Xbow wrote:Taliz the BAR was an innovation of WW-1 not WW-2 hence it is outside the realm of this discussion. The BAR was initially designed as an automatic weapon to be carried by men distributed through a line of advancing troops and was designed to be fired from the hip in that role. The BAR concept was based on the French theory of Walking or Marching fire that they implemented with the introduction of the Chauchat LMG. So the M1918BAR was not an innovative weapon despite its superiority in design and construction to the Chauchat. However the M1918 found its niche as a squad automatic weapon that could deliver both precision semi automatic and short burst automatic fire.
On the other hand the M1 Garand was innovative because:
It was the first reliable semi automatic rifle introduced as a nations standard battle rifle (full introduction by 1941)
It was more accurate than other semi automatic rifles of the time by virtue of its long radius and fully adjustable in 1 MOA increments peep sight that were vastly superior to the primitive short radius sights of the competition that were not fully adjustable:
--G41 (limited introduction 1941) (reliability problems)
--Gewehr 43 (limited introduction 1943)
--AVS-36 (limited introduction 1938) (serious reliability problems)
--SVT-38-40 (significant introduction by 1941)(some reliability problems)
I think you have misunderstood my comment. The inovation of semi-automatic fire or even automatic fire was an innovation of the First World War, I was mealy supplying the BAR as an example of that cycle of inovation where weapons developers were seeking a "trench broom" weapon that was portable and employable by a single soldier.
Thus I think the innovation of the Garand - as you also mentioned - was that it was the first semi-automatic firearm to be issued en-mass as the standard infantry rifle of an armed force - that is a large innovation and advantage compared to pretty much every other armed force of the day they had a bolt operated single shot rifle as standard issue.
xBow wrote:Note: The Russian weapons all suffered from the use of the 7.62 X54r rimmed cartridge (frequent jams) and highly corrosive primers that without constant disassembly and cleaning mercuric primers ate the gas systems alive.
All weapons had their pro's and cons. Better sights, more accurate over long rage, or better short range, high stopping power, or some other such thing. To use your statement from above about the sights on the Garand... Having better sights/optics was not a fundamental innovation, since many weapons had optics of differing degrees of quality.
xBow wrote:Note: The M1 Garand was a very reliable weapon. The only weakness of the Garand was the the use of the 8-round En Bloc clip internal magazine that could not be 'topped off' and could be difficult to load in very cold weather. But neither as it happened was a serious problem.
The ping noise from a completed En Bloc Clip become something of a ploy used by both the soldiers equipped with the Garand and those who faced soldiers equipped with the Garand.
xBow wrote:Additionally US rifle squads were built around the capability of the Garand and augmented by the M1918BAR while German platoons were built around the MG34 or MG42 as their base of fire. The fact that the combination of the Garand and the M1918BAR made US units more flexible since they were not slaved to the base of fire. For the Germans the loss of their primary base of fire weapon was disastrous. And Garand armed units in the assault could deliver several times the volume of fire that a 98-k armed unit could.
Completely agree. Which is again, why I think the innovation was not the Garand itself, but the issue of the rifle as the standard US rifle. Thus doctrine evolved to take advantage of the semi-automatic capability in a platoon, while the German Gruppe was handicapped by reliance of the majority of soldiers being equipped with bolt action rifle - and thus the reliance on the MG34 or MG42 to pin the enemy as the Schutzentrupp outflanked the enemy.
xBow wrote:Note: The USA never had a machine gun as capable or a flexible as the either the MG34 or MG42.
The problem was the US still saw Machine Guns as special purpose fixed position fighting weapons, thus the weapons designed for the role were not easily man portable and certainly not designed for firing from the hip or on the go. Where the MG34 and MG42 were designed as multi-role weapons, that could be operated on the move, or from a mounted position.
XBow wrote:However of all infantry weapons designed in WW-2 I think the incomparable FG-42 is the most innovative but it was produced in such low numbers that its impact was insignificant.
It combined the characteristics and firepower of a light machine gun in a lightweight form no larger than the standard-issue Kar 98k bolt-action rifle. Considered one of the most advanced weapon designs of World War II, the FG 42 influenced post-war small arms development and ultimately helped to shape the modern assault rifle concept.
Indeed, the Germans saw the Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 as a specialized Fallschirmjager weapon - it would be like the Americans specifically designing a weapon for issue only to the Rangers. But this could have been the inter-service rivalry where the Lufwaffe acted independently or even in competition too the Heer and Kriegsmarine. About 7000 were manufactured in total, and from what I have read, they were not easy to manufacture - which is thought to have added to why the numbers manufactured never meet the demand of the Lufwaffe. Plus I figure that Hitler may have been as acceptive to the idea of designing another rifle as he was for the idea to design the Sturmgewehr 44, eg: against it, until shown it was a good idea. Since the developers of the Sturmgewehr 44 passed it off as the Maschinenpistole 43 (submachine gun nomenclature) when Hitler suspended all new rifle programs due to administrative infighting within the Third Reich, ordered that more, newer submachine guns were to be built. This was feed by Heer research that displayed that average engagement ranges were between 200 to 300 meters (the majority being 200m).