What if Assault Rifles never where created?

Deleted member 1487

How do you propose this happens? No world wars? This means everyone sticks with semi-automatic battle rifles?
 

SsgtC

Banned
How do you propose this happens? No world wars? This means everyone sticks with semi-automatic battle rifles?
No, because once you have a semi automatic, it's a really small step to full auto. Or similarly, once you had a man portable machine gun or SMG, the concept of an assualt rifle is the next logical step
 
In another thread the discussion is developments without WWI, and I think the sub-machinegun as well as light machinegun are potentially greatly affected. Both bring voluminous fire to the Squad or individual. Both open the door to the automatic rifle. Take away the MG34 and its theory should undermine the high rate of fire doctrine and allow the self loading semi-automatic rifle to remain far more central to doctrine. In other words you get a world following the American path from bolt action rifle to Garand to M14. Perhaps you get an SKS looking rifle using a "lighter" round, still optimized to aimed fire or rapid fire but not truly suppressive. This fit the timeless notions of what a rifleman did and one still sees debated, the machinegun once lightened remains a supporting weapon longer, the Squad is centered upon its rifles, warfare remains more about the fire fight rather than suppression and motion, aside from charges and rushes. The bayonet may remain more highly regarded longer too.
 

Deleted member 1487

No, because once you have a semi automatic, it's a really small step to full auto. Or similarly, once you had a man portable machine gun or SMG, the concept of an assualt rifle is the next logical step
Not necessarily, but likely depending on doctrine. Still you could get something like the CETME rifle which is meant to be a light automatic rifle rather than an assault rifle using special light weight bullets to achieve it's spec.
 

Deleted member 94680

I honestly don’t think you can butterfly away the assault rifle once the machine gun is invented. There will always be someone who wants to put the RoF of a MG into a one-man, light weapon.

Delay, yes. Remove entirely, no.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Not necessarily, but likely depending on doctrine. Still you could get something like the CETME rifle which is meant to be a light automatic rifle rather than an assault rifle using special light weight bullets to achieve it's spec.
Ok, I'll buy that. So we see a squad made up of riflemen with semi-auto battle rifles and one man with a light machine gun like the CETME or BAR. But then we run into logistics issues. Do the riflemen fire full power rifle rounds and the machinegunners lightweight ammo? Or do both use full power ammo or both use lightweight ammo?
 

Deleted member 1487

Ok, I'll buy that. So we see a squad made up of riflemen with semi-auto battle rifles and one man with a light machine gun like the CETME or BAR. But then we run into logistics issues. Do the riflemen fire full power rifle rounds and the machinegunners lightweight ammo? Or do both use full power ammo or both use lightweight ammo?
The CETME was for every rifleman and supposed to replace all automatic rifles and LMGs (IOTL the Germans learned through experience that you simply cannot replace an actual LMG at the platoon level with just assault rifles; the Marines did ok in WW2 with 3 BARs per squad). The idea was to have a 1000m ranged battle/auto rifle that weighed as much as bolt action rifle, but could fire bursts like an LMG. It actually met it's design spec but for political reasons around NATO it wasn't adopted and the rifle was adapted to take the standard NATO 7.62, ending up with the same issues of the M14/FAL in automatic fire mode. I think the plan was to delete the LMG entirely and effectively have an entire platoon with the equivalent of BARs, while the MMG/HMGs used regular full powered rounds at the company and battalion level.
Of course that 7.92x40mm round rifle never was adopted and used in combat, but was production ready. Arguably if desired with enough time it might have been a workable solution if the US adopted it instead of the high powered NATO 7.62...but I don't know how that could work given US perspectives and WW2 experience and advent of the Soviet assault rifle. You'd need to avoid WW2 at least to avoid the assault rifle being invented anywhere. Then you might get by with a smattering of solutions, like the SLR and LMG combo or the 'exotic' low powered, long range ammo of CETME. I could see a non-Nazi Germany eventually ending up there with no WW2 given interwar views/developments on automatic rifles/carbines.

I honestly don’t think you can butterfly away the assault rifle once the machine gun is invented. There will always be someone who wants to put the RoF of a MG into a one-man, light weapon.

Delay, yes. Remove entirely, no.
You'd certainly have to avoid WW2. The thing is the automatic rifle/automatic battle rifle rather than an intermediate cartridge assault rifle could evolve without WW2 experience.
 

Deleted member 94680

Do the riflemen fire full power rifle rounds and the machinegunners lightweight ammo? Or do both use full power ammo or both use lightweight ammo?

How is that any different than OTL up until very recently with SAW/MINIME where MGs had different ammo to rifles?
 
I could see a non-Nazi Germany eventually ending up there with no WW2 given interwar views/developments on automatic rifles/carbines.

With Great War experience but not the same or no Second World War experiences I too think the German Army moves to a light automatic rifle and LMG duo, the LMG likely moved into a dedicated "heavy" squad and the rifle squad using the rifles paired with rifle grenades akin to US Army M14/M79 usage, flat fire and lobbed bang. I am rationalizing getting the Panzerfaust cum RPG to give me a proto-modern infantry platoon by or before the 1950s/60s. The CETME is to me what would have evolved from a better semi-automatic effort and no pressing call for the Stg44, a more leisurely and rifleman oriented development following after the experimental Vollmer M35.
 

Deleted member 1487

With Great War experience but not the same or no Second World War experiences I too think the German Army moves to a light automatic rifle and LMG duo, the LMG likely moved into a dedicated "heavy" squad and the rifle squad using the rifles paired with rifle grenades akin to US Army M14/M79 usage, flat fire and lobbed bang.
If they get lightweight automatic rifles, sure. Just like the evolution with assault rifles IOTL. GPMGs in LMG pattern get concentrated in a weapons squad within the platoon. If they don't though move to an automatic rifle squad pattern, they could end up with what Hitler originally envisioned: LMG within a semi-automatic, full powered rifle squad with scopes, but for a rifle grenadier.

I am rationalizing getting the Panzerfaust cum RPG to give me a proto-modern infantry platoon by or before the 1950s/60s. The CETME is to me what would have evolved from a better semi-automatic effort and no pressing call for the Stg44, a more leisurely and rifleman oriented development following after the experimental Vollmer M35.
Yeah there is the issue without WW2, but still WW1, the Germans did basically develop a proto-assault rifle with the Vollmer M35. They called it an automatic carbine, but was effectively an AK-47 in terms of the power of the cartridge (it was 7.62x40 IIRC) and general operating principle (minus the reliability thanks to the gas trap system, which would eventually have to go just like with the Garand). Something like the Panzerfaust would evolve eventually, as the US developed the Bazooka without any WW2 combat experience.
 
If they get lightweight automatic rifles, sure. Just like the evolution with assault rifles IOTL. GPMGs in LMG pattern get concentrated in a weapons squad within the platoon. If they don't though move to an automatic rifle squad pattern, they could end up with what Hitler originally envisioned: LMG within a semi-automatic, full powered rifle squad with scopes, but for a rifle grenadier.


Yeah there is the issue without WW2, but still WW1, the Germans did basically develop a proto-assault rifle with the Vollmer M35. They called it an automatic carbine, but was effectively an AK-47 in terms of the power of the cartridge (it was 7.62x40 IIRC) and general operating principle (minus the reliability thanks to the gas trap system, which would eventually have to go just like with the Garand). Something like the Panzerfaust would evolve eventually, as the US developed the Bazooka without any WW2 combat experience.

In theory the FG42 might have spurred a SAW equivalent in the "lighter" rifle caliber or the MG34 could also be chambered and lightened akin to how Spain did with the Ameli in 5.56. I think without a war the Germans might tinker with where they put the GPMGs, in theory moving them up to Platoon control with the light mortar as an automatic rifle gives equivalent firepower at Squad. And I wonder if an M79 is developed to replace the 5cm mortar or a true light mortar akin to the more modern types pioneered by SADF.

As we have discussed the Vollmer might have been a leap too far and I leave it as a niche weapon like the FG42 in the Airborne troops. But it should pave the way for something to issue Army-wide if not adopted itself. But as I think we agree the Vollmer likely does take us to the CETME style rifle and here we have no StG44 or AK47.

My theory is that the Airborne was already using Recoilless Rifles to lighten up and get effect of anti-tank guns so might stumble into a Bazooka. The Panzerfaust would be a weird offshoot of the cup Grenade launcher as one hopes to upsize the bursting charge size or get HEAT effect. It does not require the war to get these but it might take into the 1950s to stumble by trial and error onto the things. I can argue for a SLR/SAW, GPMG, GL and RPG mix for the German Army of the late 1950s or early 1960s era. Paired with the first true APCs that are getting HMG turrets I think we see a very potent Army.
 
Impossible to avoid once you develop semi automatic and automatic, and to avoid semi automatic and automatic you have to go back to before the development of smokeless powder. You basically have to rewrite the entirety of modern firearms design from scratch.

Technically small arms as a field is basically fully developed by the mid-1920s. All the mechanisms we have now they had then. After that it is simply a matter of experimenting with what cartridges are viable to strike the correct balance of compromises and some manufacture optimization. The intermediary cartridge then becomes an inevitability.
 
Armies carry on using bolt-action rifles, heavy machine guns and sub-machine guns, as they did IOTL into the 1950s?

That might be how things go without the Great War, it showed the need to clear trenches, the Germans build the SMG and the USA employs shotguns, the Germans also use the flame thrower but that is another level of weaponry. The rifle was thought necessary to shoot out to a mile in aimed volleys like it had in past wars, WWI proves that warfare is now more about skirmishes, and the confines of trenches both push us into carbine sizing, added that the SMG shows us we need mobile suppression the HMGs cannot give, you get everyone looking at something to fill the role, most famously the MG34 evolves from the experience.

The SMG is a niche weapon, the US Army and Marines did not see much use for it once the Garand was deployed, only the experiences of fighting in built-up or jungle terrain pushed the SMG back into the Squad, the Germans drove the notion of keeping a full auto weapon at Squad with the MP38/40, others followed and we see the pattern of putting the SMG in the Squad Leaders hands since he mostly leads and would be best suited to decide upon employing it and disciplined enough not to expend the ammo I assume. With a semi-automatic or select fire full-automatic battle rife I think the SMG returns to its specialist employment or fades. Look at the British Army who had no SMG leading into WW2 and used a bolt-action rifle. Without the war I am doubtful the British employ a SMG at all. Perhaps it still gets employed for colonial wars like the French MAT-49

The BAR was a great addition when it was just the M1903, it showed the way much like the Chauchat how suppressive fire opened up Squad tactics to fire and movement. The BREN and MG42 show how to get this done and would have been even more devastating had either army paired it with a Garand or MAS-40 equivalent but perhaps the success of them let us linger with bolt-actions longer. I do not think we need the StG or its progeny to see that the path was certainly towards a SLR that mostly fired semi-auto with option to full-auto paired with a LMG and either rifle grenades or M79 launcher as the pattern that likely sticks. Again the push would be to concentrate the LMGs at Platoon rather than distrubute them once you have such rifles, but that is no certainty. The assault rifle might only get developed once armies move to full APC and then IFV theories, that lets us remove the LMG and use the dismount infantry to be the maneuver element as the APC/IFV acts as the fire base. The Soviets seem to have showed us that was the theory once you build a BMP. Thus the StG/AK47 is a product of the next generation after the Garand/FAL/CETME serves out the 1940s to 1960s era. If you asked how things go without a war that is my bet. Before 1950 I think everyone has a Garand equivalent or even the FAL capable full-auto like rifle in service or tracked to enter service, SMGs fade and the GPMG retreats to a more traditional fire support role.
 
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