Was the STG-44 the best infantryman's rifle of the war?

PPSh-41 YouTube - PPSh-41
MP44 YouTube - mp44, mp 44, mp43, mp 43, mp45, mp 45, mg42, mg34, fg42, mp40, g43, german ww2, fallschirmjager

PPSh-41 has twice the rate of fire and twice the magazine capacity. In an urban environment its is without doubt superior to the MP44. The Red Army had entire battalions armed with it and grenades, so even if the Germans have every one of their Soldiers carrying an MP44 it wouldn't have changed much. The Luftwaffe bombed Stalingrad and turned it into a fortress perfect for defense, the MP44 doesn't change that either.
Most of the casualties in Stalingrad were caused by artillery, mortars and grenades, so even if you armed the Germans with the newest G-36 or M4 carbines it wouldn't have changed much of anything at all. Just because you can spray more ammo down range doesn't obligate your target to put his head up for you, and while your spraying you might just get shot yourself. I was in a 12 hr firefight in Afghanistan in 2008 and went through 600 rds. with my M4, I would have given anything to have had an M14 with 50 rds. though..... If I had been using the MP44 I probably wouldn't even have bothered aiming.

 

Using full power ammunition from the period (unlike much amateur handloaded ammunition) the StG44 has the exact same rate of fire as the AK47 at 550 to 600 rpm:
YouTube - StG 44 assault rifle part 4/5
YouTube - MP44
YouTube - MP44 Firing demo

And the PPSH-41 shoots at around 850 to 900 rpm, so not at all twice as fast.

Furthermore the PPSH-41 looses its effectiveness beyond 100 meters, and it wont punch through a brick wall.

The StG44 however not only has the same rate of fire as the AK47, but it also packs the same punch, being capable of punching through thick tree trunks and brick walls with ease. And this does make a big difference.

I can understand your frustration with the M4 in Afghanistan, you are far from alone with this feeling. The light 5.56 NATO round can't punch through much, and at long ranges it looses energy fast. The bullet is simply to small and light, and its' flight path is far more easily affected than that of heavier bullets.

That is why the military is seriously considering adopting a new std. service round such as the 6.5mm Grendel.

Well contrary to what you obviously think is the case, the StG44 is quite an accurate weapon, much more so than the AK47. And the AK47 is one the most successful assault rifles of our time.

Oh and please, lets not compare the AK's the Taliban are running with to the ones manufactured in europe. I've seen where the Taliban AK's come from, those small home made weapons smiths. Most crudely manufactured weapons I have ever seen.

 

If you didn't you sure gave that impression.

 

I thought I had made it abundantly clear that the StG wasn't going to win the war by itself and only that it might merely have provided the last push needed to turn the tide in many important battles. Why I need to repeat this over and over again I really don't know, seems people only see what they wanna see.

 

Don't you see the contradiction in your statement?

Wouldn't have changed the war BUT provided the last push to win battles...

 

Jaeger, there's a big difference between saying something would act as an improvement capable of helping change a situation from bad to good and saying something will change the war all by itself. That must be clear to anyone.

The StG could've helped win the war for the Germans had it been introduced earlier, but never by replacing either the MG or SMG, only by operating in addition to them.

The StG was a vast improvement in smallarms which needed to be added into the std. German infantry squad, replacing the Kar98k as the std. service rifle, massively increasing their firepower. You'd still see an equal number of MG's & SMG's in service with each squad, esp. the MG which was the key component of any squad, one you couldn't do without.

So yes, introducing the StG earlier could've possibly won the war for the Germans, but only because the Germans already came close with the equipment they already had. The StG would merely provide that last push needed to turn the tide.

In short: The StG could've helped change the tide in many important battles and thus possibly the war, but it wouldn't win the war all by itself, there's a big difference. You can't take out a tank with an StG

It can't be made any clearer than this, its just the long version of what I've been saying all along.

 

There we are, and I disagree.

It would not have tipped the scales, because the Germans couldn't have fielded enough of the guns let alone feed them.

If the Germans were to win anything they should have developed doctrine and come to grips with the Operational to Strategic sphere of warfighting.

 

If nearly all Kar98k production went towards producing StGs from early 1942 onwards, then they could've produced more than enough rather quickly. Esp. seeing as they managed to produce over half a million in just one year without cutting down on Kar98k production and whilst introducing new weapons such as the G43 (of which also roughly half a million were produced) at the same time.

Jeager, seriously, they conquered half of europe in less than a year, I think they knew about all that needed to be known about fighting wars. Problem was convincing Der Führer to always make the right decisions.

The German logistical system was in itself totally capable, it was providing the right goods and proper amounts of them at the starting point which proved a problem, esp. because of a series of ignorant decisions from the top. Decisions which in the end resulted in thousands of soldier freezing to death, advances grinding to a halt and finally there not even being enough fuel to power the logistics chain itself, let alone the fighting machines at the front. And no army, no matter how good it is, will succeed without proper amounts of fuel.

 

1. It's Jaeger

2. You are trying to further Hitlers goal (conquest of the USSR), so his decisions matters not in the discussion.

3. They did not know all about what was needed to fight wars. German experience is fighting their neighbours. German experience with logistics was based on their own nations railnet pushing logistics forward to the battlespace. As a result their logisitics was rubbish. Absoulutely rubbish. Looking at divisional, corps and army slices they don't have enough tail to accomdate a large mechanical thrust.

The fact that you separate the concept of warfighting and decisions in one paragraph and continnue on logistics in another suggests you have not grasped the basics on warfighting at operational and strategic level.

The early blitz campaigns in 39/40 was against neighbours (easy on the logistics) and whom most were not equiped or trained to fight a modern war.

The Germans failed to build on their brilliant handeling of the tactical level of warfighting and that sealed their fate.

A turn towards atrittional thinking by matching strength against strength (Alcyoneus principle*) in the form of a plethora of designs and redesigns of various equipment served only to shorten the conflict.

The Russians in particular managed to cause a functional dislocation to the doctrine and strenght of the Heer by reducing range thus negating the higher training standards of the german troops simply by fighting in cities.

If I was a German commander I would not request assault rifles to remedy the problem, but manage the battlespace accordingly (manouvre in open terrain)

This is the primary difference to attritional and manouvre orientation. The attritional theorist think about new toys to counter the enemy, wheras a manouver proponent forces the enemy to fight at a disadvantage.

* Alcyoneus was a giant in greek mythology that the hero Hercules had to fight. No matter what weapon Hercules used on Alcyoneus it did not kill him. It was the godess Athena that revealed to Hercules that Alcyoneus could not be beaten when he was on his own soil. Hercules promptly picked him up and carried him into the neighbouring country of Boeotia and killed him with a simple club.

The Alcyoneus principle is to engage the enemy when his force is in an unfavorable terrain. (tanks in forrest and cities, infantry on open ground etc)

 

This is untrue. The USMC & SOCOM had adopted the heavy, lead-core Mk318, for maximum long-range accuracy and reliable framentation after impact. The Army is in the process of researching the M855A1, which would be lead-free and by some account, use a solid steel core. It is supposed to be greener as well as having superior performance. This ammunition will probably retain the Army's beloved armor-piercing performance. No one is seriously adopting Grendel. That IIRC require a new LMG design and is a goner.

While hardly inadequate, the AK-47 is hardly the benchmark of accuracy in modern rifles either. Soviet doctrine envisioned only engagements under 200 meters to be fall into the realm of effective rifle fire and designed their weapons accordingly. 4-6 MOA seems to be the average though I have heard 2 MOA. A really well manufactured AK-47 would beat the StG, at least the kind the Germans made 44-45. Finnish Valmet is 1 MOA.

 

Gentlemen you have already been warned about keeping this topic clean and tidy and on topic. Keep the respect for all the members and there opinions.

The fact is the STG as a stand alone small arm weapon would never had won the won, had it been developed earlier in the war, there is no guarantee that it would have made much of a difference to the outcome, would Stalingrad be any different? No, the STG could not stop the Russian forces amassing and encircling the Germans, the STG alone could not halt the Normandy landings, the STG in no way could control the flights of Allied aircraft over Germany. Even if it was mixed in with the support weapons of a infantry unit such as MG's and mortars, there is still no guarantee.

The question of assualt rifles effectiveness is not at question, nor is the advantage they bring to battles, but do you think the Normandy landings would have been any less successful had the Americans not had the BAR, effectively the first Allied assualy rifle? The answer is No.

As this was pointed out, it is well known knowledge that the Germans declared war on nations not prepared for war, now look what happened when the allied countries were ready, and then ask yourself would the Germans still had held half of Europe for a year? The answer is historically no.

 

There is never any guarantee, but there is likelyhood

As for Stalingrad, the StG would definitely have had a dramatic effect had it been there in large numbers from the start. The city would've fallen for sure. And once it was taken it would be a lot easier to defend. A Soviet encirclement would've been impossible by then.

Calling the BAR an assault rifle is a looong stretch. It used a full power rifle cartridge and was as heavy as the German belt fed machine guns. The BAR was essentially just a machinegun with a magazine, and by 1940 standards an obsolete design. But atleast it filled the gap as a close support weapon that the M1919 could fulfill because of its cumbersome handling and weight.

But I do believe that the response to the Normandy landings would've been dramatically different had the StG44 been issued in large numbers there, and I'm not alone with that opinion.

Not prepared? The French were prepared, they were just hopelessly behind tactics wise.

The answer is that the Germans held on against 3 superpowers and their allies for 4 long years, and that it took the Allies over a year to reach Berlin from the time they landed on beaches in Normandy. And the Allies had air supremacy the whole time. When'ever the Germans had air supremacy the battles usually didn't last past a few months.

 

This is definitely not true. The German logistics system was a nightmarish mess. This is true before the war began and things only got worse as the war progressed. Fuel alone is just a tiny fraction of the problem. The Germans lacked the proper amounts of just about everything. If I were to use one word to describe the German logistics system in terms of what was equipping their army it would be scavengers.
It was the fall of France that in large part gave the Germans enough resources to expand their army sufficently to make an invasion of Russia even possible. But, those resources were quickly expended and the Wehrmacht declined into an ever worse state of marginally equipped units.
Switching the standard rifle of such an army to anything, including the SG 43/44, would not have changed this one iota. The German military was teetering on the brink of logistical collapse right from 1939. Like I have said before, bulldozers and dump trucks would do them more good than the SG 43.

 

Seems a pointless endeavor here, but....
Late war units armed with the MP44 and MG42 were no more effective than units with K98's and older MG's if not properly supported by combined arms. Small arms developments have minimal impact on modern wars and the MP44's impact was of little note to the tactical landscape (same case even if it were fielded in 1942 en masse). At the end of the day its just another semi-auto rifle, automatic fire with one is a great way to waste ammunition.

The Soviets built 6 million SVT 38-40's, 6 million PPSh-41's, 800k DP-28's, Maxims, hundreds of thousands of PPS-43's, yet the war in the East was decided by tanks and artillery (not considering logistics associated). Get it? The Germans could have started Barbarossa with the MP44, the final result in front of Moscow in Dec. would remain the same.

If they could have skipped over the MP44 all together and had 20,000 of these Raupenschlepper, Ost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for Operation Barbarossa you might just have your war winner.
The MP44 fielded en masse might have won the war against Russia in 1914, but not 1942. Naive thought indeed.

 

Well, Stalingrad could not have ended in German victory no matter what rifle they used because the Soviets massed 2.5 million troops and almost 2,000 tanks for MARS and URANUS across the Volga. The Germans were never close to winning that battle.

As for Normandy, I suppose the Wehrmacht could inflict more casualties on Allied infantry by several percentages, but the tanks, airplanes and heavy guns weren't the kind of targets small arms can kill.

 

Anyways we're getting way off subject here.The STG-44 wouldn't have changed the course of the war.

 

Pointless endeavor indeed...

Look at how close the Germans came to defeating the Soviets at Stalingrad just with kit they had, they had 90% of the city secured at one point. With the StG from the start the city would've been taken, and that most likely within only half time it historically took to secure the 90% of it.

I would've thought that you as a soldier would understand the benefit of superior firepower, and not compare Afghanistan with the ratten krieg of Stalingrad, two completely different environments altogether. One with large open distances and the other with combat ranges often so tight you could nearly physically reach out and touch each other.

The battle for Stalingrad was not decided by tanks, artillery or airpower. It was the grunts all the way.

The StG wouldn't win the day for the Germans in the every engagement, but it would likely prove decisive in closely pitched battles such as Stalingrad, Monte Cassino and Normandy.

 

Ok so the Germans capture Stalingrad & the Caucasus...The Soviets destroy the oil wells so the Germans still don't have the oil they desparately need ,the Germans have just over extended their already over extended logistic lines on The Eastern Front and political reality for the Soviets is they still can't surrender because of German behavior/attitudes towards therm.
Again how does the STG 44 change any of this?
You know all this 'what-if" can just as well be turned around against the Germans.

 

The fact that they held 90% of the city doesn't necessarily mean they were close to defeating the Soviets. Even if they take the city if they don't do it fast enough they still end up incircled and lost.

That is an opinion/assumption on your part which you have done nothing to support. It's certainly not clear to me. From the other responses I don't think any of the other posters here think so either.

 

You mean right before the Soviets launched Operation Uranus, when the fate of Stalingrad no longer mattered. The Germans took 90% of the city because Zhukov let them. The Sixth Army was exactly where Stavka wanted it to be--inside Stalingrad.