The UK was never interested in standardizing with the US pre war, nor did they expect to be supplied with small arms by the US during a war. (US Neutrality Laws frowned on that) They did buy a licence to produce Browning aircraft guns and had been interested in the .276 Pedersen round but not the over powered 30-06. Pre War no one in their right mind would have bought US tanks, they were as bad as the Japanese tanks, if not worse.
Deleted member 1487
Pedersen rifle - Wikipedia
So there was interest, but not in the .30-06. I'm just saying that going for the .30-06 would have simplified logistics a fair bit during the war.
You're right the US wasn't in it until 1917, but did sell shells and other supplies to both the French and British. I agree that there is logic in using the 7.5mm cartridge as well, but given that the French also depended on US imports in case of another war the .30-06 for it's flaws was really the only way to go, especially if Britain was already considering the 8mm Mauser. At least with the US .30 caliber the Brits could still use their barrel making equipment and just adopt a new cartridge case and potentially powder.
And as it was Britain was rearming with US imports during WW2 as soon as it started.
They already had a trade agreement in 1938:
The Anglo-American Trade Agreement and Cordell Hull's Search for Peace 1936-1938 on JSTOR
Arthur W. Schatz, The Anglo-American Trade Agreement and Cordell Hull's Search for Peace 1936-1938, The Journal of American History, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Jun., 1970), pp. 85-103
www.jstor.org
I suspect interest in the Pedersen Rifle while genuine was along the lines of "We'll let the US do all the work and spend all the money developing it and then only have to buy a licence getting a semi automatic on the cheep". Then the depression hit hard and Britain didn't have the money to do it. The British Army is always at the back of the que for funding and it always costs lives.
marathag
Banned
M2A4 Light was world class with the first in in November, 1938
12 tons
two man turret, radio with send and receive
262@2400rpm, 590ft-lbs torque, 5 speed, all syncromesh
36mph top speed, maneuverable
37mm M5 gun capable of penetrating 46mm at 1000 yards, five .30
103 rounds of 37mm, and 8470 rounds of MG ammo.
max armor 25mm all around
oh, and reliable, long life on tracks, and they don't shed in high speed turns
If they were going to standardise with anyone it would have been the French
Only with a healthy dose of hindsight does standardising with the US make sense in the early/mid 30s
As for knowing the war was coming - by the time they 'knew' or rather suddenly realised that Hitler was actually not someone with whom they could make a deal with, but was actually a total mad man - it was far too late for that sort of thing.
Deleted member 1487
I meant more in the late 1930s with purchasing the Browning machine gun instead of the BESA for the tank corps so they could then source the .30-06 from the US. Eventually they could adopt the Garand, as it was offered IOTL but rejected by the Brits for dubious reasons. Plus in the end the Brits did end up using the M1919 in their US LL tanks. And it was quite a bit lighter and I can only assume cheaper to make then.
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Yes you were taking the long way to say the Americans had superior artillery. All the factors of communications, air observation, air superiority, computations, more plentiful ammo, tractor, or SP guns, time on target attacks, and late war VT fuses equal superior American Artillery. Did you think I was talking about the quality of Artillery tubes? The Artillery Arm is a holistic system, that fits into the larger doctrine of combined arms that the army planned to fight under. The U.S. Army had these advantages because long before the war they developed the technology, and doctrine, and then during the war prioritized the production of the hardware, and training of personnel.
The U.S. concentrated production in two standardized calibers, 105 & 155mm guns, but were backed by more then adequate numbers of heavier guns like the 203 and 240mm Howitzers. German field Artillery was a grab bag of Czech, French, and Soviet guns, covering a range of calibers from 76-155mm, causing added logistical problems. The U.S. Army built a more powerful Air & Ground team then the Germans ever did, even at the height of the "Blitzkrieg" period. In 1944 the U.S. 9th Air Force was more powerful then the whole Luftwaffe. American Industry wasn't being bombed, but it had to build up production from a small base, it also needed to support the War in the Pacific, and help arm it's allies.
The Americans on the Elsenborn Ridge couldn't see the Germans below them. Weather conditions during daylight were rain, snow, overcast, dark, and often foggy. The Germans were moving though hilly, forested terrain, the artillery had to be called in by forward observers.
The Germans were never outgunned by 5-1, that's German revisionism to excuse their defeat. "We were 4 times better, by we were outnumber 5-1" "All our mistakes were made by Hitler, and if the General Staff had run the war we would've won, or at least forced a stalemate." "It took 5 Sherman's to take out a Panther." All these things are myths. Now It's true German Infantry had better unit cohesion because of recruitment, and replacement policy, and they did have machinegun superiority. That's the upside, but on the downside German units fought to virtual destruction, and were then pulled from the line, and rebuilt from new men from their home district. American Units were built up to near authorized strength, so units could fight on.
If the argument your making is that German infantry inflicted more casualties on their counterparts then they suffered themselves might be true, but is really irrelevant. They were destroyed by artillery, armor, or aircraft. Being weaker in those arms the Germans had to fall back on the infantry to bare the burden. German Infantry also had the advantage of being mostly on the strategic, and tactical defense, so the British, and American Infantry had to expose themselves in the attack.
An American rifle squad was weaker in machinegun firepower, but had more automatic, and semi-automatic weapons. My point in this threads specific question was that the Bren was better then the BAR, but I don't think it's introduction would've made much difference. The biggest practical advantage of the Bren was it had a 30 round top loading magazine, as apposed to a flimsy 20 round bottom loading magazine.
Please give an example of the war being prolonged because of American Caution? The idea of Eisenhower giving Patton the supplies to send 6 Divisions charging into Germany in October 1944 is just nutty. "Run George, run." Like MacArthur, Patton thought wherever he was was the focal point of WWII. If he'd only been given a few tens of thousands of gallons of gas he would've won the war in 10 days, Ike just couldn't see it, because he was a Limy at heart. You really want a reckless grandstander as supreme commander? Eisenhower had pretty sound judgment, and most of his decisions have stood the test of historical review. The Broad Front Strategy, and building up the logistical base in the fall of 1944 was certainly the correct thing to do.
Taking those running total strength figures as a base for figuring out what they lost is a pretty obvious method. If they have the same number of units, and total manpower is going down, common sense would indicate the difference was accounted for by casualties. Replacements obviously weren't keeping up with loses because overall strength was falling, what's so complicated about that?
Deleted member 1487
I started a tangent earlier in the thread about the value of the Bren to the US because the infantry were forced to rely on artillery more than they arguably should have to make up for the deficit in infantry firepower, which limited their effectiveness; my support for that was the lower German casualty rates than the Allies in the major battles of 1944, lower even than US official figures, despite overwhelming applications for artillery fire among other support, which then turned into a major tangent that ended up bringing in a mod to tell us to stick to the main topic.
Not sure if you saw Calbear's post, but he doesn't want any more derailment of the thread, so I'm going to have to leave the bulk of your post unanswered.
Since this part is on topic I will respond.
In semi-autos sure, but ITTL with the Bren they would still have Garands their other weapons, so it would be a substantial firepower enhancement. I get into the reasons below in more detail, but the Bren was able to produce much more and sustained automatic fire, which is how a squad achieves firepower superiority in battle. The Bren, besides the larger, more easily reloaded magazine, also had a QC barrel to keep the fire up while the BAR had to take a 90 second pause after IIRC 3 magazines or risk burning out the barrel, and had a higher ROF so the volume of sustained effective fire was substantially larger than the BAR or even potentially 2 BARs could generate, while the Bren was still less expensive than 1 BAR and no heavier. So you could equip a US squad with 2 Brens by or before the time that 2 BARs became standard issue in a US squad. 2 Brens then would be able to produce an effective fire rate equivalent to 3-4 BARs and require no more people compared to the BAR per US doctrine.
In a 12 man US squad if they divided into fire teams with one being a Bren group of 2 Brens to support the rest of the squad or two equal sized 6 man fire teams each with a Bren you'll have a much more effective squad than one with 2 or 3 BARs. They'd easily produce more than enough firepower to overpower an MG42 squad and still be somewhat competitive with a 2x MG42 squad, which did appear towards the end of the war. That's assuming there isn't a platoon level Bren group instead of squad LMGs. Or supplementing the squad MGs.
The nice part about the Bren, other than being superior to the BAR, is that it can also replace the weapons platoon M1919s as well, which means you can really have a lot of firepower for a US platoon by having more, cheaper Brens than BARs+M1919s.
Per this by 1944 there wasn't a platoon MG, but the infantry companies have a weapons platoon. For the cost of two M1919s they could have fielded three Brens instead and had only a 3 man team each instead of a 4 man M1919 team. Even without the belt fed weapons the extra Bren could increase overall firepower and be much lighter and handier for the team to move around while allowing for extra ammo to be carried from saving 4kg per MG.
The last part is related to the point of the Bren being adopted by the US, namely in that a machine gun with a higher rate of sustained fire will be the best way to achieve fire superiority in an infantry firefight. Personally I've been partial to the Bren as a LMG over every other WW2 LMG, but recently I've started to come around to the idea behind the MG42, despite it's disadvantages in weight, ammo consumption, and need for multiple 1kg barrels. Namely that the ROF does suppress better than any other MG of the period that isn't a .50 cal or higher because of the weight of fire and the psychological impact of that, which I came across some related research about by the British in the 1980s. Winning infantry engagements is mostly about being able to achieve firepower superiority over the foe and having a weapon that can beat any other infantry weapon in volume of fire will suppress better and through that create the conditions to win the engagement. That doesn't even get into firing ratios and the reasons behind that, which are also highly relevant. If you're interested I can post the paper with some commentary.
Now rather than this being a "MG42 so awesome" post, the above concept is more to illustrate the advantage of the Bren over the BAR in that the Bren had a larger magazine that was replaced more quickly so could produce a greater volume of fire, could sustain fire much longer thanks to the QC barrel, and had a cyclic rate as well. All that adds up to making the Bren a more effectively base of fire than even two BARs, while being cheaper and no heavier.
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In support of your notion of the Bren also replacing the M1919 it should be noted that the Bren with its tripod mount and optional 100 round drum magazine could have served as a GPMG. It wouldn't have been as good as the German belt fed MG42 in that role, but it would have still been a good reliable choice for it.
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When asked which section layout was best I said "the one with the best radio to the best artillery" (I'm not normally one to dismiss small arms but I felt that the exact question was leading so I gave an outside the box answer) which @wiking disputed on the grounds of German casualty reporting which lead to a very long discussion.
Even an M2A2 is on par or better with a Panzer I, and the Germans used a lot of those. Now there were far better tanks (The vast majority were better, but there were some that were used that were even worse) than the M2A2 but if they were the only tank you could get it wouldn't be crazy to buy them.
That aside the Bren gun would have been a good replacement for the BAR if you could get the army to look at it. The BAR was a good automatic rifle... for WW1 but by WW2 it was outclassed. That said pretty much all the small arms were good enough to get the job done. WW2 wasn't going to be won primarily by small arms, but artillery, tanks and planes
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I suspect it was a combination of factors, mainly financial, the UK trials for a semi-auto were inconclusive. Personally I would have just said screw it and gone with the Pedersen as a SMLE replacement, the Vickers would have been an easy conversion and the Lewis was due to be replaced with a new LMG anyway, just buy .276 BRENS instead. They could even re-barrel SMLE's in .276 for reserve forces and use the remaining .303 stocks for training and colonial use in Africa.
There is not a lot to choose between .303 and 30-06 ballistically, also in 1936 no one saw the UK buying US armour, so why would anyone (without access to a time machine) think it was a worthwhile idea.
The Germans used them in Poland because they had nothing else available in numbers. If they had an option all the Pz1's would have been in training battalions having been replaced by PzII and III's.
And? I never said they were great tanks, just that you wouldn't have to be crazy to use them and there were worse tanks around. Panzer Is weren't only used in Poland , they were used in Belgium and France as well. It was used as a major portion of a campaign as late as Barbarossa.
Deleted member 1487
Nor the 8mm Mauser, but the Brits were planning on adopting that as their rimless round. So why not the .30-06? At least they can buy in bulk from the US.
marathag
Banned
Tank | LT vz.38/THN | Panzer III C | BT-7 | M2A4 |
| Date | 1938 | 1938 | 1937 | 1938 |
| Weight | 10.5 tons | 16 tons | 15 tons | 12 |
| Engine | 125HP | 250HP | 405HP | 262HP |
| Top Speed/Off Road | 26mph | 22mph | 45mph | 36mph |
| Crew | 3, two man turret, later 4 | 5 man, 3 in turret | 3, two man turret | 4, two man turret |
| Armament | 37mm, Coax, Hull 7.92mm MG | 37mm, (3) 7.92mm MG | 45mm, 2-3 7.62 MG | 37mm, (5) .30MG |
| Turret Armor | 25/15/15 | 16/15/15 | 15/15/13 | 25/25/25 |
| Hull Armor | 25/15/15 | 15/15/15 | 20/19/13 | 25/25/25 |
| Ammo | 90 37mm,2500 MG | 99 37mm | 44 45mm | 103 37mm, 8470 |
| Suspension | Leaf | Leaf: unreliable. Torsion was later | Christie internal coil | VVSS |
| Radio | yes: FuG 5 4km range Morse, 2km Voice | FuG 5 / Fug 7 Command 80km Morse, 60km Voice | 71-TC Some command, but lose 18 rounds 45mm | SCR-245 45 mile range Morse 20 mile voice |
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Well pre-war there were tentative plans for a .303 rimless which disappeared due to financial constraints. 8mm Mauser was considered but when the operational research types completed their report and submitted it the UK opted for a .270/.280 cartridge instead. The UK was never going to change to 8mm pre-war except for limited and specific purposes like tank use.