ww2 AHC: ideal automatic rifle...

... and a LMG that will use same cartridge.
Ideally it should be ready for production by 1939, or 1940 at least. Usage of existing cartriges is encouraged, does not matter whether the country of interest is already using those it or not. The full power ~.30 in cartridges are to be avoided. Rifle need to be fed by 25-30 rd box at least, suitable for automatic fire (doh), while being useful for the firing distances of 400-500m.
Basically, something better than the Fedorov's Avtomat from the ww-one.
 
Best I can come up with on short notice (my rack is calling me) - is a ZK 383 type weapon good recoil management or Soumi 31 - firing a hot 9mm x 25 Mauser or other heavy SMG round

The 'LMG' has a heavy changeable barrel and bipod and can take larger Drum mags

The Assault carbine has a shorter barrel - non changeable and no bipod

Should serve battlefield ranges.

Unless you can get the 8mm Kurtz up earlier and have an MG34 style weapon firing the same round from a belt? Or perhaps an MG 30 type firing from the same magazine or a larger drum? And of course a STg 44 style assault rifle several years earlier.
 

Deleted member 1487

6mm Lee Navy, just modernize the bullet with a Spitzer tip.
The French even developed an automatic rifle/LMG in a round very similar to the Lee Navy
It was slightly heavier than the BAR. Basically an early 6x45mm SAW
643512.jpg
 
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For the British in WW2 I would go with the Bren and the Polish Maroszek wz.38M rifle. Adapt the rifle to take 10/15 round Bren magazines then you have a common ammo supply. Without a significant POD you will not get the British to use a intermediate cartridge at this time so these two in 303 calibre will do with good 9mm sub machine gun
 
Apologies in advance but if we abandon any pretence of it being ‘ideal’ and also decide to duck the separate ‘rifle’ and ‘LMG’ as being too intellectually challenging....

Chauchat made under a bit less time pressure on machine tools 2 decades more modern, with closed-side magazines and the whole thing scaled down to take .30-30 loaded to contemporary pressure with a spitzer bullet.

Never mind the ergonomics, feel the price tag!
 
The rifle which later became the SLEM-1/FN Model 1949 and eventually morphed into the FN-FAL was just about to go on the market right before WW2. Combine that with the Bren gun, both chambered in 6.5 x 55 Swedish Mauser and you've got about as good a pair of weapons as you could get.
 
There are reasons why Automatic rifles (note: NOT assault rifles or battle rifles) died as a concept even before 1939, with only America stubbornly keeping them (and promptly using them as LMGs during WW2, and they did a rather poor job at that). The other countries hat had adopted BARs had all modified them into proper LMGs.

Anyways, by 1939, the best Automatic rifle designs that actually existed were the European modified BARs (Swedish, Polish, Belgian) or the Colt Monitor with pistol grip, some with vertical foregrip, detachable barrels some with different muzzle devices to reduce recoil, and better bipod (the bipod on American BARs is notoriously garbage).

I'm curious how the Swedish BARs shot. I know the 6.5mm round isn't really weaker, but may have more comfortable recoil than 30.06 (ouch) or 8mm Mauser.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
220 Swift was a barrel burner with bolt action RoF

You can always down-load it. Plenty of commercial loadings are hotter than ball ammunition. Just look at some of the 30-06 and 7.92 mauser loadings, they'd blow through a barrel a lot faster than ball ammunition too.

But 220 is about as close as you can get to a direct 5.56 equivalent off commercial ammunition.

Edit: scratch that. Forgot about 22-250 with a down-loading. Shorter case would let you make the action shorter and lighter.

But still, either would be perfectly suited to the role of combination LMG and assault rifle duty.
 
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The rifle which later became the SLEM-1/FN Model 1949 and eventually morphed into the FN-FAL was just about to go on the market right before WW2. Combine that with the Bren gun, both chambered in 6.5 x 55 Swedish Mauser and you've got about as good a pair of weapons as you could get.

This would work - or take the ZB-30 in 8mm Mauser call it a BREN Gun and save several years of development - add SLR of choice in same calibre - and yes Dieudonné Saive's SLR design with a stripper fed semi-detachable Lee style 10 round magazine - later adopting larger magazines - 20 round and the ability to take the 30 rounder if necessary - would be my choice.

I did a thread on this
 
Chauchat made under a bit less time pressure on machine tools 2 decades more modern, with closed-side magazines and the whole thing scaled down to take .30-30 loaded to contemporary pressure with a spitzer bullet.

Or just use .30 Remington,
30RemingtonPeters-180x315-204x316.jpg
a rimless version of the 30-30 that was introduced for the 1906 Model 8. 2364 ft/s with 150 gr. RN but could have spitzer designs too.
 
MAS 38 Rifle in Savage 250-3000, and the Swedish Belt fed BAR in same caliber with QD barrel

The .250 Savage makes a lot of sense IMO, along with other 6-6.5mm cartridges. The .250 with, say, 110gr bullet will still be good for 2700+ fps, combining light recoil with good long-ish range accuracy and obstacle penetration.
From the European cartridges, the 6.5mm Carcano shouls be also mentioned. Of course, stick the spitzer bullet on it. It is just slightly more powerful than the .250 Savage. The 6.5mm Swedish is about 20% more powerful than the Carcano, though still very manageable for automatic hand-held weapon.
 

Deleted member 1487

I'm curious how the Swedish BARs shot. I know the 6.5mm round isn't really weaker, but may have more comfortable recoil than 30.06 (ouch) or 8mm Mauser.
The regular BAR supposedly had manageable recoil due to the weight; the Swedish 6.5mm by all reports had significantly more manageable recoil than the .30-06 or 7.92 Mauser, so in BAR or LMG form would have been substantially more manageable.
 
Or just use .30 Remington,
30RemingtonPeters-180x315-204x316.jpg
a rimless version of the 30-30 that was introduced for the 1906 Model 8. 2364 ft/s with 150 gr. RN but could have spitzer designs too.
Yes but if you have a proper cartridge you might as well design a proper weapon, like maybe a baby Garand with a 10-round clip or a baby Bren.
The chauchat has no real redeeming features other than working well with a rimmed cartridge and the .30-30 is sort of OK high-intermediate power but horribly rimmy. The combination is just amusing to me because those two clapped-out old horrors might actually give a respectable tactical edge advantage.
 
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