I just wanted ya'll to know I was representin' the SVT over in the AR Piston forum. Peace!



http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_3_126/655514_LWRC_has_some_history_in_WWII.html&page=1&anc=bottom

You may want to check some of your facts.  It's good that you were bringing a little dose of history to that thread, but when doing so, you need to ensure that you're sharing history that is correct.  For example...



While some of the Naval Infantry units were considered "elite" and may have been assigned a higher priority for shipments of automatic and semiautomatic weaponry, there are still plenty of examples throughout the war of Naval Infantry armed with the standard bolt-action Mosin Nagant.  They were far from "completely" armed with automatic weapons, especially in the early stages of the war in 1941.





and...



The Garand was adopted as the US standard issue rifle in 1936, and the US Army infantrymen were almost fully equipped with Garands by 1941/1942, although as the Army expanded quickly with new recruits and draftees, Garand production continued to struggle to keep up with demand and its use was supplemented by the M1903, M1903A3, and M1917.  (The USMC, on the other hand, clung to their M1903s until after Guadalcanal in 1942, believing them to have superior accuracy to the Garand.)  And the M1911 semiauto pistol had been standard US issue use since before WW1, although its use was supplemented by revolvers like the S&W Victory starting in 1942.  

In addition, neither the Americans nor the Brits relied solely on fixed MGs.  The US military had used the BAR as their squad-level LMG since 1918, and the Browning M1919 machine gun was fairly portable as far as medium MGs go.  The British military had adopted the Bren gun as their standard squad-level light MG in 1938.  The Lewis gun, a WW1-era LMG, was used mainly in secondary roles during WW2, such as facility/airfield defense, antiaircraft defense, Home Guard use, etc., although it did see some front line use in the Pacific Theater where arms were chronically in short supply, and the SAS and LRDG made good use of them on their jeeps.

Thanks for pointing all that out. I'll edit to reflect my inaccuracies and credit you. This is why I like learning stuff from C&R buffs.



Would you say there was a point where Naval Infantry was (or could have been) armed with all autos? Was any of this due to preference for the Mosin Nagant by individual troops or commanders? Those look like training photos, where I assume Mosins would have always remained standard.



Where did US forces stand on Garand issue as of January 1941?



Any idea what percentage of handgun-equipped US forces had a 1911?



I know there were lots of BARs around, but I'd say they were far outclassed by the DP. I should have made mention of them though.



Were the Brens common in every British squad by 1941?

The Naval Infantry didn't start receiving large numbers of SVTs until after 1941.  It wasn't until 1942/1943ish that SVTs began being massed in more "elite" units like Guards units, Naval Infantry units, and Mechanized Infantry units.  Even then, they typically were not the sole rifle in use, but were used to supplement the firepower of the other soldiers armed with Mosin-Nagants and SMGs.

And SMGs like the PPsH-41 weren't even in use during 1941, only relatively small numbers of the earlier PPD SMGs.  The PPsH didn't even begin production until November/December 1941, and then only in very small numbers.  They weren't mass produced and distributed until early 1942.

Initially, Naval Infantry units in 1941 were just ad-hoc units thrown together from naval personnel who had little infantry training to meet demands for more manpower, especially in besieged areas like Odessa, Sevastapol, and later Stalingrad in 1942.  And they would have been equipped with whatever weaponry was available.  It was only after they proved themselves capable and courageous during these battles in 1941/1942 that they began to be viewed as more "elite".  So it's possible that Naval Infantry could have been primarily armed with semiauto/automatic weapons towards the end of the war, but certainly not in 1941, and I doubt the Mosin-Nagant ever went fully away within Naval Infantry units.

Those Naval Infantry photos I posted are not from training.  The 2nd one and possibly 3rd one are staged propaganda photos, but the 1st is an actual battlefield photo from Stalingrad.


In January 1941, the US Army consisted of only ~243,000 soldiers, and they had ~170,000 Garands.


The M1911 was the sole standard sidearm in 1941.  But in 1942, it began being supplemented by the .38 S&W Victory, since M1911 production couldn't keep up with the massive rapid increase in the size of the US military.  Even then, there were only about 352,000 S&W revolvers provided to the US military from 1942-1945, versus about 2.6 million M1911s from 1912-1945


Brens were the standard LMG present in every first-line British infantry section (squad) at the start of the war in 1939.  However, after the disaster in France in 1940, Brens were in short supply in England, along with most other small arms.  The BEF lost nearly 23,000 Bren Guns during the fall of France.  So thousands of Lewis guns were brought out of storage, and were briefly put back into somewhat common use alongside the Bren among infantry sections, until Bren production could replace all of the lost material.  But by 1941/1942, the Bren gun was back to being the sole section LMG, and the Lewis gun was relegated back to secondary roles.

And as stated above, the Lewis persisted in slightly more common use as an infantry LMG in the outlying areas, like the Middle East, East Africa, Southeast Pacific, etc.  But there were still plenty of Brens present, even in those areas.

 

The original concept was that they were supposed to be distributed equally among the infantry units, with the goal being that 1/4 to 1/3rd of all infantry would have semiauto SVTs, to supplement the firepower of the other soldiers armed with Mosin-Nagants (and later SMGs).  Similar concept to the LMG, with one or two being assigned to each squad.

Onviously, this initial plan didn't work out past mid-to-late 1941, partly as a result of the large number of SVTs lost in the beginning of Barbarossa in 1941, and partly because of the decision to end SVT production in favor of the cheaper and quicker to produce (and easier to maintain) Mosin and PPsH/PPS.  So the remaining SVTs then began being concentrated in 1942/1943 in a few of the more prestigious units like Guards, Naval Infantry, etc., instead of being parceled out among all the infantry units as originally planned.

Thanks! I updated my OP over there, and credited you for pointing out the deficiencies. Let me know if it's still jacked up like a football bat...

I can't read anymore history at the moment. My eyes are burning. I've learned a lot today, though.

LOL....No such thing as a "wall of text" in the C&R game. Even though you sometimes have to separate the "wheat from the chaff" the more info the better.....And even more after that.

Most of us even know how to use paragraphs in our walls....Mostly.