WWII- British/Cth/US infantrymen with as much firepower as Germans

Moglwi

Monthly Donor
No gun is too accurate.
Regards

Steffen Redbeard
The Bren was to accurete for its job an LMGs job is not to hit one man with its burst but to supresse the enamy and perhaps hit 1 or 2 with its burst. This is where the Bren failed as a LMG if a Section comes into veiw and you shot at them with a Bren chances are you will it only the person you are aiming at with a Mg34/42 you probably will hit the 2-3 people as the bullets naturaly spread out a bit like shot from a shotgun.
 
During the First World War, soldiers came up with something called the 'two-inch tap' to get around this. Presumably Bren gunners did something similar. But indeed, modern Machine guns, like the FN GPMG, come on mounts designed to play around a bit and create a beaten zone.
 
Was American firepower less than the Germans'? I read an article once that claimed that while, squad vs. squad, American infantry did have less firepower than a German squad, the Americans made up for it by issuing the .50 cal. machine gun in huge numbers and putting it on damn near everything (even some supply trucks had them)... also, one problem with 'measuring' firepower for the Americans was that they had so much equipment that a lot of units tended to have unofficial 'unattached' gear (apparently, one infantry unit even had an 'unattached' trio of tanks!)...
 
On a squad based level American infatrymen could easliy overwhelm German Infantry the issue the Americans had was the lack of a real LMG. Have them adopt the varient of the BAR with a belt feed system and an interchangeable barrel and BAM you've just made the US infantry squad the deadliest force of WWII!!!

The US infantry squad pound for pound with the Thompson submachine gun, M1 Garand, M1 Carbine, and a belt fed BAR would be able to put more rounds down range than any other force in the field. You could in theory give an American squad the firepower of a German platoon! I mean the average American rifleman could already outgun your standerd German armed with a 98K all you need to do is fix the American lack of a suitable squad level LMG and you've got the perfect mix.
 

Redbeard

Banned
The Bren was to accurete for its job an LMGs job is not to hit one man with its burst but to supresse the enamy and perhaps hit 1 or 2 with its burst. This is where the Bren failed as a LMG if a Section comes into veiw and you shot at them with a Bren chances are you will it only the person you are aiming at with a Mg34/42 you probably will hit the 2-3 people as the bullets naturaly spread out a bit like shot from a shotgun.

I repeat: No gun is too accurate!

An inaccurate gun might as well spread its salvo to the right of the target than all over it, where as an accurate gun just needs a little adjustment and it will spread its salvo anywhere you like it.

Anyway the MG42 was quite accurate and from what I know as accurate as the Bren. But with double the rate of fire the MG42 of course has an advantage in suppressing a target.

And BTW if suppression was the main task the British Army would have chosen the watercooled Vickers medium MG for the job. A handful of Vickers could keep a target under continous fire for eternity, as long as water, spare barrels and ammo were available. Sometimes they were firing at elevation at targets behind a crest. For this they were the perfect weapon system due to the water cooled barrel, but due to the heavy weight completely unsuitable as squad/platoon support weapon.

The LMG had to rely on much shorter bursts taking under fire the kind of targets a squad/section could handle. That was the case of both the Brengun and the MG34/42 on bipod (squad level). The MG34/42 in a few seconds and with a tripod could be transformed into a medium MG and the MG34/42 thus gave the German commander a great versatility.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
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