the ideal wwii infantry squad....armament and tactics

Just wanted to get some thoughts on this idea. If you could assemble the ideal infantry squad in wwii what would it look like in terms of weapons and tactics. To toss an example out there, maybe you would use the German approach, and have the MG-42 be the main thrust of the attack, supported by 2 BARS, 1 Bren, and the remainder M-1's. Lets not include MP-44's, since they arrived late in the war. Well at least thats my perception, if MP-44's were used widely then they too can be included. Thanks!

on 4/1/02 10:36 AM:

Having three types of squad LMGs using three different types of ammunition is a *really bad* idea. Just keeping the MG42 supplied required pretty much the rest of the squad to serve as ammo bearers, BTW. Adding three more LMGs wouldn't have lightened that load any.

As for my own ideas, a belt-fed BREN with quick-change barrels, the rest of the squad armed with M1s might have been pretty good. For urban or other close fighting substitute SMGs for half of the rifles.

Someone has to carry that ammunition! By all means, the M-1s for the riflemen and the MG-42 instead of a BAR. I don't see how ordinary men could support four automatic weapons

There's no point to BARs AND Brens. The Bren can do the same job, and better.

I would add the Japanese grenade discharger ('knee mortar', a handy and useful light support weapon.

I would also add at least one M1C/D sniper rifle.

writes

1942.

Personally... I'd say the (largely theoretical) late war german squad of one or two mg42 team(s) plus the rest stg44 was the best armed squad. It really existed.

Otherwise, the bren is a far better weapon than the BAR, so I'd not have BARs. All the OR indicates that weapons crewed by two people fire much more than those by a single person.... So whatever fully auto weapon, so long as you have two people manning the thing, they will likely be much more effective than two riflemen. Unless extremely well motivated. mg42 were a good weapon though and that high RoF useful, changeable barrel, belt fed, reliable, cheap....

First hand accounts frequently indicate poor marksmanship, extremely poor beyond 100 yards or thereabouts. IMO, the m1 carbine would therefore be a more effective weapon than the m1 rifle. 30 rounds capacity, handier, lighter.

If you want all to be armed with weapons of their own allies... then I'd say 2 brens and the rest the m2 carbine (IIRC)... the one converted to fire semi/full auto... although that's later war than the stg43... PPSh or even stens would, imo, be fair substitutes for the carbines. so long as the magazines were late war quality, the sten was a fair enough weapon and dead cheap.

Tactically, I think it fairly obvious the germans had the best standard infantry tactics.

Andy O'Neill www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm

Postwar infantry squads have tended to have one GPMG and a bunch of assault rifles. The MG42 was the GPMG of its time, and the MP44 the first assault rifle. If you want to leave off the MP44, then the best replacement would be the M1 Garand.

To toss an example out there, maybe you would

One MG42 could very nicely fire all the ammo that an infantry squad could carry. If we assume a motorized squad, then we can add more MG42s if desired. In no case do we want to mix automatic weapons like that.

If its a U.S. squad and I can tweak the weapons a bit then there is no reason why the MG42 couldn't be chambered for .30/06 and have a slower firing rate of 800 rpm like the modern MG42/59. I'd also give the M1 Garand a 10 rd magazine allowing it to be loaded from 5 rd stripper clips (the Japanese built a copy like this) and give the squad a M1903A4 sniper rifle.

I used both these weapons as a soldier in the 1950s. They were probably WWII, not at the peak of their form. However:

The M-1 Garand was a superlative rifle that operated in rain, mud, and snow. Even a draftee klutz like me could field-strip it and put it together again under dismal conditions. Apart from the 22-caliber target rifle on a Springfield chassis that I shot as a college student, the Garand was the sweetest rifle to aim and fire that I have ever used. Since it was fueled from the top, you could reload it while staying very low to the ground. If it jammed, it could be fired almost as easily and quickly as a bolt-action rifle, though to be sure your palm would soon wear out slamming it closed.

The M-1 carbine by contrast was an utter piece of junk. I would prefer it to a pistol but just barely. My weapon was 1048803 (sir!). Anyone who had to carry it into combat ought to have received the last rites before he went. I was never able to fire a magazine from it without having it jam, sometimes to the point that only the company armorer could make it work again. It seemed that the bolt simply got cockeyed. I was never able to make a good pattern on a target with it, and I doubt very much that I could have hit a target as small as a man at more than 100 yards.

That said, it is true that ten years later in Vietnam, most of the American advisers I saw in the field carried the M-1 or perhaps M-2 carbine. (The rifle that later became the M-16 was at that time available only to Special Forces.) So perhaps 1048803 was an aberration.

all the best

The Brit.s tried to develop a belt fed Bren, but never quite pulled it off. However a magazine fed Bren in .30-06 would have been a good

The only reason why it WASN'T successfully converted to .30-06 was that the designer who generated the production drawings made no allowance for the difference in length between the 7.92x57mm and the 7.62x63mm (.30-06). The gun locked up every time it was fired.

Even with the 8 round en bloc clip, the Garand was head and shoulders over everything it encountered except the StG44. The Japanese especially got a horrible shock when they tried to use the same tactics against us that they used against the Chinese and British.

But better terminal ballistics then a pistol round, and the M1/M2 carbine should really be compared to other sub machine guns where it comes out far ahead of the competition.

I'd take an M1/M2 carbine over any sub-machine any day, it was more powerful, longer ranged, had greater accuracy, better ergonomics and was lighter then the sub machine guns of the day.

The carbine really should be classified as a sub-machine gun since the cartridge it uses is basically a magnum pistol round and if it was thought of that way it would be regarded as the best sub machine gun of the war.