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INSIDE PLAN OF BOX
- ROAD-RUNNER LIFTS GLASS OF WATER- PULLING UP MATCH
- MATCH SCRATCHES ON MATCH-BOX
- MATCH LIGHTS FUSE TO TNT
- BOOM!
- HA-HA!!
-WILE E. COYOTE, AUTHOR OF "EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW IN LIFE, I LEARNED FROM GOLDBERG & MURPHY"
I am American
To be honest I think they would have been more impressed with something that mirrored an AK47.
If they were introduced to the AR platform I'm sure this would go over better:
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No ping after eight.
The guys who prefered the M1 Carbine would have disagreed with your 'heavier is better' idea. "Chesty" Puller in particular thought the M1 (and M2) Carbine was an excellent weapon and better for the average Marine infantryman than the M1 Garand. (Until his first winter in Korea, when the Carbine's fragility - even compared to an AR - and unreliability in extreme cold - even compared to an M1 Garand - changed his mind rather rapidly.) Hell, had Chesty lived long enough and been Commandant of the Marine Corps during Vietnam, he might have pushed the Marines to adopt the M16 before Curtis LeMay's Air Force. (Remembering here that those who loved the M16 - like US special forces and advisors - tended to be the same sorts that loved the M1/2 Carbine.)
Of course, given that most of the 'Greatest Generation' spent the conflict making coffee and filing reports, you may be right. A guy who only has to hump a rifle every now and again - and never has to hump the full kit of an American infantryman (something the Germans seemed to get right is that a German infantryman never humped his full kit, or even most of it) - is not going to care how heavy his rifle and its ammunition is.
ETA: And I agree with Safetyhit that the MG42 (and the MG1, MG2, and MG3) is probably one of if not the best GPMG ever developed.
Last edited by MountainRaven; 06-08-14 at 11:22.
A friend of mine says damn a conversation that can't stand a little digression---I hope this thread is that way.
Did the Germans use platoon or company level separate supply vehicles? Horse drawn? (I've read that the Wehrmacht relied heavily on horse-drawn supply wagons even in WW2.) I'm so used to the American approach of "seventy pounds of gear" that I'm interested to learn more.
The Germans did extensively use both company and platoon level supply vehicles. With regular German infantry this consisted of one or two horse drawn supply wagons. If a platoon was fortunate to have two, one was a two horse wagon while the other was a single horse cart. German infantry still carried heavy gear but perhaps not as heavy as U.S. infantry and more importantly, the Germans were better armed at the small unit level.
Every German infantry squad was built around a MG34/42 with 1200 rds+ of ammunition. This provided massive fire superiority over most of their opponents. Even more impressive was German Panzer Grenadier and Fallschirmjäger squads had 2 MG 42s per squad. When you look at a standard German vs U.S. Infantry company in 1944 lets say during Normandy the firepower advantage with the Germans is pretty sizable. Here is the comparison between the two
U.S. Infantry company
2 M1918 MGs at Company level
9-12 BARs (3-4 with each platoon)
2 60mm mortars
German Infantry Company
11-14 MG34/42s (3-4 MGs with each platoon and at least 2 at company level.)
2 81mm mortars (see notes)
(By 1944 the Germans typically held their mortars at BN level but it was quite common for infantry companies to have 2 81mm mortars attached to them because a German battalion had two mortar platoons with one platoon being 81mm and the other platoon having 120mm mortars or additional 81mm if not available.
The M1 Garand was a better rifle than the standard German mauser bolt rifle that equipped the bulk of the regular infantry but even the M1s couldn't compensate for the extensive advantage the Germans had in machine gun firepower.
IMO, the Germans and the USMC were the two organizations in WWII that really did a good job of organizing their infantry to excel at the missions they were given.
If you want to learn more check out this website http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/
This site has the small unit organizations of all the major players in WWII.
Last edited by crusader377; 06-08-14 at 17:13.
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