After 70 Years, can we finally put this fucking question to rest?
>Was the German army's use of machine guns as the base of fire better than the Anglo obsession with the Cult of the Rifle?
Which doctrine does the American army use today ( last major FM was written in 1980 so it won't break 20 year rule)
>>1388434
Who won?
>>1388447
The Germans did,Whenever it was an infantry vs infantry scenario.
>>1388462
Sauce
>>1388434
Most germans did not have machine guns. The rifle is standard in warfare whether or not you glorify it.
>>1388434
To be clear, when we say "machine gun", are we referring to the modern definition of the term, that covers MG 34s and MG 42s, or to the period definition that could include the MP40 family, even though it was more often called a "machine pistol"?
There is a big difference.
>which doctrine does the American army use today
Marines like Cult of the Rifle, or at least their old man generals do, who still think the M4s shoot bullets that are too small. I'm checking by bookmarks, but I can't find my link to an article from the past five years espousing this view.
I think everyone else likes their automatic carbines.
>>1388507
>http://www.dererstezug.com/TacticalPhilosophies.htm
>>1388434
Doke doke dokeeee~
>>1388447
The fact that the Germans conquered almost all of Europe and North Africa should tell you that they were extremely effective, but the lack of resources combined with harder to produce higher quality equipment they were using lost them the war. Never fall for the "who won?" meme
>>1388507
German riflemen were supporting the machine gun, what OP means is the heavy reliance on a section machine gun
>>1388623
Germany didn't conquer half of Europe. They occupied the low lands, about a third of France, Denmark, Norway, Poland, and parts of USSR for a rather short period of time.
And they did it mostly thanks to their panzer divisions, not their infantry.
>>1388645
Let me rephrase; Germany occupied the low lands, about a third of France, Denmark, Norway, Poland, and parts of USSR. Theoretically, if they had even a fraction of the production power of the US and another year, they would have conquered all of Europe, most of North Africa, and the important parts of the USSR (providing they were properly equipped for the winter). The thanks for their conquering power isn't entirely panzer divisions, but on the combined blitzkrieg of motorized infantry, panzers and the Luftwaffe, as are all successful modern invasions.
>>1388676
Germany was the second largest economy and industry so I think it's fair to say they had a rather impressive production capabilities.
>>1388623
How did Germany conquer almost all of North Africa again? They struggled over Libya, which was Italian territory to begin with, then got Btfo after a small incursion outside of Libya.
>>1388698
The commonly cited reason for Germany losing the war was inferior production capability. While it's better than most of the world, it was just them and Italy against the majority of pic related. The other western powers beat them out by just drowning them in a sea of cheap but plentiful tanks, planes, etc.
>>1388701
Germany had success in their parts of North Africa. It was the territory Italy was responsible for that lead to the failure of the North Africa campaign
>>1388685
Battle level tactics or the war as a whole? I'm significantly more knowledgeable about the former, but I think I got the war as a whole locked down pretty well
>>1388698
Not the guy you're responding to, but they were at least 4th, behind America, the USSR, and the UK. Not sure how they stacked up to France on industry, but they were hardly juggernauts.
>>1388752
There was no German part of Africa. Rommel led a German-Italian force to defend Libya.
>>1388764
Germany was second overall. UK and USSR matched or surpassed Germany in some areas but they had the luxury of focusing on that areas. Also Germany spent a large amount of their production capacity in investing in greater production. In video game terms, Germany was making buildings and teching up while UK and USSR were putting everything into units.
Wasn't German industry kinda backwards with largely artisan based compared to the American fordist conveyor belts?
>>1388799
It was more costly and precise work, but they definitely had production lines. Early war German arms were of extremely high quality
>>1388752
>The commonly cited reason for Germany losing the war was inferior production capability. While it's better than most of the world, it was just them and Italy against the majority of pic related. The other western powers beat them out by just drowning them in a sea of cheap but plentiful tanks, planes, etc.
They were outbuilt, but especially later in the war, they were also just plain outfought. Especialy in the air, Anglo-Americans were slaugthering the Germans from late 43 onwards, and as much hate as the Sherman gets, it tended to stomp not only the PZ4s, but even the Panthers when it fought them in France; you only really see the German armor doing better once you hit the Sigfried line, when they stop acting as "tanks" and more just engage in gunnery duels, and using your tanks as ATGs is absurdly wasteful.
>Germany had success in their parts of North Africa. It was the territory Italy was responsible for that lead to the failure of the North Africa campaign
Can you clarify this statement? Because outside of an assertion that Germany only put a presence into NA because of Italian fuckupery, that's not really true. Once they were in there in force, they made a few monumental blunders, and I think I'd have to doublecheck) they incurred more losses in NA than the British did overall.
>>1388786
>Germany was second overall.
No, they were not.
> UK and USSR matched or surpassed Germany in some areas
In pretty much every area. Either alone outproduced Germany by a fairly massive margin in tanks, artillery, and aircraft, and I'm not even going to get into the disparity of naval vessels the RN had with the Germans.
> Also Germany spent a large amount of their production capacity in investing in greater production.
So.... a lot like everyone else in the war?
>In video game terms, Germany was making buildings and teching up while UK and USSR were putting everything into units.
That is completely retarded and wrong on pretty much every level.
>>1388832
I don't know much about the North Africa campaign, maybe spent 20 minutes on it in a history class. Never looked into it because it didn't really interest me, so my information could be totally flawed. As for European theater, I can really get into that. As for being outfought later in the war, Germany had their relatively skimpy industry decimated by bombs, and alot of experienced soldiers dying in the war and being replaced by children with little training. Early on though, the Germans were rarely outfought, mostly just outnumbered by the shitty shermans
>>1388856
Early on in the war, when Germany was on the offensive, they actually usually had quality inferiority in armor. The Battle of France's main battle tank was the PZII, and the III starting to replace it, and often seriously outmatched (at least in technical specs) by things like the F-35 and the Char B1.
Yeah, the Germans fought hugely well in the early phases of the war, and from say, 1940-1942, they were far and away the best army, per man, on the planet.
But especialyl by the time you see large scale American presence? They were starting to crack. Italy is often considered the slaugtherhouse forgotten theater of WW2, where Americans battered their heads against defensive line after defensive line.
Go look up the actual combat statistics, They often were fielding fewer men than the Germans, and inflicting more losses than they were taking, and that's in about the worst theater they did up against Gerry.
When you see clearer quality disparities against Western opponents is more up against the British than up against the Americans, but if you look at battles like Battleaxe, it's really less to do with individual tank quality as it is about tank doctrine: The British usually tried to pit their tanks against the enemy tanks, whereas the Germans often tried to lure enemy tanks to ATGs. Funnily enough, studying this is what led to what were probably mistakes in American tank/anti-tank doctrines, them finding it was a hell of a lot harder to push this kind of game on the continual offense they preferred to run.
>>1388832
Germany out produced UK and Soviets in fundamental industrial barometers of the time like steel, coal, and chemicals. And by no small measure. They poured a lot of that steel back into industrial capital such as expansion of factory areas and machine tools. The idea that Germany, which was twice the size of Britain and far more advanced than Russia, was out produced by both individually is hilarious.
They didn't lag behind too much in finished military goods either.
>>1388869
American tank destroyer doctrine was conceived earlier than 1942 you dipshit. Holy fuck you are either trying to make an epic maymay shitposting marathon or the dumbest human being on /his/ right now.
>>1388875
>Germany out produced UK and Soviets in fundamental industrial barometers of the time like steel, coal, and chemicals
Steel was the only one of those where Germany outproduced either the UK or the USSR. You can cheat and get to coal production by counting brown coal, but that crap only had half of the energy output of black coal. Not to mention their need to burn a huge chunk of it on synthetic oil, which was something they were piss-poor in, even after grabbing Romanian stuff. They were way behind in other key productive sectors, like food, nickel, zinc, aluminum, and tungsten.
> They poured a lot of that steel back into industrial capital such as expansion of factory areas and machine tools
Again, implying that the Soviets and the UK weren't doing the same.
> The idea that Germany, which was twice the size of Britain and far more advanced than Russia, was out produced by both individually is hilarious.
Except, of course, the historical record shows precisely that.
>They didn't lag behind too much in finished military goods either.
In artillery, the UK built 3 times as many field guns as the Germans did. The Soviets built a bit over 7 times as many. Germany "compensated" by building more mortars, which yeah, great trade there. Britain built a negligable amount more machineguns than Germany did, the Soviets about 1.5 times as many.
The UK built roughly 170,000 planes to the German's 135,000 or so, which doesn't even get into that the strategic bombing doctrine that Britain fully embraced and Germany eschewed meant that Britain was cranking out 4 engined colossal planes, whereas the Germans were mostly using single engined fighters and twin engined bombers. The Soviets, once again, built more planes, although by a smaller margin.
The Germans were outproduced. This isn't news to anyone.
>>1388885
It was conceived circa 1940. You do realize that the Germans were using more or less the same armored tactics there that they were in NA, right?
>>1388885
Civilized historical debate going on
>American tank destroyer doctrine was conceived earlier than 1942 you dipshit. Holy fuck you are either trying to make an epic maymay shitposting marathon or the dumbest human being on /his/ right now.
That's hardly even relevent, jesus fuck you shouldn't be calling people retarded
>>1388869
Throughout the war, German tanks were superior in quality. Even just looking up "nazi tanks best tanks" I found this:
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/killers-the-most-lethal-tanks-world-war-ii-13797?page=2
>>1388998
>http://nationalinterest.org/feature/killers-the-most-lethal-tanks-world-war-ii-13797?page=2
>This choice of analysis produces some surprising results. French armor gets as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield, but in 1940, the Somua S-35 wins Tanker's Choice for its balance of armor, firepower and mobility. Yet the problem with the S-35 and many other early war Allied tanks was their two-man turret, where the tank commander was also responsible for firing the gun. This meant the tank commander couldn't keep his eyes on the battlefield, which in turn meant a lack of situational awareness and an inability to respond to changing battlefield conditions.
I.E., exactly what I said. "On paper" the French tanks should be superior, but poor usage, poor doctrine, and poor situational awareness meant that they often lost. The situation tended to reverse late in the war. That same "on paper" calculation based around mostly guns and firepower would lead you to the conclusion that the PZV is vastly superior to the M4. When push came to shove though, the M4s tended to win, decisively.
>>1388752
Battle level tactics. Was the german machine gun use better than the American focus on rifles?
>>1389011
The M4's often won due to numbers. Facing a tiger 1 on 1 in a sherman was suicide. That's why the sherman travelled in packs, for safety, as there are only so many shermans a tiger can take on at once.
Essentially, the US just threw enough shit that some stuck
>>1389028
Myth. I would refer you to this book,
https://www.amazon.com/Data-World-War-Tank-Engagements/dp/1470079062?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0
Here's a table concerning their data on overall engagements between M4s and PzVs.
http://i.imgur.com/bxwWdOS.png
On tactical defense, the Shermans shoot first 95% of the time. On tactical offense, they still shoot first a bit over half the time. In that single most common engagement type, you have 1.12/1 numerical advantage for the Americans, which is quite a bit less than the overall production advantage. They manage to kill close to 12 times as many Panthers as they lose.
Across all engagement types, you're looking at roughly 3.6 Panthers lost to every M4 lost in direct, tank to tank, engagements.
I don't have comparable data on Tigers, (they were much, much rarer) but this whole thing of "Americans kept throwing crappy death traps until the Panzer got rear-shotted" simply isn't borne out by the combat records.
>>1389056
Zinegata?
>>1389028
I understand that this tends to get used out context, but it applies here.
You are spouting memes.
>>1389057
>Zinegata?
Beg pardon?
>>1389028
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY
Educate yourself instead of spouting old memes from history channel.
>>1388587
underated post, here is a (you)
>>1389065
Some guy on World of Tanks forums who enjoys shooting down wehraboos.
>>1389024
German rifleman vs American rifleman of equal number is no contest, the M1 garand is just so superior to the German Kar98 (which is a good bolt action, but not nearly as effective as a semi auto) that a squad with rifles only would be decimated. They also saw similar results against the Russians and their sub machine guns, which led to a late adoption of the Sturmgewehr and sub machine guns on the man to man level.
However, due to their reliance on the machine gun on a regular basis, a machine gun crew could compete against hundreds of American rifleman.
BUT because of the machine gun's rapid consumption of ammunition, one machine gun would use as much ammunition as a hundred rifleman. This leads to several issues on several levels. Firstly, you'd need to be constantly running ammo to feed the beastly MG. In the big picture, this lead to a rapid consumption of resources relative to the US's, which Germany could not afford. Finally, a machine gun emplacement is difficult to move, making them easy to outflank, causing the Germans to fall back on inferior rifles.
In summary, an MG is an extremely powerful tool, especially in the proper conditions, but consumes resources far too quickly, and is not nearly as versatile as the American rifle.
>>1389070
>>1389061
>>1389057
>>1389056
>>1389024
Also, as a side note, future questions like this would be better suited for /k/. Not talking shit about /his/, but would be less inclined to go off on a tangent about who's got the sexiest tanks(it would still happen though)
>>1389086
>Finally, a machine gun emplacement is difficult to move, making them easy to outflank, causing the Germans to fall back on inferior rifles.
Wasn't the MG 42 highly mobile? I thought that once you took it off the lafete bipod it would be carryable?
And which one do you think is better, the American squad based around rifles with a BAR in support, or the German Machine gun based section.
If you had to equip a modern unit, which philosophy would you prefer?
>>1389103
Relative to other MGs, the 42&43 were mobile, but it's heavy even without the ammunition and extra barrels that you'd need due to the overheats caused by the insane RoF. A machine gun is valuable, but it's not effective as a backbone of a squad. The BAR was the wood stock equivalent of the SAW. Nazi Germany is really the only real example of using the MG based section in an offensive scenario. In any modern mobile squad, having a light machine gun to provide suppression is superior to a medium machine gun that is most effective when emplaced. An argument could be made that the M240B is the equivalent of the MG42, but an M240B's significantly lower rate of fire makes it technically viable to be fired from the shoulder, but it is still most effective to be used with a bi/tripod
>>1389103
As for equipping a modern unit, say, about 6 men, for a general mission, I'd have to go more with the American philosophy of a mobile, suppressing weapon that tags along with the rest of the unit. 2 of the 5 remaining men should carry one belt of ammunition for it, in addition to their regular loads. One of the remaining seven should a designated marksman rifle, in a higher caliber, who would not carry ammunition for the squad suppressive weapon. the 2 others who are not carrying belts for the squad weapon should carry extra ammunition for the marksman. With this setup, it maximizes adaptability while still allowing for suppressing threats, accurate fire of distant targets, and in case of one of the specialized roles being killed or disabled, the remaining unit members would be able to recover their weapon as to not lower the units effectiveness as much as in other scenarios.
>>1389209
Where I said seven, I meant 5
>>1388645
Germany had hegemony over the entirety of continental Europe and then some
>>1389209
>6 men
Dropped, 9 is the minimum needed because of attrition.
>>1388832
>using your tanks as ATGs is absurdly wasteful
Destroying enemy tanks with a mobile, armoured AT gun is wasteful?
>>1389277
I'm just spitballing, I started with around 8 men, but went down to 6 because it was a better number to split up and add to. 8 was too klunky, adding 3 more men would be no problem. Another section gun, 2 more to split the ammunition
>>1389281
As the autumn wound down and the winter of 44-45 was setting in, you weren't really getting the "mobility" thing anymore.
Sure, they were getting American tanks, but they were getting them the same way any dug in pak 40 or 88mm gun would have.
Using a tank to do an ATG's job is wasteful.
>>1389079
Thanks friend.
>>1389325
So for the grand majority of the year when it isn't shitting snow you still have mobility
You seem to be specifying a very exact period
>>1388434
>Was the German army's use of machine guns as the base of fire better than the Anglo obsession with the Cult of the Rifle?
At the time? Yes, definitely. Semiautomatic rifles could not produce the volume of fire a machine gun could. Indeed already throughout the war and immediately afterwards the Americans upped the number of what automatic weapons they could get (like issuing three BARs per squad in the Marines, then in Korea), and went on a (long winded but ultimately fruitful) search to introduce a proper automatic weapon at the squad level.
>>1390172
>You seem to be specifying a very exact period
Not him but yes, seeing as he literally specifies he is talking about the fights on the Siegfried line, that would seem to suggest a specific period.
>>1390172
And when the Germans tried to do mobile armor against mobile armor, they got their shit stomped. Did you miss all the stuff I mentioned up thread?
