Charlie Rock

US Army companies 1st bn able baker charlie dog (heavy weapons) 2nd bn easy fox george how (HW) 3rd bn Item King I think Lima Mike There is no Company J--it looks like an I and on the radio sounds like a K Nowadays the US Army dropped the whole idea and uses Alpha Bravo Charlie Delta While the USMC still uses the whole alphabet in their regiments

Aha. I stand corrected. Thx.

IIRC the German fallschirmjager today wear a green beret. They didn't in WWII. I think the beret has a badge on it which is similar to the metal fallschirmjager qualification badge of WWII, but minus the swastika. I think that there are acouple of other German formations that wear the green beret today---not positive. So technically they do now but didnt then

I think the original powder was the one that worked fine, and the IMR was the bad stuff. I surfed around and found a site that claimed there was a third version of the FG42 which would have been heavier and held up to the recoil better. I guess if only 7,000 were made of the first two variants then it might be safer to say the weapon was analogous to the P51, pre Rolls Royce engine or the Panther A with the kinks in the fuel lines. If it had reached STG44 numbers it might have ended up radically different looking. The war ended before the bugs came out. As was it tapped out at about 10-11 lbs. Which would explain that it shot semiautomatic OK, like a KAR98k or garand, but would have kicked all over the place vice a bren or BAR, which weighed twice as much to shoot the same round, moreor less. The later version of the M16 had a chromed chamber that helped, also. I think that the initial bullet spun very, very fast and was devastating when it tumbled. There was some absurd ruling that it was unstable at arctic like temps, so they changed the powder. I could be off. There is one design issue with the M16, though. Just about every gas operated weapon in the world (Garands, carbies, brens, FG42, BARS, M14s, STG44s, AKs, FNs, M60s , M240s, etc.) use what is called an operating rod. The gas from the bullet goes through a small hole near the end of the barrel, and pushes backward on the end of a rod. The rod is connected to the bolt and pulls the bolt backwards. For some peculiar reason M16s don't have operating rods. I don't know why. The gas goes back down a tube and pushes against a large piece of metal called the bolt carrier that wraps around the bolt. The problem is when the gas cools the powder collects in the chamber and all over the bolt and firing pin and parts rather then the tip of the rod. IIRC the jams with the early M16 required soldiers to carry cleaning rods taped to the side of the weapon. Which means the crud and powder probably caused the cartridge case to stick in the chamber. But I think you're right, it was the powder that did it, for the most part. There is talk that this new M8 rifle, built by H&K, will have an operating rod. That would be better.

What regularly works for me 80% of the time is the dismounted infantry assault with the tanks bounding along 100-200m to the rear. Tactically that is successful most of the time for me and if it doesent work its often due to bad execution and my own mistakes. Descent tactics for me are special situations, only--here are a few: I would recomend descent tactics if you are weak on halftracks or if the enemy has lots of light ATGs or ATRs so that following your tanks with halftracks is impractical. I have a mental image of a Kursk type of central front action with big maps and open sectors of fire and an OBJ a couple thousand meters down the road. You cant really follow the tanks with halftracks or they'll die, and you are compounding the problem by keeping the halftracks back (say 300-500m) so that they'll stay alive. Wastes time. The other problem is that when the grunts dismount they take a few turns to get up to the tanks. By the time you figure its dismount time if your tanks are getting harrassed by satchel charge teams it gets quite aggravating. As a minimum maybe a descent engineer squad in the trail tank of every platoon--I hate it when I'm in a minefield and the sapper is broken because his SPW is on fire 500 meters back. That's a bad day. HMGs and flamethrowers as a rule, usually. I fought a silly scenario lately where I dismounted a flamethrower off a sherman and had him run off to get shot. The MK IV shot my descent flamethrower and the sherm shot the Mark IV. Sort of like a flare dispenser on an airplane--launched a decoy Another reason I like descent tactics would be if you have a long, narrow sector map and the bad guys have mucho artillery. Your infantry move out and get hit by FA and are pinned. Tanks cant advance because there are bad guys in trenches with satchels and so forth. FOs are hidden so its hard to suppress them. Best to put the infantry on the tank and drive like hell. I would still look for a covered and concealed position--backside of a small hill or depression-- and dismount your troops, shake them out into a linear screen of formation--and attack out of that. Dont run over the bad guys like a herd of buffalo, though. Descent tactics also may work if depending on your scenario you need to try to get a jump on the bad guys in a time relationship. Like an ME, or a scenario where you think there will be enemy reserves and you want to secure a nice hull down position before the visiting team show up. Also, shortish scenarios with snow. Your grenadiers are nice and rested for a good day's work on the OBJ. Come to think of it, that's my favorite. I scout with fewer troops and pack the riders onto tanks when there's snow and I want my dismounts to still assault and advance with pep in their step.

"The German army entered WW II with a total number of 2,769,534 Kar 98k. Another 7,540,059 were delivered to the army 925,984 were delivered to the Luftwaffe, 191,250 to the navy and 62,600 to the SS (the SS received another 235,000 rifles, mainly Mauser-types, from their own production) G 41: 122,907 were made well into 1944 7,000 FG 42 of all variants MP 43 and MP 44 / Sturmgewehr was 425,977 MP 38 and MP 40 combined was 908,317."

Emar-- Sorry if I was rude on my reply. Did not intend to come across as a flamer. My apologies for that. As for the rest of this thread: The bolt and operating rod assembly for the M-60 was copied directly from the FG42. If you look at field stripped models of both they look the same. Placing the buttstock in line with the bolt reduces climb--it was not a characteristic of the M1 or BAR, but was a characteristic of the FG42, MG42, MG34, STG 44. And all current US weapons. It is a good idea. No, all weapons are not flawed. All weapons have short comings, strengths, and weaknesses. If a weapon like the BAR is heavy, that is not a flaw. If a weapon has shortcomings so severe it prevents it from serving as it was designed to, then it has a flaw. The M16 in 1965 jammed so much it could be characterized this way. The M1 rifle had an odd magazine concept but that did not prevent it from doing what it was built for. The MG-34 was finely tuned and tough to maintain and keep clean but these facts did not keep it from performing as designed. If you design a weapon that is supposed to be selective fire but the bullet selection and weapon size are such a severe combination that auto fire is impractical, then it is not selective fire and you spent a lot of effort toward something that it cant do. You could argue this was true of the M14, if you like. In the case of the FG42, a semiauto rifle existed as an alternative--the GW41/43. Since at the end of the day this did little more then that then it was an odd choice in a firearm. The German industry produced a lot of creative ideas that helped the post war US R&D community--didnt help the Germans win the war. A lot of last minute creative producing wonder weapons in small lots-STGs, V2s, Type XXI subs, ME262s, etc. The johnson was actually a pretty good weapon-was it so good that retooilng the factories to build the Johnson offset the 3-4 months the factories were down? To wit, are 40000 Johnsons in 1942 better then 70000 M1s and BARs? These are the sorts of questions you ask when running a war. The GW41/43 was a more or less copy of the Garand. At some point someone- don't know who - said let's bite the bullet and copy the M1 the Americans use and dump the Kar98k. SO it was not so much the Germans decided not to use a semiauto rifle, they more accurately decided not to, then changed their minds. Since the M1 was built in 1936 it would have done the Germans well to have thought of this in 1940, say. That would not have seen a really inspire choice but was afar-reaching one. A squad with 9 M1 equivalents, an MP40, and an MG34 would have been quite the uber landser squad in 1941. While the STG44 was a creative leap that few designers made, the GW41/43 was a derivative copy, albeit a solid one-of the M1- it seems odd to me to field a 1200 rpm squad LMG and complain about ammo expenditure by riflemen. The basic load for an American rifleman vice a German probably were pretty close--I think about 80 rounds. That is true of many armies and many weapons. Cant focus on everything as a priority. The Panther, for example, came off the drawing board relatively quickly. Sharfschutze--thanks for the charming story. I have been to Iraq and will go back in a few months. You're not even remotely funny.

The weapon was flawed. It had a flaw. In this case it had "A big flaw". The big flaw made this a nasty weapon to work with, and its contempraries were better. In any military that had rational resource allocation--as opposed to a politically powerful little bloc that does its own thing--this weapon would not have got off the ground. It had lots of neat little accessories and aftermarket add ons: Rakish pistol grip? check. Side mounted magazine?OK. You can shoot it two inches lower to the ground--lefties have a harder time reloading it though. Optical sight? Bona fide good idea. Also seen on the G41/43, and some variants of the STG44. Bipod. Good idea if you are on the defense late in the war. A trained shooter doesent need one, but, OK. Now. Physics time. There were a multitude of submachineguns firing pistol ammunition that were made for relatively light weight. Good firepower up to 100 meters. You get what you pay for, but its a simple tactical issue. If you wanted a full power 7.92mm battle rifle, the G41/43 had a smaller 10 round magazine and was heavily influenced by the M1 garand. Harder to reload but manageable. Had a scope. Just as good on semi. If you wanted a selective fire weapon, pick the STG44. 2/3 the bullet mass., and generally speaking, the kinetic energy. Automatic fire and good accuracy and stopping power out to 300 meters. If you wanted selective fire with a full power cartridge start on the low end with a BAR or preferably the Bren. The FG42 is too short. The unburned powder that did not completely burn up in the short barrel burned up AFTER the bullet had left the barrel. The light weight of the weapon meant on full auto it was inaccurate. This is not a minor argument. If the FG42 was effective then you must explain to me why the Bren and BAR were so much heavier to do the same thing. EIther one is too heavy or the other was too light. The fired the same bullet on selctive fire, off a bipod. Your choice. So. The blast and flash resulted in significant spotting problems. These weapons were easy to spot and see--look at JasonC tactics articles for the tactical present you give an attacker when the defender is 'spotted' vice 'sound contact'. Oh yeah, at night you will go blind when the flash goes off in your face. Also, because it was so light, it was hard to control on auto. Too much recoil. SO you shot it on semi only if you wanted to hit people as opposed to scare them. So if you really really want the automatic capability go with a STG 44 or MG42. Or copy the bren. If you can live without it and want semiauto only go with the G41/43--keep the scope and live longer as the propellent burns up completely in the longer barrel. It was reliable? As opposed to what? The unreliable STG44? The unreliable G41/43? It would reliably get you killed beacuse it reliably gives your position away. It has been said before--to fix this weapon you would have to adopt the STG44 kurz cartridge--then you would have a STG44 with 10 less rounds, a scope, and bipod. Why duplicate the effort? The US started to replicate this with a side mounted magazine fed auto rifle--called the Johnson. Then they decided they were duplicating the effort and got rid of it. Net value added was not worth the industrial sideshow that resulted. Part of the problem was that the fallschirmjager had an inflexible attitude toward lower power cartridges, as a result of bad experiences getting sniped by New Zealanders at Crete. The idea of getting sniped and outranged did not appeal to them. But buying a little fullauto rifle with an overpowered cartridge is like a 2 inch saturday night special with a 44 magnum round. It sounds good on paper. has a few drawbacks. That's the legacy of this weapon. Looked good on paper.

Go to Amazon.com and click on the button for "search inside this book" then "browse back cover" for German Automatic Weapons of World War II by Robert Bruce There is an image there that illustrates nicely the significant flash of shooting the 7.92 cartridge out of the shortened barrel. ]http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/1861262698/ref=sib_rdr_zmin/102-4815803-3211302?p=S03V&j=1#reader-page

The FG42 was a fundamentally flawed battle rifle and was a step backward. What the pictures dont show you is how short the weapon was. The Germans tried to overrule the laws of physics and hold onto the full power cartridge. The recoil, muzzle blast, and muzzle flash was significant, and on automatic fire it was much harder then the M14 or FAL (which were impractical in their own right unless in semiauto) The lightest automatic weapons that could accurately be fired with full .30 /7.62 ammo successfully were the BAR and Bren, at slightly under 20 lbs. If you fire an M14 offhand on auto the 3rd round will be about 20 degres up into the sky, unless you are a bodybuilder. It is sheer physics. Among selective fire gas weapons, Bren (1934ish)and BAR (1918) were successful, but heavy M1 carbine(1940) in the M2 version qualifies, but only because the cartridge was anemic. Low recoil and low stopping power FG42 (1942) was too small to absorb the recoil successfully. STG44 (1944) successful because it used a cartridge with about 30-40% less muzzle energy then auto rifles.

Flamingknives--thank you. Here it is: SLA MArshall, 1950-51 THE MAINSTAY Under the conditions of the average infantry fight in Korea, the BAR, even more than the machine gun, provides the fire base around which the action of other infantry weapons builds up and the force expresses itself unitedly. It is not alone the case that analysis of company operations warrants this appre- ciation of the weapon; the men also make this estimate of its effectiveness; they state frankly that it is the mainspring of their action, and that wherever the BAR moves and fires, it gives fresh impulse to the rifle line. Appreciation of the BAR within Eighth Army therefore reaffirms experience with the same weapon in World War II operations both in the Pacific and in Europe. What makes this reaction all the more noteworthy is that there has been a markedly higher incidence of failure by the BAR in Korean operations than in World War II fighting, for reasons which will be explained later. Even so, there is no diminishing of general infantry confidence in the effectiveness of the automatic rifle. It is still considered “indispensable” and troops shudder at any suggestion that it might ultimately be replaced by some other weapon. They cannot imagine having to get along without it. The reason that the BAR is rated as the mainstay of the fire base is because of the greatly modifying influence of the Korean terrain upon the utility of the machine gun. The CCF are good machine gunners; they are more expert in their employment of this weapon than in all else; they are persistent; their guns are of every type under the sun; even so, they have the knack of keeping them going; in the attack, they bring the gun in very close; but they are good at concealment behind brush, thicket, and rock ledge, and therefore the close-in target remains very elusive. The record contains many examples of CCF machine guns bearing on our positions at 30-40 yards range and continuing unseen. To counter this fire with one of our own machine guns usually necessitates bringing it far forward, with consequent sudden death, either in transit or soon after placement. Our MG crews are far more obvious in moving and in setting up. The BAR, which is a lesser target and usually has as its operator an individual who combines boldness with a requisite stealth, is therefore the main counteragent. BAR fire is also the chief depressant of sniper fire delivered from ranges which are too close in for the mortars and too far out for the grenade. One man with a BAR, if he is the right man, will have a stronger neutralizing effect upon a local sniper-infested area than the’ random fire of five or six riflemen. Almost invariably, BAR men are exemplary in their conservation of ammunition. They do not have nervous fingers; they sustain fire only when the situation truly demands it. Why this is so is something of a mystery; it is recorded here as fact because the BAR record in Korea is one of consistently strong performance by the operators. On defense, the machine gun will usually be sited to cover a draw, the gentlest hill facing, or some other avenue of approach which seems particularly favorable to the enemy purpose. Because, as the attack develops, the threat from that quarter will continue more or less constant, even though the enemy does not initially take advantage of it, the employment of the machine gun is more or less rigid. But under attack, the defensive dispositions seldom remain static; the lines contract and expand as the pressure changes; men and weapons are shifted as an excess of danger threatens from a new point. The BAR is the pivotal weapon in this eddying of the tactical situation. Should the rifle line begin to bend at one point, the BARS are sent there to stabilize it. If the machine gun, stopping the enemy frontally, is threatened by flankers circling toward it over dead ground, BAR fire is used to cover the corners and save the gun. During the mop-up, it is the main weapon for neutralizing foxholes; when, on defense, strong out-posting is required, the BAR is also given that assignment. EFFECT OF RECONDITIONING Concerning the new BAR, fresh from the factory, there is no problem. Practically without exception, this weapon has met with full success every test which the inclement weather of Korea and the dust and grime of the countryside have imposed upon it. The record is unmarred by any major entry of cold-weather failures. When, during the November battle, it became evident that locking and misfires in the BAR were occurring at such a rate as to raise the question as to what had gone wrong with the weapon, the circumstances were investigated. Particularly in one battalion - the 2nd of the 38th Infantry Regiment - there had been so many failures by the BAR in the fighting along the Chongchon River and near Kunu-ri that the commander and his men all said that it no longer had their confidence. (No other unit held to this extreme view, though others had experienced some BAR failures.) Much of the trouble seemed to be centered in a weakness in the recoil spring, though because of complications due to seeming frost-lock it was not always possible to determine theseat of the difficulty. The check-up revealed that almost without exception, the BARS which had gone out of action were old weapons, reconditioned by Ordnance in Japan. The old springs, it was reported, had been cleaned but not replaced. Also, according to staff information supplied from Tokyo, the inspection system (native Japanese) during the initial phase of the weapons-reconditioning program had been technically inadequate and generally weak, with the probable consequence that some of the rebuilt weapons had not been adequately tested. In the circumstances, it was impossible to determine whether the 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry (a remarkably staunch fighting unit and one of the few that spoke favorably of the carbine) had chanced to receive a disproportionate number of reconditioned weapons, and that this accounted for its bad experience. Very few of its BARS had survived the battle and the retreat through the fire gantlet south of Kunu-ri, though the men remembered quite well when and where the BARS had failed them. Also, the ordnance records had been lost. So there was no way of checking through on this significant detail. Elsewhere, though the record was occasionally spotty, the rate of failure was not such that the troops felt any real distress because of it or tended to sell the BAR short. However, the spot check revealed that almost invariably where the weapon had failed, it was a reconditioned BAR. As troops got further along into the cold weather campaigning, there were fewer and fewer complaints of this character. On the whole, therefore, the BAR in Korea merits a clean bill. Under conditions of even greater difficulty, the prestige of the weapon is not less than during World War II, and its tactical employment is more greatly varied. AUGMENTATION In the view of the great majority of infantry troops and commanders in Korea, the fighting strength of the infantry company would be greatly increased by doubling the number of BARS, while reducing the number of Ml carriers proportionately. This could be done without adding an upsetting burden to the company load. The final argument for the change is that it would make more perfect the balancing of offensive-defensive strength within the infantry company. [ December 12, 2003, 10:56 AM: Message edited by: Charlie Rock ]

I don't have my copy around, but one of the best references on the subject came from Infantry Weapons and Usage by SLA Marshall, written about the Korean campaign. A couple of advantages that are not immediately self-evident is that at squad level one of the more experienced /reliable soldiers would be assigned the BAR. BARS tended to get in the fight more often--recall that Marshall was aproponent of the theory that 80% of riflemen don't shoot in combat, etc. If you had one or two BARs in your squad it became important as to who was manning them. In a static position or rapid moving action it was fairly simple to maneuver the BARs within the squad formation; they tended to be employed more frequently in small unit actions then the average riflemen. While you shouldn't get your tactics from Hollywood, the bit in Saving Private Ryan when the BAR gunner sprints up to a roof top to shoot up a flak piece is a good advantage of this--the mobility of a one man weapon was seen as a big advantage in fluid situations. Another characteristic of Brens and BARS is that they were often fired in (gasp) semiautomatic; even on low rate of fire the M1918A2 could be fired on semi. Unlike the MG42, you could fire a bren or BAR on semi or tap it off on low rate and the Germans could not locate it among the lee- enfields or M1s, as the case may be. The theory went that once you fired aimed shots, area fire style, at the machine gun and pinned those guys then maneuvering was relatively easy. Unless you had good reason to BAR gunners knew that if you fired a burst you could be mistaken for an M1919 and be treated accordingly. If you have 240 rounds in a bandolier you could shoot off your ammo in a couple of minutes, in a pinch. Te heavy weapon with bipod could suppress quite well on rapid semi, and I suspect you lived longer if you did that. In English's On Infantry there was a piece somewhere that the Germans tended to phase out some of their MG42's in a few predominantly MP44 equipped squads and platoons, late war. If mobility is the goal the idea of rifle-equipped infantry relying less on their LMGs is not a US-specific concept.

I am not referring to camouflage clothing or paint. The Germans were better at noise and light discipline in daylight, use of foliage attached to tanks, remaining stationary in daylight, and use of terrain, examples include reverse slope defenses to stay hidden. Fieldcraft: INTERVIEWER: Were there things that the Germans did during these particular operations that you haven’t mentioned already that stuck with you? Are there some things they did that led you to adopt some of your philosophies on defense? GEN DEPUY: I was impressed with several things. First, I was impressed with the positions that the German infantry soldiers constructed. I was impressed with the skill and the care that they took in finding positions which had cover and natural concealment. They were almost impossible to see and yet, they afforded fields of fires exactly where they needed them in order to stop us. In other words, their fieldcraft was super... This is not because of training or imparted skills from the Russkis, it's because the side without the air superiority learned how to hide and the side with the planes didnt because they didnt have to. If you slap branches on a tank turret the paint scheme beneath doesent matter all that much, IMHO

The Germans were far better at camouflage then the Western allies. For that matter everyone the Allies have faced in the last 60 years, in general, have been better at camouflage then them. I dont think it has that much to do with the Soviets. Air power and a responsive, flexible indirect fire system meant if you could be seen you could be shot at. There was a story about this somewhere ( I forget, sorry) about some of the Western front generals having to explain to veterans from the East that open tank attacks against jabos would not work. I am thinking either of 2SS near Falaise or 12th SS early in June. Point being that the foliage covered panzer was an airpower created product. Some great pictures of this in Paul Carell's "They're coming." At the individual fighting position level--perhaps learned from the Russians.

Another point to be made re: the BAR is that the M1918 variant, ehich fired single shot and fully automatic, was later replaced by the 1M1918A2, hich fired a slow rate of 400 ish RPM and a high rate that was more around 600. Approx numbers. At slow late it was not too hard to control. In the Pacific it was a very popular patrol weapon; it was a one man weapon that combined controllable automatic fire with more penetration then 45ACP or 9mm SMGs when fired through jungle underbrush and the like. The fire team concept devised by Carlson's raiders, later the USMC, and the US Army in 1945 revolved around a 4 man element with one BAR and a mix of M1s, SMGs, and carbines. So in that sense it is more of the historical predecessor for the SAW then an LMG. Favors less well when compared to the MG42--different weapon for a different concept. On another subject, the thompson M1928 had a 50 rd drum which was phased out because it was noisy--the MG34 or 42 came with a 50 round drum or a belt. My point being that if noise discipline, like a night patrol, was the order of business a bren or BAR might have been more useful. So for mobile types of squad patrolling the BAR wasnt poor ly deisgned; it was a well desgigned weapon for a type of tactical situation that probably wasnt that important. It was a function of a mobility-oriented doctrine and a great deal of thought went into keeping the weight down, as JasonC said previously. Remember it came out in 1918, the MG34 16 years later. Some contemporary accounts (one book of note was written in 1940 by the inventor of the Johnson automatic rifle) relay that US authorities thought their concept of BAR and M1 was better then MG34+Kar98k. They had a few years to look at it and decide whether they liked it or not. The BAR followed the concept. In modern terms, the USA has decided to split the difference. They kept the BAR in the form of the fire team SAW and added the MG42 role at platoon level in the form of the M240--two pler platoon.

On another subject… About three pages back there was a reference to an interview with Gen William Depuy that is out on the net. If you have not had a chance to look at it, I’d recommend it. The front half (approx 100pages) was of Gen Depuy’s time in an infantry battalion in the 90th ID in the ETO, 44-45. Some pretty good observations, if you haven’t had a chance before to look at it in full. Cheers, CR

It was mentioned earlier that MG42 was superior in the sustained fire role. Like all US MGs back then, the M2 did not have a quick change barrel. In fact it had head space and timing adjustments that made putting the barrel on a minor chore. You had to use a gauge that looked like a combination swiss army knife/set of car keys to do it. It has been said previously that .50 ammunition had more force of impact. The 100 lb+ weapon would launch a 700 grain round out at approx 2500 feet per second. An MG42 ran a 180 grain round out at 2900 fps. SO for a 10% drop in velocity you have approx a 400% increase in mass. Or over three times the kinetic energy. My figures indicate a 7.9 mm round was about 2300 foot lbs at the muzzle. Multiply that by 3 for a ballpark .50 cal estimate. By comparison, a modern day M16 or AK47 is a little over 1000foot lbs of energy; a .45 automatic pistol is around 400-500 foot lbs. 7000foot lbs is a LOT of kinetic energy. It can go through an inch of armor plate (23mm) 7.62 goes through 3/8 of an inch. About 10mm. Take a look at the gamut of armored cars and halfrtracks running around in CMBB/CMBO. .50 squeaks through vehicles that 7.62 bounces off. It was said that 7.9 mm can go through about anything. Not true. It can penetrate 1 to 1 ½ layers of sandbags. That is it. .50 goes through over two feet. Unlike nowadays, the .30 round in the 170-190 grain, 3000 fps flavor was the universal choice of about every army in WWI, and WWII as well if you don’t count the sturmgewehr and SMGs. There was no ballistic advantage for the MG42 over a M1919 or M1 or bren or anything else. Two sandbag thicknesses will do the trick. If your fighting position was good against the infantry weapons your army used it was good against the other guy’s. .50 call ball rounds go through over two feet of earth. IMHO the increased penetration made the M2 a superb weapon in long overwatch if supporting an attack into a village, woodline, or a line of entrenchments. I’ve argued why in a previous post. I would argue that ballistically it had a flatter trajectory and a better beaten zone but if you are firing at targets inside of 1 kilometer you wouldn’t notice the difference and the recoil was worse at any rate. Besides, beaten zones imply you had a linear target in the open and you don’t need that type of a weapon to shoot at troops in the open. Whether one weapon was better then the other is a moot point. If a PzGdr company had 15-20 MG42’s, 5-10 M2’s in a US battalion probably didn’t matter that much. Bottom line, troops in the open a .50 is overkill. As I think about it, .50 M2’s were the weapon of choice for most US fighters in WWII, with the exception of P-38’s, P-39’s, some night fighters, and all the bombers. It probably accounted for 90-95% of the air-to-air kills for the USAAF, Navy, and Marines, and may be the single greatest killer of military aircraft in history, if you consider Luftwaffe losses in the west in addition to Japanese losses. That’s no mean accomplishment when you consider some air forces had some pretty marginal weapons systems well into the war, such as the Japanese and early German 7.62 /20mm systems. It was also effective on F-86 jets in Korea. As for carrying it and using it, a technique I have observed is to have four soldiers strap the receiver and barrel into a stretcher. The whole load weighs 90 lbs and is carried by four men. Two other soldiers alternate carrying the tripod. Usually you dismount the gun and move as part of a support by fire platoon. The platoon gives up a squad to the maneuver element as a company reserve, and picks up a GPMG or two in trade. So you end up with a company SBF of two rifle squads for security and ammo carrying, two .50 cals, 2-3 7.62s, and the two company 60mm mortars. Depending on the geography of the objective you occupy 1 or 2 positions. If you leave your rucks behind it is manageable. If the terrain up to the OBJ doesn’t offer much in the way of concealment you set the .50s and 60s up far away (500-600m) and hope for the best as you move the 7.62s up, say 200-300m out. If they are hit you still have a strong long overwatch position.

In reply to the above post. Weight is far from an irrelevent point. Weight of round is the crux of the whole argument. An MG42 round of approx 180 grain is no different from any modern GPM, LMG, or contemporary type of bullet. RPMs are the difference. If you are firing into Russians across the steppe at close range perhaps it does not matter. If there is no cover then it probably doesen't matter. Against the horde in a flat field, OK, number of rounds is key. I agree with that. If you are advancing against a company of defenders in woods or hedgerow or an urban setting, different sit. Now, lets say you are a German on the offense. As you plan your attack (or defense, take your pick) take a look at the terrain around you and the cover vice concealment. There is a great deal of "cover" that becomes "concealment" when facing .50 ammunition. The velocities are close-weight of bullet, and correspondingly weight of ammo and weight of the gun increase. The differences are--if you hide behind walls, trees, inside buildings, behind a couple of sand bags, etc. the 7.62 bullet that is stopped by lack of kinetic energy and defeated by your cover cannot compare to the .50 round that passes through and through. The bullets plow through everything in their path. This has a tremendous psycholgical effect in that you can hide, you can hit and run, but it is difficult to fight from a covered postion because there are a lot fewer positions of cover out there. Would you rather have 10-15 bullets bounce off the side of the stone house you are in or watch 4-5 bore right through it? Do you take the chance that a round will go through a loop hole or firing slit with 7.62, or acknowledge that around that hits the wall you are hiding behind will not keep the round from going through you? Not a foolproof situation, but you have to hit and run vice stand and fight to survive, you firepower has decreased proportionally. Correspondingly, from the gunners perspective it is a different problem entirely. Aiming center of mass on "covered" positions will suffice. You dont aim at the head sticking outside of a parapet, you aim center mass on the position itself and ballistics take over and chew through "cover". Totally different situation. Consider the .50 M2 was first used by ground forces in large numbers in 1942. It has been used for the past 61 years. 52 of those years have been wthout a de facto air threat, and minimal armored threat. It is an anti personnel weapon that is optimized at penetrating what for 90% of small arms is "cover" Esp. in an era that has seen the ballistics of most rifles, etc. degrade from 7.62 down to 5.56, 5.45, etc. Cheers, CR

I dont know much about how heavy a 20mm gun is and I challenge anyone to tell me it is the tactical equivalent of a .50. As had been said, a .50 cal M2 weighs out at around 130 lbs. Less then an average human casualty. Extremely manportable. Never seen a .50 cal in a rifle company. There are 10 in an average light battalion nowadays. I have had my guys hump one for a klick in the dark by laying the barrel and receiver on a stretcher. Two guys carry that@80 lbs. One carries the tripod, and you pass the ammo around depending on how much ammo and bodies. You can keep up with a rifle company with no problem .50 cal ammo penetrates one inch. Dont know what SLAP can do--if I did I probably couldn't say. The flank armor of anything in the old Soviet Army up to a tank (BMPs, BRDMs, BTRs) has armor that is around 10 mm , max. Read 1/2 an inch. My point is if you used a .50 cal to light up one of those vehicles the effect will be quite good. The same sorts of effects you see on halftracks and so on in CMBB/CMBO. Also, at longer ranges (800 m+) you have a flatter arc then 7.62. Incredible stopping power. Guessing whether some guy is 700 m or 800 m or 900 m is not that easy a proposition. It's easy to get wrong, and plunging fire (rounds arcing downward like a long range 3 pointer in basketball) place a premium on good range estimation. So a nice flat arc at long range is nice if you are not a natural at range estimation (Most of us aren't) IIRC the longest kill of the 2001 Afghanistan campaign was a Canadian sniper team of the Princess Pats that used a .50 Macmillian out to 2000+ meters. Some intangibles: A 7.62 weapon as an antiaircraft mount isnt too useful. .30 weapons on turret mounts didn't have the oomph in general, esp. to take out P-47s and the like. Note that the US Air Corps, PT boats, modern tanks, humvees, trucks, just about anything and everything with an engine has at one point mounted a .50. .50 cals were the standard for every aircraft that flew for the US, with the exception of P-38's. P47's-8 guns. B17's-13. PT boats -4. Etc. etc. If you are building a fighting position the standards of most fighting positions is two sandbags. This is good for .30 type weapons. .50 cal gunners don't usually aim around things; you fire through them. It is a nightmare to build things ".50 cal proof" so most soldiers worldwide don't. There are very few things not made of armor plate that will cover you. I would argue that a .50 cal is an equivalent of what the Sturmgewehr assault rifle was, circa 1945. It is a unique weapon system that offers unique capabilties because of a singularly useful cartridge. It really has no equivalent, save the Dshk. Maybe. There are few armies in the west that I know of that bothered to build an equivalent. You just buy an M2 and save the R&D money. The MG42/MG3 is an excellent squad weapon. German army guys love it. It is a well engineered 7.62 squad -level light machine gun. It is qualitatively beter then the M60, equivalent, depending on your tastes, to the M240. It is the best of a breed but it is not a unique weapon in and of itself. For those of you who don't like the anti personnel capability of .50 ball, here is a vignette of what .50 is doing in Iraq. Used as a sniper rifle we are talking ATR types of capabilties: "The Barrett 50 cal Sniper Rifle may have been the most useful piece of equipment for the urban fight – especially for our light fighters. used to engage both vehicular and personnel targets out to 1400 meters. Soldiers not only appreciated the range and accuracy but also the target effect. Leaders and scouts viewed the effect of the 50 cal round as a combat multiplier due to the psychological impact on other combatants that viewed the destruction of the target. “My spotter positively identified a target at 1400 meters carrying an RPG on a water tower. I engaged the target. The top half of the torso fell forward out of the tower and the lower portion remained in the tower.” Sniper There were other personal anecdotes of one round destroying two targets and another of the target “disintegrating.” M2: The M2 50 cal still receives great praise. It performed exceptionally well in this harsh environment. Soldiers did mention that the vehicular mount had too much play for accurate fire and that the large ammo box made it difficult to effectively manipulate the weapon Cheers, CR

From a technical standpoint the A-20 was clearly inferior to the A-26, which came out afterword. Routinely flew with a crew of two once the bombardier position was stripped out. In a counterintuitive sense, it was a technically inferior aircraft that did a great deal of the yeoman's work in the 1943 SW Pacific campaigns, in the offensive on Rabaul and actions against shipping in and around New Guinea--Bismarck Sea, etc. Not because it was more effective then the B-25, but because the forces in the ETO clearly had little need for it and Kenney's 5th Air Force picked them up in quantity. MAJ Pappy Gunn was the tinkerer in charge who pioneered the strafer modifications. There were better aircraft around but the A-20 was plentiful and could be modified into something effective. It's kind of like the hurricane or wildcat--not the best plane around but it was good enough and plentiful at acritical period when something good enough was needed and the better planes weren't available in quantity. I'm talking SWPacific, though.

Seems to me a couple of ways of beating SMGs... 1) Offset their close in superiority of firepower with numbers. 2-3 squads of less effective long range infantry vs. 1 squad of SMGers. Costly and usually doesn't work that well. 2) Scout with small teams and engage the SMGers from distance. Preferably with HE chuckers. Assumes you have a clear LOS from distance. A competent defender won't let you, though. 3) Use their strength against them. If they can't engage from long range, then beating SMGers will depend on a narrow penetration in depth. SMGers in buildings or forests have a hard time providing mutual support. If you knock off a flank platoon or element the others have to break out of their positions to come to you. I'd say a wide front attack against enemy with short range weapons is a waste of assets. Defenders with short range weapons are begging to be bypassed. 4) I personally get my butt kicked by SMG defenders when I am careless and in a hurry. The real question would be a 40-50 turn battle, as opposed to a shorter QB. It is similar to a bunker line, I suppose. If you take the time to reconnoiter with small teams and get a picture of where the bad guys are you can mass outside of range---if you rush things you'll pay. It takes time to flank and roll up a position--another reason SMG defenses and ambushes can't be beat if you are in a hasty attack. It's hard to be deliberate and methodical when higher wants you to take down the OBJ in 25 minutes! My .02$. Great posts, by the way. CR

Night rule recommendations: Pine trees: You can see through pine trees for a fairly long distance because pine trees block the sun and prevent undergrowth. At night they are DARK—black cat in a coal mine dark. Muzzle flashes at night—easy to spot. Spotting ability of a unit near a burning object—much reduced. Looking past a burning object at an object in the dark—should be really hard. Lighting up a tank and setting it afire should make a bonfire that helps spot nearby objects. This MAY encourage firing up armor to set them a fire to help spot other objects. Weather. At night the two main variables are percent illume—the moon phase (full, half, new) and cloud cover. Under one specific circumstance – a full moon, partly cloudy, high winds – I could see the visibility jumping back and forth as clouds pass in front of the moon. This could be an interesting concept – if a formation was 200-300 meters away from a position and the visibility “jumped” up or down. Back to the trench issue: Ran a quick test. After a 21 second pause to get the order, in 39 sec a German squad can cover: Pavement 155m Open 145 m Scattered trees 140 m Pine trees 138 m Woods 105 m Rough 70 m Trench 43 m Shallow ford 35 m Marsh 30 m I recommend relooking this – if it was increased to 2 to 2.5 m/ second—somewhere between woods and rough – I think that’s realistic. Let’s say we are doing an attack on a strongpoint—trenches in a circular pattern, commo trenches like spokes of a wheel. If an attacker was to drive too close to a trench, it is hard for a defender to have an AT team run down a trench and throw their AT mine or demo charge at the tank. This is because it is hard to reposition AT teams because they move so slowly. Conversely, if an attacker has breached a path into a trench, the SOP is the attackers will stay in the trench and clear down it. In a desert scenario I imagine the open areas between the trench will not be wooded or steppe but a piece of ground with an exposure of 99% or so. The overwatch element will shoot up anyone who hops out of the trench and makes a break for it. No one will run across the open ‘because it’s faster’ Another issue is that it will probably be very hard for infantrymen to get into the trench, due to the norms of defensive fire and movement in the open we are familiar with. They will be strung out at the breach point and will run down the trench to get to the fight and catch up. Allowing faster movement due to terrain will allow both sides to move more rapidly down undefended portions—of course if you run into a hidden unit you’ll probably get attritted really badly really fast. SO faster movement will not make clearing go faster – it will help the attacker get the second and third wave into the fight faster and conversely will help the defender reinforce the breach faster. I could imagine a 1941 “Men against tanks” scenario where the defender would want to run his AT teams laterally down a trench line because unsupported armor is bearing down on his line – and this is before fausts and shreks were widespread. Unopposed trench movement speed will become a more important issue. My .02$. Thanks for listening. Appreciate the hard work. CR

I understand the train analogy perfectly well. The assumption that you are making, however, is incorrect. Because a squad leader cannot see his squad as well in the zig zags of a trench, squads in trenches are tighter together. In a trench soldiers are stacked next to each other in the offense---otherwise they could not communicate. In the open they are 5-10 meters apart--3-5 times further apart. In a trench they are not. This principle is similar to in buildings, except in a trench you are in a "pipe" and movement is much simpler then running around a house. attacking down a trench is similar to room clearing--a grenade around the corner and 3-4 guys rushing to the next traverse. The pass time for soldiers in a trench is shorter then in the open. 30-40 feet vice 50-100 yards. At any rate, speeding up movement in a trench will not make the attacks appreciably faster--you still will face extremely close in engagements that are at best 1 on 1 squad. My chief reason for recommending this was in a Tobruk type of situation where letting the defender deploy reserves laterally through a trenchline represents the chief reason why trenches were built. It is the lateral movement that is their chief advantage over foxholes. http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/ch4.htm#d7 and here: http://www.adtdl.army.mil/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/7-8/ch2.htm#s3p8

Well... Cheerfully acknowledge all re: duckboards and zig zag trenches. Squads clear trenches in a tightened stack similar in many ways to how they do it in urban fighting. Two stacks of four men with a gap, and a squad in a 30 meter so space is not unrealistic. I've seen squads clear trenches at what average out to a walk pace. Once you round the corner it's a careful hurry that averages out to a walk. I'm curious, as I think of it, whether a squad in the same trench as another receives the same protection as if it was shot at from a 90 degree angle (to it's front) IMHO it looks to me like in run mode the floor of a trench is about as fast as "rough" or "marsh." Perhaps a trench can be friendly or enemy so that the defender can run down it in a communications trench type of way, while it is still slower to clear, if you're with the visiting team. I recall seeing pictures of Stalingrad where the whole point of the trench was to rapidly move troops to and fro with good protection. They were dug from building to building acorss the street, IIRC. If the zig zag protects you from fragmentation then it could be built slightly wider for rapid movement. I still like the flare idea. CR

Recommendations: 1) Speed up movement in trenchs. Defender should be able to run from point to point in a commo trench. Unless it's wet or mud, trench floors are usually pretty fast to run down. 2) Illume rounds for night scenarios. Maybe leaders, maybe FA. Either/or. 3) Night rules: Does a burning tank or house or tree illuminate anything nearby in the night scenarios? Just wondering. For that matter, shouldn't muzzle flashes make it easier to spot a firingunit at night?