ww2 AHC: ideal automatic rifle...

Again you're not understanding my point: it's not that they were not good enough per se, rather that they were staking out a position between a belt few weapon and a lighter autorifle which made it less desirable than say a 6.5mm caliber autorifle for squad use. A belt fed Bren (or ZB-26) at platoon and company led would have been a highly effective weapon for it's role. It is telling that the Germans wanted to do that with the MG42 by the end of the war: relegate it to a special platoon weapon and equip rifle squads with only assault rifles.
For both of these the priority for the infantry in all likelyhood (sp) was a primary service rifle..
But the military logic is inescapable for all nations apart from the USA. WW1 showed that in terms of combat effectiveness machine guns trump rifles by a big, huge, beautiful margin. Therefore the first priority (for everyone apart from the US) was to get adequate machine guns in generous numbers and worry about the rifles in any spare time and with any leftover money.
While that was going on, if bolt-action firepower was inadequate and semi-auto rifles were on the back burner the quick and easy solution was to hand your barely-trained conscript a sub-machine gun to point in those directions a machine gun wasn’t pointing, and go back to worrying about more machine guns. That turned out to work well enough and at no point was an auto rifle the answer to a question anyone other than the US & fallschirmjäger were asking. Even the US seemed to realise that with M1 rifle and M1 SMG their need was for better machine guns, not auto rifles.
Unless you have 20/20 foresight or are desperate to leapfrog (and willing to gamble) it’s probably only when you have good machine guns AND good submachine guns AND OK semi-auto rifles all in respectable quantities that you get to questions about the next level, which is the MG + assault rifle. And compared to that any auto rifle in any mainstream military cartridge is pretty poor, so if you are going to adopt a fancy new cartridge, intermediate in an assault rifle is pretty much the only way to go, unless the Ordnance Board are involved.

If your heart is set on an auto rifle plus LMG, then a lightened cheapened BAR plus one of the developed pseudo-MG BAR versions in your choice of common caliber is probably about as good as you can get without ASB. Robust, reliable, well-developed, plenty of parts and training commonality, your choice of (bigger) box or even belt fed MG depending on how you spend your R&D budget. But it’s not a very practical or realistic choice for anyone, IMO. And while it would be a very strong combination to take into (and probably through) WW2 they would eventually be kicking themselves for heading down a blind alley.

Schwarz.jpg

Steyr Schwarzlose 1905-18
Caliber: 8x50R
Muzzle velocity 2000 feet/sec
Cyclic rate: 4-500 rpm Delayed blowback
20kg [44 lbs] + tripod 19.9kg [43.8 lbs]
A fine example of those delayed or locking bolts I mentioned which make the mass of the bolt largely irrelevant and benefit in no way whatsoever from a telescoped bolt.
Well in theory a wrap around bolt would add to chamber strength, and direct gasses forward in the event of a ruptured case, etc, but very minor benefits.
That’s true enough, but the bolt on a Mauser rifle, moisin-nagant, MG42, Bren, AK47 or whatever can manage all of those things perfectly well without being wraparound. Handling pierced primers and separated case heads is a basic safety feature of most competently-designed firearms since 1890 or thereabouts, while I’m not aware of anyone using a telescoped bolt in anything other than a plain blowback weapon. There must be some examples though, because every imaginable thing has been done at least once in firearms. And then again backwards, and a third time in .22LR.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
That’s true enough, but the bolt on a Mauser rifle, moisin-nagant, MG42, Bren, AK47 or whatever can manage all of those things perfectly well without being wraparound. Handling pierced primers and separated case heads is a basic safety feature of most competently-designed firearms since 1890 or thereabouts, while I’m not aware of anyone using a telescoped bolt in anything other than a plain blowback weapon. There must be some examples though, because every imaginable thing has been done at least once in firearms. And then again backwards, and a third time in .22LR.

Not that I've seen. I looked into it while tinkering with the designs for a modular assault rifle (the idea being to drop
Any barrel in any caliber that will safely be handled by the chamber without modification to the bolt, including rimmed cartridges)

But it didn't seem to be a thing.
 
MG34 and 42? The ZB26 design was originally a belt fed one, but switched to magazine fed to reduce weight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZB_vz._26


It was basically a choice to save weight and complexity, plus create a mechanism that wouldn't be easily impacted by mud/dirt.

Of course WW2 proved the GPMG concept more right than the magazine fed LMG, though the latter soldiered on post-war due to just being available in huge numbers as a result of the war.
There were a few magazine fed LMGs designed, and used post WW2 such as the RPK used by the Warsaw Pact and just about every other Communist Country. The RPK-74 which was designed to replace the RPK when the AK74 replaced the AKM. The British L86 LSW which replaced the Bren Gun, and some L7 GPMGs in British service. The Ultimax 100 from Singapore which has been used by over a Dozen Countries. The M27 Infantry Automatic Weapon which is replacing a portion of M249 Light Machine Guns in USMC service.
 

Deleted member 1487

There were a few magazine fed LMGs designed, and used post WW2 such as the RPK used by the Warsaw Pact and just about every other Communist Country. The RPK-74 which was designed to replace the RPK when the AK74 replaced the AKM. The British L86 LSW which replaced the Bren Gun, and some L7 GPMGs in British service. The Ultimax 100 from Singapore which has been used by over a Dozen Countries. The M27 Infantry Automatic Weapon which is replacing a portion of M249 Light Machine Guns in USMC service.
Autorifles in SAW role. Not LMGs.
 
just watched this. An made me think of this thread. No way we could get a bigger magazine at least??
30 rd magazine? 'Saddle' magazine, 100 rds? Drums were known to work, after all.

The drum mag on that MG.
BAR with RPK drum mag. RPK drum holds 75rd's BAR version I imagine would hold 50rd's.
BAR with RPD belt -fed drum.
Drums are not to scale but have been made larger to fit the BAR 30.06 round.
4kc7meq.gif
 

Deleted member 1487

Referencing modularity or wrap-around bolts?

To the best of my knowledge, the HK 21 is effectively a G3, using the same roller-delalyed blowback action.

B0ned0me and I are talking about the bolt telescoping around the chamber and presumably locking on the exterior surface of the chamber.
Modularity, it could convert from a 7.62 to 5.56 and back with minimal changes.

The wrap around bolt doesn't work for non-pistol rounds. Might be workable for a 5.56 FABRL though.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
Modularity, it could convert from a 7.62 to 5.56 and back with minimal changes.

The wrap around bolt doesn't work for non-pistol rounds. Might be workable for a 5.56 FABRL though.

True. Though I was looking to get the consistent lock up of AR-style bolts, so I was trying to avoid roller systems.

Doesn't work with straight blowback. Mechanically there's nothing preventing a locked breech design from using a wrap around breech that interfaces with the exterior of the chamber section of the barrel.
 
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