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Question of the Day #1

Hmmm, are you asking if we provided a modern small arm to only one side in WW1 would it have changed the outcome?

I dunno. WW1 was, from what I understand, mostly static trench warfare with the occasional charges across no man's land. If I understand correctly, machine guns did most of the killing, not small arms, which were mostly bolt action rifles with iron sights.

If German troops were provided, say, M16s, trained in their use, and given sufficient ammo, I could see it possibly changing the outcome. It would have made Allied attacks across no man's land basically a death sentence (not that they weren't already very deadly). On the other hand, it might have accelerated the development of tanks and/or the use of chemical weapons.
 
Im of the opinion that any type of modern small arms incorporated to the Central Powers during WWI would have very little impact in the overall outcome of the conflict. The trench warfare was either up close and personal or from range with huge artillery barrages... I think the addition of a modern firearm would have fitted into the middle portion but have failed to make any noticeable difference up close or at range. Thanks for answering MeatGrinder... Im in the process of recording todays question. :)
 
Hm, I wouldn´t be so sure if it couldn´t have changed the outcome! If one party had gotten fitted with assault rifles completely it would have meant an overweight in firepower and in time that firepower could consistantly kept lasting. And that on the move. In the early WW2 it was a "complete marvel" to the allies that german troops were able to assault with firing their SMGs and still hit something. Furthermore SMGs were exactly developped for such ranges - short to middle range - and that would have stunned every soldier who wasn´t used to such a situation. So more it would have had an impact on WW1 soldiers, I think. Assault rifles are even more effective since their range is more for middle to "long" range firing. If all soldiers of a party had such SMGs and/or assault rifles it would have led to a loss of the advantage of HMGs of the other side. The STG-44 was developped because of that reason. It should give more firepower and mobility to the same time. What MG-34 and MG-42 lacked. Otherwise one would have only had to produce more HMGs. And mobility would have been the answer to the artillery problem as well. At least in the general view. Same counts for advancing tanks. They could have get stripped of their infantry support and to the same time, because of the mentioned mobility of assault rifle troopers, it would have gotten very hard for the tanks to suppress the that counterfire.
Of course the other party had strengthened their efforts to develop weapons and tactics to anticipate that advantage. But it had needed time and training. And if that would have been enough is questionable. Trenches would have lost their "superior" defense qualities - especially in close combat.

So my conclusion is: Such an advantage in technology would have had very well changed the outcome.

Greetings :)
 
WW1 did precipitate the development of two small arms that were ahead of their time, IMO, and used throughout WW2 and beyond:

The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and the Thompson Submachinegun ("Tommy Gun").
 
Meat Grinder said:
WW1 did precipitate the development of two small arms that were ahead of their time, IMO, and used throughout WW2 and beyond:

The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and the Thompson Submachinegun ("Tommy Gun").
Click to expand...

I have to remember you that this is wrong for both weapons. Neither one was ahead of its time...:shocknaz:
The Thompson SMG was still on the drafting table, when the Germans already used the MP18 (Bergmann) as “trench broom” on the Western Front.
The BAR actually finds its place at the best in the genealogy of cheesy weapon design. If one considers it as a (poor) light MG, it came 15 years too late to be a forerunner since the Danish Madsen MG was successful employed already during the Russo-Japanese War.
Regarding the BAR as an assault rifle misses the point too, as it doesn’t use an intermediate round what makes the BAR much too heavy and shaky to be fired from the hip. At the end of the day the BAR was just some kind of overweight semi-automatic rifle just like the FG42...:eek:

Back to the initial question: Already at the end of WW1 the Germans had developed a wide variety of infantry weapons (SMG, hand grenade, flamethrower, infantry gun, lMG and hMG, grenade launcher) and tactics (infiltration) that helped to solve the deadlock of trench warfare, but came too late to finish the war before the arrival of the Americans. In fact there were absent in the arsenal of small arms only semi-automatic rifle and the assault rifle. Nevertheless the German did not need such weapons to smash the British 5th army during 1918 spring offensive.

What they would have needed rather than another small arms weapon, would have been food!, trucks, armored cars to exploit the initial success. Means they possessed sufficiently in 1940 what provided final success…

I strongly recommend on this subject the classic book from Bruce Gudmundsson: Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918.
 
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Well said, Mehlsack, but I would have to disagree with your disparagement of the BAR as a poor weapon. It is, in fact, fully automatic and, from what I have read, was used more as an easily portable LMG that was fired from a bipod, not as an assault rifle. But, discussing the BAR is starting to derail this thread, as the BAR was much more a WW2 than a WW1 weapon. I would love to own one.

 
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I think they did experiment with body armour in WW1 though not widely used at all.

1200s-3.jpg
 
Weapons wise, I'm inclined towards the individually carried 40mm automatic grenade launchers, say the USMC's M32 MGL or the older Hawk MM1 MGL). Equipping each squad with an organic multi-round "mortar" would have added impressive and, more importantly, immediately responsive and closely controlled at the platoon level for assaulting infantry fire support. It would have further enhanced local defensive capabilities as well.
 
Meat Grinder said:
Well said, Mehlsack, but I would have to disagree with your disparagement of the BAR as a poor weapon. It is, in fact, fully automatic and, from what I have read, was used more as an easily portable LMG that was fired from a bipod, not as an assault rifle. But, discussing the BAR is starting to derail this thread, as the BAR was much more a WW2 than a WW1 weapon. I would love to own one.

Click to expand...

The BAR could never fulfill the main function of a light MG (suppressing fire) since it had no changeable barrel and no belt feed.
I find it very interesting, that it was however kept in duty by US Army until the Vietnam War.
Evidently there was no need for a true light MG since the American tactic was that, what William Lind calls 2nd Generation Warfare:

“The problem is that virtually all American infantry are trained in Second
Generation tactics. The Second Generation reduces all tactics to one tactic:
bump into the enemy and call for fire. The French, who invented the Second
Generation, summarize it as, “Firepower conquers, the infantry occupies.” The
supporting firepower, originally artillery, now most often airstrikes, must be
massive. If it is not – as is now the case in Afghanistan, under General
McChrystal’s directive – the infantry is in trouble.”

I recommend Linds enjoyable and information lecture: The Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
 
Very true. Also worth noting was the U.S. infantry in WW2 were issued Garands, as opposed to bolt action rifles, which may have lessened the need for a "true" squad LMG, since the Garand was capable a much greater RoF than any bolt action. But there we go getting into WW2 again, which I have far more knowledge of than WW1.
 
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