Just what would be considered the best infantry combat rifle of WWII?

[gunadvocate]

Its a pretty commonly disputed claim... I would think it safe to call the "ping" as the downfall- the urban legend.

[ALR]

What is the M1 Garand? ( As in JEOPARDY)

[SightNSqueeze]

Originally Posted by Old Steve

Referring to SightNSqueez's comments on the MP44 in the Ardennes, I wonder if the reports might be of the FG42, the parachutists rifle, ordered by the Luftwaffe for paratroopers but never used, as after the losses at Crete were evaluated, the use of paratroops was essentially discontinued. According to British reports this was a superb weapon, selective fire full power 8mm with side feed magazine so it could be used prone, Features included a straight buttstock and raked pistol grip so it didn't climb, stopped closed in semi-auto and open bolt in full auto. According to the report 7000 of them were made and never issued, but in the winter of 1944 the Weremacht grabbed them and issued them immediately, so while numerically quite rare, they were very common on that front. Essentially they were the weight of an M1 and had the capabilities of the BREN. There were a lot of good ideas in Germany in those years that didn' go very far.

Below are some online images of FG42 assault rifles inclusing one in use by a paratrooper in northern Italy in the winter of late '43/early'44. According to another reference that I have, the paratrooper in the first image is actually wearing Italian jump pants and Italian camo pattern jacket.

The FG-42

[SightNSqueeze]

Originally Posted by Cyrano

You don't want to make that claim, that the AK-47 borrowed heavily from the Sturmgewehr-44, if General Kalashnikov is in the room.

Kalashnikov maintains that he came up with the AK-47 all on his own, and there's evidence to support his claim. He was wounded out of combat in 1942, before the StG-44 was introduced on the Ostfront.

The AK wasn't his first attempt at a rifle firing the intermediate-power cartridge that is characteristic of all assault rifles. The 7.62x39 cartridge was in existence by 1944, and he designed a semi-auto battle rifle he himself admits was influenced by the M-1 Garand in that year. (His entry lost out to Simonov's SKS rifle.) That rifle led him to design a second assault rifle in 1946, and some of its features were incorporated into his AK-47.

As I see it, what the StG-44 and the AK-47 have in common are design concepts and requirements inherent in the assault mission, rather than mechanical commonality.

I probably should not have used the term "borrowed heavily" in reference to Kalashnikov's design. The mechanical differences are indeed overwhelming; however, the similarities in their basic ergonomics and general configuration are glaring. Notable is the location of the gas tube and the stock configuration.

[patton_jmh]

Look everyone, we see these posts all the time: "Which in your opinion is the best_____of WW2". Now, we can sit here all day and debate these kinds of things, but what it comes down to is: most of the small arms and weapons used by the allies in WW2 were very good weapons and served for many years after, and some before, the war. But ultimately, what it comes down to is: we won.

[shop tom]

#4 1936 MAS France was defeated almost at the beginning of the war but the rifle wasn't to blame. Accurate, nice handling, with sights as good as any but the Americans'. The main drawback with the rifle is it's lack of a mechanical safety. The mainspring is so strong that if you close the bolt but leave the handle up,turning it just enough to begin to engage (maybe 5 degrees) and pull the trigger, it will finish rotating the bolt for you. I haven't tried it with a live round, so I don't know if the fring pin comes down with enough force to fire. The only way to avoid this is to leave the handle totally un-engaged.

The M-N does the same thing.

tom

[tsherm]

I would agree with the M1 Garand as the best.

[sergey96]

And SVT-40 best too
westrifle.com

[Kaybe]

StG-44!! Intermediate rifle cartridge, low recoil, high capacity magazine, lighter than the Garand, rapid magazine change! The Garand is a great gun, but for war, I would rather have the StG-44. If you can read this, thank a teacher, if you are reading this in English, thank a soldier. Thanks guys

[big shrek]

Someone shoulda made this a POLL...

[MilkMan]

M1 Garand

[troy2000]

Originally Posted by gunadvocate

Its a pretty commonly disputed claim... I would think it safe to call the "ping" as the downfall- the urban legend.

I don't think it would have been all that safe to tell my dad his memories were "just urban legend."

Originally Posted by bobvonb

could be, but he had to ignore the 8 loud bangs between the pings first. just doesn't seem very plausible to me.

Well, if we'd had this discussion last year, you could have asked my dad personally. He toted an M1 across several islands in the Philippines, in between being a BAR gunner, and he's the one who said the ping could be heard in combat, and that the Japs took advantage of it.

You have to remember he wasn't usually fighting pitched battles in the old-fashioned sense of the term, with massed firepower. I believe the typical situation he was thinking of would be his company in its foxholes trying to get some sleep...while the Japanese probed and poked the perimeter off and on all night long, making diversionary attacks on one side while their buddies on the other side were trying to cut the wire, trying to concentrate on the men in one or two foxholes at a time, trying to make an opening somewhere they could come pouring through....

I got the impression that a lot of the time the Americans owned the day, and the Japanese owned the night.

[Old Steve]

In the recent book "Sniper" the use of the M1C and M1D as modified for sniper use is discussed, and the ping and the flying clip are both discussed as giving away your location, apparently ears are better at locating the high-pitched ping than the explosion. The Marine snipers preferred the special Springfield M1903A4 or Winchester model 70s because the flying brass is also a giveaway, Also because scopes are not readily mounted on the M1. Snipers are very sneaky.