Best Bolt Rifle of World War I

Best Bolt Rifle of World War I

  • U.S. Springfield

    Votes: 47 24.6%

  • British Lee-Enfield

    Votes: 78 40.8%

  • German Mauser

    Votes: 50 26.2%

  • Russian Mosin-Nagant

    Votes: 7 3.7%

  • Other

    Votes: 9 4.7%
  • Total voters
    191
  • Poll closed .
The Mosin, however did win WWII, as the other allies would not have been able to take Germany without their help. If the Germans full force had been on the western front, I am sure we would've been speaking German or Japanese.

People underestimate how close we were in WWI and II to losing, at several points our then antiquated military techniques cost thousands of lives and we were in such deadlocks that through attrition, the Germans had a good chance of defeating us. The Achilles heel of Germany in WWI was that they relied too much on the Allies delay in adapting to the trench warfare, in WWII it was Hitler sabotaging weapons development, had weapons like the MP44 and FG42 and so on had been more heavily fielded, we would have been devastated.

Enough with the aside.
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You're leaving out a number of salient facts:
1) The Russians supplied ZERO of their own locomotive power during the war. Every locomotive put into service after hostilities commenced with Germany came to them from Lend Lease. I make this my #1 point because the only way the Russians survived was by moving their entire industrial base east to escape German bombing - BY RAIL.
2) The Russians invested ZERO resources into strategic bombing. All of this came from the US and Great Britain. Had the US and Great Britain not launched sustained and massively costly day and night bombing campaigns against German industry, there is little doubt in my mind the war would have turned out completely differently. Allied bombings of German synthfuels plants crippled both the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe and made launching attacks quite difficult and time-consuming.
3) The Russians accepted vast amounts of warmaking materiel and supplies from the western Allies via lend lease. The Russians would never have survived without this assistance.


What the Russians DID do, was correctly calculate that they had the means and resolve to throw more of their own citizens (both combatants and noncombatants alike) into the meatgrinder than the Germans did. Whether this is a morally acceptable act is up to the individual to determine on his or her own; however it is not really open to debate.
 
does this fit "other"

mauser_anti_tank.jpg


13.2mm anti-tank
 
"The Russians supplied ZERO of their own locomotive power during the war. Every locomotive put into service after hostilities commenced with Germany came to them from Lend Lease. I make this my #1 point because the only way the Russians survived was by moving their entire industrial base east to escape German bombing - BY RAIL."

CS, the only problem with that hypothesis is that the first American-built locomotives didn't reach the Soviet Union until Spring...

1944.

By that time the tide of the war had been turned in the East and the Soviets were crushing the Germans.


"The Russians invested ZERO resources into strategic bombing."

Nope. But even if they had, what would they have bombed until well late into the war?

Berlin to Moscow is 1,000 miles.

From where Russian bomber bases could be logically staged to the industrial areas of German was close to 1,500 miles.

American B-29s would have been hard pressed to make those raids.

The kicker of it is, though, that even with almost continuous Allied bombing of German industrial targets, industrial military production continued to go UP right through to the end of the war.

The strategic bombing wasn't nearly as effective at disrupting industrial production as some would have you believe.

Where it truly was effective, however, was in disrupting the transportation system.


"The Russians accepted vast amounts of warmaking materiel and supplies from the western Allies via lend lease. The Russians would never have survived without this assistance."

There's a pretty good argument that they could have. It would have caused the war to drag on for several more years, but the Soviets were exceptionally adept at two things -- trading space for time, and coming up with soldiers in numbers that the Germans couldn't hope to match.

Then there's the fact that for every foot the Soviets retreated their supply lines got shorter, while the German supply lines got longer.
 
And yes, I am supremely guilty of thread jacking, thread drift, and what not.

If any of you Mauser devotees actually think you can make your rifles shoot straight, you can form a firing squad. :p
 
The best weapon the Russians have ever had was, "Father Winter".

It worked against the French and the Germans.

OK before I get blasted, Not so much against Finland :D


Back on subject, I'm still going with other.

Canadian Ross .303 :)
 
Ok, if Egor gets to go with the Ross jam-o-matic... I get to pick the Winchester 1895 chambered in 7.62x54 even though I got no feed back.

Egor- are you solid in your choice? It's my understanding that those rifles were quite famous for getting a good combination of warm and dirty and locking down like a rusted bear trap. Oh, you are talking about the Canadian Ross straight-pull, right?
 
Dang, never mind- it just dawned on me that the OP asked about bolt guns. Even though the Ross was a Straighpull- it's still a bolt I guess.:o
 
Yep, the Ross qualifies as a bolt gun.

The Ross is actually a very good rifle....

IF you keep it clean, IF you assemble the bolt properly (later models didn't have the bolt blow out issue that the earlier designs did), and IF you didn't do too much rapid fire and heat it up too much, which would also cause jamming issues.

The Ross had a reputation for being extremely accurate, more than holding its own in competition against Americans shooting Springfields.

Sir Charles Ross was, in many ways, a visionary in terms of high performance cartridges. The .280 Ross caused a sensation when it came out in the early 1900s, with performance that put it very close to the later 7mm Remington Magnum.
 
The Ross had a reputation for being extremely accurate, more than holding its own in competition against Americans shooting Springfields.

Sir Charles Ross was, in many ways, a visionary in terms of high performance cartridges. The .280 Ross caused a sensation when it came out in the early 1900s, with performance that put it very close to the later 7mm Remington Magnum.
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This part I didn't know. Thanks!
 
I saw a sporterized ross at a pawn shop a few months ago for $450. they vsaid they'd take $350. If it hadn't been sporterized I'd have snapped it up.
 
For God's sake, if ANYONE ever takes the bolt apart on a Ross rifle, when you reassemble it, and before firing it, WATCH THE BOLT HEAD carefully when cycling to make damned sure that it goes into full lock up!

If you don't, and the bolt isn't assembled properly, it can be blown out of the action on firing, severely injuring or killing the shooter.
 
The strategic bombing wasn't nearly as effective at disrupting industrial production

‘The strategic bombing wasn't nearly as effective at disrupting industrial production as some would have you believe.

Where it truly was effective, however, was in disrupting the transportation system.’


The other thing Strategic bombing achieved was to divert nearly 1 million German personal and their associated equipment towards anti aircraft duties and away from deployment in the East. This includes everything from a huge investment by the Luftwaffe to the fact that municipal fireman could not be conscripted.
Whether this would have made a huge difference considering the vast population the Russians had, literally, at their disposal is debateable. But it can't have helped
 
Scribe:

Feel free to contradict this if it is not true.
If the Luftwaffe had persisted in repeated tactical bombing of England's radar stations near Kent etc, they just might have defeated the RAF.

Of course a few bombs from He-111s mistakenly dropped on London and the RAF's reaction by bombing Berlin (....you can call me Meyer".), causing the Luftwaffe to mostly target London also helped spare RAF bases from continuous attacks.

With Luftwaffe air supremacy, the sea invasion force of operation "Seelowe" (Sea lion) might have conquered Britain, and denied our Air Corps a vital, huge "aircraft carrier", as some British guys describe the many US/RAF bases.

Back to rifles. Along with the Navy and Merchant Marine sailors and other cargo, I hate to imagine how many Lee-Enfield rifles were lost in U-Boote 'Angriffe' on Allied shipping.
 
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Ignition Override

I think you are pretty much on the mark. My Godfather was career Royal Air Force from 1937 to 1959 and, like many veterans, he spoke a lot about his time in the service but very little about his operational experience. His view was the Germans lost the Battle of Britain because they failed to grasp the significance of RADAR and that the Battle was about destroying the RAF and gaining air superiority for the invasion. Once they switched their attacks from the airfields to Britain’s major cities they gave the RAF breathing space.
He said that if they had been as innovative in the air as they were on land, they would have flattened the RADAR stations and then put a perimeter of paratroops around them to prevent them from being repaired. Then they could have bombed the fighter air fields with a much greater element of surprise and in his view that would probably have been it.
The war might have gone very differently. There would have been no ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier’ for the Allies even if the Americans had deployed to the European Theatre. May be the British Empire would have continued the fight, but it is possible that if the Germans had not had to divert resources to The Battle of the Atlantic, the North African Campaign and the Allied bomber offensive, things might have gone differently in the East. Who knows?
However, my Godfather did say that the British won the Battle of Britain by a very narrow margin.
 
"If the Luftwaffe had persisted in repeated tactical bombing of England's radar stations near Kent etc, they just might have defeated the RAF."

Radar installations weren't the main issue. Those allowed the RAF to respond to German raids much faster but they weren't critical to the overall survival of the RAF.

What was absolutely KILLING the RAF, though, were the German raids on RAF airfields. Had those continued unabated, it's very likely that the RAF would have lost air superiority by late September or early October 1940, but almost certainly by the end of 1940.

As it was, the German switch from bombing RAF installations to bombing cities commenced on September 7, 1940, and continued against London for almost two straight months.

For almost two weeks, no German bombers struck RAF installations. It was a crucial breathing period for the RAF, allowing damaged installations to be made fully operational, reduced the number of aircraft damaged or destroyed in raids to almost nil, and more importantly, it allowed the RAF to replace aircraft that had been destroyed and train new pilots to replace those who had been wounded or killed.
 
The true US service rifle of WWI was the M1917. More 17s were issued than M1903s. And if it were in the poll, I would have chosen it. If only because it has much better ergonomics and sights than the others of the era.

So getting back to the four offerings....

The Mosin is crude with an awkward safety. Not #1

The Springfield is a Mauser copy. But being shorter than the Gew98 it's a bit handier and better balanced, which is good......until you go bayonet to bayonet with a kraut with a real Mauser. However since it's basically a modifications of another weapon on the list, it is not #1

So, for me, it's down to SMLE vs. Gew 98.
If we consider the rifles as individual implemets, it's a close call.
But personally, I'd have to go with the SMLE. The deciding factor comes down to twice the mag capacity and slightly better ergonomics, with a better positioned safety and turned down bolt handle.
For historical significance, innovation, and design longevity. The winner, hands down is the Mauser 98.
 
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