Grendel LMG

[LRRPF52]

Just cuz everyone's doing it the way everyone else has always done it doesn't make it smart.

Still want to know WHY.

And what's the real difference between an IAR and an AR. Heavy barrel? That's it?

Somebody please justify belt-fed in a modern infantry squad in 2017. "Everybody else does it" is not a justification.

"Well, you really need 200 rounds on-board for those scenarios when you need to do a 200-round burst." THAT'S a justification. Not a very good one, but at least it's an attempt.

Or, "Mag changes every 30 rounds slows weapon too much and puts unit at tactical disadvantage."

Or, "Need physically heavier weapon for less round dispersion at range."

Somebody please think through the fundamental premise and articulate it.

Weapons design, types, and their effect on MTO&E
What this whole discussion illuminates is how technology affects organization and employment of soldiers and weapons. We have several tracks of weapons designs coming into play, including:

* Battle rifles capable of defeating enemy cavalry horses at distance (obsolete)
* SMGs
* Medium Machine-Guns
* Intermediate Cartridge, Select-Fire "Assault Rifles"
* Automatic Rifles
* Light Machineguns

Great War MGs, SMGs, ARs
If you look at the Great War era, they had better sustained fire capabilities with water-cooled Maxims and Browning M1917s, but very limited mobility with them due to the weight and bulk of the guns, tripods, and water-cooled barrels, water cans, and the Gun Team that it took to support one. These types of machine-guns were normally MTO&E'd at the Company and Battalion levels. What a medium machine-gun brings to bear is the ability to focus fire on an enemy at greater distances, transition to another target quickly once that target is reduced, and continue to reduce targets until the enemy unit or vehicle is suppressed to the point that it is totally defensive, unable to direct fires at your elements until they are on him. This is more true when fired from the tripod by a highly-trained gun team.

The BAR was one of the first successful Squad-Level Automatic Rifles issued, but very limited in sustained fire or maneuverability due to the 20rd magazines and heavy weight of the weapon and soldier's load. It provides supporting fire to the advance of the Rifle Squad, while adding to the defensive fires of a unit in place.

While machine-guns had been game-changers in the Great War, armies invested more and more in their development to make them lighter and more maneuverable.

With the introduction of the MG34 and later MG42, the Germans took some of the sustained fire capability of the older box-receiver machine-guns, and made a more maneuverable system relying on quick barrel changes rather than water-cooling. They still needed a large section to support each gun, with one man carrying the Lafette tripod (which folds up and includes padding on the tripod itself already), several ammo bearers, the gunner, and an NCO Gun Team Leader with optics to direct fire of the MG.



They also included a mechanical computer into the flex mount, so that the gunner could literally program the beaten zone for depth and windage for a desired pattern, depending on what type of fire was desired. As the gun recoils in the flex mount, it cycles the mechanical gears, which elevate and traverse within a specific pattern. He also does this from a depressed position while looking through a superb quality Hensoldt periscope, allowing him and the team to build the MG into a position where the gun has grazing fire over a covered area, without exposing the team to direct fires.

That system really revolutionized machine-guns that are carried by dismounts, but the Allied nations never really picked up on the tripod and T&E of the Lafette system, and used very simple tripods. If you look at the lessons-learned post-Great War, the Germans took a much different approach to machine-guns than the Allies by focusing on development of the Medium Machineguns and keeping their Mauser battle rifles, whereas the US focused on developing the rifle with the self-loading Garand, while using the same basic Browning 1919 box receiver MG and tripod and the BAR for the Automatic Rifleman.

After WWII, the Allies realized how effective the MG34 and MG42 were, hence the MAG58, L7, M240, and M60, owing their heritage to the MG42.

Doctrines, Directives, and Philosophies
Before WWII, Infantry had a lot of riflemen and these emerging heavier machine-guns on tripods to support them. The US, British, and Canadian forces had different doctrine for how to employ machine guns than the Germans, and the Asians armies had their important directives for machine-gun employment as well. The Anglo nations historically see machine-guns as support for the rifle platoon and company advance when attacking, while forming pivotal nodes in the defense. MGs would establish support positions to provide over-watching fire for riflemen to bound or flank towards the enemy. The Teutonic approach was to heavily focus on gun teams as more of a main effort, with riflemen supporting their advance and penetration of fixed enemy positions when on the attack, to include envelopment. The Asian approach relies more on hasty ambushes, ensnarement, and patience with use of machine-guns, allowing your opponent to work himself deep into your fields of fire, until you unleash your belt-fed weapons at the optimum time for maximum shock and devastation.

The lines get blurred in practical application because all roads lead to Rome, but the German concept of medium machine-gun use during the attack sticks out to me.

SMGs and the Stg
The submachine gun was introduced for trench-clearing, then evolved into a very useful and cheap weapon to equip infantry focused on the attack. The Russian PPsH-41 equipped units were probably the pinnacle of SMG use with dismounted infantry. The Germans issued their SMGs to NCOs and other soldiers for more of a close range weapon, since their primary tasks were leading and directing junior soldiers, but they also realized the firepower and maneuverability of SMGs gave them an advantage in the attack, especially in built-up areas, in addition to trenches. What if they could have a weapon that more closely fit the profile of an SMG, but had retained energy closer to a rifle, after seeing that rifles were rarely used beyond 300m anyway, now that cavalry were obsolete?

Weapons technology and how it evolved the Infantry
The introduction of the Sturmgewehr certainly revolutionized dismounted infantry warfare and small arms design, but it never changed the need for belt-fed weapons. It combined the most useful aspects of submachine guns and battle rifles, making both mostly obsolete from then forward. The select-fire, intermediate cartridge-chambered, automatic rifle would immediately become the standard for the Soviet Union after the War (Avtomat), whereas the West was handicapped by the US Army Ordnance who insisted on using basically a battle rifle cartridge reminiscent of .30-40 Krag and .30 Caliber M1, but now with a detachable magazine. The British and Belgians both had developed post-War select fire rifles with smaller cartridges that were heavy compared to the Stg44's Kurz, but still smaller and less-recoiling than the US T65 .30 cal "light rifle" cartridge. Due to US post-war dominance and redevelopment of Western Europe, the UK, Belgians, and West Germans were pulled into the US's T65, which eventually became the 7.62x51 NATO, duplicating the performance of obsolete rifles the Wermacht and Soviets had realized were obsolete by 1945. The M14, FAL, L1A1, and G3 were the result.

What a lot of people wanted was the sustained fire capability of belt-fed weapons down into smaller units, like the Platoon and even Squad-level. The evolution and emergence of the Infantry Squad seems to be something relatively new in warfare, as Companies were the basic unit of maneuver in 1914. After the wholesale slaughter of tens of thousands of British soldiers in The Great War, particularly the Somme, they started to reevaluate their MTO&E, which had been very centralized at higher levels, with companies executing the attack based on orders from above. There were precious few junior leaders, and many were decimated early on in their assaults on German fortified positions. They began de-centrlizing to an extent, equipping Platoons with the Bren Gun. If we look at the math of how many rounds could be expended on target by a company of riflemen reminiscent of the Somme, versus a Platoon equipped with Bren guns and Riflemen, you start to see why machine-guns naturally fueled the evolution of the Infantry Company into Separate maneuver elements of Platoons and Squads.

In the US Army, this was facilitated by the Garand, BAR, and M1919. In the USMC, Companies broke down into Platoons and Squads, with Squads broken down into 3 separate Fire Teams, each equipped with a BAR.



The Germans relied more on individual initiative, with a lot of autonomy even at the Platoon level. Platoons and squads in WWII became more of a reality because of the fast nature of maneuver and advance by attackers, combined with the ability to saturate more firepower into less men with self-loaders and machine-guns.