General military questions thread

[Marduk]

Wasn't the BAR pretty common for standard infantry in WW2, especially as a ww2 SAW? I know it was WIDELY used during Korea.

Still as support weapon, 1-2 per squad. Possibly more in Korea due to lots of spare ones lying around since WW2.

I'm not your grandfather, so I cannot comment.
I can imagine situations where a BAR - especially if stripped of bipod and other wannabe SAW bling - is prefereable over the M14.

It was a reliable weapon. Does not change the fact that it was trash as a SAW. Like I said - practical ROF was 80 rpm or thereabouts.

From what i've heard what made BAR a bad LMG also made it a surprisingly viable battle rifle - its 8 kg weight combined with low RoF made the automatic fire much easier to handle than in typical post war 4-5 kg battle rifles with 600+ rpm, which are notoriously hard to handle in full auto.

 

[Buba]

From what i've heard what made BAR a bad LMG also made it a surprisingly viable battle rifle - its 8 kg weight combined with low RoF made the automatic fire much easier to handle than in typical post war 4-5 kg battle rifles with 600 rpm, which are notoriously hard to handle in full auto.

Because as this is what the BAR was designed for.
An AUTOMATIC RIFLE.
It was to be issued to every grunt in a unit and fired from the hip (there was a harness for that) while advancing. As the idea proved to be not tactically viable the weapon - instead of being binned - grew a bipod and was issued as a support weapon. A role at which it was shit. But for the US in an era of tight budgets it was the only game in town so it was kept up to WWII.
Its lightness (look at the Lewis or Hotchkiss Portatiff) and reliability did lure some armies to adopt it - but see Sweden doing a Frankenstein and forcing its BAR into belt feed. Polish pre-WWII procurement has many cases of idiocy jumping in bed with penny pinching - the wz.28 i.e. Polish BAR (Browning's patents did not apply in Poland, so no license fees) being a prime example.

 

[BlackDragon98]

You won't believe this but the BAR can be modernized into this:

M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle - Wikipedia
Counter assault rifle, it's called.

Modern Bar joke:
Three jihadis walk into a CAR.

 

[Zachowon]

No.
Or to be kind - depends on your metric for "effective". See next comment.

As a SAW it was trash.
a - All other armies had one SAW per squad, but US had to issue 2 - Army, or three - USMC, BAR's per squad.
b - the US had to issue the M1919A6 at company level to provide adequate firepower to its infantry.

I'm not your grandfather, so I cannot comment.
But I can imagine many situations where a BAR - especially if stripped of bipod and other wannabe SAW bling - is prefereable over the M14.

It was a reliable weapon. Does not change the fact that it was trash as a SAW. Like I said - practical ROF was 80 rpm or thereabouts.

I'm just saying it was better then other things even if heavy.

Even with its slow rate of fire it was pretty good.

I would rather have a company level M1919 and two BARs.
I'm wierd what can I say

 

[Buba]

2.Mortars - no matter 81,60 or 120mm,they could be made before WW1.Why nobody did so?

Among other things - inter department warfare - who gets the mortars?
Artillery? we've just moved from smoothbores to rifles and you want us to reintroduce smoothbore artillery?!? Hence counterintuitive and not sexy/magical enough - you drop a bomb and it flies back out. And practically no aiming devices - so I've studied three years at the Artillery School what for exactly?

Infantry? - wrapping its mind around the machine gun, giving each piece a 7-10 man crew and a horse cart with ammunition?

Interestingly enough the aforementioned German pre-WWI minenweferer were initially issued to the PIONEERS, i.e. to the Engineer arm, to be used in sieges.
As an example of interdepartment wars (here one level lower) - in pre-WWI Germany line infantry was opposed to machineguns because reasons, so a higher allotment of MGs was given to Jaegers (light infantry), which was autonomous ...

I would rather have a company level M1919 and two BARs.
I'm wierd what can I say

I admit to having seen flame wars on this very issue
I can agree there being benefits to a squad with two BARs + one M1919A4/6 in support. But not all armies have the money to splurge on three automatic weapons for c.20 blokes.
Having two good SAWs for two squads with the same c.20 blokes is cheaper and usually more effective (sometimes more, sometimes less, or simply just as), as you have two squads to do things, and not one, and all the components are of the same mobility (the M1919A4/6 is not as mobile as rifle armed/SAW totting grunts).

 

[Marduk]

Because as this is what the BAR was designed for.
An AUTOMATIC RIFLE.
It was to be issued to every grunt in a unit and fired from the hip (there was a harness for that) while advancing. As the idea proved to be not tactically viable the weapon - instead of being binned - grew a bipod and was issued as a support weapon. A role at which it was shit. But for the US in an era of tight budgets it was the only game in town so it was kept up to WWII.
Its lightness (look at the Lewis or Hotchkiss Portatiff) and reliability did lure some armies to adopt it - but see Sweden doing a Frankenstein and forcing its BAR into belt feed. Polish pre-WWII procurement has many cases of idiocy jumping in bed with penny pinching - the wz.28 i.e. Polish BAR (Browning's patents did not apply in Poland, so no license fees) being a prime example.

Wz.26 was also even lighter than the original, so there is that. What BAR really needed to become a decent support weapon was 30 round mags. Then it would jump up the ranking to compete with Bren, which was highly rated at the time.

 

[Buba]

What BAR really needed to become a decent support weapon was 30 round mags. Then it would jump up the ranking to compete with Bren, which was highly rated at the time.

Not that simple:
Bottom fed 30 round mags - slower changing of mags versus top mounted weapons as you have less space to work with. Maybe issues with jamming (stronger spring to push rounds UP versus down)? There is a reason why the best/mature technology magazine fed LMGs all look the same, i.e. have top mounted mags.
The Polish wz.28 was heavier than the BAR as it had a heavier barrel in a failed attempt to push up practical ROF. Probably inspired by the French M24/29 which chose a heavier barrel over a quick change barrel (I suspect shit-eating penny pinching of Polish military, i.e. one thicker barrel costs less than two thinner ones; and fuck the slower ROF).
So - to make the BAR and clones remotely competitive versus the ZB vz.26/BREN etc. the BAR needs to be turned upside down and given a quick-change barrel.

 

[BlackDragon98]

What the BAR needed was a drum mag.
100 rounds, like the Tommy gun drum mag.

Sure ROF is slow, but you don't have to reload that often.
Reload time (down time) is a critical change for the enemy to rush you and overwhelm you.

 

[Buba]

What the BAR needed was a drum mag.
100 rounds, like the Tommy gun drum mag.

Sure ROF is slow, but you don't have to reload that often.
Reload time (down time) is a critical change for the enemy to rush you and overwhelm you.

A drum mag is heavy, expensive, jam prone, and the ROF will go down as the barrel will overheat faster. On the defensive is the time when you fire off as fast you can and overheating becomes an issue (on the assault you shoot less and are unlikely to overheat a LMG's barrel).
The barrel was good for c.200 rounds continuous fire.
The BAR simply was no good as a SAW ...
What the BAR needed was being replaced by the Vickers-Berthier, M24/29, Hotchkiss M26, vz.26 etc. in the mid/late 20s.

 

[Marduk]

Not that simple:
Bottom fed 30 round mags - slower changing of mags versus top mounted weapons as you have less space to work with. Maybe issues with jamming (stronger spring to push rounds UP versus down)? There is a reason why the best/mature technology magazine fed LMGs all look the same, i.e. have top mounted mags.

In hindsight, we can see top mounted mags were not great, they had certain disadvantages of their own, like need to offset sights, they were just less shitty alternative to bottom mounted mags with poorly engineered springs and mounts, a pretty common but not unavoidable problem at the time.
That's why virtually no modern SAW/LMG uses them, all use bottom fed mags, or just boxed belts, with drum mags persisting as a less reliable option here and there.

Even USMC's fancy new M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle uses standard 30 round mags.

 

[Zachowon]

The BAR is American and was good mix between

Not that simple:
Bottom fed 30 round mags - slower changing of mags versus top mounted weapons as you have less space to work with. Maybe issues with jamming (stronger spring to push rounds UP versus down)? There is a reason why the best/mature technology magazine fed LMGs all look the same, i.e. have top mounted mags.
The Polish wz.28 was heavier than the BAR as it had a heavier barrel in a failed attempt to push up practical ROF. Probably inspired by the French M24/29 which chose a heavier barrel over a quick change barrel (I suspect shit-eating penny pinching of Polish military, i.e. one thicker barrel costs less than two thinner ones; and fuck the slower ROF).
So - to make the BAR and clones remotely competitive versus the ZB vz.26/BREN etc. the BAR needs to be turned upside down and given a quick-change barrel.

No modern LMG I know of uses top mounted.
The Marines use a bottom mounted.
Both the SAW and 240B use boxed belts..

 

[PsihoKekec]

No modern LMG I know of uses top mounted.

That's because they are all belt fed. With the limitations of 30's technology, top feed was the best option if you were going the magazine route for your LMG.

 

[Captain X]

I'm pretty partial to the BREN myself.

 

[Buba]

[top mags were a] less shitty alternative to bottom mounted mags with poorly engineered springs and mounts, a pretty common but not unavoidable problem at the time.

Amen.
We are talking 1920s to 1940s here.
Post WWII it is a different world, with matured double stacked mags, desintegrating belts, intermediate rounds, grunts with assault rifles, etc.
BTW - at second glance some contemporary LMG "drum mags" actually turn out to be round holders for belts ...
And all MGs have quick change barrels ... like I said, it's a different world.

I'm pretty partial to the BREN myself.

Well, the ZB vz.26/BREN was one of the best old style LMGs.

 

[Marduk]

BTW - at second glance some contemporary LMG "drum mags" actually turn out to be round holders for belts ...

Which was an option already available and well used in WW2 - both MG34 and MG42 had that available.

 

[ATP]

As a SAW the BAR was shit - it was too heavy for an assault rifle (albeit designed as one) and too light for a SAW.
Practical ROF - 80 per minute.
Pathetic.
Simply the US Army had painted itself into a corner with the BAR - it was American designed, already in stock, already in production - and was saddled with it until the late 1950s.


This was an accident of timing plus being across the ocean. In 1939/40 the Soviets were perfecting their SVT, the French were on the verge of putting the MAS 40 into production. The US had the luxury of not being at war and/or not having to equip tens of divisions "like yesterday".
Have the USA go to war in 1939 and the 1903 is likely to be manufacutred by the millions up to 1945, or move WWII to 1941 - then the US would still be fiddling with the M1 Rifle before finalising the design, while France and/or Soviet Union have semi-autos in mass production.

I read that soviet SVT was so good that german take and used all they could - but soviet dropped production,becouse it need...regular cleaning.
That was border of Stalin power - he could purge Red Army and kill million or more soviets each year,but could not teach his soldier regulary clean their weapons.
Mosin and PPS could be dropped int mud - and still worked.

 

[PsihoKekec]

but soviet dropped production,becouse it need...regular cleaning.

The more pressing matter was that it took approximately three times as many work hours to make SVT as it did to make Mosin. They also used mostly the same tooling, so when choosing between SVT and three times as many Mosins, the Soviets choose the numbers.

 

[BlackDragon98]

I read that soviet SVT was so good that german take and used all they could

Germans examined the SVT and found it was so good they incorporated the gas operated system into their G43 semi-auto rifle.

- but soviet dropped production,becouse it need...regular cleaning.
That was border of Stalin power - he could purge Red Army and kill million or more soviets each year,but could not teach his soldier regulary clean their weapons.

It was also more difficult to operate, unlike a simple bolt action mosin or full auto PPSh-41.
Soviet soldiers were uneducated farmboy conscripts.

Mosin and PPS could be dropped int mud - and still worked.

PPSh-41 was partly (at least the 71 rnd drum mag) copied from a earlier Finnish SMG
Suomi KP/-31 - Wikipedia

 

[Zachowon]

The BAR was honestly very effective for the US Army and Marines during WW2 and Korea, as it allowed for mobile accurate fire fire.
It was one of the more accurate Fully auto weapons of its time. Even with its slow Rate of fire.
It was enough to allow for good use of assults. Especially when one is needed and preparation for a tripod mounted M1919 isn't as useful to set up.

 

[BlackDragon98]

The BAR was honestly very effective for the US Army and Marines during WW2 and Korea, as it allowed for mobile accurate fire fire.
It was one of the more accurate Fully auto weapons of its time. Even with its slow Rate of fire.
It was enough to allow for good use of assults. Especially when one is needed and preparation for a tripod mounted M1919 isn't as useful to set up.

The Slow RoF was actually why it was more accurate.
High RoF means lots of recoil and difficult handling.
The long barrel also helped.