Hey, i have always wondered, why did the germans use the rifle K98 for so long as standard rifle? I mean you had to reload the weapon after every shot what makes the soldier very slow and vulnerable in my eyes. The allies were using semi-automatic weapons much earlier on.
What do you think? Do you know if there was a certain policy in the german army about it?
Greetings
Not all the allies were using semi-automatic rifles. The british (and canada, australia and the rest) were using the SMLE. The Japanese had their own non auto rifle - the Arikasa. Only the american army WAS using a semi-auto - the Garand (but not the marines). And if the war was delayed the British would have their own semi-auto.
The Germans developed teh equivalent of modern day assault rifle during the war (the AK father actually) but have not fielded it in any substantial numbers.
It’s not as slow as you’d think, and it’s pretty uncommon for an infantryman to need to do very rapid rifle fire even in combat. The British (and other Commonwealth armies) had a 15 rounds-per-minute rapid fire drill which – while not easy is quite achievable with practice. For situations where high volume of fire is needed, you’d use light machine guns (or automatic rifles) or sub-machine guns depending on availability.
The German army did indeed have a policy, and that was that the primary infantry weapon was the machine gun (initially the MG-34 and later the MG-42), given the extremely high rate of fire 1200 rounds per minute or even higher in some cases. Consuming ammunition that fast meant that a German infantry squad was tasked with carrying a lot of ammunition for their squad heavy weapon, and the K98k was much less important tactically than the MG.
And not even all of the US Army in 1941 (the USMC still had bolt-action rifles and their first semi-automatics issued were Johnsons originally made for the Dutch East Indies army, not Garands). Army troops were still just getting their hands on the new Garand rifles well after Pearl Harbour.
That’s often said, but the Soviet AK was developed separately from the Sturmgewehr (but as Ian McCollum points out in this video, it did have some influence on the final AK design). The Sturmgewehr was intended to fill the role of the infantry rifle and light machine gun, while the AK was supposed to blend the rifle and SMG roles.
The Germans, British and Commonwealth all had a firm doctrine that the main firepower of the infantry squad was the squad automatic machine gun, the MG 38/42 or the Bren, NOT individual rifles. Rifles were to defend and supplement the machone gun. Every Commonwealth carried half his ammunition as a Bren mag, not as a Lee-Enfield clip.
The Americans with the BAR and Garand were outliers.
Fascinating discussion. I guess this is a case of doctrine determine weapon needs.