stonewall50
New member
Just curious how others think the STG44 could have impacted the second world war had it come into service in 1939 rather than much later.
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JJ45 said:The Germans were wore down by the attrition of the Eastern Front. Their "wonder weapons" such as the MK V Tiger the Panther and Koenigs Tiger as well as their use of rocketry and jet engines in the West was not enough to turn the massive tide arrayed against them. Had THOSE weapons appeared earlier, they would have made a bigger impact than an earlier appearance of the world's first "assault rifle"
Excellent points, and I would also surmise that had the StG44 been deployed in large numbers earlier, the Soviets would have correspondingly reverse-engineered it earlier, with the net result being the same—the Germans being overwhelmed by superior Soviet war materiel production capacity.Kvon2 said:Another point of view - it likely would have been a good bit more expensive to arm more soldiers with the STG44 and to give them an appropriate number of rounds. Might have actually hurt them to some degree.
Not necessarily, given that its very limited range—a drawback shared by all first-generation jet fighters—rendered it primarily useful as a defensive weapon. As such, it could have had a serious effect on the Allied strategic bombing campaign, but this leads into yet more debate about whether said campaign really affected the outcome of the war and/or achieved its stated purpose, a discussion that has been ongoing since 1945 with no end in sight... and we digress.Slamfire said:I do think if the ME262 had been available in large numbers in 1939, we all might be writing in German right now.
Perhaps, but I would argue that war with the USA or the USSR was inevitable, and I'm not sure Germany could have defeated either country together or separately, StG44 or no, unless one imagines additional advantages in weaponry that verge on pure fiction (e.g. the Kriegsmarine having a larger surface fleet than the Royal Navy and the U.S. and Canadian Atlantic Fleets combined).OzeanJaeger said:If the Germans had the STG44, and didn't renege on their pact with Stalin and attack The USSR they would have won the war.