Equip Your WWII Army

I was thinking about what the armies of World War II had for standard issue arms and equipment. This got me to wondering if I could pick and choose from all the various armies equipment, how would I equip my WWII army?

My infantry would have the M1 Garand as the standard issue rifle, the MG42 as the standard issue light machine gun and American logistics backing them up. My air force would have the P51 Mustang as the standard fighter, the B17 as the standard heavy bomber, the Ju88 as the standard medium bomber and the Sturmovik IL2 for CAS. My navy would have British carriers, American battleships, cruisers and destroyers, Japanese submarines and the "Long Lance" torpedo.

That is just some basics. So how would you equip your WWII Army?

no tanks or artillery guns?

TemplarKnight said:

no tanks or artillery guns?

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Even though I hate to say this as US Army tanker, I would probably go with the T34/85. The American tanks were just not that great in WWII. I know a lot of people would go with the German Tigers but mechanical reliability was an issue.

I am just not very familiar with the artillery to intelligently comment on it.

Panther Ausf G
MG42
StG44
Fw-190 D-9 (With American AvGas)
Fw-109 G/H (Ditto)
B29

As with Tank Cdr, I don't know enough about artillery to make a judgement.

What year is the POD? A lot of the weapons mentioned were only invented half way into the war and were in different calibers.

tallwingedgoat said:

What year is the POD? A lot of the weapons mentioned were only invented half way into the war and were in different calibers.

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Lets go with weapons in service no later than 1 Jan. 1944, that should eliminate a lot of the "wonder weapons".

Tank Cdr said:

Lets go with weapons in service no later than 1 Jan. 1944, that should eliminate a lot of the "wonder weapons".

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Damn. That means I can't re-equip my armoured force with Maus.

Life In Black said:

Damn. That means I can't re-equip my armoured force with Maus.

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As a tanker just let me say that if I was given that monstrosity and told to go to combat with it and maintain it I would repeatedly beat my face on the front slope of it until I became unfit for further military service!!!

Tank Cdr said:

Lets go with weapons in service no later than 1 Jan. 1944, that should eliminate a lot of the "wonder weapons".

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So the idea is your country can afford to stay out of the war until 1944? And how is it you can buy weapons from both sides?

Jan 1944... There go my A-34 Comets then...

So anyway, here goes:


In the air:

Avro Lancaster (Strategic)
de Havilland Mosquito (Tactical Strike/Night Fighter/Coastal Strike)
North American P-51B (Long-range escort)
Supermarine Spitfire Mk.XIV (Interceptor/Battlefield Air Superiority)
Bristol Beaufighter (Coastal Strike)
Short Sunderland (Maritime Patrol)
Douglas C-47 (Transport)
Westland Lysander (Army Co-operation/SF Insertion)
And a load of other planes in roles I've forgotten.

On the ground:

Here I must note that I'd dearly love to put the Comet into the main slot because frankly short of the M-26 it was the best tank of the war. Due to the cut-off date though I'm in a bit of a fix since even the Sherman Firefly didn't actually enter service until February 1944...

So, instead of any British or western Tanks I'm stuck with Soviet Materiel, since my fictional country hates the Nazis with a passion. Even here the T-34/85 is out, since according to a quick search it entered production in February 1944. Can't we move the cutoff to 6th June 1944?

The American logistics is the killer application of WWII. With American logistics you could probably even tolerate a lot of the tempermental high quality German tanks and such.

Assuming I get to stay out of the war until '44.

Assuming I'm on the Allied side:

APC: Universal Carrier
Tank: T-34-85
AT gun: 57mm ZiS-2, 100mm BS-3
Divisional guns: 76mm ZiS-3, 122mm M-30
Corps gun: 152mm M-10
Mountain gun: 76mm M1938
Mortars: 60mm, 81mm, 120mm

Trainer: T-6
Transport: C-47
Fighter: P-51
Fighter Bomber: Mosquito

Rifle: M1 Garand
LMG: Bren in 30-06
HMG: Browning M1917, Browning M2
Tank MG: Browning M1919
SMG: PPS-43
AT: M9 Bazooka

My aircraft will be American with the exception of the de Havilland Mosquito which shares the same engine as the P-51. I have no need for heavy bombers because the Mosquito can do 90% of the job and strategic bombing is a waste of my resources. Ground forces heavy equipment will be almost entirely Soviet except for the universal carrier for which the Soviets had no counterpart.

EWHM said:

The American logistics is the killer application of WWII. With American logistics you could probably even tolerate a lot of the tempermental high quality German tanks and such.

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You definitely could, though I'm not sure it'd be worth supporting the German tanks once the E8 Sherman was deployed. Maybe the Panther.

Tank Pz IVH
APC M3 halftrack
rifle MP44 (Maschinenpistole 44) / StG44 (Sturmgewehr 44)
SMG M-3
mortar German 120 mm
Arty 75 MM pack Gun
105 mm Howitzer US
US 155 Howitzers
aircraft F-4 U , P-47 ,
B-17 Hv Bomber , B-25 and A-20 med bombers
US naval ships
40 mm AA Guns , 50 Cal MG ,
MG 34

Me-262's if I can rebuild the engine blocks without cast iron
Can I buy some Ar-234 prototypes?
If I can, I'll have some Focke-Agelis helicopters too...

Panzer IVs
Spitfires, later deviants
Same with Lancasters
The Tank variant of the FW190

88mm artillery
Schmeisser machine pistols

I can't choose things I don't know, so I've just gone with what I do know

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf said:

Spitfires, later deviants
Best Regards
Grey Wolf

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What are you going to do with these Spitfire deviants, have some sort of mile high club orgy?

Riain said:

What are you going to do with these Spitfire deviants, have some sort of mile high club orgy?

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Oh, I think I meant variants!

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Infantry
Service rifle: 6,5x55mm AG m/42.
SMG: 9x19mm K-pist m/37-39.
LMG: 6,5x55mm MG42.
HMG: None, belt-fed GPMG LMG should be enough.
Medium mortar: 81mm Brandt.
Light mortar: 60mm Brandt.
Infantry gun: None, decent number of medium mortars should be enough.
AT gun: 6pdr (57mm) Mk IV.
AA gun: 20mm Pvlv m/40 (with its adaptable tripod allowing it to fire as AA and ground support gun).

Armour
MTB: Panther D.
Light tank: Pz IIIJ.
SPAT: StuG IIIG.
APC: M3 halftrack.
SPAD: Lvkv fm/43.

Lack of standardisation here. The only benefits is light tank and SPAT on the same chassis.

Artillery
Medium howitzer: 105mm m/40.
Heavy cannon: 105mm m/34.
Siege howitzer: 21 M18.
Heavy AT gun: 17pdr (76,2mm) Mk I
Medium AD gun: 40mm Bofors.
Heavy AD gun: 75mm Bofors.

Prime movers
Willy's Jeep.
US 2½ ton truck.
M3 halftrack.
Volvo TDGB.

Air force
Fighter: Fw 190D-9 (radial engine takes more damage, decent high altitude performance).
Tactical recon: Fw 189 Uhu.
Recon: Mosquito.
Light bomber: Mosquito.
Night fighter: Mosquito.
Heavy bomber: Not needed. My airforce is tactical and operational, not strategic.

Navy
Carriers: American.
Battleships: British.
Cruisers: British.
Destroyers: Japanese.
Submarines: German.
Landing crafts: American.

Logistics
American.

Technology
British.

Tactics
German.

Operational doctrine
Soviet.

Artillery system
Finnish.

Fighter tactics
Finnish.

Bomber tactics
American.

Ward said:

Tank Pz IVH
APC M3 halftrack
rifle MP44 (Maschinenpistole 44) / StG44 (Sturmgewehr 44)
SMG M-3
mortar German 120 mm
Arty 75 MM pack Gun
105 mm Howitzer US
US 155 Howitzers
aircraft F-4 U , P-47 ,
B-17 Hv Bomber , B-25 and A-20 med bombers
US naval ships
40 mm AA Guns , 50 Cal MG ,
MG 34

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I can see how you might license MG34 pre-war, but how do you propose to get the Germans to sell you later war equipment while you buy late war American weapons?

That's why I dislike these threads. There's nothing realistic about it. It's not about pre-war planning, it's a post war surplus party. At this rate we might as well ask for both the V-2 rocket and the A-bomb.

What would be interesting is if someone could modify a ZB-26/Bren gun for belt feed. Here's a ZB-30J, compare it to this Bren gun some gun smith did a belt feed conversion for using the M240 top cover. Don't know how reliably it feeds though.