Best weapons of WW2

[Jim]

Maybe it is best that I take my obvious complete lack of knowledge and laughably absurd picks and just back away from the thread and go back to regular scheduled programming.

[Sonic Glitch]

Rifle - M1 Garand - used for many years after WW2. It's only downside was when it expelled the "clip" everyone knew it: CLANG!

I seem to recall hearing quite a while ago that some GI's would actually carry empty M1 clips on them and imitate the noise of a spent clip being expelled to see who popped up.

[Mikey]

Maybe it is best that I take my obvious complete lack of knowledge and laughably absurd picks and just back away from the thread and go back to regular scheduled programming.

Not at all... your picks for most of the infantry weapons were reasonable, even if I expressed reasons for disagreeing with them. Seafort disagreed with my pick for SMG, for example, but it doesn't mean I'm going to abandon my pick. In fact, if I had to abandon the Tommy and pick something else based on weight savings, I might go with the M3. No, really - we're talking about war, not CCW. No SWC's, no JHP's, not even stripped lead hardball. The available ammo is FMJ, or nothing. That means that the wound cavity from a bullet will be much closer in diameter to the original diameter of the bullet. This is why I'm making such a big deal about the .45 ACP over the 9mm Para or 7.62 Tokarev. In modern handgun usage, the difference is much more minimal.

It would pass the cartridge test because it uses the standard NATO rifle round.

Au contraire. The M249 uses the 5.56 NATO, which is an intermediate/assault rifle round. The standard NATO battle rifle round is the 7.62x51.

So "Ronson" is an admiring nickname for a tank is it?

Absolutely. No other tank in the war caught fire so reliably.

I seem to recall hearing quite a while ago that some GI's would actually carry empty M1 clips on them and imitate the noise of a spent clip being expelled to see who popped up.

I had heard that too, but I can't recall where. Probably on one of those Military Channel "top-ten" shows.

[Captain Seafort]

Au contraire. The M249 uses the 5.56 NATO, which is an intermediate/assault rifle round. The standard NATO battle rifle round is the 7.62x51.

I didn't mention battle rifles - I said standard rifle round, i.e. that used in the standard issue IW of NATO armies. The M16/M4, SA80, G36 and FAMAS all use the 5.56x45mm round, ergo that round is the NATO standard. Whether or not it should be is an entirely different matter, but that's the current situation.

If I had to set definitions for today's armies, I'd define LMGs as those that use the standard rifle round, MMGs as those that use battle rifle rounds, and HMGs as those that use heavier rounds. In my book the latter two would be exactly same as the WW2 MMG and HMG.

[Mikey]

Ah, the problem is one of contextual misunderstanding. In today's world, "rifle" can mean anything and needs to be clarified as to "assault rifle" or "battle rifle" (and if we apply civilian terminology, it gets worse a la the .22 Long Rifle.) Since we were discussing WWII machine guns defined as using "standard rifle rounds," the natural reading for me was "standard as is contemporary to the machine guns in question" - that is, a battle rifle caliber and cartridge. My application of that definition to the M249/MINIMI was merely one of extrapolation from the prior discussion.

[Mikey]

*ahem* Anyhow, what's the word out there on stand-alone anti-tank guns? Seafort, in a usual display of Union-Jack-waving, opts for the 17-pdr. citing it's ease of use over the Pak 43/41; however, if the Pak 43 with its original carriage is considered then none of the "barn door" maneuvering issues are encountered and it actually has better traverse and ease of adjustment than the 17-pdr, along with its marginally greater killing power.

The U.S.' feeble entry into the field, the 3-inch gun, is a distant third thanks to difficulty of use and logistical issues.

[Captain Seafort]

Seafort, in a usual display of Union-Jack-waving

Oi! I gave you the M1911, Garand and fifty cal, didn't I? I could start singing the praises of the Sten if you'd like.

opts for the 17-pdr. citing it's ease of use over the Pak 43/41; however, if the Pak 43 with its original carriage is considered then none of the "barn door" maneuvering issues are encountered and it actually has better traverse and ease of adjustment than the 17-pdr, along with its marginally greater killing power.

The 17-pdr's effective range was more than double that of the 88, and the armour penetration of the two was close enough to be considered tactically equivalent, if not slightly in the 17's favour (231mm at 60 degrees for the 17 vs 241 at 90 degrees for the 88, both at 1000m).

[Mikey]

I could start singing the praises of the Sten if you'd like.

I'd like to see you try.

The 17-pdr's effective range was more than double that of the 88

I've never seen that; but if we are discussing the Pak 43 (which was my contention) as opposed to the 43/41 "barn door" then we must also consider the revolutionary carriage and its ease of traverse and elevation - and its subsequent ease of follow-up shots. While no WWII artillery piece was capable of MRSI, I expect that the Pak 43 with its original carriage was as close as things got.

[Atekimogus]

The Tiger, while buggy, certainly ran - or at the very least sat - and was an effective obstacle to any advance. The Pershing did likewise, albeit in limited numbers, and at least on paper was even less mobile than the Tiger II. The fact that neither of them could match the Stalin for mobility is somewhat compensated for by their far more effective main armament. Ultimately, they all participated in sufficient numbers to at least get an idea of their qualities.

There are certain common misconceptions about the Tiger and TigerII. The most common is probably that they where big, immobile lumbering monsters which brake down every 5 minutes and had no tactical worth whatsoever.

In truth, altough while they had very poor strategic mobility because of problems crossing bridges, difficultes being shipped on train etc. , their actual cross-country performance when in combat was actually quite remarkable and on certain terrain even better than the narrow tracked PanzerIV for example.

Also, while it certainly is true that many were abandoned due to breakdowns, something which frequently happened to pretty much all tanks (T-34 series was notorious for gearbox breakdowns but since for every breakdown two others would roll down the assembly line noone gives a shit), the Tiger was actually one of the more reliable german tanks after most of it's teething problems were solved. It was more maintanence intensive than the PzIV but on the whole nothing the crews deemed unacceptable.

The actual statstic on the actual battle readiness shows that PzIV, Tiger and TigerII had pretty much the same abailabilty while the most unreliable tank was actually the Panther whose final drive unit problems were never satisfactorily solved.

And while Tigers certainly where expensive to build (it is said that you could get 5 PzIV for one Tiger) the actual total kill to death ratio for all tigers was slightly above 5:1, with some units approaching 12:1 and the numbers goes even higher if you could adjust the statistic for losses against other tanks (compared to losses from breakdown, ground attack aircraft etc.).

Of course it's all theorycraft at this point but imho, they wouldn't have fared any better if they'd skipped the Tiger and built more PzIV instead. The Tiger was a force multiplier and considering their shortage on manpower, resources etc. five times the number in PzIV would probably have been even more a drain on them, evenmoreso as they got more easily destroyed by far. (Manpower alone, there where about 1300 Tigers build, 5 man crew each thats about 6500 man. If you built 6500 PzIV instead you'll need 32500 man. So a Tiger which can do the job of 5 PzIV, T-34 or Shermans and has a good chance to surive to fight another day might still be an effective machine when all is said and done.

And that is such a common theme in WW2 literature, especially when discussing tanks. If they'd only build PzIV instead of Tigers, if the Tigers only were not so unreliable who knows what would have happened? Which is completely bolloks of course, as soon as they attacked the USSR they could have built Leopard 2 and they still would have lost the war. Because in the end, they still would have run dry on fuel,resources and manpower sooner or later, you cannot take on the whole industrial capacity of the then modern world and expect to win. They didn't run out of airplanes for example, they ran out of pilots and fuel first. (Altough it is a myth iirc that they'd run out of fuel in the battle of the buldge. They did manage to pull back most of their heavy equipment like the TigerIIs iirc which would suggest that they had at least sufficient quantities)

[Mikey]

Whoa! Slow your roll, road dog. Point out where, exactly, anyone said that the Tiger and Tiger II never functioned, had a 100% breakdown rate, or anything of the sort. The fact is that it was overengineered, much the same as modern Volkswagens, and had a higher breakdown rate than it should have - and a higher rate of suspension fatigue because it was too heavy for its suspension. Nobody said that it would have changed the outcome of the war if it was better built; we are discussing opinions of the best of WWII. Citing kill ratios and the like doesn't by one iota change the fact that the Tiger and Tiger II would have been better if they didn't have higher-than-typical (for heavy tanks) breakdown rates and other mechanical issues.

[Atekimogus]

doesn't by one iota change the fact that the Tiger and Tiger II would have been better if they didn't have higher-than-typical (for heavy tanks) breakdown rates and other mechanical issues.

Well the point I was trying to make was...it hadn't higher-than-typical breakdown rates compared to other heavy tanks. When properly serviced (which wasn't always possible, I agree) it didn't even had higher break down rates than a Panzer IV. (iirc the average statistics was 62% to 59% percent availabilty/total number of tanks of that class for PzIV and Tigers respectivly +/- 1-2 percent, not completely sure anymore but surprisingly similar).

What other heavy tanks were there in a similar tonnage you could compare it too which was "less" prone to mechanical break-downs than the Tigers? The T-35 was an obsolete WW1 concept, most of which didn't even reach the frontline because of mechanical issues. The KW-1 and KW-2 were fearsome tanks, but until the appearance of the Panther the whole heavy tank concept had pretty much fallen out of favour with soviet generals because they where highly unreliable, slow, immobile and frankly not worth it. That leaves the IS-1 and IS-2 which still are more in the Panther tonnage, however I have to admit that I am hard pressed to find any statistics about the reliabilty of those tanks. On the allied side you have only the Churchill and much later the Pershing but both are a good 10 tons lighter than the tiger I and the problems the churchills had are well documented. (Still a good tank though imho).

Frankly, I think you are mixing up Panthers with Tigers. The Panther had huge design flaws (gearbox housing, final drive unit) which they never were able to solve satisfactorily and which made the Panther the most unreliable german tank by quite a margin.

(Also, other than a bitch to service, the suspension on all tigers and the panther was brilliant and more than able to handle their weight. Not sure where you have that part from. They actually had better floating abilites and lower ground pressure/inch than shermans or PzIV)

[Mikey]

It is known anecdotally from WWII tanker vets and other connected individuals that the Tiger series were prone to mechanical issues. I never said anything about availability rates, nor did I try to reference some unsourced numbers of such like you did. I also never mentioned abandonment or anything like that. Besides the word of the folks who were there, it's just common sense - the Tigers (and Panthers) were feats of engineering for the time... over-engineered compared to contemporary manufacturing. As to what we have to compare it to, let's try the other heavy tanks of the war (notably the Stalin-2, as it was the only other heavy present in enough numbers to merit a true comparison.) The Tigers were technically far superior to the IS-2, but this discussion is one of our opinions of the best in each category. You may opt to have technical superiority as your determining factor, but not everybody does.

[Tholian_Avenger]

Seafort, in a usual display of Union-Jack-waving

Oi! I gave you the M1911, Garand and fifty cal, didn't I?

Well Garand was born in Canada, so should we count that toward your Union-Jacking?

[Mikey]

Union-Jacking

You just won the internet.

[Atekimogus]

You may opt to have technical superiority as your determining factor, but not everybody does.

I see..well, my bad. I took the topic question as to what was the best weapon in each category as an absolute (as in "which was absolutely the best weapon in category XY) and not as "which was the best weapon in each category considering the overall strategical implications of ww2.

As in, which was the best tank IN ww2? Well the Tigers of course. And which was the best tank FOR ww2? Well, probably the T-34 or Sherman because it was easier to build.

I took the question to mean the former, so maybe I was mistaken in that.

Nevermind, might I just add that maybe one should add then light/medium/heavy tanks to the categories as well as SPGs?