Impact of Small Arms on WW2.

[CombinedArms]

Gettting back to the original question of small arms in WWII, my read on it is that the quality of the weapons was generally close enough (we don't have any AK47 vs musket like gaps) that an edge in small arms is not likely to make a dominant difference, esp since other weapons and factors tended to have a balancing effect. E.g., maybe the M1 Garrand was better than German bolt action rifles, but not enough better to be decisive in itself, esp given German balancing superiority with the MG42. Similarly, the BAR is maybe inferior to German LMGs, but the difference isn't great enough to make a decisive impact. A well deployed and handled BAR can still perform well enough to do its job. Ultimately edges in tactics, training, numbers, supply, and/or the presence or absence of armor and arty and similar factors are more likely to be decisive.

In terms of CM, we saw in CMBO a situation where an edge in small arms could actually be decisive--the SMG squad. Various changes in CMBB and AK reduced this overbalancing impact: reduced ammo loads for SMG squads, more ammo for rifle-heavy squads, easier suppression of attacking units, better stopping power by MGs, etc. All of these reduced the attacker's ability to charge in with SMGs and destroy a defensive position by sheer firepower. I think the change was a move toward greater realism and an acknowledgement by BFC that a modest edge small arms weaponry shouldn't be automatically decisive on the CM battlefield.

[Jasper 2x]

Alright I challenge you to a duel kar 98 vs. m16a4. In Stalingrad at 100 to 200 meters no cover, run and gun. Unless you hit with your first shoot you’re going to die. At least on the tactical level small arms are a factor. Strategically less so but if your losing all the tactical encounters. Consistently it can’t be helpful. CM seems like it should be mostly tactical level. In the end assaulting dug infantry is going to be hurt no matter the weapon.

[CombinedArms]

Jasper 2x,

I think you may have missed a couple of my points--possibly I didn't spell them out clearly enough. First of all, I was basing my view on the idea that most WWII era small arms were close enough in fighting value to allow for relative parity. I wasn't by any means suggesting the same relative parity for weapons of different eras.

Also, I was saying that any edge in, say, rifles would tend to be counterbalanced by an edge the other side might have in an alternate weapon, including HMGs and LMGs. Then we have the other elements of the combined arms team, which further tend to alter the balance. Although CM is a tactical game, it tends to function at the company to battalion level and last I heard included MGs, tanks, artillery and even airpower.

So a duel in the open between kar 98s and m16a4s with no cover and no supporting weapons wasn't quite what I had in mind. But you're welcome to board the next plane to Stalingrad and wait for me there, or rather for my buddy Big Louie.... He'll be standing by the tank factory in full body armor with an M16a4. You can bring the kar 98.

[Guest Mike]

How do you get a 100-200m run with no cover in Stalingrad?? :confused: :eek: :confused:

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by Mike:

How do you get a 100-200m run with no cover in Stalingrad?? :confused: :eek: :confused:

Wait for the Volga to freeze

[Guest Mike]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Leopard_2:

@ Bigduke:

Ah, linguistics.

@ Michael Dorosh:

> Wire cutting shells were used to great effect

> (Vimy Ridge being the classic example)...

Hm... then again, the Somme offensive had some of the most intense arty preparation until that point of the war, and it still failed to make a significant impact on the wire defenses...

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/2354/somme.html

http://www.1914-1918.net/BATTLES/bat15_somme/bombardment.htm

The Somme was in 1916, Vimy in April 1917...

Think they learned their lesson? </font>

[Michael Emrys]

You make some interesting points, but I have a question about this one:

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

What the small arms in the hands of the people walking into the ambush would make little difference. A modern automatic rifle doesn't do you much good if you are dead or wounded before you get a chance to use it, even if the bullets that made you a casualty were fired from weapons developed two or three generations ago.

Now, I have read that in Viet Nam it was found that the best tactic for troops who found themselves in an ambush was to return fire in high volume immediately. This was done not with the expectation of scoring hits and creating casualties so much as to rattle the ambushing troops, spoil their aim, create confusion in their ranks, and make them pull their heads in.

Now whether this would have worked the same way in Stalingrad, I won't even attempt to guess. But it's worthwhile in trying to assess the effect of automatic weapons in the hands of assaulting troops to keep the above observation in mind. I've also read that the assaulting squads tended to arm themselves with a higher than average proportion of SMGs, so perhaps they made a similar discovery to the GIs in Viet Nam.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by A.E.B:

The Americans (not included in the above figures) lost 100,000 casualties in the Aragorn forest alone.

I'm sure King Aragorn must have been greatly saddened at the news. Goodness knows, the casualties in Argonne Forest were bad enough!

Michael

[JonS]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Now, I have read that in Viet Nam it was found that the best tactic for troops who found themselves in an ambush was to return fire in high volume immediately. This was done not with the expectation of scoring hits and creating casualties so much as to rattle the ambushing troops, spoil their aim, create confusion in their ranks, and make them pull their heads in.

That is still the teaching, though the immediate assault :eek: onto the ambushers is no longer taught.

[Stalin's Organ]

Automatic Lee-Enfields.

Someone called Philip Charltom modded LE's with a gas piston from 1/2 way down the barrel, acting on a sliding cam that operated on the bolt stub to lock, unlock and move it. Cyclic ROF was 700 rpm.

It could take a 30 rd mag as well as the std 10 rd mags. 2000 were produced in NZ and "several thousand" in Australia.

A semi-automatic rifle mod by the same bloke was also tested in hte UK, but obviously not adopted.

-from "Small Arms of the World" - 11th Ed.

[Panzer76]

I challange you to meet me on the battlefield, I'll bring a t-34 and you can bring a t-38.

Or, Im in a Tiger and you in Sherman, you could never win then!

Oh wait... that did happen.. wonder why..

[Bigduke6]

Michael,

I am not arguing massive supressive fire - assuming you have it - is not a good response tactic if you walk into an ambush. Of course it often is; if you want to survive shooting back and charging is usually the best move, as that takes you out of the kill zone and into cover.

My point is, even if you are Arnold Scharzenegger (in his prime obviously) and you are carrying a helicopter mini-gun with unlimited ammunition, it still won't do you any good if the first hint you have of the enemy is his bullets punching holes through your body. You've been shot, and it doesn't matter what a great weapon you had in your hands when you were ambushed.

Also, the U.S. tactic assumes that the ambushee (the Americans) even when hit by an ambush, even considering the resulting confusion and casualties, have a reasonable chance of "breaking the back of the ambush" by establishing fire superiority, which is militarese for making the other guy stop shooting and put his head down.

In Vietnam the Vietnamese - who were short on automatic weapons, ammo, and training, but long on tactical smarts - figured out that if you ambushed the Americans and didn't kill all of them the survivors would try and establish fire superiority and sometimes even charge.

So the Vietnamese took to putting bouncing betty mines around the kill zone, so that when the Americans made their charge, they hit the mines. Also, they often made their ambushes, killed or wounded some American, and then ran before the firefight got going. The Americans called the Vietnamese behaviour "an unwillingness to close and fight - see the Vietnamese Communists are afraid of us." The Vietnamese Communists, of course, called that "fighting on our terms, not the enemy's"

It's really hard to say conlusively which version is right, but you have to admit the Vietnamese Communists won the war.

In a conflict where the the weapons and troop discipline are even reasonably close, as they were at Stalingrad, they only way to win an ambush engagement was to do the ambushing. If you got ambushed, you lost.

And as others here have pointed out, giving the Germans automatic rifles at Stalingrad would not have changed that dynamic.

After all each German section had an automatic rifle with a cyclical rate a faster than an M-16, if I remember right, and definately faster over the long term. You fire an early M-16 on auto continuously and it risks overheating and jam after about 500 rounds; above and beyond jams coming from poor design/poor maintenance/user errors.

German belt-fed machine guns for practical purposes never jammed. So you can make a pretty good arguement that on the section/squad level a German section/squad could launch bullets in the direction of the enemy at rates vaguely similar to a modern section squad. Two belt-fed "Spandau" MGs, a machine pistol or two, and some bolt-action rifles - which is often what a German squad had at Stalingrad - can put out an awful lot bullets.

I would be surprised if a typical modern squad with automatic rifles and a single belt-fed MG would have a huge firepower advantage, but there are others on the forum that know down to a gnat's eyelash the cyclical rates for sure.

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

You make some interesting points, but I have a question about this one:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bigduke6:

What the small arms in the hands of the people walking into the ambush would make little difference. A modern automatic rifle doesn't do you much good if you are dead or wounded before you get a chance to use it, even if the bullets that made you a casualty were fired from weapons developed two or three generations ago.

Now, I have read that in Viet Nam it was found that the best tactic for troops who found themselves in an ambush was to return fire in high volume immediately. This was done not with the expectation of scoring hits and creating casualties so much as to rattle the ambushing troops, spoil their aim, create confusion in their ranks, and make them pull their heads in.

Now whether this would have worked the same way in Stalingrad, I won't even attempt to guess. But it's worthwhile in trying to assess the effect of automatic weapons in the hands of assaulting troops to keep the above observation in mind. I've also read that the assaulting squads tended to arm themselves with a higher than average proportion of SMGs, so perhaps they made a similar discovery to the GIs in Viet Nam.

Michael </font>

[Wisbech_lad]

A good ambush is murder.

P Caputo (Rumor of War) was trained in Vietnam to put the first burst of ambush fire at chest height - the second at ankle height.

I thought the NVA went for "grabbing the enemy by the belt" - i.e. getting as close to US/ AVRN forces as possible, to try to negate airpower and arty strikes? And had plenty of AK47's

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Wisbech_lad:

I thought the NVA went for "grabbing the enemy by the belt" - i.e. getting as close to US/ AVRN forces as possible, to try to negate airpower and arty strikes? And had plenty of AK47's

I think Bigduke is speaking of smaller engagements on the order of squads and platoons. And perhaps more VC than NVA.

Michael

[Bigduke6]

What I'm talking about is infantry combat in short-range, low-visibility conditions; i.e., a Vietnam junge or Stalingrad urban rubble. In both cases the defender has huge advantages, basically because he can begin most engagements with a real short-range ambush of the enemy.

As far as I know the NVA were perfectly happy to ambush the Americans in this way. The NVA of course did make the odd organized attack (LZ X-Ray, Khe Sanh), and since the U.S. forces more or less won those fights they got huge write-ups in the history books. But if you look at the U.S. casualties and take out the accidents, over the coure of the war the bulk of them came when a U.S. soldier either (a) walked into an ambush or ( triggered a booby trap. An individual here, a point man and his slack shot down there, it adds up.

The slug-it-out battles were few and far between, primarily because every one knew the American firepower would win every time, so the Vietnamese avoided combat on those terms. When they could, both the NVA and the Viet Cong stuck to ambushing. This is one of the reasons why the Americans still claim they "won" every fight in Vietnam - when the shooting started the Vietnamese always, in the end, ran away.

The thing is, if the Vietnamese take few or no casualties, and the GIs do, I don't call that winning. My opinion, of course.

Same deal in Stalingrad, I think. The terrain reduces the fight to an infantry-vs-infantry combat; all those German advantages at combined arms are pretty useless, if there is no way to call in Stukas or heavy artillery on the building across the street. Panzers aren't a great option either as they can't stand off, meaning they are vulnerable to Red infantry with satchel charges etc.

So all you are left with, in general, is German infantry going out into the open, and Red infantry shooting them down. The dedication/morale/infantry skills of the two sides was about equal. To put it in CMBB terms, it wasn't like the German infantry was crack and the Soviets greens at Stalingrad.

In fact the Russian infantry at Stalingrad was combat-experienced, tough, resourceful, and in general quite accurate with their weapons. That is a recipe for lots of German casualties, even if the Germans had been armed with plasma guns, automatic lasers, and blast rifles.

See Craig's Stalingrad or Chuikov's memoirs if you have any doubts about the quality of the Russian infantry.

[ February 04, 2005, 01:38 AM: Message edited by: Bigduke6 ]

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

I agree completely, but I wonder how long it would take for the other side to come up with counter measures - either in tactics or equipment.

Didn't the US cavalry have repeating carbines exclusively by the middle of the war, for example?

They did, the Spencer carbine, which was a cumbersome piece of equipment but, in comparison to the Enfield, pretty darn good. A repeating Spencer riflee was introduced after the war, The Buffalo Soldiers used it, among others.

But this shows just the problem with counterfactuals and, I think, support for the initial disregard. These weapons take ammunition, significant amounts of it, and while industrial giants like the Union and the United States, respectively, could produce more than enough fuel, ammo and men, countries such as Germany and the Confederacy could only have won their respective wars through superior tactics, not superior technology.

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by junk2drive:

In the ACW, wasn't it the tech advances that shaped the war?

No, they just made it interesting and gave the History Channel material. In order of importance, the Civil War was determined by:

Industrial vs. Agrarian power in a stand-up, Industrial War.

One-Sided Naval Theatre

Strategic Awareness (Sherman, primarily, then Grant, Forrest)

Tactical Aptitude (Lee, lack thereof in the case of McClellan)

New Technologies Applied in War (Air-Conditioning, Ironclads, Rifling, Submarines, Repeating Rifles, but mostly Railroads)

After all, most of the Rebel victories occurred in the beginning of the war, when their poor and underequipped army still had significant stocks of smoothbore rifles.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

...smoothbore rifles.

Sorry, but I just can't resist this one. Wouldn't a "smoothbore rifle" be an oxymoron?

P.S. I agree completely that the most influencial technological innovation of the ACW was the use of the railroads and the Union's eventual denial of same to the South.

Michael

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

...smoothbore rifles.

Sorry, but I just can't resist this one. Wouldn't a "smoothbore rifle" be an oxymoron?

</font>

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Sorry, but I just can't resist this one. Wouldn't a "smoothbore rifle" be an oxymoron?

P.S. I agree completely that the most influencial technological innovation of the ACW was the use of the railroads and the Union's eventual denial of same to the South.

Michael

Why, naturally it's a rifled musket that, while quite a crudite at parties, still goes down smoooooth. Which is to say, um... Doh!

I think, had the South managed to field some ironclads (They maybe, maybe might have) then they'd have definitely been in better shape economically. Not only could they still trade with Europe, but they wouldn't have lost their third-largest city early in the war. Still, the Union had them beat there, too, and I seriously doubt even if Britain herself went to war with the Union that Northern naval supremacy was in doubt. Granted, it was a greenwater navy, but at the end of the war the Union had an enormous number of ironclads, with even bigger ones in the works. Everyone who talks about British/French recognition is just what-if'ing themselves into a conquered Canada and French Mexico.

The same thing is probably true about the SG44, the super u-boats, the jet fighters, the nuclear bombs, you name it. Germany could have produced everything and if they're still just as stupid at Stalingrad, Leningrad, Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic--they still lose. Confucius say: Don't get into a war of stuff with two of the biggest stuff-producers on the planet.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Elijah Meeks:

I think, had the South managed to field some ironclads (They maybe, maybe might have)...

CSA Virginia was an ironclad. There were several others whose names I can't recall. They weren't exactly paragons of the genre, IMHO, but they were definitely ironclad.

Michael

[Hamstersss]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

CSA Virginia was an ironclad. There were several others whose names I can't recall. They weren't exactly paragons of the genre, IMHO, but they were definitely ironclad.

Michael

There was one on the Mississipi that was, apparantly, quite a fine ship, but they could never get it engines. What I mean is, had they managed to have a small ironclad navy, they could have delayed Anaconda for a little while (Until the North got ironclad production up to snuff, at which point, as with all wars, their massive industrial advantage would eventually crush the South).

That's the way it seems in WWII, as well. Had the US had a real reason to phase out the Sherman, I can only assume they would have. And had the Soviet Union or Britain had to contend with jet fighters, again I think it stands to reason that they would. The only way a small power can win against a large is in the strategic/tactical execution of a war, not with gadgetry. When we dropped the a-bombs on Japan, they surrendered, but we were nuking a nation that had already watched its navy and territorial possessions reduced to nothing. If Germany started nuking Russian cities (Or, even more of a stretch, American cities) it would have escalated the war, not brought it to a sudden end. That's because, when it comes down to it, Germany was a small nation without much in the way of natural resources or manpower, facing up against enormous nations with huge stores.

It seems like, from my amateur view, that it was glaring mistakes that doomed Germany. Switching from airfields to cities in the Battle of Britain, short-changing Army Groups in Russia, quitting paratroopers after Crete (And goodness knows what else on an operational and tactical level). Its analagous with the South, which manages to screw up too many things to win. You can't blame them, after all, they're like the Tampa Bay Devil Rays playing the New York Yankees, they have to play a perfect game AND hope that their opponents don't, whereas the Allies and the Union could afford to absorb all manner of collosal mistakes and still achieve victory.

To stick with the analogy, counterfactuals that focus on technology are like baseball fans that say, "We woulda beat the Yankees if we'd had A-Rod/Bonds/Clemens" when the game was lost not due to bad play but bad managing.

After all, what if Germany hadn't pulled off some amazing successes or Russia hadn't made some idiotic blunders, then the game isn't even close. Still, I think those early successes (And in this you can make a direct analogy to the South in the ACW) that doomed the Axis to such total defeat. If they hadn't set such a high standard, it could've ended along the lines of a normal war and not devolved into one of unconditional surrender. Instead, Lee kept obsessing about one great battle (He'd won so many, why not one more when it counted? End result: Gettysburg), Hitler kept holding on to the idea of executing one more brilliant operation (They'd pulled off so many, why not one more when it counted? End result: Battle of the Bulge) and Japan kept grasping for one more Pearl Harbor-like decisive victory based on fanatical devotion. I'm sure I've oversimplified it, but it seems pretty straightforward.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't have much argument with that, EM, except I wonder if Germany could have won even with "perfect play". I suspect the Allies would have had to commit a more profound kind of blunder, like failing to cooperate with one another at all so that each Ally was fighting his own separate war against Germany. And this they didn't do.

Michael

[Hamstersss]

It seems like you're right (And I have to stress again that I'm no scholar of WWII). Even assuming a successful Operation Sealion and a Russia beat back to the Urals, I can't imagine Germany standing against a fully mobilized USA on its western front. But then you get into questions of American willingness to fight a truly hard war, but I think its showing in the ACW proved a willingness to do that. Whenever I look at WWII, I see a lot of American frivolity when it came to materiel and strategic push (Namely the massive amount of strategic bombers, but I'm of the school of thought that strategic bombing was the definition of inefficient). In such a counterfactual, I'd assume the USA would just take its other hand out from behind its back and overwhelm Germany, who would never get the chance to rebuild Russia's industrial base and throw the weight of its newfound conquest into the match (After all, an occupied Western Russia would be in far worse state than Vichy).

Hopefully, one day Battlefront will make a game accurate enough that we'll be able to figure it out.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't see how even "perfect play" will win Sealion for Germany. But let that pass with a bit of handwaving and suppose by some miracle Germany did triumph over Britain and the USSR.

This sets up a curious situation. The US simply cannot send an invading army into the continent of Europe any time in the '40s, I think. So what we have is a kind of Mexican standoff. Germany is more or less secure in Europe with the US secure in the Western Hemisphere. Hitler is trying to build a navy to challenge the USN but unless Japan gets into the war at an opportune moment, he doesn't stand a chance. Meanwhile, the Americans need to capture a staging area near Europe. Looks like North Africa would once again the the path of entry, but assuming the Germans have had a year or two to establish themselves there, and the US will be doing it without a major ally, it won't be so easy this time.

Looks to me like it would be like two sumo wrestlers, circling each other warily, waiting to spot an opening in the other's defense. At some point, the A-bomb would come into play, and my guess is the Americans develop it but the Germans don't, or at least not as soon. And without bases within flying range, it's hard to see how it could be effectively used before the war was already well along.

I dunno, taking Britain and the USSR out of the picture changes everything so profoundly, it's hard to guess what would happen next. And you can be sure that whatever you and I might guess, the reality would be very, very different.

Michael