The TO&E for the 1991 Red Army shows a squad having a singe RPK-74 (magazine fed) with no assistant gunner.
See previous remark. US doctrine (automatic riflemen teams provide cover support fire in the assault.) actually retrograded from WWI (French) practice learned because they were stuck with stupid and they had to deal with the BAR hand dealt. This is what happened instead of "learning from the Germans", which is kind of not what happened when you look at the evolution of American platoon tactics in the 1950s from WWII lessons learned.
Guys would have dropped their Garands for a BAR anyday of the week, and twice on Sundays
Depends, research and testing showed more than 2 BARs declined the effectiveness of a 9 man squad, because they had too few weapons capable of closer combat. 3 worked with a 12 man squad because they still had sufficient rifles for all missions, plus enough ammo bearers. Similar with LMGs; more than one actually degraded overall squad performance because they required too much ammo and sucked in too many men to operate effectively, plus were generally too heavy to keep up with the riflemen.
Not necessarily given the the FN-D was incompatible with the older stocks of BARs and was even more expensive; if you're going to adopt an effectively new LMG might as well have one that is cheaper and lighter.
Then you have the Marine Fire Team model, with three teams, a Fire Team Leader with M1 Carbine, BAR gunner, BAR assistant carrying BAR mags and Carbine, and then one Rifleman with an M1, who was also expected to have some rifle grenades.
Which worked better than the WW2 12 man US Army model without internal structure and provided the inspiration for the modern fire team concept, however US army experience still suggested the 9 man squad with a LMG and no sub-team structure works better given the fragility of a fire team in terms of losses, which then require a reorganization in combat when the team ceases to function.
They really seemed to like the Carbine. That also had an attachment for grenade launching, but wasn't as popular as just using the Garand. I left out the overall Sergeant who was Squad Leader, officially with aCarbine, but could draw what he wanted, and the BAR assistant changed to a Garand in May, 1945
Might be due to fighting in the jungle where the M1 carbine was a lot handier than a rifle. They did try to carbine-ize the Garand for that in the Pacific too by 1945, but that wasn't nearly as easy to work out though. So seems like a 2x6 man fire team with a mix of Carbines and Garands would work out pretty well, especially when the M2 version showed up and the Thompson could be ditched with the Brens kicked up to the platoon level for a fire support squad.
Is that weight for the MG42 loaded or not? I thought that was the empty weight and with a belt it goes up considerably.
No, it's very much not a wash, please factor in the weight of a 50 round belt and the ergonomics of a 50 round belt flopping around.
You know, for when you want to dump said 50 round belt in 4 seconds. Truly a quantum leap in suicide by logistics.
In a vacuum? The the best is the late war Soviet section with 7 PPSh41s and 2 DP-28s.
Didn't really inflict the necessary casualty ratios though. Per Zetterling's research into Normandy German losses were substantially lower than the Wallies in combat up until Falaise and then only evened out during the major PoW hauls racked up during August-September. Then it wasn't until '45 and the collapse of the German front in Spring that saw casualties rates go from roughly even to in favor of the Wallies decisively when the major PoW hauls came in again. That's with the full weight of US and UK air power, artillery, tanks, ammo, etc. not to mention numerical superiority.
So in other words, the Germans only did well in Normandy, where they had prepared positions and a short front, and on the Siegfried line where they had prepared positions and terrain that restricted manoeuvre. Offensives against prepared positions being costly is hardly unique to the allied experience.
