Gun question: other assault rifles?

[Adm.Lee]

I've talked a bit in other threads about the AK-47 and M2 carbine. I'm fuzzy on timelines, when did other countries (I'm presuming NATO) find out about the AK-47? When did they realize that was more than another SMG, and when did they start developing their own?

I remember vaguely there was a fight within NATO about standardizing on the 7.62x51mm round, was there a later push for something smaller?

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

I remember vaguely there was a fight within NATO about standardizing on the 7.62x51mm round, was there a later push for something smaller?

The Brits wanted to go with a 7mm or .280 round (139 grains at 2,550 fps) and developed the Enfield EM-2 around it. The U.S. had to be obstinate about it and refused to standardize on anything smaller than .30, thanks to Garand-induced caliber bigotry. Damn shame; the EM-2 was a couple of decades ahead of its time and I don't think wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the .280's ballistics.

I'm wildly speculating here, but if that 7mm round had been adopted, we might never have seen 5.56 and 5.45 become military standards.

- C.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I think the West became fully aware of the AK in 1956 when it was seen in public during the Soviet invasion of Hungary but it was probably considered to be nothing more than a more powerful sub-machinegun.
I think the West was aware of the 7.62x39mm ammunition because they knew of the SKS but probably didn't know specifics about the round or Soviet intentions for it. They did know that the Soviets had captured plenty of StG44 rifles and its 7.92x33mm ammo and probably figured that the Sovs were as interested in the 'short' rounds as they were.

The West seemed to completely misunderstand the employment concept for the StG44 and they appear to have carried that over to the AK as well, assuming that they were to be used as SMGs. It wasn't until the 1960s that the West (specifically the USA) started to invest in 'assault' rifles (after the West dropped the ball <cough-pressure from someone to adopt 7.62x51mm-cough> with the British EM-2 and the CETME Modelo 1 and Modelo 2 and even the French CEAM 1950 Carbine in .30Carbine)

It's been assumed for a number of years that the Soviets simply made their own version of the 7.92x33mm round but I've read other reports that state the Soviets were already investigating mid-range ammunition and so the German 7.92mm Kurz ammo simply confirmed some of their findings.
Incidentally, I have a vague notion that the British 7mm was influenced directly by the 7.92x33mm but I can't recall where I read/heard that so take that with a grain of salt.

The M2 Carbine was "almost" an assault rifle and I think the only thing holding it back from being classified as one is that the ammo was no more powerful than the .357Mag - so to be harsh, it uses a high powered pistol round rather than a rifle round but it pretty much hits all the right marks in other regards. To be fair to the M1/M2 carbine though, it was not intended as an infantryman's rifle so it was never designed as a replacement for the battle rifles then in use.

In something of a slap on their own back, the Soviets produced the AK which influenced the thinking that produced the M16 which then went on to influence Soviet thinking on micro-calibre rounds which thus produced the 5.45x39mm and the AK74 - an AK in an M16 calibre (not quite but you know what I mean!)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

As an aside, the Spanish produced a derivative of the StG-44 rifle but chambered for 7.62x51mm NATO, the Calzada Bayo model CB-57. It was a competitor for the spot won by the CETME Modelo A which itself was influenced by a series of French designs that themselves were derivatives of the StG-45(M) which was an easier to manufacture refinement of the StG-44 concept.

The key figure behind all this was Ludwig Vorgrimmler who was small arms engineer in wartime Germany and was assigned to the French zone of control after the war. He went on to design the CEAM Model 1950, basically an StG-45 in .30Carbine. He then went to Spain and helped CETME design the Modelo A based on his experience in German and French small arms design. The CETME rifle then went on to Heckler & Koch where it formed the basis for the G3 design.

So while the AK is not simply a copy of the StG-44 or Stg-45, it (and most of the competitors for the new Soviet army rifle at the time) where heavily influenced by the German rifle concepts and the G3 was directly influenced by the wartime German rifles... so it could be said that they are related, perhaps even cousins?

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

I'm wildly speculating here, but if that 7mm round had been adopted, we might never have seen 5.56 and 5.45 become military standards.

Heck, go back 20 more years to MacArthur killing the .276 Pedersen version of the Garand.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The M2 Carbine was "almost" an assault rifle and I think the only thing holding it back from being classified as one is that the ammo was no more powerful than the .357Mag - so to be harsh, it uses a high powered pistol round rather than a rifle round but it pretty much hits all the right marks in other regards. To be fair to the M1/M2 carbine though, it was not intended as an infantryman's rifle so it was never designed as a replacement for the battle rifles then in use.

Yep. I love the M1 carbine but I do acknowledge its ballistic limitations. The cartridge doesn't have the legs to be effective within an appropriate infantry combat envelope and it's too slow for FMJ rounds to reliably produce a decent temporary wound cavity.

Really, to swipe a point from the recent Glock 18 thread, I'd classify the M1 Carbine as an early PDW.

Originally Posted by copeab

Heck, go back 20 more years to MacArthur killing the .276 Pedersen version of the Garand.

Sometimes I'm amazed we didn't send troops to Vietnam with something chambered for .45-70...

- C.

[dragoon500ly]

Sometimes I'm amazed we didn't send troops to Vietnam with something chambered for .45-70...

Well, the RVN was equipped with Korean-War issue M-1 rifles, M-2 Carbines, BARs, M-1919A4s, M-1917A1s and 3.5-inch bazookas. These were used right up to the fall of South Vietnam.

On the VC/NVA side, MAT-49s, MAS-36s, other hardware captured from the French, not to mention battlefield captures...from the Japanese at the end of WWII.

Captured weapons also included a variety of civilian bolt-action, lever action and even rolling block rifles.

So .45-70 would not amaze me at all!

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

The Brits wanted to go with a 7mm or .280 round (139 grains at 2,550 fps) and developed the Enfield EM-2 around it. The U.S. had to be obstinate about it and refused to standardize on anything smaller than .30, thanks to Garand-induced caliber bigotry. Damn shame; the EM-2 was a couple of decades ahead of its time and I don't think wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the .280's ballistics.

I'm wildly speculating here, but if that 7mm round had been adopted, we might never have seen 5.56 and 5.45 become military standards.

- C.

The reason the 7mm round (and anything else NATO came up with) wasn't adopted was pure bullying by a now-superpower US. "We're not asking you what opinions you guys have -- we're telling you what your opinions are, and if you want to join in the Marshall Plan party, you'll agree!"

The EM-2 was so far ahead of its time that most people couldn't get ahead of its looks. Most of NATO liked the 7mm round -- the FAL and CETME-58 were originally chambered for it -- but they just thought the EM-2 looked too "sci-fi" to be taken seriously. Makes you wonder what they would think of the L85 and FAMAS.

[Targan]

The EM-2 rifle seems like such a terrific weapon. Waaaay ahead of it's time. So sad that most of the other members of NATO had the right idea and got bullied into a less optimal option by the US. I never realised that Winston Churchill could be such a soft-c*ck. He should have told the US where to shove it. If the UK and Canada (and in all likelihood Australia and New Zealand too) had gone ahead and fielded the EM-2 anyway the US may have eventually seen reason and gone with their own similar weapon in .280. A lesson here for all of us. Just because you are a superpower and have more money than everyone else doesn't always mean you are right!

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

Yep. I love the M1 carbine but I do acknowledge its ballistic limitations. The cartridge doesn't have the legs to be effective within an appropriate infantry combat envelope and it's too slow for FMJ rounds to reliably produce a decent temporary wound cavity.

Really, to swipe a point from the recent Glock 18 thread, I'd classify the M1 Carbine as an early PDW.



Sometimes I'm amazed we didn't send troops to Vietnam with something chambered for .45-70...

- C.

Well there was a guy in SOG who had a .444 Marlin imported to Vietnam for the purpose of busting log bunkers.

[copeab]

To be fair about dictating rifle ammo, the US provided large amounts of ammo in exportsin WWI and WWII and imorted much less. I'm not saying this is a sufficient reason by itself, but it's not inconsequential.

FWIW, in my Weird WWII campaign, the Atlanteans dumped 10,000 assault rifles similar to the E.M.1 (in. 276 Pedersen) on the US Army, after the flop of them offering an assault rifle similar to the AK 47 (chambered for the. 30-30 round). The PCs actually prefered the "Atlantesn AK" -- if they wanted a more powerful automatic weapon, they broke out the BARs ...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by Tegyrius

<snip> Really, to swipe a point from the recent Glock 18 thread, I'd classify the M1 Carbine as an early PDW. <snip>

- C.

Absolutely agree with you on that.
I'll make a massive assumption here and say that you'd probably agree with me that that's exactly what they were making even if they didn't have our "modern" concept of a PDW.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

Absolutely agree with you on that.
I'll make a massive assumption here and say that you'd probably agree with me that that's exactly what they were making even if they didn't have our "modern" concept of a PDW.

I agree completely. If you look at the original design intent, it's a near-perfect match for the PDW concept of the 1990s... and, quite frankly, I think the .30 Carbine is a more effective round than the 5.7mm FN or 4.6mm HK if you look at the terminal ballistics (absent soft armor).

- C.

[bobcat]

well the adoption of 7.62x51 was a matter of priorities. NATO was recognizing who was providing most of the ammo for the past few wars and figured that the US was already prepared to manufacture the caliber they were supporting in large numbers. as such they picked the round that would be most readily available the soonest.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

While I don't dispute the basics of what you've said, it misses the point that many in European NATO countries wanted and were developing a smaller and/or lower powered calibre but felt obligated to do as the USA did, (read that as it should be, they were given 'friendly encouragement' by the USA).

For example some nations were interested in the German 7.92x33mm round, they did not want a full powered battle rifle round. Most of Western Europe understood that, hence the R&D into weapons firing the .30Carbine round, the 7.92x33mm round, the Brit 7mm and so on. The first FN FAL was chambered for the 7.92x33mm and then the Brit 7mm. The French and Spanish both researched lower powered rounds with the Spanish initially adopting a lower power version of the 7.62x51mm.

They didn't throw all that away just because the USA could produce a lot of 7.62x51, they threw it all away because they were given various incentives/threats by the US government.

[Matt Wiser]

This begs the question: when did examples of the AK-47 first turn up in the West? One or two smuggled out from Hungary in '56, perhaps? Or from Southeast Asia (i.e. 1965)?

[headquarters]

Originally Posted by Matt Wiser

This begs the question: when did examples of the AK-47 first turn up in the West? One or two smuggled out from Hungary in '56, perhaps? Or from Southeast Asia (i.e. 1965)?

I am thinking - were no borderguard unist equipped with this from the first run or second production run of the AK? Up norh in my country the border runs common for a lot of miles. Both countries maintain a high level of patrolling activity and observation posts. Pictures and films are routinely taken. I would think the AK was known from photos from the early 1950s. As fro the first examples - that guy jumping the Berlin wall in NVA uniform - has he not got an AK? When was that anyways?

The US did what they had to do with the 30-06 and later the .308. I believe ballistics entered into the discussion , but not as the only deciding factor. The US had a massive military industrial complex pushing to have it their way- and quite frankly get paid for winning two word wars ( at least much of it regarding western Europe).

Coventional wisdom from 50 years of warfare 1900 - 1953 was that the 30-06 had worked well and that riflemen really needed the range to win.

The US logistics people were tasked with planning the defense of western Europe with a heap of memberstates in an alliance with little coherence. Everybody had their own solutions and everybody had their own economical interests in getting the contract for supplying arms and ammo to NATO.

In hindsight other calibers may have been ballisticly better suited to changing doctrines and ways of war post Korea. But the .308 could still cover these uses and it had the benefit of playing alongside military convention, economical /political interest and logistical capacity issues. Europe was not wealthy in the 1950s- 1960s.

We (Norway) used the .308 up until around 2006-2008. Were are now using the 5,56 HK416 and exchanging or MG-3s for minimis this year. I have to say the .308 was suited well to our use. It is a round for longer distances and although the 5,56 will give nasty wounds and all that the .308 will take your arm of. I know people say that thats like using a battle axe when all you need to make them bleed is a small sword - maybe so. .308 offers better range, delivers more punch. It has disadvantages sure - for one 1000 rounds weigh app. 75 lbs / 35 kgs. In the GPMG role I am not sure about the 5,56 - I guess my mind is stuck in the way I ws trained in the 1990s. We engaged targets out to around 1 000 meters using no optical sights - just 8x40 binos and every 3 or 5 rounds a tracer. I guess the brass has thought of this and the 5,56 lmgs will be anble to do the same.

all in all - just my take on it.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

A brief potted history of the AK

It should be remembered that the SKS was officially the post-war Soviet infantry rifle until the AK got into full production and thus the SKS was readily able to be seen by the West in the early 1950s. Kalashnikov's first submissions required a lot of redesign work until his model of 1946 was deemed sufficiently ready to take part in the new Soviet rifle trials. The trials ran from 1947 to 1948. The AK succeeded but not without controversy. It needed more work to make the judges completely happy. It's worth noting that all Soviet weapon design was done by a project group (not by individuals as the Soviet propaganda machine would have us believe), in special administrative zones - basically, closed cities where visitors were not allowed without official Party sanction - so very few spies and absolutely no journalists!

While the AK model of 1947 was adopted as the next Soviet infantry rifle in 1949, it didn't see full distribution until the early/mid-1950s according to Jane's Infantry Weapons 1986-87 and 1992-93 yearbooks. What the Jane's yearbooks don't mention is that the versions manufactured from 1948 on were made with sheet-metal stampings that proved flawed due to the low quality of the technology in the Soviet Union at the time. This forced a redesign with the receiver then being milled from a solid billet of steel from 1951/52. This delayed large scale manufacture until the mid-1950s. Production years are as follows: -
AK-47 (1st Generation), 1948-51. Earliest models, had stamped sheet metal receiver and barrels were not chromed.
AK-47 (2nd Generation), 1952-1958. A forced redesign due to low quality of sheet metal tech at the time. Features included a milled receiver, wooden furniture and chromed barrel & chamber.
AKM-47 (otherwise known as the AKM) and variants such as the AKMS, 1959-1974. Receivers once again made from sheet metal stampings.
(So the 'true' 1st Gen AK-47 was produced for only about four years with the 2nd Gen AK-47 being produced for about double that).

Early models would not have been seen in the West until at least the time of larger scale production and even then, they were issued first to units that wouldn't be immediately in the Western eye. Many units (including Border Guards) still carried PPSh-41 & PPS-43 SMGs, SKS rifles and RPD LMGs until those weapons were fully replaced by the AK/RPK in 1957. China obtained both the SKS and the AK designs in 1956 and began mass production of both shortly after.

Due to these factors it's entirely likely that the West first saw AKs at either end of the mid-50s (elite units such as the VDV parading with it on May Day, invasion of Hungary as mentioned before but also because China began manufacture at that time and so on). US forces came into large scale contact with the AK during the Vietnam War so the earliest examples to be captured may very well have been Chinese Type56 versions given to the VC/NVA. Other examples were certainly recovered from the Rhodesian bush war. Both these conflicts would have seen AKs in use from as far back as the early 1960s.

With the Pentagon regarding the AK as little more than a crude attempt at making a more powerful SMG, it's no surprise that they also devalued the lower powered ammunition. So when it comes to the NATO adoption of the 7.62x51mm round, my thoughts on the matter are expressed far better by C.J. Chivers, a former infantry officer in the USMC who has written a few firearms books. When being interviewed by Popular Mechanics about his book on the AK (The Gun, ISBN-10: 0743271734 or ISBN-13: 978-0743271738), he was asked why the US didn't try to make a rifle in the same vein as the AK when they became aware of it. He answered as follows: -

"The Pentagon's arms-design circles were insular and informed by parochialism and biases. One of the biases was an affinity for larger, more powerful rifles. These weapons were unwieldy and, compared to assault rifles, slow to fire. But the romance with long-range marksmanship (which is part of American frontier legend) and the resistance to weapons designed elsewhere (including the Kalashnikov) led to the Pentagon misapprehending the biggest breakthrough in infantry arms since the advent of the machine gun. The Pentagon's arms designers were dogmatic and saw themselves and their weapons as superior. They missed the significance of the sturmgewehr. They took little notice of the proliferation of the Kalashnikov."

[B.T.]

Originally Posted by headquarters

As for the first examples - that guy jumping the Berlin wall in NVA uniform - has he not got an AK? When was that anyways?

One of the most famous photographs of the Cold War ...
It still gives me the shivers.
Hans Conrad Schumann fled on 15. August 1961. And he was equipped with a PPSch-41.

Here is his story and the famous pic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Schumann

[Adm.Lee]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I think the West became fully aware of the AK in 1956 when it was seen in public during the Soviet invasion of Hungary but it was probably considered to be nothing more than a more powerful sub-machinegun.
I think the West was aware of the 7.62x39mm ammunition because they knew of the SKS but probably didn't know specifics about the round or Soviet intentions for it. They did know that the Soviets had captured plenty of StG44 rifles and its 7.92x33mm ammo and probably figured that the Sovs were as interested in the 'short' rounds as they were.

The West seemed to completely misunderstand the employment concept for the StG44 and they appear to have carried that over to the AK as well, assuming that they were to be used as SMGs. It wasn't until the 1960s that the West (specifically the USA) started to invest in 'assault' rifles (after the West dropped the ball <cough-pressure from someone to adopt 7.62x51mm-cough> with the British EM-2 and the CETME Modelo 1 and Modelo 2 and even the French CEAM 1950 Carbine in .30Carbine)

This circles back to a question I've had a for a few years, but never looked into. I read a LOT of WW2 stuff, but (outside of books specifically on small arms) I've never picked up on Western troops really being aware of the StG44. German MGs are feared, and their high RoF is well-known. The panzerfausts are sometimes pressed into service. Everyone knows about a Luger, and wants one for a souvenir. Apparently rifles are rifles, and anything else might be lumped into the "burp gun" category. So, how many of those things were used by the Germans? Did it affect tactics? Were there just not as many on the Western Front?

[Panther Al]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

This circles back to a question I've had a for a few years, but never looked into. I read a LOT of WW2 stuff, but (outside of books specifically on small arms) I've never picked up on Western troops really being aware of the StG44. German MGs are feared, and their high RoF is well-known. The panzerfausts are sometimes pressed into service. Everyone knows about a Luger, and wants one for a souvenir. Apparently rifles are rifles, and anything else might be lumped into the "burp gun" category. So, how many of those things were used by the Germans? Did it affect tactics? Were there just not as many on the Western Front?

Quite a lot was used on the Western Front. While the first examples was confined to a few operations in Mid-Late 43, they really started being issued in late 44. There are quite a few pics floating about taken during the Battle of the Bulge showing German troops (Both Heer and SS) equipped with them.

I think why the western forces never took serious notice of them falls in the the concept that the truly feared german small arm was the MG42 - and it was probably felt that the bulk of casualties was caused by it - not the soldiers sporting the AR's - which was probably seen as nothing more than a upscaled SMG by most of the higher ups in the arms departments. Not an unreasonable thought since after all, the bullet used in the cartridge for both the 7.92 Mauser and the 7.92K was for all intents and purposes, the same.

Using my Grandfather for an example, he thought that while it wasn't a replacement for a proper rifle, it was a marvellous system for combat in area's that was more confined than an open field, but most importantly since he was a tanker, a lot easier to stow in his Firefly than a SMLE, and damn sight better than a sten or even the Tommy Gun he "didn't" have.

He told me back in the day, for the longest time he thought all the concept would be good for is specialised roles: Para's, armoured crewmen, and the like. Never as an replacement wholesale: The FAL in his mind was near perfect, he was never sold on the idea of replacing all the rifles in an army with suchlike as the M16 or AK. Ah well, even he couldn't call them all.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I've read estimates that production of the MP44/StG44 was as much as 5000 a month and as mentioned by Panther Al, it started to be seen in western Europe particularly during the time of the Ardennes campaign. I think however, that by the time they appeared in enough numbers on the Western Front, it was "too little, too late" for Nazi Germany and so the impact wasn't going to be anywhere near as significant as it was on the Eastern Front.

And speaking of the Ardennes campaign, enough StG44's were available on the Western Front that some of them showed up in Spain and were available for filming of the movie Battle Of The Bulge in 1965, (filmed in and around the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains near Madrid).
Internet Movie Firearms Database page for Battle Of The Bulge
There were also enough of them available in the US during the 1970s/1980s for them to appear, highly modified, as weapons of the Rebel Alliance on the planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back movie.


The StG44 may even have made an appearance in the Western Desert with the DAK, there's one on display in the El Alamein War Museum (although knowing how little effort is actually made by the Egyptians to research WW2, it's also possible that the example on display came from a post-WW2 North African conflict).

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

There were also enough of them available in the US during the 1970s/1980s for them to appear, highly modified, as weapons of the Rebel Alliance on the planet Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back movie.

Good eye. I'd noticed other examples of RW weaponry used in the original trilogy, but not that one. The ones I recognized where the Sterling SMGs used by the Storm Troopers, the MG34 used by Stormtroopers and IG88, the Mauser pistol upon which Han Solo's blaster is built, and the Luger Leia carries in Return of the Jedi.

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The StG44 may even have made an appearance in the Western Desert with the DAK, there's one on display in the El Alamein War Museum (although knowing how little effort is actually made by the Egyptians to research WW2, it's also possible that the example on display came from a post-WW2 North African conflict).

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that several hundred StG44s were sold to Syria in the '50s or early '60s (from stocks captured by the Soviets?), but I can't find a reference in any of my books. I did find a color plate in a uniform book of a Cypriot EOKA fighter carrying a StG44 in 1956. I've also seen a couple in photographs of African guerrillas in Angola, Mozambique, and Rhodesia/Zimbabwe from the '60s and '70s. It's crazy how far and wide weapons- especially relatively rare ones- were proliferated during the Cold War.

[Matt Wiser]

Recall that StG-44s were captured in Iraq from insurgents. The weapon did get around, IIRC. The East Germans, Czechs, and Yugoslavs did make ammo for it up until the late '80s.

[Panther Al]

Not only captured, but used by US forces as well as long as we had ammo for them. Its insane how wide those spread after the end of WW2, and how well they have held up over the decades. If you look at other threads, you'll get my take on the one I toted for a brief while.