Small Arms.-No AR-15 conversation allowed

[Klausewitz]

If we think about the scales... Divisional commanders get removed, but we wish for smalls arms to have a major impact on an army corps? Battalions would have MG squads/assault troops fighting among regular riflemen anyway

The point here is ratio.
The SU fielded comapnies exclusivly armed with submachineguns (something as far as i know no other army did) while certain German formations had a higher ratio of HMGs and SMGs, etc.

 

[L'Afrique]

Total british casualties from the whole war, broken down:


Mortar, grenade, bomb, shell ...........75%
Bullet, AT mine................................10%
mine & booby trap...........................10%
Blast and crush.................................2%
Chemical..........................................2%
other................................................1%


from J Ellis WWII Databook table 57 p257


Small arms caused such a small percentage that I really don't think it's worth modeling. The garand made a big difference on an individual level but infantry shooting at each other was just not the deciding factor in battles. At best it'd be like, +1 SA.

copy-pasted so forgive the weirdo font

edit
fixed it for you - Had a dad

 

[Klausewitz]

I am actually surprised it was so much.
But you overlook something.
It was not like it was either/or.
It is not either you are being gutshot by a guy from texas or a shell falling somewhat unmotivated from the sky explodes you into paste.
It was not either being shot at or being blown up by artillery or mortar or grenades.
Usually the enemy was fixed by fire and then you either called for fire support (mortar, bomb or shell) or you snuck up and tossed on of your own grenades right between his feet.

 

[Opanashc]

Semi-auto rifles are expensive. Much more so, than bolt action. A SMG, like PPSH-41 was cheaper and easier to make than an SVT-40. Much less milling involved, more stamping. Mass warfare is not just about best weapons - its also about having enough of said weapons. Germany did not develop a cheap and reliable semi-auto rifle. Neither did SU. But USA did, and they used it.

 

[TheKiwi]

SMG's are OK at short ranges - and useful if you're fighting in tight confined spaces like inside a block of apartments. However beyond very close range the velocity of the pistol rounds used drops very rapidly. There are many accounts of people being struck by 9mm and .45ACP at 100+ meters and the bullet being unable to penetrate their greatcoat.

There is a reason why every modern army has moved away from SMG's.

 

[keynes2.0]

@Energy:
Energy is E=mc², meaning mass (which is greater in rifle projectiles as well) contributs normally to energy output while speed (which is MUCH greater in rifle bullets) contributes square.

Wrong equation for WWII. Well except the last week.

 

[Axe99]

@Energy:
Energy is E=mc², meaning mass (which is greater in rifle projectiles as well) contributs normally to energy output while speed (which is MUCH greater in rifle bullets) contributes square.
So a rifle projectile that has both higher mass and higher speed when leaving the barrel remains more stable and carries more energy.
There is however a twist:
Energy carried is not = energy transmitted to target.
High caliber rifle bullets (8mm) had a tendency to go through their target and travel on, only making a little hole and nothing more.
Smaller bullets (5.56mm) lost their energy quicker and were less stable resulting in them starting to tumble when meeting solid objects (amongst others: people) which means that they transmit much more of their energy into the poor slob.
Same goes to a lesser extent for pistol (and therefore SMG calibers). They might not carry as much energy but are much more effective in transmitting a lot of that energy into their target.

Yes and no - a round that goes through a soldier is still likely to disable them significantly, and it can go on to do damage to whoever's standing behind him. Also depends on the nature of the round being fired. Australia (sorry, I don't know what rounds are used in UK/US/etc currently uses 5.56mm rounds that are designed to break apart inside someone, so they only take one person out, but the do a pretty good job of it (I'm not convinced this is a good thing mind). The old Soviet block rounds, on the other hand, were larger calibre and not designed to break apart, so if a squad was going down a jungle track in Vietnam in single file, say (which they shouldn't have been doing after the first week - I'm not saying it's recommended practice), and someone hit them from the front, they could take out a good proportion of the squad with rounds travelling through multiple targets. Both have their pros and cons.

Also worth noting that you can have higher-energy 5.56mm rounds fired from assault rifles depending on the barrel and the individual round. I suspect that the NATO rounds in other places are similarly designed not to go through people.

@bolt-action:
WWI is the wrong reference. The British regulars doing that 'machine-gun fire' were not aiming and did pretty much the old volley system of 1815 only with boltaction rifles.
That falls in the category "Awesome but unpractical".

Was quite effective at the time, but agree it may not be as applicable to a WW2-style situation.

@M1 Garand against Lee-Enfield
American troops were able to carry their own suppression fire (read: high volume of fire in short time) while the Brits weren't (unless there Bren gun was with them).
To further illustrate:
Towards the end of the war the German squad became more and more one half MG support (basically everybody was schlepping extra ammo or barrels for the MG) and the other half stormtroops (read: those guys who the MG would cover while they tossed grenades or tried to get close enough to toss grenades or tried to flank). The MG however was essential. If you had given a German squad the choice of losing their 5 Mauser karabiners or their HMG, they would not have though about for a moment.

I don't think you'd call a machine gun in a standard infantry role a HMG, but that's by the by - think of it as a squad/section support weapon. In any case, infantry sections in the US, UK and German armies all had an LMG that was the main source of suppressive fire. I agree that the M1 would have been better at an ad-hoc suppressive role than a Lee Enfield or K98, but not so much that it's worth giving it a boost in a HoI-game style sense. I do think that the widespread deployment of modern assault-style rifles, though, would be worth a boost.

 

[unmerged(159022)]

I think it's been mentioned already in the thread, but this level of detail is beyond the scope of the game.


COMPLETELY OFFTOPIC:

Trained men armed with bolt-action rifles like the Lee-Enfield could fire almost as fast, and with greater accuracy than those armed with less accurate Garands.

The accuracy difference between the Garand and contemporary bolt-actions like the Lee Enfield, K98, or M1903 are so small that the skill of the user has far more impact on the accuracy than the gun itself. You're talking about a difference that's smaller than an inch at 500+ yards.

The rate of fire difference is absolutely huge though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KydwknyfUrg&t=2m30s
I'm no where near a professional shooter, I wasn't trained by the army, but I can shoot my Garand this fast and keep it roughly aimed at a target 100 yards or more away, which is all you need for suppressing fire. Combined with the fact that it takes only a couple seconds at most to reload, you have every guy in the squad armed with this (minus the BARs), and you can see why it was such a huge advantage over a bolt-action.

 

[Opanashc]

SMG's are OK at short ranges - and useful if you're fighting in tight confined spaces like inside a block of apartments. However beyond very close range the velocity of the pistol rounds used drops very rapidly. There are many accounts of people being struck by 9mm and .45ACP at 100+ meters and the bullet being unable to penetrate their greatcoat.

Most firefights happen at ranges not to exceed 200 m. SMGs were developed to provide maximum firepower at the ranges of the infantry rush into enemy trenches.

 

[1alexey]

Normally some thousand rounds are expended to kill an enemy soldier.

Afaik around 200 for most of WW2.

Thousands it became when USA invaded Iraq.

If this was the case, then why did the Germans and Russians attempted to replace all their bolt actions with semi-automatic weapons? The G-43 was developed as a response to the SVT-40 and even while the AK-47 was being developed Russia had introduced the SKS to replace all its Mosin Nagants.

Garands were hardly less accurate, and having to manually cycle the action does slow down rate of fire enormously.

Because it does meter, but the effect is so limited, it was a very low priority thing for both Germany and SU, compared to other things.

Also SU just dropped SVT-40 and went back to Mosin rifle, which speaks volumes about how little of priority having semi-auto received compared to other weapons, that was one of the very few cases where SU decided to downgrade to cheaper stuff.

SMG's are OK at short ranges - and useful if you're fighting in tight confined spaces like inside a block of apartments. However beyond very close range the velocity of the pistol rounds used drops very rapidly. There are many accounts of people being struck by 9mm and .45ACP at 100+ meters and the bullet being unable to penetrate their greatcoat.

There is a reason why every modern army has moved away from SMG's.

Debatable. One can say that modern armies use upgraded versions of SMGs that have low-energy cartridge like any normal SMG would, but the bullet has less of a disadvantage compared to typical rifle round at large range, so they actually moved from SMG being quite low in numbers compared to rifle, to almost everyone has s armed with SMG, or at least, a weapon that performs all the things that SMG is good at, and more.

 

[TheKiwi]

Most firefights happen at ranges not to exceed 200 m. SMGs were developed to provide maximum firepower at the ranges of the infantry rush into enemy trenches.

Not necessarily the case at all. Both Afghanistan & Iraq the engagement distances have been substantially longer than that hence the deployment of DMR's in many squads.

...Debatable. One can say that modern armies use upgraded versions of SMGs that have low-energy cartridge like any normal SMG would, but the bullet has less of a disadvantage compared to typical rifle round at large range, so they actually moved from SMG being quite low in numbers compared to rifle, to almost everyone has s armed with SMG, or at least, a weapon that performs all the things that SMG is good at, and more.

There is a substantial difference in size and performance of modern 5.56/5.45 rounds and the pistol rounds used in SMG's. Pistol rounds drop in velocity very quickly, rifle rounds like 5.56 do not and are still quite capable of inflicting lethal damage at ranges far beyond that of any pistol round. Then you should note that no army fields full-auto rifles - this too is a substantial difference between a modern AR and a WW2 SMG.

 

[Opanashc]

Not necessarily the case at all. Both Afghanistan & Iraq the engagement distances have been substantially longer than that hence the deployment of DMR's in many squads.

And Afghanistan and Iraq, are, of course, the ONLY fighting that has been going on in the past 100 years? How about Vietnam? Or Yugoslavia? Or Africa?
Did you not notice the qualifier "most" in that statement?

Then you should note that no army fields full-auto rifles - this too is a substantial difference between a modern AR and a WW2 SMG.

So an M16A4 does not have full auto capabilities? Or the AK? Armies field rifles that can fire semi and tri-burst OR full auto. Mostly, to conserve ammunition, and prolong the ability of the infantryman to deliver bullets downrange. Won't do, if he runs out of rounds in first few minutes.

 

[unmerged(143216)]

Wow? Have you ever fired these weapons? I have. The Garand was very accurate. It's ROF was 40-50 rounds per minutes which is many times more than any bolt action rifle. Your comment is so filled with inaccurate statement that it boggles the mind.

Considering that a good rifleman armed with a bolt action rifle could get 30 rounds a minute it isn't a huge difference, certainly not comparable to the difference between an StG and a Garand. Either way infantry weapons have a relatively minor effect in battle in the grand scheme of things, mortars, artillery, tanks, and aircraft have proportionally a much larger effect when quality comes into play. Sure an army with only mortars, artillery, and tanks would be pretty shit but an army with modern tanks, artillery, mortars, and aircraft but armed with muzzle loading rifles would still wreck a WW2 army armed with modern rifles.

Upgrades between infantry divisions are best thought of as a simplified group of ideas. A new tank division involves primarily new tanks, a new infantry division involves new guns, as well as new mortars, evolved tactics, new assault weapons, new man portable anti-tank weapons, new machineguns, etc.

 

[1alexey]

There is a substantial difference in size and performance of modern 5.56/5.45 rounds and the pistol rounds used in SMG's. Pistol rounds drop in velocity very quickly, rifle rounds like 5.56 do not and are still quite capable of inflicting lethal damage at ranges far beyond that of any pistol round.

Exactly. But it is intended for the same purpose, to reduce recoil, allowing better rate of fire, sacrificing the performance at long range, or in some cases, just to reduce the weight. 5.56 round is a large upgrade over pistol round.

Obviously modern rifles are not full successors of WW2 SMG, but to say that armies moved away from SMGs is rather not true. If anything, armies mover away from WW1-WW2 rifles to a less powerful but more rapid-firing weapon, with WW1-WW2 style rifles only staying in the niche of sniper weapon.

 

[Axe99]

Then you should note that no army fields full-auto rifles - this too is a substantial difference between a modern AR and a WW2 SMG.

The Austeyr used by Australia (and New Zealand) has full-auto capability, as do most AK assault rifles. I’m pretty sure the M4 can go full-auto as well. They have rates of fire so high you’d be borderline crazy to do so in most situations, but in certain situations it’s a good option.

Exactly. But it is intended for the same purpose, to reduce recoil, allowing better rate of fire, sacrificing the performance at long range, or in some cases, just to reduce the weight. 5.56 round is a large upgrade over pistol round.

Obviously modern rifles are not full successors of WW2 SMG, but to say that armies moved away from SMGs is rather not true. If anything, armies mover away from WW1-WW2 rifles to a less powerful but more rapid-firing weapon, with WW1-WW2 style rifles only staying in the niche of sniper weapon.

Except performance at longer range hasn’t been sacrificed . Modern ARs still provide the same things rifles did in WW2, and that’s still their main purpose. The M4 Carbine and M16 have longer effective ranges (500m and 600m respectively) than the M1 Garand did. Most SMGs then and now have effective ranges of 200m or less. You would not outfit a modern infantry unit with SMGs today, and you wouldn’t do it in WW2 either unless their primary business was relatively close-quarters combat (clearing out bunkers/high density urban warfare/jungle warfare/etc. I’m not sure what other militaries are trained to do, but the Australian Army uses its assault rifles primarily in the same role (long-distance, single-shot – although semi-auto, not bolt action!) that rifles were used for in WW2. Most automatic fire is done by the LMG team in the section (again, similar to WW2, potentially with the Stg-44 aside).

As for the level of power, while an M16 and M4 use smaller rounds, they also have higher muzzle velocities (M16 moreso than M4, but both are higher than the M1) which offset, to a degree, the smaller mass of the round. The momentum of the round (and the formula I think Klausewitz was looking for earlier) is:

P (momentum) = m (mass) x v (velocity). Modern western assault rifles have lower m but higher v.

Most firefights happen at ranges not to exceed 200 m. SMGs were developed to provide maximum firepower at the ranges of the infantry rush into enemy trenches.

From my understanding, it varies markedly by environment. Many encounters in Vietnam in the Jungle were very close range – out in the paddy fields though not so much. Desert warfare tends to be particularly long range, urban warfare tends towards closer a lot of the time but longer in some cases depending on the layout of the area being contested. I’d expect much of the shooting on the Eastern Front, in open steppe country, to have been over a 300-400m distance or more. The versatility of the modern assault rifle (and modern carbines even more so) is that they can handle the long and short encounters well. SMGs now and in WW2 weren’t much chop if the engagement range was long (200m plus) which happened plenty.

Veering back on topic, the AK-47 has an effective range of 350m, and the Stg-44 of 400m or more (sources vary, the German army handbook claimed it was effective up to 650 yards), so it would be possible to produce these kind of proto-modern assault rifles in the period HoI4 covers, and I’d think that they would provide an advantage in firepower that, if provided to enough infantry, would warrant a small combat bonus. I still don’t think the difference between bolt action and semi-auto was significant at the level of HoI though.

 

[Opanashc]

SMGs were designed around the round that was already available. Modern assault rifles had started out with a brand new type of cartridge. Everyone liked the idea of giving each infantryman a LMG, but LMGs are too massive. Something smaller had too much of a recoil, leading to accuracy issues, thus the adaptation of pistol rounds. But those proved to be too short-ranged, hence Germans and Soviets went with intermediate round (7,62x39 in SU case) - shorter than full rifle round (7,62x54R), but longer than pistol round (7,62x25).

 

[xXAgeOfPeopleXx]

Considering that a good rifleman armed with a bolt action rifle could get 30 rounds a minute it isn't a huge difference, certainly not comparable to the difference between an StG and a Garand. Either way infantry weapons have a relatively minor effect in battle in the grand scheme of things, mortars, artillery, tanks, and aircraft have proportionally a much larger effect when quality comes into play. Sure an army with only mortars, artillery, and tanks would be pretty shit but an army with modern tanks, artillery, mortars, and aircraft but armed with muzzle loading rifles would still wreck a WW2 army armed with modern rifles.

No, it wouldn't because even if they had M1A2 Abrams or equivalent their infantry attrition would be so horrendous due to the lack of suppressive fire what they'd be completely wrecked and would run out of people to make said tanks.

On the statistics that say artillery kills more, yes that's true but small arms aren't supposed to kill, they're supposed to would. Kill a guy his two buddies can shoot back at you. Critically wound him and the same two will have to stop the bleeding, search for a medic, escort the stretcher, then get back into the zone while they worry about their friend. That is worth much much more than a kill. Small Arms real purpose is to attack the Organisation and morale of a foe, not inflict a kill. Ideally you want capture them so you can get information while also ensuring that, once victory is achieved their family wont resent you as occupiers.

On the thread. The problem is people are thinking irrationally, you say it only makes at most 1 Soft Attack difference and it's not worth simulating yet a new tank only makes 1 hard attack difference! It's a double standard and you should hold the same standards for all equipment that was important not just the tanks and planes 'cause they're cooler. Also your thinking in the old fashioned linear design philosophy that "Small Arms" should be a tech if you were to implement this system you'd have something like this



Now this would mean that you'd have variants of weapons that are not necessarily better unlike in HOI 3. By going down the Battle Rifle Track and setting it as standard for your forces they may get say a bonus to organisational damage to represent suppression but moderate soft attack. If you go down bolt actions and make it standard in infantry battalions then you'd get a bonus to soft attack on certain terrain. This would create an interesting change from the linear way technology has always worked in Hearts of Iron and it doesn't do well to simulate that.

 

[Vanguard44]

No, it wouldn't because even if they had M1A2 Abrams or equivalent their infantry attrition would be so horrendous due to the lack of suppressive fire what they'd be completely wrecked and would run out of people to make said tanks.

So you think that Saddam's Army would have won if America was still using the Springfield?

There's no single weapon in a war that changes the outcome decisively. There are some systems that can have decisive effects - in the second world war we can point to radar and decryption/encryption systems and in the modern era, FLIRs and AESA and so on. But no individual weapon.

I think it should be represented because it would be authentic and immersive, but it shouldn't make a total difference on its own, because it didn't. The US Marines got a better weapon in the Garand but it didn't change the course of the war. Neither did the Panzerschreck or Panzerfaust. The most revolutionary infantry weapon of WWII wasn't even fielded in wide numbers (the FG42) and there are WWII weapons still being used today (ok, only the MG42, tho the Bren was used until 1992.) It should have about the same effect as a new type of tank, probably, or a new class of plane.

There was no weapon that turned the tide of the war or made even a decisive strategic impact due to its combat ability. Its production characteristics, maybe (muh Sherman) but not its ability to actually fight.

I think a two-track system would be cool, though, but not on such small scale as rifles. An infantry company has also MGs, mortars, radios, handheld anti-tank, defensive systems, etc to think about. Combine them all.

 

[Axe99]

I think a two-track system would be cool, though, but not on such small scale as rifles. An infantry company has also MGs, mortars, radios, handheld anti-tank, defensive systems, etc to think about. Combine them all.

Aye, this - not to take away from Age of People's mock-up (which would be seven shades of cool for immersion, but what about side-arms, or shotguns? ) but that's probably getting a little too finely detailed for a HoI4 level game (at least unmodded - not saying that you couldn't go for an uber-detailed tech set-up in a mod). Something that was base around infantry equipment, with a small arms, squad support, communication (portable radios and the like) and maybe things like medical kit and general kit might represent these things better, and also cover off other elements that made far more difference than any difference (real or perceived) between the M1 Garand, Springfield and Lee Enfield.

 

[Vanguard44]

Infantry Battalion tech

But to have a two track or three track system, you need to identify two or three clear choices around which to diverge. Can that be done for WWII? There's the German MG centric system, did any other countries practice it?

(Distributed vs centralised firepower, maybe... one side is semiautomatics and BARs and SMGs whereas other is MMGs/HMGs/bolt actions...more/less radios etc. That would put Soviets and Americans on one side and British and Germans on the other.)