US Army adopts the 3 fire team rifle squad in 1944

So what if US Army re-organized its rifle squads into three fire teams built around the BAR in 1944 before D-Day? The reason for this is in preparing for D-Day the Army decides to add two more Browning Automatic Rifles (BAR) to its infantry rifle squads to add more firepower to the assault companies on D-Day.

Notice I said adopt because heaven forbid the Army should copy something from the Marine Corps! What would be the long term effects after the war?
 

CalBear

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Nothing too major. It would be useful when they were dealing with bunkers and the added firepower would be useful in the Ardennes (although the Airborne was not, IIRC, routinely equipped with BAR even at the platoon level, and Armored Division dismounts might not be issued it either), but that is about it.

The BAR was actually a really piss-poor squad automatic, especially when the U.S. already had a very rapid firing combat rifle. Heavy, crappy rate of fire, small magazine. It was better than no auto rifle at all, but that is the best that can be said.

The Marine fire team was created to deal with bunkers and caves, primarily to support flamethrower teams and combat engineers.
 
Nothing too major. It would be useful when they were dealing with bunkers and the added firepower would be useful in the Ardennes (although the Airborne was not, IIRC, routinely equipped with BAR even at the platoon level, and Armored Division dismounts might not be issued it either), but that is about it.

The BAR was actually a really piss-poor squad automatic, especially when the U.S. already had a very rapid firing combat rifle. Heavy, crappy rate of fire, small magazine. It was better than no auto rifle at all, but that is the best that can be said.

The Marine fire team was created to deal with bunkers and caves, primarily to support flamethrower teams and combat engineers.

The airborne carried a .30 caliber light machine gun because ironically the BAR was too long to jump with. Gliderborne Infantry used them of course. There were BARs used in Market Garden but they were probably dropped in equipment bundles and in the Bulge the paratroopers went into battle by truck.

The 2nd Ranger Battalion switched out its machine guns for BARs for the Pointe Du Hoc assault because they were easier to carry up the rope.
 
IIRC didn't the US Army run into the problem of underestimating the need for infantry numbers so that when units started taking casualties it was the infantry companies who bore the brunt/got burnt through as opposed to the support elements of the regiments? Sure I can remember reading that somewhere a while back.
 
IIRC didn't the US Army run into the problem of underestimating the need for infantry numbers so that when units started taking casualties it was the infantry companies who bore the brunt/got burnt through as opposed to the support elements of the regiments? Sure I can remember reading that somewhere a while back.

That is correct. There was a calculation that tanks, air support, and ultra modern artillery tactics would reduce infantry losses. That proved partially true, combat infantry losses were partially reduced under the Great War levels. The 'however' is several senior commanders failed to pay attention to prevention of disease & non battle loses. Poor preparation for a number of campaigns caused non battle losses to exceed expectations by 200 or 300 %. One example would be the hastily organized Guadacanal campaign. The 1st Marine Div suffered perhaps 5% losses from combat, but had nearly 100% loss from tropical disease. The Regiments of the 2d Marine Div and US Army Div that replaced the 1st MD suffered severe losses to tropical disease as well. While a proportion of the afflicted men eventually recovered enough to return to duty the overall permanent loss from disease was at least double that from combat. Maj General Collins who commanded the 24th Tropic Lighting ID contracted Malaria & spent a year in the US convalesing before being returned to duty. The doctor judged him unfit for further tropical service & Gen Collins was assigned to duty in Europe. Most others with his level of illness were either returned to duty in the US only, or discharged.

Another anomaly in the calculations was the proportion of combat losses to mental or psychological causes. Where only physical injury is counted combat losses in the US Army were significantly less.
 
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Sort of disagree and also agree the BAR was a Heavy hard to handle weapon that I had the pleasure of carrying from Sept 1961 through June of 1962. But oh boy could it bring accurate fire on a targets in a three round burst out to 500 to 800 yards. US Army June 1961 through Apr 1969.......





QUOTE=CalBear;11750199]Nothing too major. It would be useful when they were dealing with bunkers and the added firepower would be useful in the Ardennes (although the Airborne was not, IIRC, routinely equipped with BAR even at the platoon level, and Armored Division dismounts might not be issued it either), but that is about it.

The BAR was actually a really piss-poor squad automatic, especially when the U.S. already had a very rapid firing combat rifle. Heavy, crappy rate of fire, small magazine. It was better than no auto rifle at all, but that is the best that can be said.

The Marine fire team was created to deal with bunkers and caves, primarily to support flamethrower teams and combat engineers.[/QUOTE]
 
..

The BAR was actually a really piss-poor squad automatic, especially when the U.S. already had a very rapid firing combat rifle. Heavy, crappy rate of fire, small magazine. It was better than no auto rifle at all, but that is the best that can be said.

...

The Marines were using the BAR more as a assault rifle than a support weapon. At the same time the BAR was upped to three per squad or 27 per company the number of MMG was increased to six per company. The Army remained with two MMG per standard inf company. Further the Marines had a larger pool of MG in the battalion weapons company, which they frequently assigned down to the rifle company. In latter 1944 or 1945 it was not unusual for a rifle company commander to be deploying eight to ten MG in support of his platoons or squads.
 
I wonder if they had ever fully worked out a .30 Browning with an ammo cannister and a shoulder stock as a SAW, if that might have been able to take over the role of a BAR.
 

CalBear

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I wonder if they had ever fully worked out a .30 Browning with an ammo cannister and a shoulder stock as a SAW, if that might have been able to take over the role of a BAR.

BAR M1918 weighed 16-20 pounds depending on version.

The M1919A6 Browning (the version with the buttstock and bipod) weighed 32.5 pounds empty. By comparison the MG34 weighed 26.7 pounds, the MG42 came in at 25.5 pounds, the BREN was 22.8 pounds, the Lewis Gun 28 pounds, the Japanese Type 99 23 pounds, and the Soviet DP 20 pounds.

The M-1919 wasn't even a reasonable consideration for a "traditional" ground pounder infantry weapon.
 

TinyTartar

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The Army would be far better off looking into ways to care for the average infantrymen outside of combat than trying to increase minimally its combat abilities with more heavy BARs that don't do the squad support role as well as it is supposed to.

Noncombat losses were crippling during the Ardennes Offensive, and for the US Army, with its logistical system, to have those kinds of issues is just unacceptable. I mean, solve trench foot alone and you have a tremendous upswing in Infantry unit effectiveness. And the individual replacement system as well needs at least massive reorganization.
 
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