K98k or M1 Garand

I myself voted for the K98, maybe i have a bit of bi est because i am a bolt action fan when it comes to rifles. But for military action the M1 had a greater strength for its all around versatility compared to the K98. But the K98 is one of the best bolt action rifles ever made. The German's make damn fine weaponry to say the least and because of the other semi-automatic weapons of the war, the K98 as a bolt action rifle is not the most advanced rifle of the time it had been around for a while compared to the semi automatic rifles,but none the less the k98 stood its ground fairly well against the more advanced weaponry of the time.

 

The clip action was not totally unfounded in reality, but I think it was a minor defect most rifleman would be willing to suffer for a more modern weapon. Another flaw of the Garand was that it was somewhat hard to reload and unskilled men are bound to have their thumb banged up.

In fairness the Mauser was very accurate. It was a good standard infantry weapon. Its obsolescence is made more pallatable because the landser's enemies used equally antiquated pieces like the Mossin-Nagant or SMLE. When facing enemies that do possess dependable semi-automatic weapons, his superb machine gun balanced out his rifle's inferiority.

However, under 400m, the kind minor differences in percision found in WWII service rifles was not important. Most troops fired their weapons at ranges closer than that. A US infantryman in the 84th Division says in his memoir he considered shooting at anything over 200 yards away wasted effort. Usually, the effect the shooter could be expected to ahieve was to make it rain mortar shells on everybody. This seems to be representative of grunts' views on the subject.

The problem was found mostly in the assault, I think. I don't think nearly as many machine pistols would have been manufactured if there were good semi-automatics in abundence.

 

They credit a tech manual for the M1. Nothing for the K98. The numbers quoted were probably specs. If anything I'd expect the 30:06 to be slightly better at longer ranges as it's a little smaller and for the same weight of projectile should have slightly less wind resistance but I'm not at all sure you could measure it.

 

I wonder how well the M1 would have worked for indirect barrage fire like the French used pre WWII. Supposedly it was effective with the guns they had with a Garand it should have been really impressive. Provided of course you had a good ammo supply.

 

Triple C has it right, that is true when it comes to distances most combat was close compared to sniper combat which is like 300 yards or more, for that time. The basis of the weapons should be looked not just at the weapons but should be looked at the squad or platoon or company is in. With mortars or artillery fire for there side gives the infantry men a chance to actually sit and aim in a much more desirable manner than the ones gets hit by mortars or artillery. Now of course everyone is still under the pressure of the combat, But with machine gun fire and suppressing fire accuracy is everything. With the advantage of all this the bolt action can be a serious friend. Also due to some troops being raw recruits they can have issues with guns under firefights, and the k98 is a very basic weapon so it can easily be cleaned, loaded, and fired.

 

Now that would be quite a sight, but there is something awkward here. Pre-WWII I don't know, but for WWII my 1940 French manual doesn't even mention that drill. Let's see...

The infantry platoon (I'm talking French here) in defence was layed out in order to have it's three squads facing on different directions and with different fire sectors assigned (priority and alternate). The platoons might receive attachments from above levels (coy and bat) of machine guns which were integrated within the platoon fire plan, again having it's own fire sectors assigned to them. These fire sectors might be oblique, barrage (that is, accross the front of the unit or a platton beside), over the unit's position (in case it was overrun), etc., but never straight ahead.

This platoon fire plan was integrated into the company fire plan, which by itself would be integrated into the battallion fire plan, who by the way saw as it's primary task the deployment of anti-tank assets, all the other fire plans would have to be subordinate to this.

Here is a scan of one sample platoon fire plan for you to see how it was supposed to work:



Legend: hashed: visual; dark: invisual; dotted: secondary missions.
The little circles with a cross represent the squad FM28*, the strange rectangle is the platoon grenade launcher (Vivien-Bessières), the sign on the right side unit is an attached MG.

This way an enemy advance was supposed to meet a number of crossfire zones, and this does not show how the company fireplan worked!

In case of an attack in limited visibility (night, fog, rain, etc.) a "barrage générale" was to be started, every gun firing along it's pre-determined fire directions, this barrage to be firing at a specified high rate for a few minutes only.

This is the limit of indirect fire. There is also mention of the entire battalion machine gun platoon (16 guns IIRC) being used for indirect bombardment (defilade) but this was considered to be technically difficult and wasteful for the limited results expected.

* Rifles are not represented as according to doctrine they were to be considered as only self-defense and supplementary to the weapon that really mattered, the squad automatic weapon. Of course the rifles were to be used in the assault role at close range, again subordinate to the priority weapon. And that's bollocks to those who worship the infantryman's rifle: he was there mostly to protect and supplement the squad LMG. The LMG did the killing, the dogfaces were there to protect the former and be manoeuvre element.

 

Tough one but the k98 got my vote

 

While I am in no way claiming computer games to be any kind of substitute for military experience (I believe an earlier poster to this thread also said as much when talking about their experiences from paintball) I thought I would add my thoughts from playing 'Brothers in arms', which does at least try to make somewhat realistic recreations of weapons and tactics.

The most notable innovation in this game is its use of fire and manoeuvre tactics rather than the single handed charging of machine gun nests seen in many games and war movies.

Anyway, the game includes both the M1 Garand and the Mauser 98k. The 98k is inferior to the Garand for suppressive fire and in closer combat situations where a more rapid rate of fire is important. The Garand is more likely to keep your enemies heads down and more likely to get you out of trouble when unexpected things happen. Its puts more bullets the enemies way.

Like I say, all simulated, and no substitute for military experience and weapons training, buts its why I voted for the Garand.

 

It was typical for the maneuver squad of a German infantry section to include one machine pistol, carried by the section no.2, to lead the squad and deal with close encounters. The machine pistol was also capable of suppressive fire.

There were usually 2-3 machinepistols in German squads in 1944.

Suppressive fire was also provided by the section's MG42. Motorized or parachute units could expect to have two MG42's.

All in all, I don't think the K98 was used so much for suppressive fire, but rather aimed shooting due to their MG team and their machine pistols. German troops carried a very large amount of belted MG ammunition, but generally speaking, maybe only 1/2 the rifle rounds a US soldier would carry.

The German had fewer riflemen for aimed shooting than the American, of who was heavily dependent on massed M1 fire and their 1-2 BARs. American troops did not carry submachineguns as a standard, either.

With this being said, I think small arms fire only inflict 35-15% of battlefield human losses anyway...and most of this is attributed to the machineguns, particularly those that are mounted on tripods in the HMG role.

 

It's been a while since I read about it but the more I think about it the more I think it may have been Franco Prussian War period. As you mention mgs were used for indirect fire and 1 mg can probably do a better job than a platoon in this sort of thing. So if the original source was correct I doubt the technique survived WWI if it made it that far.

 

Both are just estimates. The US figure is yards, the Germans simply used meters. 547 yards is 500 meters.

Aside from that, I doubt all but the most skilled marksman could hit anything smaller than a building using iron sights with standard issue ammunition at 500 yards with a common military rifle. At 500 yards your point of aim on a fully visible person to hit them center mass is about a foot over their head.
Neither rifle is really going to be highly effective over 200 to 300 yards at most.

 

I did look back at the previous posts to this thread. A lot of interesting opinions were forwarded, with much personal emotion. I really don't think there is any question that the M1 Garand was the best.

I love to shoot rifles and when it comes to hunting or target shooting, I'll always choose a bolt-action rifle. Yes, in a controlled sitution with carefully selected ammunition, a bolt-action rifle will usually be the most accurate choice. However, we're talking about hair-splitting accuracy where usually only one shot is required in a contolled situation. The accuracy difference we would be talking about here is insignificant in a battle situation.

As has been pointed out already ad nauseum, the ballistic differences between the rounds is a non sequitur.

Other than a negligible difference in carrying weight (advantage to K98k), the real difference comes down to a very practical increase in rate of fire and a slightly larger magazine for the Garand. I fully acknowledge that highly-trained rifleman with a bolt-action rifle can nearly equal rate of fire and accuracy against those similary trained with a sem-automatic rifle, however, we really are talking about average grunts here and I don't think there is any question that semi-autos hold the advantage. As has been pointed out previously in this thread, all of the intra-war and post-war studies showed that "he who fired the most lead wins". Also, that "real battles" occured at less than 300 yards. Hence the development of the assault rifle and its eventual universal adoption.

There have been some interesting comparisons made between various small arms in this thread, however, I must point out that the comparison forwarded is between main battle rifles. The M1 (Thanks, John Garand!) wins against all competitors in in this category.

The M1 Garand was a very admirable achievement for its time and the US Ordnance Departmnent deserves credit for recognizing the new paradigm and implementing it. For me, the opening paragraph of "The M1 Garand: World War II" by Scott A. Duff sums it up:

 

What some people haven't caught on is that it is almost impossible to do house-to-house with a bolt gun. In trench or urban warfare the bolt action rifle is nearly useless and this is why we hear of men fighting with just grenades, bayonets and spades.

 

In urban fighting a common US infantry solution was to trade rifles with the tank support for their submachineguns along with issuing the 12 available for distribution from the company HQ. This gave an infantry company as many submachineguns as they thought they needed (usually about 75%). The balance of the men were either BAR gunners or grenadiers using rifle grenades often with a 60mm mortar bomb substituted for the grenade on the clip.

 

I find that thought perilous- to clear a house of defenders with bolt action rifle mounted with a fixed bayonet...

 

I found this interesting chart at:
Cross-Channel Attack-Appendix F

[SIZE=+2]Appendix F[/SIZE]
Comparative Fire Power of the U.S. and German 1944-type Infantry Divisions​

U.S.
German 1944 ​

Strength (officers and enlisted men)

14,037
12,769​

Rifles-carbines

11,507
9,069​

Pistols

1,228
1,981​

Submachine guns

295
1,503​

Light MG's and automatic rifles

539
566​

Heavy MG's

90
90​

60-mm. mortars

90
---​

81-mm. mortars

54
48​

120-mm. mortars

---
28​

Bazookas

558*
108†​

Flame throwers

---
20​

U.S. .50-cal. MG's; German 20-mm. AA guns

237
12​

37-mm. AT guns

13
---​

57-mm. AT guns

57
---​

75-mm. AT guns

---
35​

75-mm. infantry howitzers

---
18​

105-mm. howitzers

54‡
36​

U.S. 155-mm. howitzers; German 150-mm. howitzers

12
18§​

* Also had 2,131 rifle grenade launchers.
† Either bazookas or antitank rifles.
‡ Eighteen were found in the cannon companies of the infantry regiments.
§ Six were infantry howitzers, two in an infantry howitzer company assigned to each infantry regiment. Each howitzer company had, in addition, six 75-mm. howitzers. ​

 

These are pretty interesting:

The US division had huge numbers of 50 cal. machineguns (237) compared only 12 pieces Flak 20mm, only a small fraction of SMGs, and fewer BARs compared to bipod MG42s.

Submachine guns

295
1,503​

Light MG's and automatic rifles

539
566​

 

One caution. I'm pretty sure this is book strength and without attached units.

From everything I've read US units especially ones that spent any time in combat tended to scrounge extra equipemnt that they found useful. This would include extra BARs for instance (and possibly a Bren gun or mg 42 even). I think I read somewhere that it was not uncommon for a US army unit to have twice it's authorized number of BARs. Many of the untits typically attached would add more mgs as well a mix of .30 and .50 cal weighted toward the latter. I think the SMG thread also mentioned the production and distribution of SMGs with in the army at least to some extent. Again from vague memory some units considered them worthless and tended to dispose of them others liked them and there were enough floating around that after a while everyone that wanted one and who could at least get tacit permission had a pretty good chance of getting one.

I also notice that the US unit didn't have any 4.2" mortars. They must be outside the divisional organization or not in the infantry divisions anyway. The US at least nominally still has 37mm and 57mm AT guns comparied to the Germans having 75s although the latter are present in fewer numbers.

 

Nice list. But it seems very incomplete for some reason...I can't put my finger on it why, but it just does. Organic support may be one reason, but I'm pretty sure that there's more to it than that.

 

I started to think the same thing, especially re: artillery numbers and almost made a post. Then I went back to the posted link and saw these apparently were D-Day stats. So I'm not so sure this didn't change significantly once the beachhead was secured. I could be reading this incorrectly.