STG44 impact

Hitler wrote as early as 1923 in Mein Kampf of his designs on Russia. It was no secret from anyone half paying attention. The fertile Black Earth, the industrial heart of the Don Bas, unlimited natural resources, especially oil, etc. were by rights of the "master race" their's for the taking. Hitler was a sworn, bitter enemy of Bolshevism just as much as International Jewry. By contrast, Stalin had ideological goals to expand his brand of Communism into Europe and beyond...just wait it out until Germany and the Western Allies beat themselves up enough.

War between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was as inevitable as the sun coming up tomorrow. This was not lost on Stalin....The 1939 Non Aggression Pact was just a maneuver by two wolves to buy time before getting at each others throats. Whether or not the Germans had the STG 44 earlier wouldn't have made a lick of difference in the final outcome.
 
The war between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was particularly bitter and brutal. Because it wasn't just a war between nations, it was also a war between ideologies, both Socialist. Both sides held the other to be a heretical interpretation of the "holy word", and like other religious wars, the enemy was not only to be defeated, but was to be punished for their false beliefs.

Technical disparity between opposing forces does matter, but what matters more is how weapons and troops are organized and used. It is little known, outside of historians and hobbyists that when the Blitzkrieg was launched against France and the Low Countries, the Germans had fewer tanks than the combined French and British forces, and the bulk of Germany's tank were light tanks, armed with only a couple machine guns, or a machine gun and a 20mm cannon. But they used them differently than the Allies. Concentrated with some of their infantry close at hand, and with the Luftwaffe being their "flying artillery". It was the first use of combined arms and the Allies were unprepared for the speed of the new form of combat.

German communications also gave them a huge advantage. Nearly every German tank had a radio so information and orders flowed more easily in their armored formations.

It is axiomatic that democracies (the defending nations) go into battle superbly equipped to fight the last war. The Blitzkrieg was enough of a leap forward in both technology AND tactics that France, who had fought Imperial Germany essentially to a stand still for years in WW I, was defeated in six weeks. Germany attacked on May 10, and France signed the surrender June 22, 1940.

Think about that.

Do you think France would have fallen significantly sooner if every Landser had been carrying an StG 44 instead of a Kar 98k??
 
Good post Amp...another related... Do you believe US forces would have got within striking distance of Japan, as soon as we did, without the M1 Garand?

Not an assault rifle like the STG but the only general issue auto loading battle rifle at the time.

Certainly, the decisive weapon in the Pacific war was the fleet aircraft carrier which enabled us to get close enough to deliver the ultimate decision makers, the B29 and the nuclear bombs and related fire bombing of Japan's industries and population. Of course, overwhelming US industrial capacity enabled this.

That said, and emotional patriotism aside and considering Japanese tactics, I can't help but believe that the mighty Garand was a significant factor in defeating the Japanese in the island war. I think General MacArthur would agree :)
 
I read once where Patton said that having soldiers advance while firing their M1 Garands gave the troops a psychological boost.

The semi-auto M1 might have had a broader impact on success in many ways.
 
JJ45 said:
Do you believe US forces would have got within striking distance of Japan, as soon as we did, without the M1 Garand?
Click to expand...
I'm not 44 AMP but I'll play. :)

IMHO the Garand helped the USA win a few land engagements a little faster and with fewer casualties, but we would have eventually won all of those battles even if our troops were armed with Krags, because the Japanese military's #1 mistake in WWII was their lack of a practical and coherent strategy to protect their supply lines. It doesn't matter if your troops have bolt-actions, semi-autos, or submachine guns when there's not enough ammunition (not to mention food).

Japan's strategy in WWII was almost completely predicated on rapid and decisive victory over the US Navy, and their leaders monumentally failed to come up with a workable alternative after it became clear that this wasn't going to happen. They tried to wage a war of attrition over the largest geographical theater of operations in world history with an almost totally ad-hoc resupply system. It was only a matter of time before they lost.
JJ45 said:
Certainly, the decisive weapon in the Pacific war was the fleet aircraft carrier which enabled us to get close enough to deliver the ultimate decision makers...
Click to expand...
Aircraft carriers get the credit for winning most of the big battles, but IMHO an equal but less glamorous part was played by the USN submarine force, PT boats, and USAAF long-range air patrols. Popular military histories don't talk about them as often because they were mostly attacking sparsely defended supply vessels, which superficially seems like fighting dirty, but Japan's failure to protect these ships is ultimately one of the main reasons that the USA won.
 
Do you believe US forces would have got within striking distance of Japan, as soon as we did, without the M1 Garand?
Click to expand...

Sure. We did get US forces within striking distance of Japan, BEFORE the M1 was in service in the Pacific. The Doolittle raid was definitely US forces, and they did strike Japan, though the attack was not significant in terms of damage caused by the bombs, it was very significant on the political and morale fronts of both the US and Japan.

Marines went ashore on Guadalcanal Aug 7, 1942. With the 1903 Springfield as their infantry rifle. The M1 Garand didn't show up in numbers in the Pacific until 1943. The M1 Garand was absolutely a benefit to our riflemen, and did give them an edge over the bolt actions of our enemies. But it didn't win battles, or the war all by itself. Before the introduction of the M1 Garand, (and a little later the M1 Carbine) and after, our riflemen were also supported by BARs, the Tommygun, and one of the better machineguns ever fielded, the Browning .30 cal. Even the "lowly" 1911A1 .45 pistol played an important part. Many of the veterans I have spoken with made a point of saying how they were able to speak to me only because the .45 pistol saved their butts.

Ground combat in the Pacific didn't offer terrain for large scale battles of movement like what happened in Europe or North Africa. There were few instances where long range rifle fire was an important factor. Some, of course, but nothing close to the scale of what happened in Europe.

What got US forces to Japan was the Navy, and the Marines, supported by airpower from all services. Army forces did play a significant part later in the war (retaking the Philippines, and other places)

Don't underestimate the role played by our submarines, either. Once we finally got most of the bugs out of our torpedoes, our submarines success sinking Japanese tankers and supply ships effectively strangled Japan's ability to use the heavy units of their surface fleet aggressively, due to lack of fuel.

Ground combat on the Pacific islands was mostly to secure a location for an airbase, and deny the Japanese the same, and to liberate former US held territory conquered by the Japanese. Much different than ground combat in the European Theater.
 
Getting way off subject but since we are talking strategic can't minimize our cryptographers that broke the Japanese naval and diplomatic codes. Instrumental in the crucial victory at Midway.

Ultra (not fully revealed until the 70s) and Soviet spys (Lucy, Werther come to mind) Stalin knew what the Germans were up to even before the German command in the field knew...although he didn't always trust it.
 
To bring this thread back on topic (kinda), I think another interesting debate is the possible impact of the FG 42 or Fallschirmjägergewehr (say that 10 times fast ;)) had it been distributed more widely.

Of course, I've heard it argued that the FG 42 was somewhat analogous to the Tiger tank or Heinkel He 177—awesome when used properly, but so complex and expensive that its development and deployment may have actually been counterproductive overall.
 
So, what caliber when hunting a cryptographer on a submarine?
Click to expand...

No idea, tis an Enigma, to me...:rolleyes:

I think another interesting debate is the possible impact of the FG 42 or Fallschirmjägergewehr (say that 10 times fast ) had it been distributed more widely.
Click to expand...

Ah, the FG 42, the "Umbrellahunter's Rifle" further proof of the fact that the Germans make wonderful toys. ;)

Look at all the desirable "modern" features in that rifle (especially the "2nd model").

Straight line stock
pistol grip
select fire with both open and closed bolt operation
bipod as part of the rifle
optical sight, and "light weight", compared to a standard machine gun.

Complex (and expensive) to make, I don't think it would have had a significant impact on the outcome of the war, even if it had been the standard infantry rifle. Rifles alone, don't win or lose wars.

But they can make a big difference to the guys shooting them and the guys getting shot at by them.
 
The 8X57 FG42 is strikingly similar to our own 30-06 BAR. I don't think it was as reliable as the BAR.

The BAR seems to have been very highly regarded by our own troops as well as the enemy....Chuck Taylor once opined that it never should have been dropped from issue as a SAW...logistically, it's obvious that supplying 30-06 would be impractical.
 
If the Germans had made better decisions on weapons, strategies, and politics, don't you think they would have been sorry? Say about August 6th?
 
1. I think if they made better choices in politics, we wouldn't be having a conversation about Nazi wonder weapons/strategies

2. I always find it funny that it was assumed that Stalin was going to fully uphold the non-aggression pact. Though taken by complete surprise (reportedly locked himself in a room for a week after the initial invasion and not seen in public for said period), there is no way either one of them (Hitler/Stalin) would have kept that pact and both knew it, it was just a matter of when and Stalin misjudged that vastly. And as said previously, Hitler was watering at the mouth for the area of Ukraine and the Caucuses (sp?) for his Liebenstrom and all the oil that the Caucuses produced.

3. I've also read accounts that one of the major military blunders for the Japanese, were their ties to their weapons due to tradition. The top brass drastically dragged their feet implementing a heavy bullet submachine gun into service, like the Thompson. According to the some books I've read during my studies (so many of them, I'd have to go back and look for specific references) The submachine gun and specifically the heavier bullets, were ideal for jungle fighting due to the slower, heavier bullet not being deflected as much from twigs and leaves as a lighter bullet. And of course putting 500 rd/min of those down range helps as well. Of course tactics come into play as well, but Marines were issued Thompsons and 1911s that helped penetrate foliage better than a Nambu pistol and the like. Again I'd have to look up my references on that again but that was something that really stuck with me.

4. I'm a strong believer the M1 Garand had a large impact in the war and I think people here underestimate the influence the STG44 had. It is a lot easier to fire and move and fire while moving with a semiauto rifle than a bolt action. Now put yourself in the shoes of the Germans engaging Americans with M1 Garands. You aim your rifle at at the soldier behind the wagon and take a shot, miss... Instantly you are being peppered with semiautomatic rounds and you need to take cover. By the time you aim to take another shot, your target and his friends have just closed the gap while you were seeking cover and you may have never seen it coming! Now you have to fall back because you don't have the fire superiority and now you lost that terrain. The implications of that were huge, especially during the days immediately following D Day. I think if the STG44 was implemented prior to D Day, the Allies' all out gamble would have been vastly more costly and possibly a failure just due to Germans being able to compete with fire superiority and maneuvers.


Note: I apologize for spelling mistakes and ramblings, been sitting in my patrol car for 7 hours on a full Thanksgiving Day meal belly. Its rough....
 
1. I think if they made better choices in politics, we wouldn't be having a conversation about Nazi wonder weapons/strategies
Click to expand...

I shouldn't have mentioned politics meaning international geopolitics when it could be taken as internal politics and the possibility of the Germans not giving ol Adolf power.

Should have just left it technology and strategy. If the Germans had dragged out the war a few months longer, they might have met "Little Boy."

I am influenced by having just read 'Berlin Project' by Gregory Benford. A counterfactual history/alternate probability assuming the Manhattan Project had made some tech decisions that would have accelerated U235 production.
 
I wound up watching part of one of those "10 Best" show late last night, the one on combat rifles, and while they got some facts wrong, and I disagree with their rating system and rankings there were some interesting things.

One was a comment about the M1 Garand made by a British historian, speaking about the M1 vs bolt actions. He said (in essence),
"the major advantage of the M1 was its semiautomatic action. You had 8 shots without needing to break your point of aim. When you turned that corner, or broke through that door, you had 8 shots instantly available, your enemy had one,"

That's a big thing, when you think about it.

The Sturmgewehr had the same advantages, but with 30 shots, and full auto fire on demand.

As far as the Japanese, their military leadership (Army and Navy ground forces) knew their small arms were not cutting edge tech. It didn't matter. The Japanese footsoldier was expect to win victory because of his "warrior spirit". They never fielded any SMG in quantity, let alone a big bore one.

One "Tales of the Gun" episode covered Japanese WWII small arms. It was interesting, particularly the firing of them. Using Japanese ammo, they fired one magazine from pistols, rifles, SMG (yes the rare Japanese SMG), and some of the machine guns. The ONLY weapon that didn't jam, at least once, was the Arisaka bolt action rifle.

As to using the A bomb on Germany, had the war gone on longer, I am uncertain. I think arguments against using the bomb on Germany would have carried more weight than those against using it on Japan. Germans understood, and accepted the concept of negotiated surrender, for one, and for another, there were "innocent" people in Europe (entire nations,), something that was not believed about Japan...

True, or not, it was believed that the German people would have surrendered, if the Nazi leadership was taken out of the picture, while the Japanese people would have resisted to their last breath, no matter what. This belief was one of the reasons that the Atomic bombing of Japan specifically EXCLUDED Tokyo as a target. The point was to minimize the risk of killing the Japanese Emperor. Only the Emperor had the authority to order a surrender, and if the hated enemy had killed him, nothing would have convinced the Japanese to surrender.
 
The Bomb was not used on Germany because they surrendered before it was ready. V-E Day was May 7, (May 8) for the Soviets, the Day of Trinity was July 16, 1945.
In the Pacific War especially we outbuilt the Japanese. IIRC for every carrier they commissioned after Pearl Harbor we built 4 or 5, including the big fleet carriers. And we had the planes and the men to man them.
Again, I think the STG44 would have complicated their already strained logistics system. Also would have required major tactical adjustments.
 
The Germans would have a adapted as they did with the "Kriegsmodell" K98...towards the end of the war, made cheaper with no bayonet lug, cleaning rod, take down disk, etc. to cut costs and production time. But no less effective a weapon. Make extensive use of stampings, etc., and eliminate unnecessary frills....I once read that the Soviet PPsh machine pistol cost about $1.50 (US) a piece to produce and in some of the production runs, the select fire option was even eliminated.

Lucky for us (and the world) Hitler nearly ignored the most revolutionary weaponry of the 20th century, nuclear fission, which was discovered by German physicists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann in Germany in the 30s. Although working on it somewhat half-heartedly....Hence the famous Einstein letter to FDR..

Had he emphasized the bomb, and was successful, just use your imagination
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top