why bolt-action in WW2?

[Slamfire]

Everything is obvious in hindsight.

The Garand came out of early 1920’s US Army test programs. You can read it in Hatcher’s notebook. Heavy machine guns of the period, the Browning M1919, the Vickers, the Schwarlose had all been developed to a high reliability, but they were heavy. The Vickers and Maxim were recoil operated, the Schwarlose a delayed blowback. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzlose_MG_M.07/12Scharlose , the Browning a gas operated mechanism. Of the available squad automatic weapons, the BAR was about the best, but it is a 20 pound rifle. There really was no such thing as a reliable and durable lightweight semi auto mechanisms firing a full power round.

It took time and money to sort through the different design approaches. One of the first issues was breech friction. Lightweight mechanisms have low inertial masses which give short dwell periods. Unlike the massive recoiling barrels and breech blocks of Maxim guns, with their subsequent long dwell times, light weight guns are opening when there is significant breech pressure. High bolt speeds and cases stuck to the chamber are undesirable.

Note in Hatcher’s Notebook the number of American designs that used oilers. I think the Thompson had oiled pads which wiped oil on the cartridges to reduce the friction between case and chamber. Pedersen’s delayed blowback mechanism required waxed cases. The Swedish solider carried an oil squirt can to oil his cases for the Ljungman semi-automatic rifle http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/artiklar/ag42/ag42eng.htm The US military did not like wax or oil and this was a major reason the Pedersen rifle was dropped. This was not a problem with the Japanese. They fielded this Nambu lightweight machine gun which has an oiler on top.






This is how it basically worked:



Oilers are messy, require the user to carry an oil can, and while they work, they were an evolutionary dead end. For blowback or delayed blowback mechanisms, what replaced oilers was the fluted chamber. The fluted chamber breaks the friction between cartridge and case, and with the high cyclic rate of the roller bolt, this is one of the most common and successful breech mechanisms to fall out of WW2. But it was not until WW2 that the roller bolt and fluted chamber were mated together into a successful weapon system.


Even then, it was not until the 1950’s that lightweight mechanisms are developed to the point that you can issue a reliable service rifle that fires a full powered round, automatically, to a soldier that weighs less than 20 lbs.

No one has beaten the heat issue, full power rounds create a lot of heat. On UTube you see lots of videos of idiots firing their AK's till the handguards burst on fire. The recoil issue has never been beaten, instead the powers that be went for lower powered less lethal rounds such as the .223 Remington.

In hind sight the Garand, the FAL, the M14, the HK91 all seem obvious, but they were not at the time. A lot of refinement had to take place.

 

[Kendal Black]

To get a rough gauge on the size of the problem, consider the huge numbers of obsolete bolt action fighting rifles sold as surplus over the years. Millions and millions of them! They are shot as is, sporterized into deer rifles or cleaned up and retired as collectibles. Then add, to those millions, the rifles that were scrapped, parted out, lost in action, etc.

They're still digging up rusted out remains of Mausers and Mosins now and then, in Europe. Of course a certain number of rifles came home in duffel bags or got hidden in walls and so forth and dropped out of the accounting that way...

An ex-military bolt action is one of the types encountered constantly in the used gun market. They are ubiquitous because all the world's armies sold themselves on the bolt action repeating rifle concept, only decades before it became clear the idea was obsolete. The type's toughness, reliability, accuracy and ease of maintenance made it seem like the ultimate weapon for a grunt to carry.

At the turn of the century before last, no one had seen an airplane or a tank and the machine gun's capabilities were only beginning to be understood. History is usually a surprise to the participants.

 

[hso]

Can you tell us what reliable semiauto and full auto rifles were available before 1941 that might have been put into use?

What did they weigh and what was their size?

What would they have cost in adjusted dollars?

What would be the estimate of the cost to change out from the reliable functional bolt action, including retraining and updated logistical chain would have been?

Equipping militaries is very much about providing equipment that has dependable reliability at an economical price. Tactics are both driven by and drive development and deployment of weapon systems. They are interrelated.

 

[mdauben]

People have touched on a number of reasons why the Bolt Action was still so ubiquitous in WWII. Another reason that has not been mentioned is tactics. The Germans, at least, considered the riflemen in a platoon to be there mainly to support and protect the guy with the MG 34 light machinegun. The light machinegun was considered the real source of firepower in the unit.

 

[Fred Fuller]

Bolt action rifles were common in WW2 because they were there. They didn't have to be invented. They didn't have to be manufactured. They just needed to be issued.

Think about how fast the US military ramped up in WW2, and how big it grew. It was astounding. It's no surprise there was lag time in supplying Garands, when you think about it.

"Amateurs talk tactics. Experts discuss logistics." - oldphart military dictum

lpl

 

[Fishbed77]

And last but not least, why are the Israeli's using the Galil and switching over to the newer Tavor assault rifle and we as Americans are still using the controversial M-16/A4. (what did the Israeli's do with all the M-16 rifles we gave them)

A bit off topic, but last time I was in Israel (a few years back) almost every Israeli solder I saw was carrying an M4 or M16.

 

[dagger dog]

With out reading all the previous posts I will add my reply to the original post.

You have to understand the German mindset , If it works there is no use in changing, the Amish community in the USA is an example, the Old Amish are often called Dutch, or Pennsylvania Dutch, which is a bastardization of Deutsche or German.

The Mauser, a primary battle rifle of many WWII nations ,and a throw back from before WWI was such great design that a small country in Europe nearly dominated the world twice with that rifle, it was such a hard act to follow that most nations envolved in the conflict were eager to reproduce.

 

[Ole Humpback]

Why was the bolt-action combat rifle design still common in the 1930s, 1940s?

My take on it is two fold. First, there were hardly any battle ready shoulder fired SA/FA arms at the start of the war. In the US you had the Thompson, Garand, and BAR with the BAR being more of a hip fired weapon due to its weight. The other nations had either few working SA/FA arms or were only in the R&D stage on those arms.

The next one is more of a logistical issue. In a military that fields bolt action repeaters, fielding even limited numbers of SA/FA arms is a huge strain on the supply system. History is a prime example of this and one only need to look at the last 2 years of the US Civil War for the proof. Henry, Gatling, Spencer, Sharps, Hall, and Maynard had all produced either lever action repeaters, breech loading single shots, or multiple barrel crank operated guns that used self contained ammunition that all had rates of fire that were equal to multiple soldiers equipped with muzzle loading rifle muskets.

A single soldier with a rifle musket could fire 3 aim shots per minute, a soldier equipped with a Sharps, Hall, or Maynard breech loading rifle using self contained paper cartridges was able to fire 10-15 aimed rounds a minute, that same soldier with a Henry or Spencer lever rifle with self contained metallic cartridges was capable of 20-30 aimed rounds per minute and a Gatling gun could do 120-150 rounds per minute. These guns, even in limited numbers, were exhausting ammo supplies on both sides because the supply system at that time was setup to supply the soldier with the rifle musket firing 3 rds per minute.

By the start of the Civil war, only Cavalry units were equipped with the breech loading carbines because they were light & easy to load (relatively) on horse back and the supply system was barely able to support that rate of ammo consumption for such a small part of the military. By late 1863/early 1864, the main problems with the lever repeaters wasn't design it was lack of cartridges to shoot. This was because the military supply system was setup to rifle muskets of several troops, not the repeater of a single soldier.

Fast forward to WWII, same issue. The US also had the benefit of not having its industrial bases bombed during the war which allowed us to produce more ammo faster to support the faster rate of fire. Europe wasn't so fortunate. When your back is against the wall, which makes more sense: take controlled aimed fire with that bolt rifle or bet the fate or your nation on a "assault" weapon that you barely have the factories to build when your arsenals & armories are almost gone?

 

[JTH]

You don't see snipers using semi autos, who can be very effective and essential in a battle.
JT

 

[caribou]

Hugo Schmeisser saw it and pioneered the assault rifle.

His father, Luis Schmeisser invented the MP-18 and the germans loved it. With an improved magazine,MP-18-1 was its eveolution that was still used at the start of WWII.The Brittish copy, The "Lanchester" soldierd on as a Brittish Navy tool till the 60's.

Hugo saw the benifit of sheetmetal pressings and that the qualitys of accuracy and reliability could be maintained with out expensive machinings. He also belived in the midrange cartridge idea as a way to save materials, increase ammo load with out weight increase,and still get the job done.
He was working for Hanel and came up with the basic Fallschirmjäger FG-42. Interestingly, because his father had devloped the Machine Pistol, most all folks in Europe called Submachineguns "Schmeisser's", as well almost all small pocket autos were referred to as "Brownings" despite the maker, although his only contribution to the MP-38-MP-40 "Schmeisser"was his ideas about sheet metal pressings that eveolved the aluminum machined Mp-38 into the stamped and tubed MP-40.This work was done whith the Hanel Company too.
His further work with Hanel was mostly with manufacturing parts from pressings to speed up production but he did have a big hand in the deveolpment of the MP-42(H) that beat out the MP_42(Mauser) and became the MP-43, MP-44,Stg-44 and its many other names.

Hugo Schmeisser was removed to Russia after the war and is believed to have helped them develop the technology to fix the sheetmetal problems the Soviets were having in makeing the orginal designe of the AK-47, with the Soviets having to mill/machine billets the old, slow, inneficent way to get it right, but went to the AKM as soon as they got it figured out......

 

[CapnMac]

Probably germane to point out that most of the action on Guadalcanal was with 1903 rifles. Ir was not until the end, when "mainland" US Army units started arriving, that the Grand was much used.

And, not all bolt actions are the same. There's an old British newsreel on youtube of an RA rifle instructor who can empty an Enfield lickety-split. Some of that is technique, too--things like using the ring finger, not the index finger to address the trigger.

Which is something that would have made facing Swiss K-31 and K-35 a daunting thought, even with with MG-42 equipped maniples.

 

[Dr.Rob]

Great Britain didn't issue a semi automatic rifle until well after WW2.

Remington pumped out hundreds of thousands of 1903a3's DURING WW2.

One Germany's biggest industrial gains early in the war was the Czech munitions factories which churned out 98k's and mountains of 8mm ammunition. Germany might have had too many competing designs for a new rifle.. and by the time they got around to the STG43/44, it was too late to make a difference.

The USSR cranked out millions of Nagants and their off-shoots M38, M44--even after they had started issuing submachine guns in vast numbers.

 

[wally]

Development of a combat ready semi-auto took a lot of testing and development, plus development of manufacturing tools and processes to allow mass production with both quantity and quality. (Garand designed not only the gun itself, but the tools by which it could be fabricated.)

Major plus that US factories weren't being bombed every day. Out of desperation, Germany came up with some very impressive "super weapons" but never could produce them in sufficient numbers to make a difference.

Stalin figured it out on the Russian front -- "Quantity has a quality of its very own!"

 

[goon]

Along with the fact that bolt actions were proven and already paid for, there were other factors.
Just before the outbreak of WWII the Red Army was hastily trying to get equipped enough to have a hope of withstanding the inevitable German invasion that they knew was coming. Although they signed a nonaggression pact with Germany in 1939 (the Molotov-Ribbentrob pact, I think...) this was in reality just an effort to buy time or "breathing room". It was this mentality and the desire to gain a strong point on the Baltic, as well as a desire to keep the Germans from easily moving into Finland and setting up fortifications within long range artillery range of Leningrad that led to the Winter War with Finland.
Complicating the whole situation was that purges had liquidated much of the Red Army officers corps around this time. I'd bet that the officers that remained were giving a solid "yes sir!" to anything Stalin suggested.
Additionally, the Russians just didn't see the value of lightweight rapid fire weapons at the time. They'd tested the submachine gun in the late twenties or early thirties and felt that it was suitable only as a police weapon. It wasn't until the Finns began dealing death out to them with Suomi 9mm's on a massive scale that the Russians reconsidered the SMG and eventually adoped the PPSh-41. If you want to take a solid look at the state of the Red Army on the eve of WWII, you might check out Stumbling Colossus by David Glantz.

 

[sixgunner455]

Not everybody knew everything then that they know now. There were Marine generals who looked at the Garand like it was a product of the Devil, and insisted that their men be armed with a proper Marine's rifle, the 03A3, even if Garands were available.

It was a period of transition, to boot. Good grief, the K31 remained the Swiss issue rifle until 1957, and the British stuck with the Enfield until the FN/FAL came along in the fifties, too.

It's the attitude of, "Prove that thing works. Until you do, I'm issuing my men something I KNOW works."

 

[Ignition Override]

ErikO:

One of your comments reminded me of the fact that when we finally entered WW2, our military was said to be the size of Romania's military.
This is a bit hard to believe.

Anyway, it must have been a miracle that the DoD or Army decided in the 1930s to pay for development of the M-1 Garand.

dagger dog: Quite true about the German military's huge success with the Mauser.
As you must be aware, the combined tactics of Germany's Blitzkrieg attacks allowed this success, and ironically, US officer Billy Mitchell's shocking experiments with aircraft in the 1920s against ships taught lessons to both the Germans and Japanese.

 

[Maple_City_Woodsman]

I disagree outright with most of what the OP said. His analysis is so full of holes "even a 7 year old kid could see it".

You are looking at history from a single perspective. German tactics were quite effective early in the war, and they used their infantry men very differently. The Mauser 98 was adequate for the roll it played (protecting the machine gunner).

Everyone but the US used bolt actions, thus many troops with bolt guns were fighting other troops with bolt guns. Again, in that scenario a bolt action in entirely sufficient.

Since WWII was the first time high mobility had been seen, the necessity for an infantrymen to be his own machine gunner had not yet come into play. The reason modern type assault rifles were developed AFTER WWII is because the tactics and NEED to use such guns had not yet been developed.

 

[Cosmoline]

The reason modern type assault rifles were developed AFTER WWII is because the tactics and NEED to use such guns had not yet been developed

Not necessarily. The major powers knew that the bolt actions had become increasingly obsolete prior to WWII. The tactics of 1917 and 1918 showed the benefits of automatic small arms. Highly mobile, tank and machine gun based warfare was well established by the end of that war. But converting a whole military to a new and emerging technology is a major and very expensive undertaking full of political and logistical difficulties.

So they tended to take half measures instead. You'll notice how most of the rifles from WWI were produced in shorter barreled versions for WWII, for example. And a growing number of battle rifles were made for the elite troops. Not all successfully, but the movement was well underway.

Can you tell us what reliable semiauto and full auto rifles were available before 1941 that might have been put into use?

That's an interesting question. The Garand, of course. The SVT-38 and SVT-40 (though they had their problems). Saive's team had already designed a proto-SAFN by 1939, but had to stop production to concentrate on bolt actions. The French had developed the 1917 RSC.

 

[kovendel]

Folks! Thanx a lot for the comments.

And I guess the real answer is paradigms.

But i think some things have to be cleared.


I heard many times that the bolt action rifles were reliable and combat proven.

Yes, they were. I didn't say, that the bolt action hadn't done there function as a machine.
I said, the concept was obsolete. The times had change. Bolt action is perfect when the two armies are 100 meters from each other, and nobody goes closer.

Let me make it clear with a story of my fathers grandfather. He served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in WW1, and he fought in Italy. He always said stories about, that he and his fellows couldn't do anything with their bolt action rifle. In an assault, they had to rush towards the enemy trenches. No shooting, run or you die. When the very little remaining of the assaulting team (as they had nothing to suppress the defenders machine guns) reached the trenches they faced the enemy in 1-2 meters. They couldn't fire their rifle rapidly, had no time to reload. So they started to use revolvers, hand grenades, DIY battleaxes, swords, and mostly their bayonet. They had to fought a brutal, middle-ages hand to hand battle with the enemy. The consequence was thousands of losses in hours with no result as the riflemen charge could be easily broken by one machine gun.

And nobody shot his bolt-action rifle!

And it happened in 1916. 25 years before ww2.

So you gonna hate me, but it seems that the bolt action rifle earned its combat proofness as a spear, not as a gun.


Another thing. Economic aspects.
It is true, that the slower weapon needs less ammo, simpler weapons are cheaper. But if you follow this logic, we should still rather use swords instead of rguns. They are ultimatly simple, needs no ammo, combat proven for thousands of years, what a weapon !
It is very expensive to pay the price of winning a war by untested weapons, but it's more expensive to pay the price of loosing it with the old guns.
And not every country had their old weapons. Just the winners of WW1. The loosers, like Germany or Hungary, were disarmed by the treaty of Paris. So they had to buy again thier weapons in the 1930s. And they rearmed themselves with the system that failed 20 years before. That's what I can't understand.

 

[ball3006]

If bolt action rifles so obsolete, why are most sniper rifles today bolt action rifles? Rifle fire is no longer taught, spray and pray is. Why do you think the US army went to three shot burst instead of full auto with the M16 type rifle? Troops tend to waste ammo. No one aims anymore....chris3

 

[Sam1911]

If bolt action rifles so obsolete, why are most sniper rifles today bolt action rifles?

Obviously bolt action rifles aren't obsolete. They just are less optimal for certain tasks. A rifle that lets you hold position and sight/scope picture without releasing a firing grip through 30 well-aimed shots is going to be much more effective when engaging multiple very hostile, mobile targets at distances of danger-close out to 300 meters or so (and closing), than a rifle that requires you to lose your firing grip and your sight picture (generally) after every shot -- and has to be reloaded after every 5-10 shots. No reason to pretend or claim otherwise.

Rifle fire is no longer taught, spray and pray is. Why do you think the US army went to three shot burst instead of full auto with the M16 type rifle? Troops tend to waste ammo. No one aims anymore....chris3

Meaning no disrespect, this is a completely unfounded opinion. If this is what you believe, it is clear that you do not know any soldiers, or know anything about the developments in practical marksmanship training. Our troops are better trained than any soldiers in history.

 

[aka108]

Until someone invents a Buck Rogers ray gun, the bolt action rifle will still see limited use in modern warfare.

 

[egg250]

Kovendal, according to Clauswitz, "war is an extension of politics". However wars are fought by soldiers. But politicians provide the money to equip and arm the soldier.

Many of you have made excellent points, but it all comes down to money. During the Civil War various repeating rifles were available. They were also expensive and used more ammunition than the muskets in use. The Confederacy couldn't afford anything better than the Enfield muskets they acquired from the British, so the Union had no incentive to upgrade to the top of the line repeating rifles of the day. Also, recall the mind of the military leadership that values accuracy over rate of fire. The generals felt (and still feel today) the soldiers would waste ammunition if issued repeaters and would make every shot count if they could only take one at a time.

During WWI, the armies of the world were armed primarily with the bolt action rifle. Some rifles were magazine fed, and others were single shot only. The Thompson machine gun was not yet perfected and the BAR was in the U.S. Army inventory however, a political decision was made that the BAR design was too valuable to be captured by the Germans, and it was not deployed overseas (google "ChauChat"). Besides, the Germans were armed with bolt action rifles, why should we (politicians) pursue more advanced weaponry when we have access to similar weapons as our enemy?

Advance to WWII...the armies of Europe were still primarily armed with bolt action rifles. The Great Depression had quite a bit to do with it, no money to invest in development and then re-tooling, re-equipping and re-arming. Based on experiences during WWI the U.S. Army had been developing the predecessor to the M1 Garand during the 1920s using a .270 cartridge. The results were promising, however there were billions of 30-06 ammunition left over from WWI. Guess what, due to the economy of using preexisting stocks of ammunition, the work based around the .270 cartridge was abandoned and in 1936, the Rifle M1 Cal .30 (Garand) was adopted. Specialized personnel on each side were issued SMGs (Thompson, MP-40, Grease Guns, etc) or the M1 Carbine. However, the prevailing military attitude of the time favored a full-powered battle rifle (not to mention the huge stocks of ammunition still left over from WWI). Due to the expense associated, the other nations of the world had not seen a need to develop new battle rifles, especially since everyone else had bolt actions. The Germans did develop the first "assault rifle" (sturmgwehr 44), but Hitler did not believe in the assault rifle concept, and development was done in secret. By the time it was adopted it was too late in the war for it to have any real impact. We definitely feel the impact today, as the Russians captured the sturmgwehr technology and Kalishnikov improved it into the AK-47 we are all familiar with.

The Garand was so successful (remained in service use through the 1990s), it was improved with the adoption of the M14. The M14 used the same action, but it was chambered for 7.62 NATO and used a 20 round box magazine instead of the 8 round en bloc clips and it was capable of full auto fire. A political decision (thank you Mr. McNamara) was made to adopt the AR-16 (M-16) using a smaller cartridge thus giving the soldier capability to carry more ammunition. It was capable of full auto fire as well, which allowed the soldier to use up his ammunition more quickly. The military leadership eventually intervened and reduced the full auto to a 3 round burst selective fire (reduce the firepower and force the soldier to make every round count).

In conclusion, during WWI the technology of the time was not sufficient to support the development of the assault weapons of today. During WWII the military leadership could not let go of the battle rifle concept and assault rifles were used in sparse numbers. It wasn't until the political leaders(thanks again McNamara) forced the military to use a more smaller, more economical cartridge that the U.S. embraced the assault rifle and developed tactics around its use.

One man's opinion (my own), I'm not discounting the usefulness of the 5.56 NATO or 7.62 x 39 cartridges, but I prefer the larger cartridges (30-06 or 7.62 NATO) for general use. The heavy calibers combine long range accuracy and ballistic performance which are undeniable. But, we must know our enemy. As our enemy is armed with weapons that allow them greater firepower, we must be able to match and overcome that firepower. Anyone that has played paintball can attest to that. The "pump and shoot" (think bolt action) paint markers are quickly overcome by the massive amounts of firepower available to the semi-auto compressed CO2 powered markers.

 

[-v-]

What I will say is that the rifle is only one small part of the entire military machine. As others have said, and will say again, the main killers on the battle-field are not GIs with rifles but crew-served weapons such as machine guns, tanks, planes, and artillery. Thus, we saw huge advancements during WW2 in the field of tanks, with the concept of the Main Battle Tank reaching maturity by the end of the war (T-44, M26 Pershing). As the saying goes, Tanks are the Kings of the battlefield for a reason. They move fast, are damn hard to destroy, and can kill hundreds of infantry with relative ease.

Aircraft designs also advanced by leaps and bounds. We went from biplanes at the start of WW2 to all metal aircraft, long-range bombers, jet fighters, the idea of both close-in air support and strategic long range bombardment by formations of bombers. Lots of cool stuff that again resulted in each pilot being able to destroy hundreds or thousands of infantry-men with relative ease and the safety of altitude.

Artillery also saw upgrades. The idea of fast self-propelled guns took hold so that advancing tank columns could maintain their own organic artillery support. On the US side, better coordination in artillery allowed a smaller number of tubes to bring a much more devastating and focused barrage onto a target. This allowed enemy advances to be stalled or broken in short order by having the ground around all that infantry suddenly and violently explode. Add in the advent of rocket artillery, and the volume of fire that a single launcher system could bring to a fight was staggering versus traditional tube artillery. There's the old adage that Artillery is the Queen of the Battlefield.

Machine guns were also refined and perfected during WW2. The idea of a heavy stationary water cooled MG was abandoned in favor of the lighter faster general purpose machine gun. Heat management via quickly replaceable barrels came into its own. Thus, an MG-38 or MG-42 could do just about everything that a Maxim gun did, but was light enough for a team of 2 men to maneuver around the battlefield. As I recall the Germans issued 2 MG's per squad enabling each squad to lay down a very impressive rate of fire. The Russians countered the MG-42 by issuing more DP-28's to their squads.

So where does this leave the poor GI with the rifle? He's little more then a screen for Machine Gunners, Tanks, or Artillery. Versus the rest of these crew-served weapons, his ability to kill the enemy is rather poor, and as others noted, small arms fire was responsible for a very small (~10%) percent of all enemy KIA's. War is a numbers game, and you want to maximize your number of big killers, thus the bolt action was available, worked well enough, was easy to make, and was in a lot of ways the "best" weapon at the time.

 

[Sunray]

"...In a word, money..." Yep. Except for the U.S., none of the W.W. I combatants had the money to design and build a semi-auto. England was virtually bankrupted by W.W. I.
Most of 'em were working on it though. Nearly every one of 'em tried to turn their existing rifle into a semi-auto with no success.