Best guns of WW2

The Garand was a great gun - it's true - but I see the no top-up and ping ! as real drawbacks.

 

the .5 vickers was only used on ships for anti-aircraft purposes the vickers used as heavy/medium machine guns were in .303 inch

 

I just assumed he meant the .303.

 

Lone Wolf:
Any list without the M1 Garand... is an incomplete list.
This rifle put accurate, reliable, semi-automatic .30 caliber fire in the hands of American Infantrymen. It fired just as fast as you could pull the trigger. Roll it around in the dirt and mud. It still came-up firing.
Our enemies had nothing like it.
Yeah, it "pinged" when the magazine was empty. Big deal. Jam another magazine in, and continue firing. Meanwhile the German and Japanese infantryman was working his bolt between EACH shot fired.
The German Mauser-action is famous, but quite slow in comparison. The Japanese Arisaka is a stamped piece of sub-par junk.
The M1 Garand was a remarkable weapon, and most-certainly contributed to winning the war.

Tim

 

Many countries worked on semi-automatic rifles, Germany had the G41 and G43 rifles and the USSR had the SVT-40 though none of them had been mass produced like the Garand was. To consider the best firearms of World War 2 you will have to look at each catagory ie. SMG, LMG, Bolt-action rifle, Self-loading rifle ect... and try to decide what is the best firearm within each catagory but that would also depend situation, range and combat conditions and the troops using the chose weapon.

 

Dave:
Many countries may have had--or were working on--semi-auto rifles, but only one country had the M1 Garand.
Put it in whatever catagory you see fit, but if you don't agree it to be one of the most important small-arms of the war... you'll only lose credibility with me.

Tim

 

Perhaps I should have placed more emphasis on great gun and less on the relatively minor flaws.

 

I'll agree that it definately increased an rifles fire power by giving him a greater rate of firepower and a better close quarters weapon but I don't see how holding a different opinion to you would make me loose my credability. The garand did have the flaw of the en-bloc clip which made reloading half way through a clip impratical and if troops do go ab it trigger happy in combat ammunition runs out quicker unless they are constantly resupplied. Every firearm has a flaw some more than others and the M1 Garand or whatever variant of it you choose still had some flaws.

 

M1 Garand? Great gun, but could do with a bigger clip. Frankly, unless you are out on your own, the 'ping' will make no difference. Either it is drowned out by general battle noise, or your buddy can cover while you are reloading

 

Just as basic opinion.

Bolt action rifle: SMLE or No.4-fast action, 10 round mag, reliable and accurate

Semi-Auto Rifle:M1 Garand-For reasons stated above by other posters

SMG: For cheapness the Sten Mk.V for reliabilty and effectivness the M1A1 Thompson

LMG: Bren gun-Do I have to expand on this?

Medium Machine Gunrobably the Browning 1919A4, accurate, relialbe and not water cooled so more portable than the Vickers.

HMG: Browning M2-stood the test of time

Automatic rifle/Assualt Rifle: MP44- enough said!

Handgun:I'm stuck between 3, M1911A1, P38 and GP35 all good guns, the GP35 has a good large magazine the M1911A1 has got a good round and is very reliable but the P38 has a double action hammer on it unlike the other 2.

*All of these are just my opinion and can change due to battlefield conditions or the situation a combatant wuld find him or herself in.

 

Re the U. S. Rifle, cal. .30, M1
While the loading frame would make an audible sound on a firing range, it wasn't a significant problem on the battlefield, with multiple weapon types firing at the same time, enemies firing their own weapons much closer to themselves than the U. S. Rifle, cal. .30, M1 and possibly with grenades exploding at the same time.

On the subject, it was not really a problem to load the weapon in the middle of a clip. This has mainly been propagated by computer games, which attempts to make up for the faster rate of fire by adding this handicap.

One problem with the U. S. Rifle, cal. .30, M1 was that the mechanism which stopped the bolt from moving forward until the trigger was pressed after it has been pushed back after a shot was fired was sometimes worn down, which resulted in the weapon being unable to stop firing until there was no ammunition left (i.e. making the weapon fully-automatic).