Why is it the Brits never had a semi-auto rifle?

[PzKpfw 1]

The SVT-40 was a lousy sniper rifle and had been stopped being built as one by 1942. The G43 wasn't highly regarded as a sniper rifle, either.

Regardless they were both used in that role.

Regards, John Waters.

[LukeFF]

Regardless they were both used in that role.

Regards, John Waters.

Regardless, my point was that they weren't mainly used as sniper rifles. The Russians much preferred the M91/30 PU for sniper work and the Germans the K98. The problems encountered with the SVT were deemed by the Russians to not be worth the time fixing.

[PzKpfw 1]

Regardless, my point was that they weren't mainly used as sniper rifles. The Russians much preferred the M91/30 PU for sniper work and the Germans the K98. The problems encountered with the SVT were deemed by the Russians to not be worth the time fixing.

Luke it was my understanding the Svt 40 saw more service as a sniper rifle then as a combat rifle with about 50,000 made in sniper config & that was from soviet sources. Soviet marines used them till the end of the war with some success. Also both the Germans & Finns highly regarded the Svt 40s as sniper rifel as well. Same with the GeW with over 50,000 produced as sniper config, IIRC the Gew was good to 800m as a sniper with the 98k haveing a longer range. The main complaint on the 40 in sniper config was range again, so the M91/30 was prefered. But then again that is from my research 20+ years ago, i imagine theirs alota new books out now, with newer info etc.

Regards, John Waters

[nachinus]

Somewhat related to the poster's original comment about the lack of firepower in CW sections; CM2 has stuck strictly to the regulation load-out. However according to "The World War 2 Tommy" by Martin Brayley and Richard Ingram; "By 1944 Sten guns were in plentiful supply and privates might acquire them or be issued with them for some tasks, such as patrols or street fighting..."

Agreed!. CMx2 CW section ammo loadout is certainly lacking, both for Sten and Bren guns. Even the dedicated Bren 3 men teams have no more than 120rds IIRC. I can't really believe that a Company prepared for an offensive (or defense) would be so ill equipped for combat IRL.

[gunnersman]

You know you are on facebook too much when you are looking for the "like" button on here.

[Sublime]

thats what +1 is for =)

[LukeFF]

Luke it was my understanding the Svt 40 saw more service as a sniper rifle then as a combat rifle with about 50,000 made in sniper config & that was from soviet sources. Soviet marines used them till the end of the war with some success. Also both the Germans & Finns highly regarded the Svt 40s as sniper rifel as well. Same with the GeW with over 50,000 produced as sniper config, IIRC the Gew was good to 800m as a sniper with the 98k haveing a longer range. The main complaint on the 40 in sniper config was range again, so the M91/30 was prefered. But then again that is from my research 20+ years ago, i imagine theirs alota new books out now, with newer info etc.

True, while it was used as a sniper rifle all the way to the war's end, the SVT-40 had a couple of problems that made it a less-than-ideal sniper platform:

-Vertical shot dispersion: This was related to the stock and receiver assembly design. As I noted before, this was something that the Russians deemed not worthy to fix, as the M91/30 was back in massive production by that time and didn't have the accuracy issues that the SVT-40 had. Range was never a problem with it.

-Muzzle blast: the SVT-40 vents a lot of gas out to the sides when fired and is very loud. It's not exactly a great weapon for staying concealed, since all that vented gas will kick up dust/dirt, leaves, etc. I have an SVT-40 and can definitely attest to that.

-Reliability: the SVT-40 has a somewhat finicky gas regulation system that can often result in it stove-piping. It's not exactly something a sniper would want to fiddle with in combat.

By 1942, M91/30 PU snipers were in full production and would ultimately dwarf the number of SVT-40s produced as snipers (it was a couple hundred thousand). Also, note that until around 1942 SVTs were built with milled scope rails as standard. How many of those actually ended up seeing service as snipers is another issue altogether. You'll see in wartime photos and on postwar-refurbished Mosin snipers many SVT-40 scopes that were recalibrated to work with the Mosin. So it's readily apparent the Russians didn't really care all that much for the SVT-40 as a sniper platform once the M91/30 PU had proven itself a worthy successor to the PE and PEM-style scopes.

[Ryujin]

Firearms always involve trade-offs.

The advantage of a semi-auto over a bolt-action is higher ROF.

However, a bolt-action is more accurate at long range because of the closer tolerances. A semi-auto needs a looser fit between bullet and chamber to work properly.

A bolt-action is also more reliable and less prone to jamming since it has a simple mechanism and the soldier pushes the round into the chamber. The semi-auto has a more complex loading mechanism, with more parts that can fail and is inherently more likely to jam, especially if it is dusty, has been dropped in the mud or its owner is not able to clean it as often as he should, all RL issues out in the field.

Armies being a conservative bunch, I presume they all decided to stick with the tried and true bolt-action rifles which had proven themselves in the trench warfare of WW1 and let the Yanks be the Guinea Pigs.

I don't think the difference in accuracy between a bolt action and semi-auto would make much difference to a rifleman. Most of the stuff I've seen from WW2 to modern day suggests that people shoot terribly under stress. The hit percentages, especially beyond something like 200m are very low. Both types of rifles are far more accurate than your average rifleman can shoot. (If I recall correctly taking someone off the range lowers their accuracy by a factor of 10, someone shooting at them/stress reduces it by another factor of 10 or something around that).

Which makes the semi autos far more useful with the advantage in volume of fire.

Although at the time and for some time after, there was a mentality around the riflemen making these calm long range aimed shots in combat. Experience from ww2 lead to a shorter range and higher rate of fire.

[TrailApe]

Most of the stuff I've seen from WW2 to modern day suggests that people shoot terribly under stress. The hit percentages, especially beyond something like 200m are very low

I don't think anybody would disagee with you on this Ryujin, , in fact there is evidence to suggest that these stress factors effected the ability for riflemen (automatic or single shot) to supress the target in a meaningful way before running out of ammo - have a look at the download that John Kettler provides in post 12 on the 'Fire Superiority & suppresion with CW squads'. (Although the one in post 14 from Fernando worked better)

Of course it is modern research, and its not quite the same context as Normandy, and one of the assumptions they make is that a round has to come within a metre of the target to supress it, well when you consider the spread of experience of those involved in Normandy - from veterans of the Eastern Front and The North African campaigns to young lads that have never fired a rifle in anger, it makes you wonder if a metre would be enough in some circumstances or too much in others.

So the inference would be that if you are out to suppress well trained, experienced and motivated troops, don't take a SMLE, don't take a Garand, take an armoured mobile pillbox that has at leat two medium machine guns(with oodles of ammo) and a larger calibre weapon for bunker busting. The allies had quite of few of these - Shermans. Or even better - all of the above with more armour and a flame thrower as well - the Croc.

And of course indirect weapons have the ability to supress from long range, so the 'pucker factor' is not relevant.

And the use of artillery is a constant factor in Normandy, so it's possible that the Allied headsheds knew of the problems inherint in small arms and suppression - after all most of them had fought in the Great War - and had already taken this into account.

[PzKpfw 1]

True, while it was used as a sniper rifle all the way to the war's end, the SVT-40 had a couple of problems that made it a less-than-ideal sniper platform:

-Vertical shot dispersion: This was related to the stock and receiver assembly design. As I noted before, this was something that the Russians deemed not worthy to fix, as the M91/30 was back in massive production by that time and didn't have the accuracy issues that the SVT-40 had. Range was never a problem with it.

-Muzzle blast: the SVT-40 vents a lot of gas out to the sides when fired and is very loud. It's not exactly a great weapon for staying concealed, since all that vented gas will kick up dust/dirt, leaves, etc. I have an SVT-40 and can definitely attest to that.

-Reliability: the SVT-40 has a somewhat finicky gas regulation system that can often result in it stove-piping. It's not exactly something a sniper would want to fiddle with in combat.

By 1942, M91/30 PU snipers were in full production and would ultimately dwarf the number of SVT-40s produced as snipers (it was a couple hundred thousand). Also, note that until around 1942 SVTs were built with milled scope rails as standard. How many of those actually ended up seeing service as snipers is another issue altogether. You'll see in wartime photos and on postwar-refurbished Mosin snipers many SVT-40 scopes that were recalibrated to work with the Mosin. So it's readily apparent the Russians didn't really care all that much for the SVT-40 as a sniper platform once the M91/30 PU had proven itself a worthy successor to the PE and PEM-style scopes.

Thx Luke. My reading on the Svt was that the rifels problems stemmed mainly from troops not knowing how to maintence them properly similar to the problems US forces had with the M16. The remarks were that Elite Soviet troops ie, Soviet Marines had no problems with the 40 & used it to some success till the end of the war. The only thing mentioned was it had less range then the 91/30 could that have been effects of dispursion?, as you say range wasnt it?.

Regards, John Waters

[LukeFF]

Thx Luke. My reading on the Svt was that the rifels problems stemmed mainly from troops not knowing how to maintence them properly similar to the problems US forces had with the M16. The remarks were that Elite Soviet troops ie, Soviet Marines had no problems with the 40 & used it to some success till the end of the war. The only thing mentioned was it had less range then the 91/30 could that have been effects of dispursion?, as you say range wasnt it?.

Oh yes, definitely field maintenace was an issue as well with the SVT. It has a lot of small parts that can be easily lost in the field, and the rifle needs a specially-made tool to adjust the gas regulator (again, something that can easily be lost). In particular with the former, one has to be very careful with removing the bolt assembly, because the springs have a strong tendency to fly off into the wild blue yonder when their tension is released (as I found out with mine ).

I've no doubt that better-trained troops (including snipers) would have had more success with the SVT than your typical Russian conscript. On top of everything else mentioned, it simply wasn't a weapon that could be mass-produced for an army as huge as the one the Soviets fielded. By comparison, the Mosin was a much quicker weapon to build and is far easier of course to field strip (remove the bolt, and you're done ).

In regards to range, yeah, the much bigger problem was with vertical shot dispersion, which of course is magnified with longer target ranges.

[Chek]

I remember me Pops telling me when he was being trained to shoot the SMLE,that a corporal would wander up and down the firing line with a long hard thin stick and when you failed to use your thumb and forefinger to work the bolt,would give you an almighty smack across the back of your hand and bellow-DON'T PALM THE F----EN BOLT.

Anyway after watching Mr Kettlers post of 10 rounds in 6.5 secs,I guess that was why.

[Sublime]

heheh. dont palm the f'n bolt. i got quite a mental image from that little scene you described.

[John Kettler]

Sublime,

Sounds like you had a run-in with a nun during your formative years!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

Nuns could be a scary lot. I never attended a Catholic school, so had no personal experience with them, but there was one the Catholic kids called Attila the Nun.

Michael

[Chek]

Yeah I had one of those.Vindictive bitch she was too.I remember a certain lad in primary school kicked her in the butt as she bent over in the cloak bay,then ran.She demanded who the culprit was and nobody said a word.

He was our hero and still getting cred for it right through to our College years.

[Streety]

The short answer to the thread's question is - they did. Various automatic variants of the Enfield rifle were used by British (and Commonwealth) Special Forces in WW2. However, I think they had too much recoil for general use? SOE adopted the M1 later in the war. But previous answers about accuracy, economy of bullets, tried-and-tested design and other reasons for sticking to the non-automatic Enfield rifle are all true. The WW2-era Enfield also had a cup for for firing grenades but this doesn't seem to be represented in CM1 - is it in CM2? Not sure of its actual historical use as a WW2 grenade launcher though.

Another answer is they had the Bren - this used the same ammo as the Enfield, and could be fired single-shot as an automatic rifle and was just as accurate, and could even be used with a shoulder strap and fired from the hip more like a sub-machine gun (albeit too unwieldy in close-quarters and only for short spells due to its weight). The Bren was so accurate that for short-burst LMG-use soldiers complained its cone of fire was too small and so later barrels introduced a wobble into the bullet trajectory to increase the cone (which made it less of an automatic rifle and more of machine gun). The British army issued one Bren per section, but with more in back-up, amounting to 1 for every 4 soldiers, and every soldier trained on it. Given that the Bren was arguably the best LMG of the war (and the Brits had large numbers of them), combined with the Enfield as one of the best rifles of the war, I guess British top-brass saw no need to add large numbers of automatic rifles. They had to quickly develop a sten-gun though, for close-quarter action.

[sburke]

The WW2-era Enfield also had a cup for tea.

For a minute there that was what I was thinking you'd said.

[Sublime]

haha! I wouldnt be surprised if it did come with a brew kit. I would also not be surprised if the official Brit TO&E accounted for (1) Tea Brewing Kit, (2) Emergency Tea Rations

Just like the shocked 101st paratroopers in Ryan's ABTF who got enraged at the XXX Corps tankers who stopped for a brew up of tea after the bloody seizing of the Nijmegan Bridge. Its directly quoted in there, however Ive often wondered if this was true. Or perhaps its true, but the Brits were ordered to stop from higher brass and made the best of their time. I am an American and not Montys biggest fan, but still I doubt the XXX corps boys would have stopped for tea on their own discretion while 1st AB was bleeding to death in Arnhem..

[sburke]

haha! I wouldnt be surprised if it did come with a brew kit. I would also not be surprised if the official Brit TO&E accounted for (1) Tea Brewing Kit, (2) Emergency Tea Rations

Just like the shocked 101st paratroopers in Ryan's ABTF who got enraged at the XXX Corps tankers who stopped for a brew up of tea after the bloody seizing of the Nijmegan Bridge. Its directly quoted in there, however Ive often wondered if this was true. Or perhaps its true, but the Brits were ordered to stop from higher brass and made the best of their time. I am an American and not Montys biggest fan, but still I doubt the XXX corps boys would have stopped for tea on their own discretion while 1st AB was bleeding to death in Arnhem..

I don't really know one way or the other, but I expect it is more a case of the troops making tea whenever they had a moment not that they actually stopped to do that. Sort of like watching a GI light up a smoke when standing around. They didn't stop to smoke, they just lit up as there wasn't much else to do.

[JonS]

Ryan's ABTF

Ryan did amazing work creating collections of oral histories for both D-Day and ABTF. Unfortunately he had a rather large axe to grind, and in places it show.

who got enraged at the XXX Corps tankers who stopped for a brew up of tea after the bloody seizing of the Nijmegan Bridge. Its directly quoted in there, however Ive often wondered if this was true. Or perhaps its true, but the Brits were ordered to stop from higher brass and made the best of their time.

The story as told has a ring of truthiness to it, but what do you think is more likely in a professional army?*

I am an American and not Montys biggest fan

I've never quite understood why it is felt that those things must belong together. I suspect propaganda, myth-making, and myth-repitition has a lot to do with it. Also; remember who it was that greenlighted Op MARKET GARDEN. (Hint: he wasn't British)

stopped for tea on their own discretion while 1st AB was bleeding to death in Arnhem.

Context is very important here. They had just captured the bridges, and night was fast approaching. The only forces on the north bank were a few paras and some tanks. Meanwhile there was still fighting back on the south bank inside Nijmegen, and would be for most of the coming night. Still further south the 101st and elements of XXX Corps were under a LOT of pressure trying to keep the single route clear and open ... and in places they were failing.

As bad as risking the possible loss of 1 AB Div would be, risking the loss of 1 AB Div, 82nd AB Div, and a goodly part of XXX Corps by haring off into the night would be immeasurably worse. Either way, it was a sh!tty call to have to make, which is why Generals get paid the big bucks.

Jon

* or, as George MacDonald Fraser put it, 'experts' rather than 'professionals.'

[Michael Emrys]

Just like the shocked 101st paratroopers in Ryan's ABTF who got enraged at the XXX Corps tankers who stopped for a brew up of tea after the bloody seizing of the Nijmegan Bridge. Its directly quoted in there, however Ive often wondered if this was true. Or perhaps its true, but the Brits were ordered to stop from higher brass and made the best of their time. I am an American and not Montys biggest fan, but still I doubt the XXX corps boys would have stopped for tea on their own discretion while 1st AB was bleeding to death in Arnhem..

Now my memory of the movie is that after Robert Redford asks his shocked and angry question, one of the tankers rather apologetically explains that they were ordered to halt for the night.

Michael

[John Kettler]

Streety,

Would be happy to have a look at the full auto Enfields you mentioned. News to me!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Streety]

Hi again guys, there's precious little on them, but here's the wiki on those automatic enfields: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Enfield#Special_Service_Lee-Enfields:_Commando_and_Automatic_models

As to that famous scene in A Bridge Too Far, don't forget that:

a) it was a book written by an American and the primary sources were the American Military Historians, not the British, and so is somewhat (sadly) badly skewed.

hence the film was not accurate:

b1) - for example, part of the reason that there weren't enough transport planes to go around, and some other issues, was because the US didn't give the project their entire support - the film gives full vent to all the British failings (of which there were several critical mistakes, not least Monty being too proud to call it off when they found out that German panzer units were newly stationed near the target) but ignores the American ones.

b2) - for example Elliot Gould's entirely fictitious American Officer's role of suggesting the Brits were a bit clueless and disinterested in building pontoons etc.

b3) - A key moment in the book and the film (and folklore) is that the 82nd Airborne (with 307th Engineers) cleared and captured Nijmegan bridge to allow the Brit tanks over, only to see the Brits halt for tea. In truth there was more than one bridge, and the Brit tanks had to fight their way across the main highway bridge (top brass having assumed at the time that the 82nd/307th river crossing failed - having seen them so badly shot up) and at first the leading Brit tanks attacking the Germans retreating across the bridge also opened fire on the few (brave) American troops who had survived and made it to the far end of the same bridge. Read here, chapter IV: http://hanskundnani.com/articles/bridge/

c) You see, the book and the film are prime examples of why the Brits get pissed off by Hollywood. And the notion that the tankers wouldn't push on to their besieged colleagues because they had to have a tea break is also just incredibly insulting (and stereotypically enduring) lie. The lead XXX corps tank commander later went on to become a well known politician (Lord Carrington). With 20-20 hindsight, he later said he wondered if perhaps they should have pushed on, but at the time they had just 4 tanks left available at that moment to advance along a single-lane highway (ditched either-side so no way off it), and with no infantry to support them (and having already lost several tanks to German guns despite infantry support) and they were almost out of ammo and fuel, and it was dusk, and they knew they were beyond the time-limit expected that the Brit paras could hold the bridge for, and they knew that the road ahead had not been cleared of German defenders, and the road would go through a portion of town still ahead of them in which we now know that further fighting took place that night. So Carrington's unsupported dash would have certainly failed, even if one or two of the tanks had succeeded in getting through.

And I've never forgiven Brit "luvvie" Richard Attenborough for taking the yankee-dollar as the film's director. Right, I'm off for my self-righteous cup of tea......

[John Kettler]

Streety,

Thanks a bunch for the automatic Enfield stuff! The Charlton, at first glance, looks an awful lot like an AK-47! I'd heard, decades ago before the Net, of the DeLisle, but knew only it was a suppressed antisentry weapon. Very pretty weapon, that. Gorgeous furniture.

Regards,

John Kettler