TL 191: Where Did It Go Wrong?

[terv]

my viewpoint is the American forces were planning on new automatic rifle in 1940s but having the country cut in half caused rifle development to be lowest priority during the war. Thompsons may have been in use 1941 but how long would it have take for them to be produced in enough numbers to equip every unit with. the automatic rifle at the end of great war may have been scrapped so that the army could save money by not having to buy two different weapons during peacetime.

 

[RamscoopRaider]

Nah, I double checked, it is 5 rounds. Also in the last book, Turtledove mentions that more US soldiers start using Thompsons, but what was stopping them from using the guns from day 1 of the invasion. Also, in Breakthroughs, when the US launched its offensive into Virginia, Chester Martin notes that many soldiers have gotten new automatic rifles, so what happened to them. Did the US scrap them after GW1? And if they didn't, why was no effort put into furthering that technology? I think that Turtledove just forgot that he even put those weapons into the story

That automatic rifle could be a reference to a BAR, at which point it is more of an LMG and would have been replaced with a proper LMG/GPMG, or simply upgraded into one ala Sweden, not sure if any details of US MGs are mentioned in the books