WWII guns, Americans reserved better guns from use?

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@t-bonham@scc.net

I heard that same story, but about the US Civil War: that the Union War Department refused to buy Gatling guns for the troops, because they would waste too much ammunition.

Cartridge firing rifles got the same shrift, but in this case it was ultra-lazy quartermaster generals not wanting to supply another type of ammo.

[Scumpup]

Before we go talking smack on the quartermasters, let’s remember a few things.

1. Getting ammo to the troops was no trivial feat. Once it reached the rail depot, every inch it moved from there was by animal or human muscle. No trucks. No airdrops.
2. There were competing designs of repeating rifles, each of which used proprietary ammo.
3. Those proprietary cartridges weren’t produced by all and sundry ammunition makers.
4. None of the repeater manufacturers were capable of producing their weapon in adequate numbers to equip an army.
   There was a war to be won and the standard issue weapons were adequate to the task. The monumental logistical goatfuck the repeaters would have involved wasn’t worth it.

[engineer_comp_geek]

@t-bonham@scc.net

I heard that same story, but about the US Civil War: that the Union War Department refused to buy Gatling guns for the troops, because they would waste too much ammunition.

There is some truth to that. Rapid fire guns like the Gatling gun (as well as many other lesser well known designs like the Coffee Mill Gun) had yet to prove their worth in battle, and the Ordnance Dept. considered them to be too wasteful of ammunition to ever be practical. Many were placed in locations like near bridges or narrow passes where they wouldn’t consider the huge expenditure of ammo to be as wasteful, and as a result the guns never got to show their true worth on the battlefield.

It’s easy to call the Ordnance Dept. short sighted, but you have to keep in mind that mass produced brass cartridges weren’t widely available yet. In order to have a successful rapid fire gun you need not only a good solid gun design (which they still hadn’t quite perfected yet) but you need cheap, producible, and reliable ammunition to fire out of it, and they weren’t quite ready for prime time with that yet either.

[glaeken]

@Scumpup

What semi-automatic rifles did they even have the option to adopt? I can think of only a couple, the Mexican Mondragon and the French Fusil Automatique Modele 1917, that were produced in any numbers at the time. Neither was any great shakes with respect to ergonomics, reliability or durability.

Well the below was already in existence.

Remington Model 8

No idea if it would have been suitable for military use but it was around long before WW1 started.

[benbo1]

@Johnny_L.A

I’ve heard the story described in the OP, but in reference to WWI and not WWII. The story was that the U.S. had the new BAR, but that the government didn’t want to deploy it. I’ve heard two reasons for this: A) They didn’t want the technology to fall into the hands of the Germans; or B) It was a political decision to appease the French, who were supplying the Americans with their Chauchat machine gun. But it appears that lack of production capacity due to Colt making the Vickers machine gun for the British, and the initial quality control problems were actually to blame for it not reaching the front lines until a couple of months before the end of the war.

The Chauchat had a terrible reputation. It jammed readily, probably because of the cheap manufacturing shortcuts needed to make it available in numbers, and due to the open magazine design that collected mud and dirt. The .30-06 version of the Chauchat performed even worse. (The ‘successful’ design was 8mm Lebel.)

It’s possible the OP is conflating the story of the Chauchaut vs. the BAR with the later war.

Johnny L.A. has got it. An interesting p.s. to the WW1 B.A.R. experience, was that 1 of the few soldiers to get actual combat with it, was a Lt. Browning - not a coincidence, the man was the inventor John Browning’s son! Each of the men must have had tremendous faith in the other; the combat solider in his father’s ability as a weapons designer, and the father in the son’s ability as a soldier: he literally put his son’s life into his hands.
At entry into WW2, the Americans already had the famed Tommy Gun, B.A.R., 1919 .30 and .50 cal machine guns, and of course the famed Garand. The carbine was in limited deployment. The bazooka made its debut in 1942 North Africa, and was mainstream for the duration. Nothing really exciting in the world of mortars or artillery (except the proximity fuse as mentioned). Well, there was the calliope, inspired by the Russian Katyusha - an array of rocket tubes arranged in rows sitting atop a tank. As far as new combat personal firearms, the only ones I can think of were the Johnson (issued to the Special Service Group, ‘Devil’s Brigade’) and grease gun - maybe this is what the o.p. is thinking of. It’s a small .45 cal cheap, stamped-metal machine pistol that debuted in 1943 (I think). Very effective for short-range skirmish.
The 1 other big weapon is the one that killed Joe Kennedy Jr. - dunno what it was called, but it was a bomber stuffed with explosives that needed a pilot to take off, who then bailed out while another pilot in a chase plane guided the plane into the target via television (premature detonation killed Kennedy & the co-pilot).
Then again, there’s napalm - its effect was extremely devastating, psychologically as well as physically. It’s said that even the disciplined S.S. ran screaming for cover when they thought a napalm strike was coming.
Can’t think of any other revolutionary weapon (except the ones dropped on Japan, of course). In Korea, they were fighting with the same weapons as in 1945. The M14, considered the next sea-change up from the Garand, didn’t debut til the late 50s - too late for Korea.