ww2 AHC: ideal automatic rifle...

Anyone know if it was possible to fit a spitzer in the 9 x 25 Mauser case to speed things up a bit. I really like the idea of the Zk383 Machine Carbine firing 9 x 25 Mauser.
Of course you can, but unless you have a crazy light bullet then the complete round is almost certainly too long to fit into any weapon designed for ‘normal’ 9x25 and you have basically invented a new round. Which isn’t necessarily a problem, just a consideration. This is a super useful primer on how we got to where we are today, and the oddities along the way...
http://quarryhs.co.uk/Assault.htm
 

Deleted member 1487

Anyone know if it was possible to fit a spitzer in the 9 x 25 Mauser case to speed things up a bit. I really like the idea of the Zk383 Machine Carbine firing 9 x 25 Mauser.
Just change the bullet design. You'll lose some weight and get a short ogive.
9mm_Sub-VelocityTactics.jpg





BLMR:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a21631/forgotten-weapons-americas-first-assault-rifle/
With this in mind, Winchester’s Frank Burton adapted the .351 WSL cartridge from his 1905 and 1907 self-loading rifles into the .345 WSL, with a spitzer bullet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.351_Winchester_Self-Loading
351+WSL+with+200+gr.JPG


http://www.municion.org/34/345Wsl.htm
345Wsl.jpg
 
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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.
I assume you mean the M1918 BARs? They were meant to be fired from the shoulder, afterall. The WW2 BARs were significantly heavier and less... pleasant to shoulder from what I remember.
 

Deleted member 1487

I assume you mean the M1918 BARs? They were meant to be fired from the shoulder, afterall. The WW2 BARs were significantly heavier and less... pleasant to shoulder from what I remember.
Probably the M1918s. Were the WW2 variants that much lighter?
 
Probably the M1918s. Were the WW2 variants that much lighter?
WW1 16lb, WW2 19lb. A proper machine gun would go about 24-26lb and be much much much more effective. In fact the 1903 danish Madsen LMG only weighed about 1 lb more than the section automatic weapon the USA took into WW2, which shows what a pigs ear Ordnance Dept made of the whole thing.
 

Deleted member 1487

WW1 16lb, WW2 19lb. A proper machine gun would go about 24-26lb and be much much much more effective. In fact the 1903 danish Madsen LMG only weighed about 1 lb more than the section automatic weapon the USA took into WW2, which shows what a pigs ear Ordnance Dept made of the whole thing.
As I understand it the Madsen was only slightly more sustain fire-able than the BAR and was more along the lines of an autorifle than a true LMG. IIRC it also did not have a quick change barrel until the 1950s too. It was also magazine fed like the BAR. Of course the Madsen was a pre-WW1 design, so should just not have been used in WW2.
But back to the BAR, the WW2 heavier version should have been more manageable to fire.
 
should just not have been used in WW2
Just like the BAR;)

The WW2 version may possibly have had less recoil, but it also had much worse sights, a near-useless bipod, a failure-prone rate of fire adjuster and was enormously overweight. In summary they managed to turn a good first-gen automatic rifle into either a poor automatic rifle or a poor light machine gun depending on how you tried to use it.
The weight difference is equivalent to duct-taping an unloaded M1 carbine to an M1918!

Comparing the 1918A2 to either the Mle 24/29, zb26 shows it for what it is - an inadequate weapon that was about 15 years behind the times. It was better than junk like Breda 30, but you could probably say the same for a Gw43, SVT or Charlton.
 

Deleted member 1487

The weight difference is equivalent to duct-taping an unloaded M1 carbine to an M1918!
I see you've heard of Project SALVO.

Comparing the 1918A2 to either the Mle 24/29, zb26 shows it for what it is - an inadequate weapon that was about 15 years behind the times. It was better than junk like Breda 30, but you could probably say the same for a Gw43, SVT or Charlton.
Well yeah, it was designed years before either of those. Of course, other than the US Army finding ways to make the BAR worse, was the ZB26 or Mle 24/29 really any better?

Still, imagine the French 6mm autorifle that had time to develop over 30-40 years and develop a belt feed system. HK got that work for their H&K 21 system:
https://modernfirearms.net/en/machineguns/germany-machineguns/hk-21-i-23-eng/
 
I see you've heard of Project SALVO.


Well yeah, it was designed years before either of those. Of course, other than the US Army finding ways to make the BAR worse, was the ZB26 or Mle 24/29 really any better?

Still, imagine the French 6mm autorifle that had time to develop over 30-40 years and develop a belt feed system. HK got that work for their H&K 21 system:
https://modernfirearms.net/en/machineguns/germany-machineguns/hk-21-i-23-eng/

I would say that the ZB vz.26 (the Weapon Japan and the UK copied for their Type 96/99 LMG's and BREN LMG) and the Mle 24/29 were superior in virtually every metric you can chose vs the BAR.

While all can be crew served the top loading magazine on the ZB vz.26 / Mle 24/29 and the quick change barrel on the former along with larger and better magazines (The BAR's greatest weakness was its tinny mags that would more easily deform and cause stoppages) allowed for far greater weight of fire (through faster magazine changes) although like the BAR the Mle 24/29 was constrained by the need for cooling. Then of course the ultimate BAR - the Swedish Kg m/37 built by Karl Gustav - this incorporated a midlength spiked bipod, pistol grip and a changeable barrel. This what the US should have had IMO at the very minimum going into WW2.

If I had to have chosen I would have picked the Mle 24/29 over the M1918A2 BAR and the ZB vz.26 over both.

Not a Bad gun just not as good as its Peers and while it is marginally lighter the other 2 weapons were not that much heavier that they impacted squad and section movement
 

Deleted member 1487

I would say that the ZB vz.26 (the Weapon Japan and the UK copied for their Type 96/99 LMG's and BREN LMG) and the Mle 24/29 were superior in virtually every metric you can chose vs the BAR.

While all can be crew served the top loading magazine on the ZB vz.26 / Mle 24/29 and the quick change barrel on the former along with larger and better magazines (The BAR's greatest weakness was its tinny mags that would more easily deform and cause stoppages) allowed for far greater weight of fire (through faster magazine changes) although like the BAR the Mle 24/29 was constrained by the need for cooling. Then of course the ultimate BAR - the Swedish Kg m/37 built by Karl Gustav - this incorporated a midlength spiked bipod, pistol grip and a changeable barrel. This what the US should have had IMO at the very minimum going into WW2.

If I had to have chosen I would have picked the Mle 24/29 over the M1918A2 BAR and the ZB vz.26 over both.

Not a Bad gun just not as good as its Peers and while it is marginally lighter the other 2 weapons were not that much heavier that they impacted squad and section movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_24/29_light_machine_gun
Both the original fusil-mitrailleur Mle 1924 (automatic rifle, model of 1924) as well as the modified Mle 1924 M29 have the same overall features: a folding bipod, an in-line stock, a pistol grip, a top-mounted 25-round detachable magazine and a bolt hold-open after the magazine's last round had been fired. There are two separate triggers: the trigger in front for using semi-automatic fire only and the rear trigger for firing on full automatic. Protection of all the openings against mud and dust proved excellent. The cyclic rate was controlled at 450 rounds per minute, thus allowing more continuous firing without overheating. In general, this new weapon was accurate and highly reliable but the barrel was screwed well into the receiver, as in the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and thus it could not be separated quickly and easily in the field as for the British Bren gun. The French Army instruction manual (July 1925) recommends not to go beyond 400 rounds of uninterrupted firing since at that point the gun needs to be given a pause of ten to fifteen minutes in order to cool off. But instead, the French instruction manual recommends the following routine for the FM 1924 : fire 4 to 5 detachable magazines (100 to 125 rounds), take a short pause, then keep repeating that same restrained fire plus short pause routine which permits steady performance and very extensive firing periods.

The Belgian BAR was likely a superior weapon to the Mle 24/29, but compared to the American version I can see where you'd rate the Mle more highly.
The Belgian BAR might have been equivalent to the ZB-26 in most ways; both had 20 round MGs and quick change barrels, the big difference being where you preferred the magazine, on top or on the bottom and what impact the difference in sights made.

But we are diverging here, frankly the US should have developed the 6mm Lee Navy and built a true LMG/rifle system around it.
 
But we are diverging here, frankly the US should have developed the 6mm Lee Navy and built a true LMG/rifle system around it.
What killed the 6mm in USN service was the early double base smokeless powder, initial steel jacketed bullets(soon changed to a lighter copper jacket), and the the rifling didn't last long from the steel the contract barrels used.

Had the 6mm Lee been tried in the '20s, none of those would have been an issue, with the singlebase IMR powders with stabilizers, decent bullets and decent steel.

The 220 Swift was based off the 6mm Lee, but also burned barrels from the 4000fps speed in the '30s and long after

But as a 6mm at a more sedate 3000fps, would have been fine
 

Deleted member 1487

What killed the 6mm in USN service was the early double base smokeless powder, initial steel jacketed bullets(soon changed to a lighter copper jacket), and the the rifling didn't last long from the steel the contract barrels used.

Had the 6mm Lee been tried in the '20s, none of those would have been an issue, with the singlebase IMR powders with stabilizers, decent bullets and decent steel.

The 220 Swift was based off the 6mm Lee, but also burned barrels from the 4000fps speed in the '30s and long after

But as a 6mm at a more sedate 3000fps, would have been fine
Indeed. With a 105 grain bullet like the 6mm SAW it would have been formidable in WW2:
http://photobucket.com/gallery/http...Swolfie6mmTTSX070516 002_zpsykzitgv5.jpg.html

A rifle based on it, Garand style, could have been significantly lighter and fully lethal within 600m.
 
Well yeah, it was designed years before either of those.
That’s rather ridiculous. You might as well say the Gatling gun was OK for WW2 because it was designed decades earlier than the decent weapons. By the end of the twenties the standard BAR was a previous-generation weapon and by the end of the thirties it was down into the bargain-bin end of the scale, relying on the Breda 30 and Type 96 to spare its blushes. The French, British, Germans, Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Lithuanians, Swedes, Poles, Belgians etc etc all had better options than the M1918A2 and in several cases they were even BARs.
The 1918A2 was just not good enough, and no better proof of that exists than the desperate kludge that was the 1919A6, trying to compensate for the failure of one warmed over WW1 design by warming over another WW1 design...

Regarding the 6mm Lee, if the Ordnance Dept had such a sense of adventure then the possibilities are limitless. But absent ASB even a 6mm wouldn’t have got past them until it was pumped up to almost .30-06 energy levels, just as happened to the .276 Pedersen.
A big part of the problem being that in the US army rifle fire had to contribute a disproportionate amount of the infantry’s firepower on account of how poor their machine guns were. A squad armed with 6mm Lee rifles and .30-06 BARs are going to be desperately short of sustained firepower capable of dealing with targets behind cover or at long ranges. Give them a zb26 or MG34 equivalent in .30-06 to act as a base of fire and suddenly a lighter rifle to address the same requirement as the old Pedersen Device seems a lot more plausible.
But of course this is a chicken & egg argument since the machine guns were so poor because the war should be won by legions of Mighty American Riflemen leaping from the pages of James Fenimore Cooper to repeatedly headshot the enemy at 800 yards...
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
The 1918A2 was just not good enough, and no better proof of that exists than the desperate kludge that was the 1919A6, trying to compensate for the failure of one warmed over WW1 design by warming over another WW1 design...
IMO not fully true. It is more - or partly - a different take on the weapon mix.
Instead of the Individual Weapon and the One Other Weapon to Meet All Possible Needs, i.e. rifle +GPMG available on bipod and tripod, and best if using the same ammo, there is an alternative with three weapons.
The IW, the squad level weapon - bipod and magazine fed, the platoon/company level weapon - bipod and belt, and finally the company/higher level/for use on vehicle - tripod and belt.
And here the US army - with its BAR + 1919A6 + 1917 guns - seems to fit this philosophy.
AFAIK the Russian army (and probably quite a few other) use it today, with Assault Rifle and Squad Level bipod+magazine weapons firing the intermediate round, while there is a a separate upper level weapon available on either bipod or tripod, with boxes holding belts with from 50 to 250 rounds, firing full power rifle ammo.
Isn't this the weapon mixed by the USMC as well?
 
IMO not fully true. It is more - or partly - a different take on the weapon mix.
Instead of the Individual Weapon and the One Other Weapon to Meet All Possible Needs, i.e. rifle +GPMG available on bipod and tripod, and best if using the same ammo, there is an alternative with three weapons.
The IW, the squad level weapon - bipod and magazine fed, the platoon/company level weapon - bipod and belt, and finally the company/higher level/for use on vehicle - tripod and belt.
And here the US army - with its BAR + 1919A6 + 1917 guns - seems to fit this philosophy.
AFAIK the Russian army (and probably quite a few other) use it today, with Assault Rifle and Squad Level bipod+magazine weapons firing the intermediate round, while there is a a separate upper level weapon available on either bipod or tripod, with boxes holding belts with from 50 to 250 rounds, firing full power rifle ammo.
Isn't this the weapon mixed by the USMC as well?
So your opinion is that instead of trying to switch from a shit box-fed pseudo-LMG in the M1918A2 to a shit belt-fed pseudo-LMG in the M1919A6, the US were trying to build a rifle plus three-tier MG structure (plus the M2!) where the bottom two MG tiers were pure garbage?
OK, that sounds vaguely plausible (if amazingly extravagant), although it is worth noting that in the WW2 timeframe pretty well everyone else was happy with just their rifle +LMG+MMG, with only the Germans venturing into the realms of rifle + GPMG. And that the US would still have been better off with one decent squad machine gun than two shoddy squad/platoon weapons.

The three-tier structure you describe is indeed a modern construct with 5.5mm rifle + support weapon (box or belt) and 7.62mm belt fed support weapon for longer range and harder targets. It’s pretty pointless if all 3 weapons are using the same round since then the two support weapons are little different.
 
A big part of the problem being that in the US army rifle fire had to contribute a disproportionate amount of the infantry’s firepower on account of how poor their machine guns were. A squad armed with 6mm Lee rifles and .30-06 BARs are going to be desperately short of sustained firepower capable of dealing with targets behind cover or at long ranges. Give them a zb26 or MG34 equivalent in .30-06 to act as a base of fire and suddenly a lighter rifle to address the same requirement as the old Pedersen Device seems a lot more plausible.

Look over the M1917 Marlin machine gun, it's a Colt Potato Digger with a proper gas system, and aircraft versions used aluminum for weight issues and to dissipate heat .
cut short by WWI ending when it did, it was used to replace Vickers MGs in AEF aircraft, since it could be easily fitted with synchronization gear
Carl Gustave Swebilius did the upgrade work to get the M1895 for WWI use

Now who is that?

George Chinn, author _The Machine Gun_ thinks Swebilius as only second only to Browning in early machine gun design
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
So your opinion is that instead of trying to switch from a shit box-fed pseudo-LMG in the M1918A2 to a shit belt-fed pseudo-LMG in the M1919A6, the US were trying to build a rifle plus three-tier MG structure (plus the M2!) where the bottom two MG tiers were pure garbage?
The execution of the concept might had been somewhat lacking ...

OK, that sounds vaguely plausible (if amazingly extravagant), although it is worth noting that in the WW2 timeframe pretty well everyone else was happy with just their rifle +LMG+MMG, with only the Germans venturing into the realms of rifle + GPMG.
This was the pre-intermediate round era.

The three-tier structure you describe is indeed a modern construct with 5.5mm rifle + support weapon (box or belt) and 7.62mm belt fed support weapon for longer range and harder targets. It’s pretty pointless if all 3 weapons are using the same round since then the two support weapons are little different.
Maybe I'm wrong in ascribing such a design to pre-WWII US Army ...
 

Deleted member 1487

That’s rather ridiculous. You might as well say the Gatling gun was OK for WW2 because it was designed decades earlier than the decent weapons. By the end of the twenties the standard BAR was a previous-generation weapon and by the end of the thirties it was down into the bargain-bin end of the scale, relying on the Breda 30 and Type 96 to spare its blushes. The French, British, Germans, Russians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Lithuanians, Swedes, Poles, Belgians etc etc all had better options than the M1918A2 and in several cases they were even BARs.
The 1918A2 was just not good enough, and no better proof of that exists than the desperate kludge that was the 1919A6, trying to compensate for the failure of one warmed over WW1 design by warming over another WW1 design...

Regarding the 6mm Lee, if the Ordnance Dept had such a sense of adventure then the possibilities are limitless. But absent ASB even a 6mm wouldn’t have got past them until it was pumped up to almost .30-06 energy levels, just as happened to the .276 Pedersen.
A big part of the problem being that in the US army rifle fire had to contribute a disproportionate amount of the infantry’s firepower on account of how poor their machine guns were. A squad armed with 6mm Lee rifles and .30-06 BARs are going to be desperately short of sustained firepower capable of dealing with targets behind cover or at long ranges. Give them a zb26 or MG34 equivalent in .30-06 to act as a base of fire and suddenly a lighter rifle to address the same requirement as the old Pedersen Device seems a lot more plausible.
But of course this is a chicken & egg argument since the machine guns were so poor because the war should be won by legions of Mighty American Riflemen leaping from the pages of James Fenimore Cooper to repeatedly headshot the enemy at 800 yards...
I'm not sure what you think I'm arguing, but I'm not stumping for the US Army WW2 BAR. My initial point was that it was generally controllable due to the weight, not that it was particularly reliable or a great option compared to it's competitors. The core design was fine, as the Belgians were able to demonstrate with upgrades...thing is the US military decided not to actually make their version better. An improved version could have been workable is all I'm saying.

As to the historical mindset of the OD, you're right, they were clearly behind the curve. This thread though is presupposing we could make a weapon of our choice using existing rounds and disregard the BS of the historical thoughts around what was needed.

As it is today NATO uses 5.56mm for it's rifles and LMGs (and now and autorifle for the Marines), so it is workable with the hindsight proposed in this thread's OP. Of course if you're talking about scoring headshots at 800m, then you're not talking about firing through cover, rather having a flat firing rifle that is accurate out to that range...which a 3000fps 105 grain spitzer/boat tailed 6mm round would be able to achieve. After all the 6mm SAW was designed for a LMG with 1000m effective range:
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Is+6mm+the+Optimum+Caliber?-a066707577

AFAIK the Russian army (and probably quite a few other) use it today, with Assault Rifle and Squad Level bipod+magazine weapons firing the intermediate round, while there is a a separate upper level weapon available on either bipod or tripod, with boxes holding belts with from 50 to 250 rounds, firing full power rifle ammo.
Isn't this the weapon mixed by the USMC as well?
The Marines are moving to that model, that is something similar to what they used in WW2, 3 fire team squads with the auto rifles as the SAW.

The Russians have the RPK74, but are also pushing PK 7.62 MGs down to squad level though.
 
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Look over the M1917 Marlin machine gun, it's a Colt Potato Digger with a proper gas system, and aircraft versions used aluminum for weight issues and to dissipate heat .
The issue with this for ground use is the closed-bolt operation, which isn’t ideal. It also apparently at one point had problems with tearing cartridges apart during extraction, although I’m not clear if that was an ammunition problem or an engineering problem, or if it was ever fixed.
 
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