Best semi auto rifle of ww2

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AG 42B ljungman


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Hahahahaha.
 
I went shooting recently with some newbies at the range who had the chance to try quite a number of semi auto WWII rifles. The one they shot best by a landslide was the M1 Garand. Great accuracy, amazing sights for a battle rifle.

Probably why there is so much interest in the gun gun community to have one..
 
I was born in East Germany we had good life till 1989, after the fall of the wall sure it was nice for few months but then sitting on welfare forever with no jobs prospects. Back on the topic

STG 44 is my choice way ahead of its times
 
There you go again, just nailed it. Your right I was looking at it all wrong. All those redneck canadian and Americans trying to get a kill before the war ends and you dodge all those bullets! Damn rights he is a survivor. Never thought of it like that.

Thank you for your important contributions to this thread...f:P:2:
 
Purple, funny you mention it.
I have talked to both Canadian and US vets of Korea and the comments on the Garand in winter are unprintable.
I couldn't believe my ears when the Americans said they were jealous of the No4s in winter!!!

I think that the Carl Gustav inserts used a 6.5mm Swedish Mauser bullet, but it was a special marking and observer. Some kind of over achieving tracer round.

We had spare 30 '06 barrels sent to our unit in the late nineties by mistake for the modded C5s.
 
I've dabbled in the WWII rifles and I must say I love my Garand. Pretty robust design, easy to reload, easy to shoot, and who doesn't love the 30-06?
I imagine an SVT 40 would be similar.
 
There you go again, just nailed it. Your right I was looking at it all wrong. All those redneck canadian and Americans trying to get a kill before the war ends and you dodge all those bullets! Damn rights he is a survivor. Never thought of it like that.

You need to read a bit more history. Nobody wants to be the last casualty in the closing days of a war that is about to wind up, so troops tend to be a bit less enthusiastic than they might otherwise be at this point in the game. We had a relative on the American side of the family who was seriously wounded in France on 11 Nov 1918, the day of the Armistice. We had another relative who went missing in the early days of WW2, and is assumed dead, while serving in the US Army on Corregidor in the Philippines.

Anybody who made it through alive was a winner.
 
I asked my German father-in-law what his favourite weapons were:

- MG34
- VW Kubelwagon.

Why? He said the MG34 worked when you needed it and the Kubelwagon got him out of Stalingrad before the complete encirclement.

He didn't know what a "Luger" was until I showed him a picture and he said - "Ahh, P-08!", the official Wehrmacht nomenclature.
 
Purple, funny you mention it.
I have talked to both Canadian and US vets of Korea and the comments on the Garand in winter are unprintable.
I couldn't believe my ears when the Americans said they were jealous of the No4s in winter!!!

I think that the Carl Gustav inserts used a 6.5mm Swedish Mauser bullet, but it was a special marking and observer. Some kind of over achieving tracer round.

We had spare 30 '06 barrels sent to our unit in the late nineties by mistake for the modded C5s.

A lot of it is about who you talk to. There is a very good read titled, "US Infantry Weapons in Combat" . It is a 230 page book, available from Scott Duff's website, and contains anecdotes from 65 US Army and Marine Corps veterans about their experiences with various small arms in combat in WW2 and Korea. The US Army historian, SLA Marshall also provided some good commentary on various small arms in combat in his AARs and debriefings of troops in WW2 and again in Korea. About the only really disparaging remark on the Garand is about it's weight. A secondary complaint was about replenishing a partially filled clip, a very time consuming and awkward process which often caused a soldier to simply eject a nearly empty clip and replace it with a full one. This deficiency led directly to the M14 with it'd detachable 20 rd mag. All-in -all the semi-auto Garand was yards ahead of the bolt rifles, all of which were refinements of basic 40 year old designs, for firepower. There are more negative views about the M1 Carbine. Another good one is, "Shots Fired in Anger", by Lt. Col. John George a lifelong "gunnut" and a combat veteran of the fighting on Guadalcanal and in Burma. He again makes reference to eliminating some of the weight of the Garand, but opines that a carrying handle, like that on the BREN, might have been a good addition. Where have we seen that before? On the FNC1 and C2. Another good reference is, "US Small Arms of WW2", by H.R Crouch. This is a 225 page book, published in 1984, which provides a lot of info on all US small arms and some foreign weapons for collectors, shooters and historians.

Folks feel comfortable with what they were trained on and got to use. I always thought that the FNC1 was the cat's a$$ as a fighting rifle, even though it was on the heavy side. It was rugged, simple, reliable, hard hitting, accurate enough, and easy to strip and maintain in the field, and it even had a carrying handle. When you are in shape that 10.5 lbs didn't seem all that bad. 40 yrs ago I was young, foolish, and stupid fit, running 10 miles every day, doing battle PT and running the 10miler like a bunny rabbit in combat, helmet, boots and skeleton web carrying the FN. It all seemed OK and fun to boot. But all of our FNs have gone to the smelter, although you do see other maker's models still in use in places like Africa and Syria.

Its kind of fun to have these rhetorical discussions about old rifles, all of which had their time in the sun 60-70 yrs ago. We should always be a bit careful with old soldier's stories. They tend to grow with the telling, especially as years pass and there are fewer people around to call them a bullshutter.:cool:
 
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Yeah, the memories of old soldiers tends to exaggerate a little ..... we were all young lions and kick ass soldiers .... ;>)

I served for 12 years when the FNC1 was our battle rifle, and it wasn't the 'be all and end all' of service rifles, having a few deficiencies of it's own. The cocking handle was prone to locking in place with a little grit in the wrong place (discovered while doing 'asses & elbows' leopard crawls in Wainwright, Alberta) and freezing shut due to sleet and snow (discovered at the Battle School in NW Europe and at Churchill, Manitoba).

Both situations required a bayonet to pry up the cocking handle and hefty pull or boot sole to #### the rifle. In fairness, old soldiers told us that the Lee-Enfields would also lock up at times, requiring a boot to open the bolt. The mag release was likewise prone to getting locked in place under the same conditions. We got that cocking handle because it gave the rifle a slim profile, less likely to snag during rifle drill, as opposed to the straight out from the action cocking handle used by the rest of the world on the FNFAL.

The select fire FNC2 was a back breaker with the folding forearm/bipod extended, requiring short asses to dig the legs into the dirt or place them over the berm in order to be comfortable. The 30 rd magazine similarly caused problems, and we preferred to use the 20 rd mags of the C1. It was also prone to shooting itself loose as the body screw turned during full auto fire. I've seen one come apart as the team shooter picked up the gun to advance on a run down. That could ruin your day in a tactical situation. The Belgians had a three shot burst escapement that made the standard FAL manageable in full auto. That would have been a good idea to incorporate into our FNC2.

The FNFALs used an effective battle cartridge, had useful sights, came in several butt lengths to suit and allowed sharp rifle drill. Pity it's gone ....

Folks feel comfortable with what they were trained on and got to use. I always thought that the FNC1 was the cat's a$$ as a fighting rifle, even though it was on the heavy side. It was rugged, simple, reliable, hard hitting, accurate enough, and easy to strip and maintain in the field, and it even had a carrying handle. When you are in shape that 10.5 lbs didn't seem all that bad. 40 yrs ago I was young, foolish, and stupid fit, running 10 miles every day, doing battle PT and running the 10miler like a bunny rabbit in combat, helmet, boots and skeleton web carrying the FN.

Its kind of fun to have these rhetorical discussions about old rifles, all of which had their time in the sun 60-70 yrs ago. We should always be a bit careful with old soldier's stories. They tend to grow with the telling, especially as years pass and there are fewer people around to call them a bullshutter.:cool:
 
The BS WW2 story of the Sten being thrown through a window into a house and it clears the house of all Germans as the Sten magically makes one full revolution on the floor in full auto as it empties its 32 round mag! As told at the Calgary Gun Shows and many other gun shows...;)

Its kind of fun to have these rhetorical discussions about old rifles, all of which had their time in the sun 60-70 yrs ago. We should always be a bit careful with old soldier's stories. They tend to grow with the telling, especially as years pass and there are fewer people around to call them a bullshutter.:cool:
 
My gawd. The C2. Oh the memories of that sorry thing. The C2 has definitely got to be the worst LMG ever conceived. We were better off keeping with the Bren during that period with 7.62. I remember many a patrol was compromised because the damn wooden bipods came undone and the racket was heard throughout the night.... I also recall seeing a guy in the full 30rnd mag bra almost breaking his ribs doing A to C. What a complete disaster that weapon system was. This would be a good next thread. How much did you hate the C2!

Not a big fan of the C9 replacement, though it was a big improvement. It has very poor accuracy with the basic training given on it. Seen soldiers empty an entire drum into a 4ft from 300m and only a few holes in it. Even the experienced C9 shooters at CFSAC had to employ all kinds of tricks to be accurate enough. Spray and pray...

Get rid of the C9 - every section should have a C6 instead. Didn't zie Germans teach us the value of putting a MMG within a section?
 
That must have sucked to be in full retreat and to lose the biggest war ever fought. What a disappointment for the rest of your life.

Most idiotic quote I have read in some time.
Please enlighten us as to the extensiveness of your combat experiences. Have you ever served this country or any other? Your post comes across as mockery, along with previous ones I have read that you have "contributed" in various threads since you've shown up here.

Those soldiers, regardless of their nationality or ideals fought bravely and they fought hard. There was nothing they could do as the Russians rolled over them, they knew this but fought to the end and for that they deserve just a little respect.

Those retreating soldiers or any other soldiers that sacrificed for their respective countries showed more courage than most people ever will. And yes, I am a reg force Canadian soldier and yes, I am suggesting that the majority of your statements are ignorant. Nothing like trash talking dead soldiers right? The enemy had over 200 divisions in the East fighting the russians, I'll let you go figure out how many they had fighting us on the western front, hell you might learn something. I'll give you a hint, the eastern front was a much larger campaign.

Now that that's sorted, M1 Garand.
 
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I'm down to one Garand in .308 -a springer converted by Italy. Works very well unlike most conversions.

Having actually been in the infantry, I think I'd take the Garand third over the STG -44, but that second over the FG-42.
 
Again, ask yourself - if you had to go to war TODAY as an infantryman, what WW2 weapon would you take over the STG44? Frankly, all modern choices were derived from the Sturmgewehr. It was the best INFANTRY weapon of the war. Period.

It just wasn;t (thankfully) available in numbers, came too late in the war and had not enough ammo to make a difference.

Although there is a lot of good to be said about the STG44, and I dont necessarily disagree with your choice, you have chosen a poor example. Today's wars are fought (at the small unit/tactical level) a lot differently than they were in WW2.
 
It would have been interesting to have been a fly on the wall during the decision making process to adopt the heavy barreled FNC2. I suspect it had a lot to do with the fact that it had parts commonality with the C1, plus the fact that we were tooled up to produce the C1 and therefore didn't need to seek a manufacturing licence for another model or incur all of the additional set up costs and tooling to produce another LMG. The C2 was a big mistake. It fired from a closed bolt and didn't have a quick change barrel, both of which would have caused severe overheating and cook-offs during sustained firing. The long 30 rd mag on the bottom was bad as well. Its' amazing that we went this way after our huge amount of experience with the superior BREN in WW2 and Korea only a few yrs before the C2 was adopted. Thankfully we never had to put it to the test.

The BREN was a much better LMG, it's only drawback beings it's comparatively low rate of fire using 30 rd mags. I suppose the best solution would have been to go with a BREN in 7.62, or even better, to adopt the W. German MG3, a 7.62 version of the MG42 which had been used so effectively against us in WW2. The MG3 came out in the late '50s for the rebuilt W. German Army. Maybe we just weren't ready to concede that our recent enemy had produced such a fine weapon. The US Army was going thru the throes of adopting the M60 at the same time after having aborted the heavy barreled M14 variant as an LMG for the same reasons that the C2 wasn't up to the mark.

The Brits re-worked their BRENs into 7.62 and they were still soldiering on with them in the Falklands, and even to a limited extent in the Gulf War in 1991. I saw the Nepalese contingent using them in Lebanon in the late 1980s, but I can't remember if they were in .303 or 7.62.
 
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