What If Assault rifles were adopted before WW2

This What If situation has got some historical plausibility behind it. since assault rifles by modern definition were being worked on in prototype's, by late WW1 all the way through the interwar period.

So what if gun's that were similar in characteristics to modern assault rifles. Such as the riber-rolles 1918 automatic carbine and the vollmer m35 made it into mass production. POD 1917, this is what if the french adopted the Riber-Rolles 1918 automatic carbine as their standard light rifle along side the MAS semi-auto rifle after successfully deploying the the 1917 conversions of the Winchester 1907 in WW1.

How would the US respond to such a development? Also would the soviet union and the British commonwealth, follow suit after seeing the french and the Germans using such weapons in early WW2?
 
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Have the British Army adopt the Farquhar-Hill rifle?
First tested in 1908, and adopted 1918 and immediately cancelled in 1919, before production could begin.
 
Have the British Army adopt the Farquhar-Hill rifle?
First tested in 1908, and adopted 1918 and immediately cancelled in 1919, before production could begin.
Preferably with the feed lips on the magazine instead of in the rifle, so a Tommy in a rush doesn't dump all his ammunition onto the floor of a trench or fox hole. Have it use the SMLE 20rd trench magazines. Still not an assault rifle though.
 
Burton M1917 Light Machine Rifle perhaps. The Winchester M1907 is an option. Come 1921, the Swiss Furrer Pistolengewehr MP. 1920/1921 which fired 7.65x35mm from a 30 round detachable box magazine could be looked at.
 
Russia had the Federov Avtomat rifle which went into production in 1915, that is often named as the first assault rifle. Russia was also very short of production facilities for rifles. Now if they'd contracted say B.S.A or Vickers to build the Federov in addition to their own production, would the British be interested in the rifle as well. Britain was already producing the 6.5mm Arisaka round it used.
 
Now that I consider it, I don't think the US would deviate from the Battle Rifle path so early. They didn't for decades after the feasibility of the Assault Rifle was proven.
 
An Order of British built Federov avtomat built for the Russians not being delivered due to the revolution and armistice with the Germans in 1917 might be a POD to get a proto-assault rifle into action with the British Army in 1918. Now the butterflies from such an event could be very interesting.
 
Now that I consider it, I don't think the US would deviate from the Battle Rifle path so early. They didn't for decades after the feasibility of the Assault Rifle was proven.

Technically the US did have a weapon in a intermediate cartridge and firearm in the form of the M1 Carbine program. So their assault rifle could be born from that program, but in a 30-06 based intermediate round instead of a beefed up pistol round. Though the guys in US ordinance might be a bit stubborn of letting go of their full power rifle traditions.

An Order of British built Federov avtomat built for the Russians not being delivered due to the revolution and armistice with the Germans in 1917 might be a POD to get a proto-assault rifle into action with the British Army in 1918. Now the butterflies from such an event could be very interesting.

They could start with a mag fed select fire battle rifle in .303 that uses BREN gun magazines initially, then slowly make their way to a intermediate cartridge like the .280 later on in the timeline.

How will adoption in late WWI, the 1920s or the 1930s change doctrines?

Yours,
Sam R.

Might not impact the doctrines, for the German's and the American's that much at first. But for othe countries, like the British commonwealth and the Soviets it might impact their doctrines much more drastically. Also it might prompt the danish to use their 7x44mm intermediate round, for more than just the weibel than they originally planned.

Maybe the British might consider getting a domestic production license to produce a .308 bore variant of that design to make use of common bullets on the US market. the Russian's may end up with a SKS and AK's slightly faster than normal. But the Doctrines overall may inevitably, change drastically in the long term.
 
An Order of British built Federov avtomat built for the Russians not being delivered due to the revolution and armistice with the Germans in 1917 might be a POD to get a proto-assault rifle into action with the British Army in 1918. Now the butterflies from such an event could be very interesting.
I could see them being issued to the Royal Marines for the Zeebrugge raid which could possibly lead to the Marines adopting the Federov as their standard rifle between the wars. It would seem to be ideal for landing and boarding parties, especially on the China station fighting to suppress pirates.
 

Redbeard

Banned
With armies still relying on foot marching soldiers that carried everything they needed on their backs battles will be short as the soldiers will soon run out of ammo (or the arty will decide it anyway - as usual).

An infantry squad with a MG34/42 type GPMG and bolt action rifles for the rest (ammo carriers) will still be at least as powerful as a squad with assault rifles (M1/BAR) and probably much better utilise the ammo that can be carried. In a GPMG squad the best man fires 95% of the rounds, in an assault rifle squad it will be much less.

If the assault rifle thing also involves going to smaller calibers (ie a lighter cartridge) the individual soldier might of course carry more rounds and battles would last 30 seconds longer but a squad with "short round assault rifles" might find itself seriously outgunned and outranged by a squad with a GPMG in rifle caliber.

An assault rifle would be handy in city combat and for mechanised units however.
 
I would expect Lewis/Bar/Madsen/ChauChat light machine guns to still be at the core of an Infantry squad so the range issue would not be too much of an issue. Not that in real life many battles were fought at long range anyway. Even if restricted to semi auto only, without a specific order to go full auto, a Federov would be a very useful rifle for storming trenches, fighting in built up areas and as I said earlier boarding actions. Yes they do mean that more ammunition has to be supplied to the troops more often, but if the trade off is that more of your own troops survive to fight again then it's a penalty worth paying.
 
A Federov type gun in 6.5 arisaka would actually do wonders for the British navy, the 7x44mm danish round could also work as well for the British overall as well. Yes the main niches for assault rifles would mainly be urban/CQB warfare, vehicle crews and artillery crew.
 
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