Semi-automatic rifles were not a particularly useful development for the military. They entered service in 1940 and were overtaken just 3 years later with the introduction of the assault rifle. This leads to an interesting question:Why did it take major militaries so long to adopt the intermediate cartridge?The USSR had the RPD by 1944 and the AK by 1949, both using an intermediate 7.62. We had the FAL by '53, which even had an intermediate version in development, and other assorted rifles shortly after, but these were still battle rifles pushed to use 7.62 NATO, not an intermediate cartridge. It took way until 1964 with the M16 for the first widely-adopted western assault rifle. A full 15 years after the AK. Was the tyranny of 7.62 NATO standardisation to blame?
>>65493092>Was the tyranny of 7.62 NATO standardisation to blame?Ultimately I think it was the tyranny of logisticians who wanted as few types of ammunition in circulation as possible. Even the soviets and the chinese have at different points tried to have their cake and eat it too with the early family of 7.62x39/5.8 chink weapons and realized that it just wasn't enough by itself to rely on in a machine gun.
>>65493092Che Guevera disagrees.
7.62x39 and .280 British both have the problem that they're fat and slow intermediates, which I think deserve a different title compared to the likes of 5.56/5.45
>>65493235A Ford Model T is still a car
>>65493237Yes, and has a lot of differences from my 2002 Honda Civic
>>65493235I've heard them referred to as "true" intermediate and small caliber high velocity intermediate. not official terms, obviously.
>>65493092Reminder 7.62x39 was designed for an army of malnourished manlets who cannot handle a battle rifle
>>65493092>Semi-automatic rifles were not a particularly useful development for the military. They entered service in 1940 and were overtaken just 3 years later with the introduction of the assault rifle.hey shitass what happened in those 3 years? (also it was 7 years but whatever)
>>65493359Well, when your diet is deficient in various things, like "food", muscle mass isn't gonna form.
>>65493371The entrenching of commitment to a calibre that would mislead western infantry-rifle doctrine for decades to come
>>65493391nothing else of any importance I think
>>65493092>Semi-automatic rifles were not a particularly useful development? What the fuck are you talking aboutMost of select fire rifle use since 1950, has been on the semiautomatic setting.Just because the infantry's rifle (irrespective of chambering) is select fire doesn't mean they're always or mostly spraying bullets on full auto>muh heckin intermediate cartridge videogamerderpSee above, the select fire rifle's chambering doesn't matter
>>65493420Semi automatic rifles are just a subset of rifles with semi-automatic capabilities >muh heckin intermediate cartridge videogamerderpRifle caliber does matter, why are you bringing up videogames?
>>65493432>I'm a brainlet that can't read the English language let alone comprehend a tiny shred of it
>>65493443If you're so confident in your mastery then point out the objective error, if you can
>>65493092>Why did it take major militaries so longLogistics. They wanted to use the same cartridge for both infantry rifles and machine guns. Same reason the SS109 was adopted over the M193, it had better penetration at the long ranges that machine guns operated, despite its markedly inferior performance against soft tissue at infantry rifle ranges.
>>65493092Except korean war is still fought with old stockpiles of smg, bolt action and machineguns and semi autos full power rifles are still rare for commies and all of those model year weapon you mentioned are missing in action for the most part, even older shit like sks. Small arm development gets no priority post war. Most industrial output is prioritized for industrial rebuild, and the remaining defense development budget concerns strategic weapons like nuke, radar, air force and fully mechanized army with tanks and artillery. Still most actually shipped to the war is ww2 crap like crosair prop plane and m24 light tank. Sitting on a pile of dirt cheap stockpile, the UN only ever bothered with updating infantry AT with half measures like Energa rifle grenade and superbazooka for a mountain country not suited for tanks.There is no possibility to fighting vietnam war with intermediate automatic rifle any time earlier. The ammunition simply won't supply and produce for the majority of the army.
>>65493675>old stockpiles>Small arm development gets no priority post waras regards 'intermediate calibers' timeline-of-development & procurement this is the logistical reason overall, from the Allied / U.S.-aligned perspective
>>65493243>2002 Honda Civic>still driving the '02Gross.
>>65493092>They entered service in 1940
>>65493092>It took way until 1964 with the M16 for the first widely-adopted western assault rifle.
>>65493761in a tiny number, a few thousand>>65493768not quite an intermediate cartridge, it's an automatic carbine
>>65493801Not intermediate why? Not bottlenecked, doesn't make 1,000 ft# min?
>>65494023.30 Carbine is substantially underpowered relative to the military definition of an intermediate cartridge
>>65493092Comes down to three things. 1.Cost.WW1 was absolutely DEVASTATING to most countries that fought it, and the populations of most countries had absolutely no stomach for basic or even slightly increased military spending, as that is a signal to the lay person that "war is coming" and that is nearly impossible for a politician to run on. The USSR and the US notably were outliers on this. 2.Tech.The "main" service rifles in common use were full power+ loads, which due to the metallurgy and manufacturing techniques was very difficult to make a 8-9lb rifle function reliably enough for mass issue. 3.Doctrine.Most "western" armies were extremely retrograde in thinking, and the ones that weren't had self inflicted problems, with the USSR's being political fuckery (the AVS-36 was the world's most advanced rifle) and the Third Reich being doctrine (the G41 was a absolute SHITSHOW).
>>65494227Are you drunk and/or illiterate
>>65493092>and were overtaken just 3 years later with the introduction of the assault rifle.Historically illiterate.Kurtz patron wasn't adopted by NATO after WWII and Nazi worshipping Soviets ditched their Kurtz patron too.Kurtz patron was an obvious failure of the small arms design
>>65493235>which I think deserve a different titleGermans invented it and had the name for it Kurtz patron (that means manlet around in English).
>>65494240>Kurtz patron
>>65494236>third world postDiscarded.
>>65494262Why are you talking about WW1, has literally nothing to do with the topic
>>65493092Mass adoption of SMGs should have occured after WWI, followed by mass adoption of assault rifles after WWII. There is no point in giving grunts weapons that are effective past 300m. The obsession with accurate individual marksmanship has led to retarded descisions for over 100 years now, the latest of which is the M7 and 6.8.
>>65494227>>65494262Imbecile.
>>65494375SMGs are only effective to 100-150 metres
>>65493801The M1/M2 carbine is an assault rifle arrived at via a weird design route. There isn't a neat dividing line between assault rifles and SMGs, or between assault rifles and battle rifles for that matter. Faster and flatter (5.7, 7.62 Tok) or more powerful (9x25) SMG rounds approach the assault rifle concept from the lower end by strechting the performance of pistol rounds, while lighter rifle rounds (6.5) approach the concept from the upper end. You can call .30 carbine a spicy pistol round or a weak intermediate round, but its arbitrary where you draw the line.
>>65494385Yes retard kun, which is why assault rifles are a better option. But in the 20s and 30s before assault rifles existed as a concept you could have gotten most of the benefits by mass issuing SMGs and keeping a few bolt actions for designated marksmen.
>>65494240>Kurtz patronIt's "kurz" for "short", Kurtz is the bald bloke from Apocalypse Now.Also it's die Patrone, so the correct declension would be kurze Patrone.t. someone who actually learned German
>>65494403Mmm yes let's let our infantry have a max range of 100-150m outside of support weapons, you're clearly a genius
>>65494399It is at best a weak assault rifle, getting to the point of calling an SMG an assault rifle
>>65494240>Kurtz patron was an obvious failure of the small arms designNah, it was actually just too early to fill its niche, the concept works, see the success of .300 blackout, its just that in the 1940s people weren't thinking of 10 inch barrels and suppressors yet
>>65494486in the 1940s people had ample supply of things called "SMG" which do exactly the same thing as .300 blackout when suppressed.
>>65494467is AK74 a weak assault rifle? because it's just as weak as a .30 carbine M1.
>>65494498Yeah 9×19 parabellum has exactly the same ballistic performance as .300 blackout ya fuckin retard
>>65494465Yes. The 300m engagement range commonly cited as the maximum is on the upper end of what you can do with iron sights in actual combat, but there are plenty of real world accounts of people struggling even beyond 200m. I will caveat this by saying I am assuming one LMG per squad, something like a Madsen or Bren, one or two DMs with rifles, and the SMGs should ideally be firing something more flat shooting like 7.62 Tok. Also this would be for Europe or Asia, not in a desert region. I think the reason accurate individual fire at long range keeps coming up as a concept is that western powers will fight some kind of colonial war with a small expeditionary force during peacetime against some tribe in the desert who are good marksmen, have to deal with pot shots from 1000m away, and conclude that the infantry all need to be able to do the same, then when a peer war breaks out in a temperate or tropical region and artillery and airpower do all the killing and the mass mobilised grunts would be better off with a light close range bullet hose. See the second boer war followed by WWI, or Afghanistan followed by WWIII (coming soon)
>>654945025.45×39 is not as weak as .30 carbine at all, who told you that? At 300 m it's probably going twice the speed
>>65494510>At 300 mwho cares about 300m? it's just as weak at the muzzle and within 100m
>>65494512who cares about 100m? In fact let's only look at 50m, maybe 20m to be safe
>>65494498.45 ACP and .300 blk may be similar at the muzzle but .45 drops like a rock. There also aren't 2000fps loadings of .45 you can just swap out with the subsonic loads
>>65494517>There also aren't 2000fps loadings of .45
>>65494521says 1900 right there on the box
>>65494521>1900fpsAnon, I...
>>65494524>>65494525that's from a pistol though
>>65494521Wonder what that does in an 8"
>>65494545Probably 1999fps
>>65494465>Mmm yes let's let our infantry have a max range of 100-150m outside of support weaponsMost WWII infantry squad firepower was concentrated in squad anyway. Like German squad LMG section carried 1000 rds, while rest of the squad, 5 men only 250 rds of rifle ammo. For assault purposes and cqb (what is rest of squad doing while LMG lays down suppressive and kill fire ) SMGs absolutely trump bolt rifles (and most of the participants had real choice between them two).
>>65494739>was concentrated in support LMG anyway.
>>65494739>For assault purposes and cqb (what is rest of squad doing while LMG lays down suppressive and kill fire )This assumes the squad has no approach or defence phase. SMGs would be best reserved for specialised assault squads, because for anything other than an assault or very short range terrain they're hamstrung compared to rifles. The Soviets experimented with entire companies of SMGs and they concluded that they were best used in specific situations rather than a general purpose replacement.
>>65493235The distinction isn't enough to matter. They do the same job and are used the same way.
>>65493801>in a tiny number, a few thousandNot in Korea. But everybody forgets about Korea
>>65496841They used thousands of Mondragon rifles in Korea?
>>65494510>>65494513At the muzzle 5.45 53 grain is ~100fpe > .30 carbine's 880fpe. 56 grain is ~150 fpe more.
>>65493235That's retarded and you're retarded for thinking that. Stop doing that, please, retard
If anyone's actually interested in the real answer to the question, intermediate cartridges took so long to catch on because nobody really recognized the versatility of the assault rifle until well after they entered production.Even though the russians actually *did* adopt an intermediate cartridge, the AK was originally intended to fill the doctrinal role of the smg, with the SKS filling the role of the rifle.Despite literally already having a mass-produced intermediate caliber assault rifle, it wasn't immediately obvious that the assault rifle could be a "do it all" rifle, and take over the role of both the battle rifle and smg.After all, when you step back and think about it, the term "assault rifle" sounds like a rifle used specifically for close-range assault (like an smg). Which tells you a lot about how it was originally conceptualized.So in the west, we kept making both battle rifles and smgs for decades after WW2, until a funny lightweight assault rifle called the M16 started showing a lot of promise in trials.
>>65493092In the end both the west and the soviets learned you can't just have 1 do it all round for infantry work. There's a damned good reason the RPD was sidelined for the PK and we didn't dump all our 240s for 249s. Same reason 6mm unified died a horrible and painful death. As it turns out you need a good round for the infantry and a good round for the MGs/DMRs and it's really fucking hard to make something that can do both well. I'd argue we were better off strangling 280 brit, could you imagine if we hadn't forced NATO into standardizing a full power cartridge post-war and we're stuck with a mix of 30-06, 303, 7.5 French, and 8mm mauser MGs? Or even worse, forced to use 280 brit MGs in lieu of something like a 1919 or a MG42? There was no common round to just keep standard after the war in the west like Russia had with 7.62 Mosin
>>65496986Sorry faggot but 5.56 and 7.62x39 arent the same thing
>>65494380>can't make any meaningful rebuttal Fuck you pajeet, try using human language and logic you fucking subhuman.
>>65494509>300mIs ONLY sited in WW2, which is a conflict notable for mass concripts. Wars before this had many cases of trained marksman engaging and causing casualties beyond 300m, the Boer Wsrs, Cuba, Russia Japan War, and the use of rifleman by the British in WW1 to compensate for the lack of machine guns.
>>65496956Oops, I fucked up. Thought that was a response to the M2 carbine stuff
>>65497072US medical studies in WWII (first with proper samples and methodology) found that 90% of small arms casualties to US troops were inflicted by fire within 200 yards, 50% withing 100 yarrs. Were aren't talking about "range of firefight" here , it's about actually hitting targets.
>>65496988>intermediate cartridges took so long to catch on because nobody really recognized the versatility of the assault rifle until well after they entered production."intermediate cartridges" aka Kurtz patron took so long to catch on because it sucks. Slow and fat is a bad military round. Entire development of infantry rifles rounds was make round smaller and faster. Kurtz patron took steps into opposite directions, and predictably died.While infantry arms development moved same trajectory as in previous 100 years with SCHV rounds (5.56 and 5.45) that ain't Kurtz patron.Everything else is just commie propaganda of their Holy AK-47.
>>65496215>This assumes the squad has no approach or defence phase.In aproach troops move forward leapfroging ahead of the LMS suppressive fire. When troops move they can't put bolt rifles into good use, while LMG on stationary position can. And when troops do reach enemy trenches their bolt rifles absolutely suck In CQB and LMG can't help them there.> or defence phase. In defense defending troops choose range of engagement, they simply can wait inside trenches when attackers armed with lol bolt rifles close to 100 yards and absolutely decimate them with sudden automatic fire there. You as attacking troop don't win firefight against SMG gunners in trenches at 100 yards, you simply die in seconds without ability to do anything.>The Soviets experimented with entire companies of SMGs Whole different matter you stupid westerners can't understand because Soviet mythology thinking is outside your culture and knowledge.
>>65497175>being ESL on /k/
>>65497155Shot at 200 yards can easily be a result of being pinned down from much further away, range of firefight matters for suppression
>>65497175>Kurtz patronCan you shut the fuck up you retard lmao
>>65497203Slav commies are mad when people aren't buying into their church of the holy ak-47
>>65497182>In defense defending troops choose range of engagement, they simply can wait inside trenches when attackers armed with lol bolt rifles close to 100 yardsAh excellent, freely allowing attackers to close within grenade range because of an inability for anyone except the LMG to assist
>>65497202And squads had LMGs to fire at 200 yards and further, and company HMGs to fire at range of 1000 yards and further.
>>65497208So the squad has one(1) gun capable of firing beyond close range, and this isn't a critical dependency or limitation. Maybe fine in a jungle or urban environment
>>65497207>100 yards is grenade range Also you aren't winning firefight been in the open and trying to throw grenades alat SMG gunners. You just die.Thing is 7.62 bolt rifle was developed for 2000 yards battalion on battalion in close formation in the open fire and it sucks outside this meta.
>>65497211>So the squad has one(1) gun capable of firing beyond close rangeSee above that gun has more firepower than the rest of the squad armed with bolt rifles combined. >>65494739
>>65497220What happens when the LMG is jammed, mid-barrel-change, reloading, displacing, being suppressed, or committed to a different direction? These are all common cases. In those cases, the SMG-armed infantry are sitting with their thumbs up their asses while the enemy is free to maneuver as they please in anything but the closest terrain. Rifles suppress less than the LMG, but it's not zero.
>>65497229>What happens when the LMG is jammed, mid-barrel-change, reloading, displacing, being suppressed, or committed to a different direction?There are 11 more LMGs in other squads of the company.
>>6549723211 squads in mutual support, does that sound like a close-range battlefield?
>>65497235In attack frontage of the German infantry company was 500-800 meters, 60 meters of front average per 1 LMG.
>>65497241500-800 metres? Imagine if all the attending riflemen had weapons that could fire at that range, allowing for continuous and granular support across the entire front from many angles
>>65497155They also didn't have optics.
>>65493092Everything was a pain in the dick to invent and produce back then. It's not like that now. Shit was hand made
>>65493092>Semiautomatics were not particularly useful. The majority of rounds fired in combat today by rifles are in semiautomatic. The M1 Garand in particular mogged so hard in WWII because the rest of the worlds standard issue were bolt actions.
>>65499903Nice greentext ya dummy
>>65496996>you can't just have 1 do it all round for infantry workYou can and they did so for decades. It's just that the more optimal alternative was developed and so it was sidelined.Had they adopted something less extreme than the exact copy of a the 19th century era .30 cal cartridge, something like .277 Pedersen, it'd have even more inertia and would be even more prominent than .308.
>>65500968Also, 6mm SAW performed excellent but was shelved because penny pinchers thought that M855 would lessen the deficiencies of the 5.56 cartridge in more universal roles, which it didn't.
>>65500981LMG in 6.5 Grendel seems like it would be pretty tits.
>>655009966.5 grendel doesn't play well with belt feed.
>>654969685.45mm has a velocity about 50% higher than .30 carbine, which dramatically improves its ability to inflict permanent wound cavities instead of dumping its energy into elastic deformation of tissue. .30 carbine is a few hundred fps too slow to benefit from this terminal effect, being roughly the equivalent of a .357 caliber rifle, which means that it is going to drill holes through flesh in a similar manner to much weaker pistol cartridges, but with better range and barrier penetration due to the heavy and somewhat faster bullet. This pretty decisively makes it a pistol caliber carbine/proto-PDW, not a carbine in the modern sense ala the M4 or AKS74-U that can throw rounds at 2400+ fps instead of 1900fps like the M1 carbine.
America didn't adopt the M14 until 1957 and in the early 60's the majority of the army were still using Garands. I kind of wonder how America would fare against the AK small arms wise if a conventional war broke out before the shift to 7.62x51 was practical.One surprising thing is that the AK doesn't really have much of an advantage in combat load over the Garand. 7.62x39 was lighter than .30-06 but it was also loaded in steel magazines that weighed almost as much as the ammunition it carried. The AK mags weighed 2lbs loaded and the AKM mages 1.8lbs. By comparison, an 8rd clip of .30-06 weighed slightly more than a half pound, 4 clips or 32rds weighed about 2.2lbs.The Garand would be absolutely awful for clearing rooms / buildings / bunkers / ect but it wouldn't be terrible for street fighting, rapid semi-auto fire, fast reload, high penetration. The AK is certainly better close up being a short barreled, high capacity and select fire but over 100 yards most of its advantages evaporate.A big question is how the M2 Automatic Carbine would play into the conflict. With its 200-250m practical range it couldn't replace the Garand as the service rifle, especially in Europe which has lots of wide open terrain but supplementing the Garand it would be invaluable. If they kept solely to support troops then that would be a big waste but if handed out to frontline troops in area where CQC is likely such as towns and cities, it would do a lot to mitigate the AK's advantages.Autism time. Maybe this sort of Platoon layout.Infantry squad x 3 (10 man) 2x M2 Carbine (sqd leader + assistant)6x M1 Garands (2 grenade launchers)2x BARWeapons squad (5 man)1x M2 Carbine (sqd leader)2x M1919a6 Machine Guns2x M2 Carbine (Machine gun loader)HQ squad (6 man)4x M2 Carbine (Lt, Pt Sarg, Radio, Medic)1x Super Bazooka (Anti-tank)1x M2 Carbine (Bazooka loader)Then a Company weapons pool of 18 more M2 Carbines to hand out, 6 per Platoon for situations where CQC is expected.
>>65499855They didnt have optics during Boers wars either when Mauser armed riflemen suppressed brits artillery at 2000 yards range.
>>65501343>This pretty decisively makes it a pistol caliber carbine/.30 pistol model?
>>65499905>I like green text. Gotta fuckin problem with it fag?
>>65501605https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMT_AutoMag_IIINotably, this gun is considerably lighter than the original .44 magnum Automag, and is also available in 9mm magnum which is an autoloading friendly equivalent to .357 Magnum.
>>65494521Except a 78gr .300 blk does 2800fps.
>>65501043Grendel doesn't play nicely with anything because nobody's put the work in. There isn't even a GUN for it that doesn't involve significant compromises.RPDs exist, the problem isn't insurmountable. It's just not going to get sorted out by Bubba and his one-off.
>>65501384Imagine an America where the M1 garand remains the standard infantry weapon until the 80s. What would the American PLA look like with this doctrine in mind?
>>65501597There was doctrine for doing volley fire like that with an 1853 Enfield anon. The point is half your dudes (in the case of the 1853) are advancing on the fortified position at any given time and that's what actually has an effect. If you're all sitting in a bush jorking it, you're just wasting ammo and annoying people.
>>65501343>which dramatically improves its ability to inflict permanent wound cavities instead of dumping its energy into elastic deformation of tissuethat's not how it works, which is why 5.7x28 isn't some dramatic magical rifle-tier killer round. .30 carbine has as much muzzle energy as 5.45x39 and so the difference is entirely about bullet construction for them. both can take down deer-sized game with the right ammo.aks-74u is a vile piece of shit in every respect and is inferior to SMGs in accuracy, handling, weight and recoil.
>>65502035same muzzle energy, different velocity, the 5.45 is going 50% fasterwhat does "inferior to SMGs" even mean? As though SMGs are all the same, no difference between a Bren and an MP5
