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M1 is a great autoloader, and this article really spells out the difficulty in getting the Defense Department to . . ahh . . stop looking towards the past. I wa

M1 is a great autoloader, and this article really spells out the difficulty in getting the Defense Department to . . ahh . . stop looking towards the past. I was gonna say something different but thought better of it. I'd also like to shine a light on early efforts at an individual squad automatic weapon in the former Russian Empire, culminating in the 1915 Fedorov Avtomat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedorov_Avtomat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedorov_Avtomat Ian McCollum did a Forgotten Weapons on this one as well https://youtu.be/M7yhQXFKHMc?si=-nd4mNhsA-DHbqzr https://youtu.be/M7yhQXFKHMc?si=-nd4mNhsA-DHbqzr The Russians had arguably the most combat experience with high volume of fire in defense, thanks to the experiences of the Russo-Japanese war, and what's more, they sought to capitalize on it, seeing it as working hand in hand with the geographic strengths of the Empire. The Revolution put a serious speed bump in that, obviously, as the most forward thinking military folks were not going to get on terribly well during the purges. Tukhachevsky says hello. But if the Fedorov had just a slightly different timeline, we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1. As it was, we had to wait for the AVS-36 to make its appearance as the first selective fire battle rifle.

riku_iki 3y ago
> we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1 but there were plenty automatic rifle designs by the ww2, still most infantry used bolt action rifles, likely bottleneck was in reliable mass manufacturing.
- benj111 3y ago
  There's a couple of issues. 1. Militaries generally feared their soldiers using too much ammo. Eg the magazine Lee Enfield was only supplied with one magazine, and early on was only intended to be fired single shot with the magazine used in an emergency. 2. Cost. You see all kinds of conversion proposals to update bolt action rifles for this reason. I believe the French actually updated flintlock rifles all the way up to breach loaders rather than buying new.
- MilStdJunkie 3y ago
  Yeah, they were stuck with what they had tooling for. That was specifically brought up in the case of the Red Army: they had designs, but they couldn't possibly supply the numbers. Not after the purges, and then the utterly preposterous losses of 1941-1942. Which, well, a lot of that was the purges. It forced them to re-equip the whole Red Army three times over. I guess without the purges, a whole lot changes. It's a huge wildcard in the alternate history. Also, doctrine, logistics, the everything . . just didn't know what to do with a infantry platoon when everyone has a machine gun. It screwed up the machine . . and, let's be honest, the infantryman's small arm is a teensy tiny minority of where casualties come from. Even back in 1941. Far better to keep the big wheel turning with motorized transport, artillery, aircraft.

riku_iki 3y ago

> we could have seen a very different infantry landscape in late-WW1 but there were plenty automatic rifle designs by the ww2, still most infantry used bolt action rifles, likely bottleneck was in reliable mass manufacturing.

benj111 3y ago
There's a couple of issues. 1. Militaries generally feared their soldiers using too much ammo. Eg the magazine Lee Enfield was only supplied with one magazine, and early on was only intended to be fired single shot with the magazine used in an emergency. 2. Cost. You see all kinds of conversion proposals to update bolt action rifles for this reason. I believe the French actually updated flintlock rifles all the way up to breach loaders rather than buying new.
MilStdJunkie 3y ago
Yeah, they were stuck with what they had tooling for. That was specifically brought up in the case of the Red Army: they had designs, but they couldn't possibly supply the numbers. Not after the purges, and then the utterly preposterous losses of 1941-1942. Which, well, a lot of that was the purges. It forced them to re-equip the whole Red Army three times over. I guess without the purges, a whole lot changes. It's a huge wildcard in the alternate history. Also, doctrine, logistics, the everything . . just didn't know what to do with a infantry platoon when everyone has a machine gun. It screwed up the machine . . and, let's be honest, the infantryman's small arm is a teensy tiny minority of where casualties come from. Even back in 1941. Far better to keep the big wheel turning with motorized transport, artillery, aircraft.