Army equipment that should have seen service

[Deleted member 1487]

The thing with the BAR is that buy the time my dad was in Korea and leading patrols it was a slow war. So being on patrol you could alwas fall back to support so they didn’t have any need for the heavy rounds or long range the BAR provided. They had quick encounters with lots of rounds fired and being able to manuver the gun was more important then a heavy round. And a. Gun as long and heavy as the bar is going to limit how fast you can bring it on target. Add in the weight of the gun and ammo and how that limits the amount you can carry and it is just the wrong weapon at the wrong place.
But really if you think about it you can argue that the BAR was not an attempt at a LMG. It was an attempt at an assault rifle at a time when the military thought it needed a rifle caliber round. If anyone back then thought you could get away a modern assault rifle sized round then you probably get a much smaller BAR. And it probably fires faster. As no one really thought you needed rapid fire. (Another reason I say the BAR was never men t to be a LMG)
In some ways the Tommy Gun and the Carbines are also an attempt to creat what we know of today as an assault rifle. But out of the three the Carbone is probably as close as you get back then.
Thus in Europe in WW2 it was more important as most folks had regular rifles with no automatic ability. And I suspect the way combat worked was a bit different then being on Patrol between your line and the other guys line like towards the end of Korea. That is more a a Vietnam type of thing.

Remember the type of war you are fighting has a big effect on the types of weapons you want. The greatest rifl in the world still sucks if the other guy is tossing ICBMs at you. But an ICBM is not much use if you have guys standing 20ft away shooting a rifle at you.

But it is hard to predict the future. So the BAR was something someone thought would do a specific job in one war that was used in a different way in a different . You never know what the future will bring. My father was a young kid in WW2 getting bombed by the US and England in Germany and I am sure he never dreamed he would someday be a sergeant leading a patrol of US Army soldiers in Korea.

Actually what you've written about your father's experience is directly in line with what British operations research showed about in Europe. Plus the Soviets did field SMGs companies even after Stalingrad and created a 'combined arms' unit that married the SMG equipped infantry to platoon and company level LMGs/MMGs and some riflemen to support them. From the little I could find on the LAD machine gun (belt fed long barreled SAW that fired the 7.62x25 Tokarev cartridge) the Soviets considered the 300-400m range the decisive range for an assault and they had a gap that needed to be filled, which the LAD was supposed to do before the 7.62x39 predecessor was proposed to do that better (though the LAD was a success for that it was intended for) and the RPD was created for that role. I assume that was because the PPSH41 and PPS 43 covered the 200m and below so well.

So for WW2 (and honestly WW1) and just about all wars since up until the introduction of wider spread Class IV body armor, the average infantryman would probably have benefited more from an 'assault SMG' like the Colt MARS, just in open bolt, full automatic and a bit more powerful, with a barrel length like the M4 Carbine.

Per operations research the ability to 'snap fire' at targets of opportunity in bursts with light, low recoil ammo with a high ROF like the PPSH41 was the best way to achieve hits. Something like the .19 Badger or .221 Fireball (or 5.56 FABRL) with a light (~40 grain) bullet in a delayed blowback open bolt platform would probably be ideal especially if it has a constant recoil set up like the Ultimax. You sacrifice penetration and range, but you probably have an effective range of 300m, which would cover 95% of all handheld small arms combat. If you really wanted you could also probably field a long barreled SAW like the LAD with a drum or high cap magazine to enhance squad firepower and leave the heavier long range weapons to high levels of command than the squad.

 

[McPherson]

4 out 33?m you numbers appear to be off. Blowpipe 1 kill, AerMacchi MB 329, Stinger 2 kills Purcara & Puma (SAS) SeaWolf 2 kills (HMS Brodsword with HMS Glasgow) SeaDart 7 kills (Puma & 2 A-4's by HMS Coventry) ( 3 kills 2 A-4 & 1 Learjet by HMS Exeter) plus i BA Gazelle 'Blue on Blue'

Two actually, 1 x FAA Mirage and 1 x SHAR

I refer you to the first quote!

Much obliged

4 kills. The claims you cite were "probables" later proved to either run out of gas or died by Harrier.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

4 kills. The claims you cite were "probables" later proved to either run out of gas or died by Harrier.

Argentine Aircraft losses due to or probably due to Sea Dart - source

Sunday 9th May ​

[a13, a14] - Two A-4C Skyhawks of FAA Grupo 4 lost. Possibly damaged by Sea Darts from HMS Coventry or crashed in bad weather, with one aircraft found on South Jason Island. Lt Casco and Lt Farias killed.

[a15] - Puma SA.330L of CAB 601 shot down over Choiseul Sound by Sea Dart fired by HMS Coventry (4.10 pm). Crew of three lost.

Tuesday 25th May ​

[a54] - A-4B Skyhawk of FAA Grupo 5 shot down north of Pebble Island by Sea Dart fired by HMS Coventry (9.30 am). Lt Palaver killed.

[a56] - A-4C Skyhawk of FAA Grupo 4 damaged over San Carlos Water, and then brought down north east of Pebble Island by Sea Dart fired by HMS Coventry (12.45 am). Lt Garcia killed.

Monday 7th June ​

[a66] - Learjet 35A of FAA Photo-Reconnaissance Grupo 1 shot down over Pebble Island by Sea Dart fired by HMS Exeter (9.05 am). Wing Cmdr de la Colina and crew of four killed.

Sunday 13th June​

[a70] - Canberra B.62 of FAA Grupo 2 shot down west of Stanley by Sea Dart fired by HMS Exeter (10.55 pm). Pilot, Capt Pastran ejected safely but Capt Casado is killed.

3 other other aspects that need to considered

Sea Dart engaged each target with a salvo of 2 missiles - so of those 33 launches - 14 resulted in a successful 'kill' 16 if we include poor Sgt Griffin's (I once worked with his son - a very sad situation ) Gazelle for 8 shoot downs.

On a number of occasions Sea Dart was fired out of envelope i.e. with no chance of an interception or just fired down a bearing (for example during the last Exocet attack )

Lastly Sea Dart pretty much was working before the first missile was fired - the Argentine Air Force was very aware of Sea Darts effectiveness as the Argentine navy was the only other user of the system.

So it forced a tactic of low level attack on the Argentine Air Force and probably did more to prevent ship losses than any other system by either ships not being hit because of the very low level attack limiting engagement times or in a number of cases ships hit by bombs dropped so low that they had not travelled far enough to arm (this happened 13 times)

For that alone Sea Dart was the best SAM system of the war

The Roland system did force British Aircraft to operate above its max engagement altitude in the vicinity of Port Stanley

 

[Rickshaw]

IIRC the driver was sitting on a geared carousel to keep him pointed to the 'front' of the hull.

Yes, however he wasn't able to see the front of the vehicle, in particular it's corners in his peripheral vision. Indeed his "carousel" caused problems in itself. Traditionally the commander has the highest position in the turret. Now he has share that position with the driver. That leads to complications immediately. The driver has to have an unobstructed view in order to drive the vehicle but so does the commander. Which is more important than the other and how does he handle his obstructed view because the other's cupola is in the way? The XM803 was supposed to fix these problems with the drive relocated to the hull but that version of the vehicle was never built.

 

[Bougnas]

The MBT-70 had too many inherent flaws, both technological and political to work. That said, it's absolutely possible for the US and Germany to get a new MBT by the early 70s, featuring such things as more advanced powerpack, spaced armor with dual/high hardness steel, improved layout and better FCS and gun.

For the Germans you pretty much only need to have them focus entirely on the Gilded Leopard/Leopard 2 project. The spaced armor worked, the 120mm smoothbore gun worked relatively well by the early 70s, the 1500HP MTU works well when it's made larger, the 1250hp one developped for the Gilded Leopard should work too if the Germans don't develop the 1500HP,the suspension is just an improved version of the Leopard 1's so it works. If it enters production before the 1973 Kippur war shows the importance of heavier armor, it will be mass produced with improvements coming from the lessons of that conflict. Without the money and time spent on MBT-70 and with a single tank project, it will be easier and quicker to get the new vehicle.

For the US, it most likely requires the Americans to be more cautious and rely on other tech. Again, the armor is fine, automotive components can be quite fine, FCS too, only the gun needs to be changed but the US had the 120mm Delta smoothbore gun firing APFSDS. Keep developping that beyond 1965 and you have a workable MBT.

In any case, it would completely change NATO MBT procurement and tank fleets in the 70s. Many minor countries like the Netherlands and Canada wanted to replace part or the entirety of their fleet with the new NATO MBT. Netherlands would be able to replace the Centurions and AMX-13s in the 70s, Denmark may not purchase Leopard 1A3 (if that variant ever gets developped ITTL) and purchases the new tank instead, Italy too. By the 80s the new tanks would likely be so numerous and cheap that they could be sold to more of the minor NATO countries.
The US would be able to stop production of the M60A1 early (turning it into the American T-62, which was replaced in production by the T-72 by the early 70s), cascading them to Army Reserve, National Guard and the USMC, while the M48s get cascaded to various Thirld World countries, possibly in a modernized form.
Germany would retire all of its M48s, saving the money spent on the OTL modernizations and maintenance of such tanks, again they could get cascaded elsewhere (maybe the new tanks appear early enough that the M48s and some M60A1s get sent to post-Kippur Israel without trouble to replace the M60A1s in US production).
A new tank would have to be developped for the 80s as the alt-MBT-70 can't handle all of the features that can appear at that point.

The appearance of more modern tanks may pressure the French and British to start or accelerate their own programs, though maybe they will make the mistake of having joint programs with Germany.

Overall, a net for NATO, with butterflies in other countries as the cascaded tanks enter service in numbers.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Instead of any production of Lee Enfield Rifles after 1944. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLEM-1. The Besa can be adapted to Infantry use as a GPMG and the Bren back to its original calibre with ease. This would mean the British Army's firepower would be greatly increased in time for Malaya and Korea. I have seen film of British forces still using the No 4. well into the 60's which is unacceptable.

 

[WaterproofPotatoes]

Grenade size was too small.
All the tech reduced explosive size which made it not as good.
They should have made a 40mm or 50mm smart grenade.

The problem there is that now you have a weapon that was too heavy and unwieldy when spec'd for 20mm grenades now tasked with firing even bigger and heavier grenades. If you make the gun part 9mm... then that portion is pretty well useless as anything other than a PDW. The space blaster aesthetic, while it undeniably looks cool, also looks like an ergonomic nightmare.

 

[BlackDragon98]

The problem there is that now you have a weapon that was too heavy and unwieldy when spec'd for 20mm grenades now tasked with firing even bigger and heavier grenades. If you make the gun part 9mm... then that portion is pretty well useless as anything other than a PDW. The space blaster aesthetic, while it undeniably looks cool, also looks like an ergonomic nightmare.

40mm grenade is standard.
Maybe just upsize the XM 25.

Smart grenade is long range, while 9mm is short range.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

40mm grenade is standard.
Maybe just upsize the XM 25.

Smart grenade is long range, while 9mm is short range.

And then you make it weight double or more. You just just 'upsize' something without a weight gain.

 

[BlackDragon98]

And then you make it weight double or more. You just just 'upsize' something without a weight gain.

Shoulder mounted.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Shoulder mounted.

So just use an RPG then. Or even better a commando mortar; the French use 60mm mortars at the squad level in addition to rifle grenades.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

I don't know if anybody's ever put a 60 mm mortar bomb on an RPG. I think the weight is about right. The real RPG frag rocket is basically a 40 mm grenade, and that doesn't have the sustainer that gives the RPG its range.

 

[BlackDragon98]

So just use an RPG then. Or even better a commando mortar; the French use 60mm mortars at the squad level in addition to rifle grenades.

But the RPG is not a smart weapon.
Smart grenades. 5 rnd mag cap.
Solves all insurgent problems.

 

[Father Maryland]

Argentine Aircraft losses due to or probably due to Sea Dart - source

Sunday 9th May





Tuesday 25th May




Monday 7th June


Sunday 13th June​

3 other other aspects that need to considered

Sea Dart engaged each target with a salvo of 2 missiles - so of those 33 launches - 14 resulted in a successful 'kill' 16 if we include poor Sgt Griffin's (I once worked with his son - a very sad situation ) Gazelle for 8 shoot downs.

On a number of occasions Sea Dart was fired out of envelope i.e. with no chance of an interception or just fired down a bearing (for example during the last Exocet attack )

Lastly Sea Dart pretty much was working before the first missile was fired - the Argentine Air Force was very aware of Sea Darts effectiveness as the Argentine navy was the only other user of the system.

So it forced a tactic of low level attack on the Argentine Air Force and probably did more to prevent ship losses than any other system by either ships not being hit because of the very low level attack limiting engagement times or in a number of cases ships hit by bombs dropped so low that they had not travelled far enough to arm (this happened 13 times)

For that alone Sea Dart was the best SAM system of the war

The Roland system did force British Aircraft to operate above its max engagement altitude in the vicinity of Port Stanley

Not directly related but the Falklands war was the last time a nation seriously planned to use propeller driven aircraft dropping old straight running anti ship torpedo's against enemy naval vessels. The plan was to use WW2 Surplus USN MK13 straight running air dropped torpedo's deployed by Vietnam era turboprop Pucara attack/COIN planes against British shipping. The Argentines realized during the war that they were desperately short of modern Anti shipping weapons (other then dumb bombs) with only a handful of exocets. And because the airfields on the captured Falklands weren't long enough pretty much all of Argentina's modern fast jets (other then some Aeromacchi light trainers) had to be operated from the mainland. Argentina also had extremely limited air tanker capability so for most of the fast jets they only had about five minutes of theoretical operation time against the Brits over the Falklands before being forced to turn back. So besides helicopters the only combat aircraft the Argentines could operate from the island were slow Pucara COIN turbo props or lightly armed Aeromachi trainers.

So at some point some Argentine officers realized that they still had a number of MK 13 torpedos that had been forgotten about in a warehouse and that they thought that Pucara's could be modified to drop them. The idea was that by using Pucara's with MK 13s based out of Port Stanley would give the desperate Argentines an ace.

The planes and torpedo's got modified and I think the Argentines even trained with them (and found them pretty functional) but the war ended before they could be used. While theoretically operable I've gotta imagine that sending the Pucara's against modern SAM equipped warships would have been suicide.

Mk13 torpedo during the Falklands War

Argentina used a variety of WWII items during the 1982 Falklands War, ranging in complexity from a Brooklyn class cruiser to M1 helmets. The most surprising, and least known, was an effort to resur…

wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com

Kind of like the Argentine version of "Firefly's of Port Stanely".

 

[Father Maryland]

Shoulder mounted.

High-Impulse Weapon System

The High-Impulse Weapon System (HIWS), also known as the High Impulsion Weapon System and the Lacroix Samouraï 76mm Urban Warfare Weapon, was a prototype shoulder-fired 76mm breech-loading light cannon. First revealed in 2000, the Lacroix Samouraï was created by Lacroix Pyro-Technologies (a...

guns.fandom.com

DP-64 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Deleted member 1487]

But the RPG is not a smart weapon.

No reason it couldn't be made into one.

Smart grenades. 5 rnd mag cap.
Solves all insurgent problems.

And never adopted. Your fantasies aside, it never lived up to it's design goals.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I don't know if anybody's ever put a 60 mm mortar bomb on an RPG. I think the weight is about right. The real RPG frag rocket is basically a 40 mm grenade, and that doesn't have the sustainer that gives the RPG its range.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Either a mortar OR an RPG, not mating them together.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Not directly related but the Falklands war was the last time a nation seriously planned to use propeller driven aircraft dropping old straight running anti ship torpedo's against enemy naval vessels. The plan was to use WW2 Surplus USN MK13 straight running air dropped torpedo's deployed by Vietnam era turboprop Pucara attack/COIN planes against British shipping. The Argentines realized during the war that they were desperately short of modern Anti shipping weapons (other then dumb bombs) with only a handful of exocets. And because the airfields on the captured Falklands weren't long enough pretty much all of Argentina's modern fast jets (other then some Aeromacchi light trainers) had to be operated from the mainland. Argentina also had extremely limited air tanker capability so for most of the fast jets they only had about five minutes of theoretical operation time against the Brits over the Falklands before being forced to turn back. So besides helicopters the only combat aircraft the Argentines could operate from the island were slow Pucara COIN turbo props or lightly armed Aeromachi trainers.

So at some point some Argentine officers realized that they still had a number of MK 13 torpedos that had been forgotten about in a warehouse and that they thought that Pucara's could be modified to drop them. The idea was that by using Pucara's with MK 13s based out of Port Stanley would give the desperate Argentines an ace.

The planes and torpedo's got modified and I think the Argentines even trained with them (and found them pretty functional) but the war ended before they could be used. While theoretically operable I've gotta imagine that sending the Pucara's against modern SAM equipped warships would have been suicide.

Mk13 torpedo during the Falklands War

Argentina used a variety of WWII items during the 1982 Falklands War, ranging in complexity from a Brooklyn class cruiser to M1 helmets. The most surprising, and least known, was an effort to resur…

wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com

Kind of like the Argentine version of "Firefly's of Port Stanely".

Still sounds some what desperate!

35 year old fish!

Oh my days!

I have heard it suggest that the Argentine would have been better served attacking the ships with rocket pods (and cannon)

While unlikely to sink a then modern DDG or FF those ships are very easy to 'mission kill' and rocket attacks are more accurate and dare I say it 'easier' to make relative to very low level iron bombing.

On the other side of the coin I was listening to a lecture given by a then RN Helicopter Pilot who spoke about having to relearn things from WW2 that were completely forgotten about during the Falklands

Smoke generators - they could have filled the bay with smoke - this was used on many occasions in WW2 - and would have made the low level attacking aircraft pilots jobs in identifying and attacking a ship even more difficult.

Barrage Balloons - there was about 80 Barrage balloons at an airbase in the UK that could have made low level attacks even more hazardous and add another layer of complexity into any attack - enough for every ship as well as multiple positions around the bay to have had one.

So I am going to add these 2 things to the list of 'weapons' that should have been used

 

[DougM]

The problem with all these france guns with smart this or grenade that is they are to complicate and to cumbersum to be used effectively in combat.
By the time you draft you long/heave gun around and select the right settings some primitive with an AK-47 is going to have blasted you to pieces.
You start get back to the issue my father had with the bar. It is heavy and slow to bring on target at anytime but long range.

And don’t forget that most rounds fired in most wars are more spray and prey then long ranged aim fire.

My father once said that in all the time he was in Korea he never truly aimed at a single given enemy with either a rifle or his MG. It was alwas more of a he is over there quick fire or it was harassment fire with the 30cal MG. In the fast dirty encounters you don’t have time to fire and at long range when the other guy is hunkered down you don’t see people just likely spots that the enemy may be hiding in.
My uncles in WW2 (two in the Pacific and three in Europe with the Army or Marines ground forces) pretty much said the same thing. Especially the two in the Pacific they said almost everything they did was just fast shots in the general direction or basically suppression fire to keep the other guys head down. My uncle that was in Italy said he aimed at a few from reasonablely far away but apparently he was the marksman of his unit so if it was a long range shot they tried to get him to take it. But he alwas was a hell of a shot. Having grown up in the mountains down south in the depression he was hunting food for the table from a very young age.
And while our more modern troops are a little better at shooting a given target then putting tons of bullets into the building the guy (might) be hiding in the reality is that we have been in relatively low intensity wars the last 50 years or so. If we ever get into anything serious with truly large numbers and for serious consequences such as we had in WW2 were if we lose things get ugly for the country then odds are we will once again get back to shooting a ton of bullets in the general direction of the bad guys.
It is simple logic more bullets increase the odds of a hit at the same time it increase the likelihood that the bad guy will duck for cover and stop shooting at you.
That is probably why some of the missiles that the RN shot off in the Falklands were fire. A lot of pilots (and that goes double for poorly trained pilots) are not going to look at an incoming missile and thing “ Humm is that in the intercept envelope?” They are going to look at it and say “shit someone shot a missile at me I better get the hell out of here”. So hopefully (from the RN point of view) they will drop early and with less chance to hit and run away. Not a wholly unreasonable idea on the part of the RN.
I have often wondered if ANY weapon is truly used in combat in the way it was expected to be used when it was designed. And I mean big nasty combat not sending a bomber in with a couple of missiles or smart bombs to take out a tent in some 3rd world country. I am talking something like WW2 or Tet in Vietnam or the early part of Korea, when the shit has well and truly hit the fan.
it seams at that point people start using weapons in creative new ways.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Still sounds some what desperate!

35 year old fish!

I mean, the Conqueror and the Belgrano...it's not like the RN didn't use their own 35 year old fish...