

I'm not either of the idiots that were arguing before. In context, Germany had excellent doctrine that made sense, and it was flatly better than American doctrine of the time.

Modern tactics bear some resemblance, chief among them being the aggressive mentality encouraging men to ALWAYS attack, and to attack in the absence of orders, and not separating the NCO from the squad. That, and there's no designated role for each fireteam in a a squad anymore, as far as I know.

Machine gun tactics weren't retained because the underlying logic doesn't apply when you're fielding units where EVERYONE carries an automatic rifle rather than a bolt action or low capacity semi auto.

>>2178486
Think he's talking about the grease gun.

>>2180193

>If it was so brilliant, why didn't everyone switch to it?

kek, everyone and their mother copied the general purpose machine gun concept, USA included. The m60 was derived from the FG42 and the MG42.

>>2181610
I was, and I was wrong. Greasegun retained the fuddyfive, because up until 200 or so, we were more obsessed with that mediocre fucking round than the bongs are with longbows.

>>2176355
You short sighted moron, the real enemy was the moon.

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that's your average squad, everything is centered around the mg as >>2176717 said

>Dude gas traps lmao
What did they mean by this?

>>2180262
>>2181631
He's pretty obviously talking about centering the infantry squad around the MG instead of using it as infantry support.

>>2181452
>Germany had excellent doctrine that made sense, and it was flatly better than American doctrine of the time
"No." Germany had a doctrine that made sense for what they had. It was not better than the American doctrine of the time. American doctrine, at least at the squad level, has changed very little from WWII. Back then it was Find, Flank, Fuck. Now it's locate, maneuver, destroy. Why? It's extremely flexible and very successful. Germany's doctrine was not flexible at all and killing an officer was an easy way to put Germans into serious disarray or even get them to start shooting at each other. You're talking out of your ass. The U.S. had the best squad level tactics of WWII according to most historians, including Norman Davies.

>>2180255
>The Eastern front saw twice as many soviet deaths as it saw german ones.
yeah, because it saw close to four million soviet POWs get killed by negligence

This thread makes me want them to make another, better Brothers in Arms game. The squad level tactics were fun.

>>2183920
I mean, it wasn't really negligence. It was purposeful starvation.

lol wehraboos are hilarious

it is really funny when /his/ talks about modern military history

>>2183812
>It was not better than the American doctrine of the time.
American doctrine at the time was fucking atrocious.
>American doctrine, at least at the squad level, has changed very little from WWII.
Oh really, anon?

I was unaware that modern army doctrine had squads split into three different, non interchangeable teams of different sizes with different weapons who fill totally different-and specific- tactical roles.

I was unaware that modern doctrine still calls for the squad lead to leave 3/4 of his men behind while he fucks off with a recon team to get himself pinned or killed.

I was unaware that we still expect him to then get away from the enemy he just ran into, and simultaneously direct the support team while also leading the assault men into position.

Because we do NONE of that. American doctrine in ww2 was utterly inflexible and over complicated, and it did not emphasize individual aggression or initiative at all.

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>>2175754

Tell that to the 24th Regiment of Foot faggot

>>2175823
That is a fantastic example.
The German's happened to have the benefit of various models of Gewehr rifles at their disposal as well, which were notably accurate and efficient rifles for the time.

>>2180270
That rifle is also obscenely long and heavy. Sure, it could cut through an army easily if used on a wide scale, but a 39 pound rifle is not easy to carry with other gear.

>>2180160
Hitler's Mistake was not in attacking Russia.
Hitler's Mistake was in not attacking Russia First.

>>2180073
Didn't Germany have the best industry after America?

>>2186309
>Best

No!

>Most complicated

Yes!

>>2186309
hahaha
that would be canada

>>2186320
>that would be canada
A Fucking Leaf!

>>2186327
t. hans

>>2186309
Even Britain could outproduce them in many industries including aircraft

>>2185600
filtered

>>2186320
How's that possible? Wasn't Canada's population like 5 million at the time?

How many troops did they even send to Europe?

>>2176793
>over-exaggeration
a pleonasm

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>>2180670
>clip

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>>2185600
you're an acceptable tripfag desu

>>2186335
It was 10 million and we had 1 million in uniform. I think we had around 350k combat troops at the height of the war.

It was a massive contribution for a small country so far from the war, and we kicked an underappreciated amount of ass. But we weren't a major industrial centre by any means (we did make a lot of specific things though like Corvette anti submarine ships)

>>2190247

There was also a lot of primary resource production centered in Canada. It gets weird trying to track the economic impact, since the British Commonwealth didn't maintain a consistent set of accounting practices for how value was derived if say, you dug up aluminum in Canada and shipped it over to the U.S. for refining and then to the UK to make engines, but they sent over a lot of stuff.

>>2180133
Wow anon, really flaunting that intelligence there, outstanding.

>>2180102
lloyd

>>2180644
I wanna know this too. Were the doctrines different? If they could make something as good as the browning .30 why couldn't they make a good infantry LMG?

>>2190873
>Were the doctrines different?
Our infantry doctrine at the time was different. And fairly retarded.

>>2178360
You mean they need good artillery, mortars, and grenades to do it. Even today, infantry are glorified forward oberservers.

>>2175682

I'm not sure what exactly you mean. Nobody else in the war had rifles comparable to the STG44.

>>2191022

And rifles anon. Rifles enter into the picture as well.

>>2180073
>>2180095
>>2180096
>>2180102
>>2180133

The STG44 fundamentally changed the way that German infantry fought. Before the STG, German infantry was always vulnerable whenever the machine guns needed to be moved. The STG44 allowed every individual rifleman to take on the role of a machine gun in situations where the MG42 was not available. For example, when you're retreating, you normally don't have access to the MG42 because the machine gunner has the gun packed up while he's pulling back. Same situation applies when you're advancing. When you're pushing forward, the MG42 is not available because it is going to be packed up. So while the MG42 was great for defending a static position, it wasn't so good whenever you needed to start moving around. The STG44 fixed this problem and made German infantry much more fast and mobile. Obviously, this advantage was not enough to impact the results of the war, especially because it was already too late by the time the STG44 was put into widespread use. But it did heavily influence the design of future infantry rifles as well as future infantry doctrine in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPWJOJZQCs8

>>2192509
Americans had semi-auto rifles, but thats it.

>>2181653
>not realizing only Based Kim Jong Un understands the threat of Poseidon, and continues to fire missile after missile into the ocean

>>2192558
what about the advent of light machine guns, that can be much easier fired while manoeuvring

Are semi-auto rifles adequate today? USA seems to think so and ive played many simulator games and rarely ever used fully auto

>>2175782
The attempt to use german gave me cancer

>>2175682
The Germans understood that the only important weapon in an infantry section is the Machinegun. The MG42 was the best MG of the war, full stop. The other guns in the section were there in case something went wrong and because the men would feel uncomfortable carrying nothing but ammunition.

In other words they got infantry weapons perfectly right at every phase of the war.

>>2192711
Automatic fire has its uses. Suppression, enfilade fire, etc. Also in close quarters the ability to put down a lot of lead at something can be decisive, as we discovered in Korea.

Particularly these days with highly trained troops, automatic weapons are no longer a liability and only an advantage. The men can choose to spray if they need to, but will generally limit themselves to short bursts or single shots.

When you get untrained men with automatic rifles though, the results are usually comical.

>>2175754
I thought LeMay was dead

>>2175782
>grave of test pilots
KEK

>>2180644
Walking fire doctrine. The idea was a weapon you could use for suppressing fire on the move.

As it turned out, this was fucking stupid.

>>2194372
but soldiers are more trained than ever, and USA uses semi-auto

>>2194624
Except it doesn't. Select fire is a thing.

>>2180270
I'm honestly surprised that post war Russia wasn't deaf due to that rifle.

>>2175682
Lots of existing weapons and neither the time nor the money to research and produce new ones, plus their military doctrine was built around what they had.

Also, fun fact: the M1 Carbine was originally intended to be fully automatic and utilize a 30-round box magazine, which would have made it the world's first widely issued assault rifle.

>>2176117

if only the russian shock troopers didnt wear body armor.

>>2180255

so what? 2:1 isnt such a terrible ratio,especially considering the best german units were fighting on the eastern front.

>>2195152
They didn't. A tiny, tiny number of people had any sort of armor. Hence Every SINGLE combatant power issuing pistol caliber submachine guns.

as a /k/omando this thread brings me great sadness for so many reasons

go ask /k/ OP

>>2195169
>especially considering the best german units were fighting on the eastern front.


Not him, but I've never ever seen anyone actually support this assertion. Or even provide a measurement for how you could determine which ones are the best units as opposed to the worst ones.

All that ever gets thrown out (again, in my personal, anecdotal experience, for whatever that's worth) is pointing out the D-Day beach defenders were from static garrison formations. They'll ignore Italy, and it's concentration of highly experienced and battle-hardened troops. They'll ignore all the forces that rushed in (often from inland France or western Germany at first) which were not second echelon forces. They'll ignore the huge number of second echelon forces that the Eastern Front employed, often behind the main line of battle, or the axis satellite troops such as the Romanians and Hungarians who were on the eastern front and were pretty terrible.

>>2175682
Giant death cannons
Retarded research spending
Focusing on armor too much
Poor spending
Distrust within the chain of command
Very small timeframe they could have implemented modern equipment