British army adopts Pedersen rifle and cartridge in the 1930s

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November 12, 1940 competitive tests were held in San Diego, California. The tests were completed on December 12, 1940.

Aimed fire from a variety of shooting positions

Garand – 12 shots per minute, 4.23 hits per minute, efficiency percentage 0.352.

Johnson – 10.25 shots per minute, 4.30 hits per minute, efficiency percentage 0.419.

Springfield – 8.8 shots per minute, 3.85 hits per minute, efficiency percentage 0.437.




Marines got no covers for their Johnsons, Springfields and Reisings.

Of the three, only the Reising had issues in 1942


OFC the training manuals specify 20 aimed shots per minute from the M1 vs 15 from the bolt action.

There is a fundamental disconnect in the proposition. The US army is an outlier in that it is the only army that does not build its firepower around the squad LMG. The original intention was to replace the BAR with the M1 ( and the idea behind the M14 was the same), and the use (up to 1940 manual) was for three M1 Squads with a three gun BAR squad as a separate reserve of firepower with proper MGs held higher up. The real question is why did it take the US army 40 years longer than anyone else to adopt an LMG.

In British terms the section ( 8 man) is a Leader, LMG team and the rest is to protect the LMG and take aimed shots at identified targets and manoeuvre under cover or concealment. By 42 each squad is supposed to have a designated marksman, and ofc the British battalion has an 4th company's worth of LMG firepower in the carrier platoon which can move fast with some armour protection and unlike the US concept its supposed to operate coordinated with artillery and tanks from the get go.

The basic difference is that the British ( or German, Japanese, Russian etc) squad can generate its firepower with 2 men exposed and firing but the US needs all men firing to do the same. Which leaves no one left to close and assault within the squad.

Its not that having a semi auto rifle is not desirable, its just that its so far down the list of priorities as to never happen interwar. Even the Germans who are outspending everyone and have far fewer stocks available to draw on manage to introduce two main infantry weapon designs, the MG34 and the MP38 ( note 38) Everyone else manages one ( well 1.5 with the French). The US intending to fight the best version of the Spanish American war they can is the only army to prioritise a new rifle over a new LMG.

Now given the money and recognition of the need earlier the British would probably have shifted to 7.92 (as BESA) or possibly experimented with a new round which might have gone to a semi auto. But the issue for the new round would be its use as MG ammunition not a rifle. The Pedersen round remains unproven as MG ammunition - it was never intended to be used thusly, in contrast with .280 which was specifically designed to three things, MG fire, Short range automatic fire from a personal weapon and long range aimed fire from a rifle ( replacing the SMLE, Bren, Vickers and SMGs). Maybe it could have but it was never designed as such and its likely to fail at the short range automatic fire role because it was never intended to do that.

Once you move to 7.92 as the general round there are several OTL conversions of the SMLE that become feasible but note that all of these were to convert the SMLE to an LMG not a semi auto rifle.
 
Marines got no covers for their Johnsons, Springfields and Reisings.
Which I’m sure would have allowed them to be more effective on D-Day, if they had been allowed to play in Europe.
But for D-Day the US Army planners apparently thought they would be off the beach with relatively little combat, so wanted to keep small arms in best possible condition for the inevitable fights inland and so issued rifle covers. The fact the rifles mostly happened to be Garands was a coincidence. Plenty of 1903s went across the beach as well and I believe they were also wrapped up.
Apparently there were also medium condoms for sub machine guns and small condoms for pistols, but I’ve never seen pictures of those.
 
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Zen9

Banned
Wasn't it Tokyo Special Steel that built a Pedersen variant using a gas piston to reduce the high tolwrench machining on the toggle lock?
 
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