Army equipment that should have seen service

[McPherson]

edit: also, it's worth noting that both those factories still employed the aforementioned train manufacturing techniques rather than the automobile ones of their parent companie

After the Wilson administration failures, which FDR personally witnessed from the inside, and the NDA of 1920 which was the (mostly; should have given the air farces all to the navy.) Congressional prudent response to it, just what would the Americans do except prototype in their federal arsenals with known tech applicable to tracklaying vehicles and then turn the result over to automotive makers who knew mass production?

 

[zombieposter64!]

As good as the Mauser K98 was Germany had good assault rifle and magazine feed semi automatic rifle platforms available. The time of the bolt actions was clearly on its way out with a variety of semi, full automatic, and selective fire magazine or stripper clip fed guns that were available. While it wouldn't have the won the war it certainly would have given them a more significant edge. Both Imperial and Communist Russia should have worked the issues with the Federov rifles in both calibers. They would've had a more technological edge as well.

 

[McPherson]

As good as the Mauser K98 was Germany had good assault rifle and magazine feed semi automatic rifle platforms available. The time of the bolt actions was clearly on its way out with a variety of semi, full automatic, and selective fire magazine or stripper clip fed guns that were available. While it wouldn't have the won the war it certainly would have given them a more significant edge. Both Imperial and Communist Russia should have worked the issues with the Federov rifles in both calibers. They would've had a more technological edge as well.

They should have worked on Arty (indirect fires) and Rupert (Close air support) more. Nothing says I love you like a US Infantry company sitting on a hill in France and 1000 tubes of Arty and endless waves of P-47s stacked overhead and Joe Infantry (a corporal no less) yakking at the guys in the Fire Direction Centers and to the STRIKE COORDINATOR overhead, on his little old radio, telling them the map grid coordinates to drop hundreds of shells and dozens of bombs, on the Germans caught in the valley below. Nothing kills more efficiently when you got them bunched up and THEY HAVETO GET YOU OFF THAT HILL to cut off Patton. The Germans never forgot it either. They dreaded US artillery and airpower.

 

[PKDkd33]

This is definitely a missed opportunity.

Birch gun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

View attachment 531171

Interesting to see this as it's very similar to what I'm planning in my TL as an ad hoc design. Now I've got to write it into my story and get the PTB (powers that be) to accpet the bloody thing. Not to worry - I have a plan.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

As good as the Mauser K98 was Germany had good assault rifle and magazine feed semi automatic rifle platforms available. The time of the bolt actions was clearly on its way out with a variety of semi, full automatic, and selective fire magazine or stripper clip fed guns that were available. While it wouldn't have the won the war it certainly would have given them a more significant edge. Both Imperial and Communist Russia should have worked the issues with the Federov rifles in both calibers. They would've had a more technological edge as well.

The Federov was too complex as a general issue rifle, as they had it and Federov, who continued to design weapons for the USSR:

Russian Gun Historian Summarizes Federov Rifle's History

by Max Popenker Fedorov avtomat in its most recognizable form, as made during early 1920s for Red Army Captain Fedorov, a member of the Artillery committee of Imperial Russian Army General Artillery Department (GAU), began his work on self-loading military rifles around 1905. By 1911, he...

forums.spacebattles.com

The DP28 LMG is actually a development by Federov:

What is often overlooked in discussing the Fedorov Avtomat is that its role or, rather, role of the Captain (later General) Fedorov was much broader than the development of yet another machine rifle. During 1920-1925 Fedorov, working closely with his apprentice Degtyarov, produced a whole family of infantry small arms, based on the same basic action and receiver design; this family included semi-automatic rifles, select-fire rifles, as well as light and universal machine guns with various barrel cooling systems: quick detachable air-cooled barrels, forced air cooled barrels (Lewis type), and water cooled barrels. Those machine guns were designed either with bottom feed (using box magazines) or with top feed (using box or pan magazines). Besides the infantry machine guns, fitted with tripods, Fedorov and Tokarev also produced tank and aircraft installations with twin and even triple guns in single mounts. This systematic development pre-dated actual adoption of similar systems by more than 25 years

They opted for the more modern SVT-40 design for their semi-auto rifle and for automatic fire went up to a true LMG instead of an autorifle like the Federov. 6.5mm was dropped as too expensive to make the change over given all the tooling for the 7.62x54r still being available. The 7.62 was too powerful for a Federov type rifle or automatic fire from a battle rifle, as they tried to mod the SVT for that and it was uncontrollable:

SVT-40 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Then they tried for an intermediate cartridge version:

AS-44 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That might have been an ATL AK-47 had the designer not died during the competition.

In WW1 Germany recognized the need for an intermediate cartridge and platform for it, but generals were unwilling to make the change at the time and post-WW2 the ToV prevented much development. In the 1930s then they made a major effort there, but realized conventional milled weapons were too expensive for them in a semi/full auto rifle, so switched development to stamped sheet metal designs; it took a while to get it right, as it was a brand new concept for weapons design, at least for that size and power of a rifle. That's how they ended up with StG 44 so late. Well that and opposition from Hitler initially.