Why is the 1918 .30 BAR considered a poor rifle?

[Crowbar Six]

That was partly down to the US Army running a propaganda campaign during the war that the MG42 was not a good weapon and was not very effective. Then they did some tests with a copy of the MG42 in 30-06 which was especially badly nailed together which contributed to the view that the weapon was terrible.

I think the option of retaining the BAR depends on what other weapon they substituted instead, if it was a M1919A6 or one of the appalling trials MG's the US was playing with post war I would probably have gone for the BAR too.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

From the moment they were conscripted they were told they had the best weapons (all armies do this if they can get away with it), that their allies weapons were second best, that their enemies weapons were poorly put together crap made out of floorboards and scrap metal and then there's the fact they just won. Now they're asked are the weapons you have what you want? Do you want something new we haven't designed yet based on what we've been telling you for years is junk? It's not hard to see why the G.I's would say "Nah, we're good but hey another X in the squad or some more Y would be great".

 

[bpbruce]

Roy Dunlap said the M1 and BAR both had skinny barrels for the 30-06 cartridge, overheating too much. All the vets I've talked to who had the BAR were proud, all the vets who had the M60 weren't, all the vets with SAWs were proud. The thing about the BAR is that you'd give it to the stud duck of each 4-8 man team, so he was proud. It was a machine rifle, not a machine gun or an assault rifle or a battle rifle.

 

[Richard V]

Which makes me wonder what the US would have done if the Garand had been a failure. As late as 1940 they were still mucking about with a gas trap system, something that no one has ever gotten to work reliably so failure was possible. Had the US been forced to fight WWII with Springfields using the BAR instead of a real LMG would have put them a significant disadvantage.

Easy, issue 2-3 BARs per squad. By late WWII the Army was issuing 2 BARs to most squads to make up for the lack of firepower. By this point the Germans were issuing MP-44s and some squads had 2 MG42. Of course 2 BARs are more expensive than 2 MG42s, but America could afford it. In the Pacific the Marines were issuing 3 BAR per squad by war’s end, and the company M1919 went from 3 to 6. This was horribly expensive but the firepower was stupendous.

During the Korean War 3 BARs was common place, in some actions where some small unit had to hold a hill there were cases where a squad had 5-6. That was where the Army got the idea of the M-14, a Garand with detachable magazines and select fire.

 

[yulzari]

I imagine that they were comparing it to the Lewis and BREN - and a significant majority of the HG were WW1 veterans deemed to old for regular army / TA service.

The ruling restricting BAR fire came from above based upon initial and then further actual work with the BARs. The Home Guard had plenty of experienced war veterans who had served in action with rifles and with Lewis Guns and knew what they were doing. They found in practice that the barrels heated up far too fast in automatic fire and were difficult to maintain on target without a bipod. Semi automatic fire could be maintained accurately and used up less scarce ammunition. It was simply that they found the BAR to be a very good (but heavy) semi automatic rifle which could give a worthwhile degree of covering firepower to a platoon as such but using it in automatic fire would reduce both accuracy and reliability plus eat through ammunition too fast. Even in an 'emergency' i.e. the Wehrmacht is advancing into your village right now. In number.

 

[DougM]

The reason as I understand it that the BAR was easily detected in combat was that it was loader then a Carbine and fired faster then am M1 but a lot slower then a MG. If fire single shot it was nit particularly distinctive, But if you were not firing it on auto then you were just carrying a heavier gun then the M-1 for no good reason.
The reason this was an issue later in the Korean War is that both sides would send out patrols and occasionally these patrols would encounter each other but not be at point blank range. Then they would shoot at each other. The issue was if you had a BAR you were telling everyone that the group over THERE is Americans. And if some Chinese or North Koreans with mortars were around they would start tossing Mortar rounds at you.And for various reasons a lot of Korean Vets (mostly later in the war) tended to worry about motors as they were a reasonably common weapon that did a disproportionately large amount of casualties.
Case in point on the Ridge my dad was on they had hot food sent up by truck but the truck could be seen on its way up from the ridge the North Koreans were on so a few minutes after the truck showed up the NorthKoreans would start Up with the motor rounds to see if they could catch someone out in the open. Second example my dads MG was in a bit of an improvised bunker dug in and sand bag walls. With a sand bag reinforced roof and an opening for his MG to fire out of that had a canvas dropped over the opening most of the time. One day my dad was leading a patrol with his assistant gunner manning his gun. My dad comes back from patrol and his assistant is missing. whil my dad was gone a random motar round hit just in front of the bunker and shrapnel came through the opening hitting his assistant gunner In the neck. The gunner lived long enough to get sent to the hospital but that was the end. If my dad was not on patrol he would have been where his assistant was. So the really hated motors

Don’t get me wrong the distinctive sound of the BAR is just one negative and probably not the main one, weight and a bad grip are probably much more an issue. But basically in Korea other guns could do the same thing only better so why use the BAR if you don’t have to?

 

[stephen the barbarian]

why use the BAR

because there are still people willing to trade the mass penalty for additional power, accuracy, and reliability

 

[Orcbuster]

The Bar never really completely found its place in US service during the two world wars. In the first world war the general principle it was designed around, namely walking fire was a bit of a dud and it did not have a bipod which greatly hindered its ability to act as a good automatic weapon platform (not to mention it was a tricky weapon to service in the field). During the second there were simply a large number of superior designs around.

 

[McPherson]

One comment. "Superior" = European origin is a small bit of a "fiction". The Browning automatic rifle gas and cyclic operation system formed the basis of several excellent French machine guns, was actually stolen by several east European gun designers for their own start designs (as well as the Lewis operating system as another example of "borrowing".) and IS the core basis for the Belgian FN MAG; which as I point out has some of its origin work in the Springfield Arsenal when the Ruger was rejected for being too "expensive" to machine tool make. (No more than the BAR and you wonder why I have such a LOW opinion of American procurement officers for the past century?)

So by no means is the BAR an "obsolete" system. It just needed to mature and be developed into that LMG that many an army loves today.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Easy, issue 2-3 BARs per squad. By late WWII the Army was issuing 2 BARs to most squads to make up for the lack of firepower. By this point the Germans were issuing MP-44s and some squads had 2 MG42. Of course 2 BARs are more expensive than 2 MG42s, but America could afford it. In the Pacific the Marines were issuing 3 BAR per squad by war’s end, and the company M1919 went from 3 to 6. This was horribly expensive but the firepower was stupendous.

During the Korean War 3 BARs was common place, in some actions where some small unit had to hold a hill there were cases where a squad had 5-6. That was where the Army got the idea of the M-14, a Garand with detachable magazines and select fire.

Which seems silly given they had the WAR in 1945 and dropped it at the end.

 

[McPherson]

The idiocies involved are unbelievable.

 

[DougM]

The problem is that you can find guns as powerful (or close enough) Guns with as good of a range, guns that fire as fast or faster and guns as accurate or better. Guns that weigh less and guns that are better ergonomically.
The challenge is do do it all at the same time.
This is why in WW-2 the gun was (in general) better accepted then in Korea. Especially later in the war when the front was not moving as much.
In WW-2 you pretty much were stuck with what you have. In Korea (at least later) you could more easily chose a weapon for a specific use. You want to shoot someone on the next ridge you go get a gun that is good at long range, you have a lot of folks attacking you you use a machine gun you go on patrol you find some carbines .
This was not an option as much in WW-2. That however does not make the BAR a GOOD gun. It still is to complicated to build and thus to expensive. It is heavy for what it does. It is slow firing and it is not well designed from an ergonomic point of view. Be it from a holding/carrying iit or the bi-pod or even reloading a magazine. ALL of that could have been done better. At least in 1940.
The reason it was used was it was available.
But it could have been improved.
Trully I think the BAR gets a bad rap. Was it the best weapon available? No was it the best option the US had available at the time? Probably.
That being said it could have been better. And it SHOULD have been better but the US was doing a good job of not spending money on weapons because they were not going to get into no war no more but once it became obvious that idea was not going to stick it was a bit late to find a replacement
As is human nature when looked at on a point for point basis you can find a better gun so thus at any moment you have someone that would rather have something else. And thus the BAR goes from being a not perfect but functional weapon to be “no good” weapon.

I can understand why when given other options the BAR falls short and folks like my father would prefer other options but if I have to march across Europe and I have to choose from the weapons available to the US then I would like to have a BAR on hand. As there are not any other good options to choose from.
So the issue is that the BAR should have been updated or replaced years before. But then again a lot of things the US started the war with were in the same boat.
Like anything else it can be argued either way. Kind of like the Sherman tank.

 

[McPherson]

The problem is that you can find guns as powerful (or close enough) Guns with as good of a range, guns that fire as fast or faster and guns as accurate or better. Guns that weigh less and guns that are better ergonomically.
The challenge is do do it all at the same time.
This is why in WW-2 the gun was (in general) better accepted then in Korea. Especially later in the war when the front was not moving as much.
In WW-2 you pretty much were stuck with what you have. In Korea (at least later) you could more easily chose a weapon for a specific use. You want to shoot someone on the next ridge you go get a gun that is good at long range, you have a lot of folks attacking you you use a machine gun you go on patrol you find some carbines .
This was not an option as much in WW-2. That however does not make the BAR a GOOD gun. It still is to complicated to build and thus to expensive. It is heavy for what it does. It is slow firing and it is not well designed from an ergonomic point of view. Be it from a holding/carrying iit or the bi-pod or even reloading a magazine. ALL of that could have been done better. At least in 1940.
The reason it was used was it was available.
But it could have been improved.
Trully I think the BAR gets a bad rap. Was it the best weapon available? No was it the best option the US had available at the time? Probably.
That being said it could have been better. And it SHOULD have been better but the US was doing a good job of not spending money on weapons because they were not going to get into no war no more but once it became obvious that idea was not going to stick it was a bit late to find a replacement
As is human nature when looked at on a point for point basis you can find a better gun so thus at any moment you have someone that would rather have something else. And thus the BAR goes from being a not perfect but functional weapon to be “no good” weapon.

I can understand why when given other options the BAR falls short and folks like my father would prefer other options but if I have to march across Europe and I have to choose from the weapons available to the US then I would like to have a BAR on hand. As there are not any other good options to choose from.
So the issue is that the BAR should have been updated or replaced years before. But then again a lot of things the US started the war with were in the same boat.
Like anything else it can be argued either way. Kind of like the Sherman tank.

Your analogy of "good because it was there" fails when you write Sherman tank. In retrospect as we dig down into the way that war worked, the Sherman tank was a PHENOMENALLY good tank as it competed and beat everything thrown at it; both on a cost, survivability, human factors and system of systems basis. Among the Wallies, in function terms you would have to either cite the BREN or the US M1 10.5cm howitzer or 15.5cm Long Tom as being as good for the role and purpose the weapon is intended.

To get the BAR into that same category or even to 'acceptable', one would have to have the FN Model D, and I would argue even that is not good enough, as the Ruger is better.

 

[Johnrankins]

The problem is that you can find guns as powerful (or close enough) Guns with as good of a range, guns that fire as fast or faster and guns as accurate or better. Guns that weigh less and guns that are better ergonomically.
The challenge is do do it all at the same time.
This is why in WW-2 the gun was (in general) better accepted then in Korea. Especially later in the war when the front was not moving as much.
In WW-2 you pretty much were stuck with what you have. In Korea (at least later) you could more easily chose a weapon for a specific use. You want to shoot someone on the next ridge you go get a gun that is good at long range, you have a lot of folks attacking you you use a machine gun you go on patrol you find some carbines .
This was not an option as much in WW-2. That however does not make the BAR a GOOD gun. It still is to complicated to build and thus to expensive. It is heavy for what it does. It is slow firing and it is not well designed from an ergonomic point of view. Be it from a holding/carrying iit or the bi-pod or even reloading a magazine. ALL of that could have been done better. At least in 1940.
The reason it was used was it was available.
But it could have been improved.
Trully I think the BAR gets a bad rap. Was it the best weapon available? No was it the best option the US had available at the time? Probably.
That being said it could have been better. And it SHOULD have been better but the US was doing a good job of not spending money on weapons because they were not going to get into no war no more but once it became obvious that idea was not going to stick it was a bit late to find a replacement
As is human nature when looked at on a point for point basis you can find a better gun so thus at any moment you have someone that would rather have something else. And thus the BAR goes from being a not perfect but functional weapon to be “no good” weapon.

I can understand why when given other options the BAR falls short and folks like my father would prefer other options but if I have to march across Europe and I have to choose from the weapons available to the US then I would like to have a BAR on hand. As there are not any other good options to choose from.
So the issue is that the BAR should have been updated or replaced years before. But then again a lot of things the US started the war with were in the same boat.
Like anything else it can be argued either way. Kind of like the Sherman tank.

Except the Sherman was a good tank. Its cannon was able to punch through the front armor of anything short of a Tiger at the ranges ww2 combat actually took place in even with the 75 mm, with a 76 mm it could do so with a Tiger. It was very survivable and extremely reliable and was available at reasonable cost. The Tiger, though it had a better gun and armor, was unreliable as hell and was godawful expensive. If were in the infantry and I had the ability to call on either Tigers or Shermans I would call on Shermans. They would arrive in considerably greater numbers both due to cost and reliability.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Your analogy of "good because it was there" fails when you write Sherman tank. In retrospect as we dig down into the way that war worked, the Sherman tank was a PHENOMENALLY good tank as it competed and beat everything thrown at it; both on a cost, survivability, human factors and system of systems basis. Among the Wallies, in function terms you would have to either cite the BREN or the US M1 10.5cm howitzer or 15.5cm Long Tom as being as good for the role and purpose the weapon is intended.

To get the BAR into that same category or even to 'acceptable', one would have to have the FN Model D, and I would argue even that is not good enough, as the Ruger is better.

So for the tank analogy to work, the BAR was the M3 Lee if it never got replaced?

 

[McPherson]

So for the tank analogy to work, the BAR was the M3 Lee if it never got replaced?

The version the Americans took into WWII would be analogous to this;

 

[Alamo]

The US simply didn't get the tactical utility of an effective LMG and then tried to improvise one with the appalling Browning M1919A6.

Even that didn't fill the same role - outside of specialist groups such as paratroopers they were issued at the company level during WW2. Even post-war there were only a pair of them attached to the rifle platoon's weapons squad. They weren't an integrated part of the rifle squad, which retained the BAR through Korea.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

So for the tank analogy to work, the BAR was the M3 Lee if it never got replaced?

I'd say a better one would be the Vickers Medium tanks still in service at the start of the war* if they'd not been replaced. Something that is by no means impossible, the British could have said in the 30's these are good enough why spend money to re invent the wheel? Just build new ones.

*Mostly as training tanks it's true, though some with the western desert force were pressed into service.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

The version the Americans took into WWII would be analogous to this;

oof

 

[Johnrankins]

The version the Americans took into WWII would be analogous to this;

What is that?