A Few Thoughts on the British and German Rifles and Riflemen, WWII

[Art]

In the past few years I've had some revelations on the tactical doctrines of the British and German infantry in WWII.

In WWI riflemen were primarily, well, riflemen. A Brit rifleman carried his ammo in easy to access pouches on his web gear and he had lots of them. The German was similar. This meant that the primary function of the rifleman in a tactical unit in both armies was the efficient use of the rifle.

The light and general purpose machine gun changed everything. In both armies the purpose of the rifleman was no longer primarily his rifle but supporting the squad automatic weapon. I often thought the big old pouches on the Pattern 37 web gear couldn't have been efficient for carrying clipped ammo. Well it wasn't. A Brit rifleman carried two loaded magazines for the Bren gun in one pouch and in the other one bandoleer of ammo and a couple of grenades. Loading from a bandoleer is a lot slower than loading from those quick opening pouches which deprived the No 4 rifle of one of its great advantages, rate of fire. In addition the poor Tommy might be required to start reloading magazines with clips from the bandoleer if the Bren started to run too low on ammo. That would give me a certain amount of ammo insecurity .

The NAZI soldier didn't see his rifle ammo supply diminished that much but every one of them was supposed to carry a can of ammo for the MG 34 or 42 whichever his squad had. That's a whopping 250 rounds . This was a heavier load than the Brit soldier carried but the German guns were a lot more ammo greedy. I think I'd use the option of draping the belts around my neck and shoulders as many NAZI soldiers are shown doing and a lot of GI's did in Vietnam. If I was in the Heer I'd definitely want my can used first.

We of course had a different doctrine but we had the Garand.

[barretcreek]

I've read the German after action report of the first engagement in 1914 stated they came under machine gun fire when it was actually from a rifle platoon.
Thank you.

[Art]

From the movie Fury. This is quite an accurate image of a freshly re-fitted NAZI unit sometime from Mid 1944 to the end of the war on the march, though they'd probably be in "route column." Note the MG ammo cans being carried and the belts of MG ammo draped over the men. It's a heck of a load, but got to keep it coming to those MG 42s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y11R852RJZM

[lyman]

lost of panzerfaust in that column too,


Gent I know recently got a MG42, I sold him a modern Lafette mount (made by HK) that he put it on,

showed me a Video of it firing Friday PM, amazing MG it is, esp on that mount,

a 50 round belt (common length) went thru in in seconds,

[togor]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...ZWjSBTkvzMIz8h

If this link works it is to a downloadable PDF put out by the US army on German small unit tactics on the eastern front in WW2

[bruce]

Re: PDF SUTEF. Thank you very much for this link. Sincerely. bruce.

[dogtag]

The Bren was incredibly accurate both in single and full auto.
I trained on one during basic. The magazine on top was a much
better idea than that of the BAR. Real easy to change as was the barrel.

[togor]

Re: PDF SUTEF. Thank you very much for this link. Sincerely. bruce.

Thank you for testing it!

[Art]

lost of panzerfaust in that column too,


Gent I know recently got a MG42, I sold him a modern Lafette mount (made by HK) that he put it on,

showed me a Video of it firing Friday PM, amazing MG it is, esp on that mount,

a 50 round belt (common length) went thru in in seconds,

It is still one of the most commonly used G.P. machine guns and is a standard weapon in active use, in one variation or another, with 20 countries. A few of which are:

Austria
Argentina
Germany
Greece
Latvia
Lithuania
Pakistan
Portugal
Togo
Turkey

There are quite a few countries such as Brazil and Canada who use it only on armored vehicles.

Hitler's buzz saw....truly one of histories great weapons

[bruce]

The MG-38 and 42 were truly remarkable designs that far outpaced allied equipment. ROF was high, perhaps higher than absolutely ideal. That being said, a heavier bolt cut ROF. Nothing could equal the ease of barrel changes, etc. Sincerely. bruce.