Just watching Saving Private Ryan and the thought crossed my mind.   How do you think the M16 would have fared on D-Day and in WWII in general ??
I watch as those M1's get beat around, in the sand, rain and mud and still kept right on going.
So what do you think ??

If we are talking ammo...There are better sources here (Brou and Tat)

Reliability wise, have you seen, tried the AR180b?

If there ever was a US entry into the AK environment, the 180b is it!

The M-1 did just fine. I bet our G.I.'s would have preferred an M-16 though. Light weight, select fire, accurate, reliable and you can carry three times as much ammo. What's not to love? Compared to the M-1, it's a G.I.'s wet dream. However, I can't see old blood and guts calling the M-16 "The greatest battle implement ever devised".

Yeah..the greatest thing for keeping GI's out of trouble...too damn busy cleaning the thing so it won't jam..

I think the GI's would have preferred something like the AN94

Our guys did fine no matter what, and then some. Guess that's all that matters now.

A smart grunt takes care of his equipment. A good leader insists on it. Even the M-1 needed to be cleaned. People who claim that the M-16 is unreliable have little or no real experience with the system. How did I know this thread would degenerate in to "The M-16 is unreliable" B.S.? Odd considering this is AR15.com. How can so many people love a weapon that is an unreliable piece of junk?

I think if any infantry implement would have made a difference, it would have been the M203 or M79.

Although if you're gonna monday-morning-QB D-Day, more naval gunfire and heavier low-level air support while the landing was occurring might have helped more (and was actually available with WWII technology. P-51's and Tempests were quite accurate at low-level bombing...)...

Definatley an improvment in firepower.

Well, if you're going to get all hypothetical about introducing late 20th century weapons into WWII, why not have some REAL fun and try to figure out what a few wings of F-15's and F-16's escorting about five hundred B-52's could have done to shorten the war!

Or imagine the German and Japanese Navies going up against three modern carrier battle groups apiece.

They'd never have even SEEN what nailed them!

CJ

Weaponry trivia question:  When was the first modern Gatling gun (Vulcan type cannon) designed and pressed into military service, and with which country's military did it debut?  Who made it and what is its designation?

On some of the beaches, and for the airborne, it would've been great.

But on Omaha? I don't think much would've changed that mess.

Belt feds and arty can hold off any standard rifle, imo.

Give me a FAL rechambered for .30-06.

No ammo problems, although I doubt that long sucker would fit in the mag.

Ever see that movie where the modern aircraft carrier goes into a storm and ends up about to face the Japanese invasion force that hit Pearl Harbor?
That would be awesome to see what they could have done.

The use of ground controllers for CAS and Army/Marine helicopter gunships and more accurately delivered Air Mobile forces (let's face it, the Airborne guys were really next to useless to the guys on the beach, and if the Germans had there shit together, the LGOPs formed because of misdrops would have been wiped out) would have made a bigger difference than the rifle used.  The Germans were dug in pretty tight, not many were killed due to direct small arms fire.  Not hitting a heavily defended fortification right at it's most secure area would have counted as well.  Vertical envelopment that was completely unavailable then is a reality now.  Advances in navigational technology, weapons, better training of pilots, and better coordination with other units that are a reality now would have made Airborne much more effective.  Greater utility of Airborne forces combined with the use of Air Mobile could have made it possible to attack the beaches from behind and open them up without forcing precious troops to face murderously accurate machinegun and artillery fire on a featureless beach.
 
Just my own personal opinion.

The Maxim is not a motorized rotary barrel weapon.  It is not a Vulcan.

Lets make sure we keep the right perspective.  The M-16 with a 20" barrell is 300yd weapon max.  It worked well in the 100 yd environment of Vietnam.  I would think that WWII in Europe was a 500 yd war.  I would think that the M-14 would have been a better choice.  Of course we know that the only real difference between the M-14 and the M-1 was the 20 rd magazine and maybe the 308 is a little better than the 30.06.  

Another thing to keep in mind.  80% of all the causality inflicted by the US military in all our wars have been caused by artillery anyhow.

I think the best use of the M-16 would have been in the Pacific.  It seems that was a 100 yd war.

Having toyed with every serviced rifle used since the 45/70 trapdoor, given my druthers, I'd have hit Omaha with an M-1 or it's cousin, the M14.

All that matters for the sake of this arguement is machanical reliability. I WON"T call the m16 a piece of junk, but it isn't my 1st choice for going ashore on a sandy beach.

Final Countdown



one thing about the M16 vs M1
more shots between reloads

M1A1's verus Panthers/Tigers, can you say turkey shoot! (rededicating my efforts in time machine construction)

Could the 88mm and 128mm HE rnds even scratch the paint on an M1?

I think .30 caliber rifles are more effective.  They had BARs, M1s, and Thompson submachine guns.  It's not like it was a bayonet charge you know--US troops were not under-gunned.  A better designed landing craft that didn't immediately expose everyone to the MG-34s would have saved a few lives.

No it wasn't.  

Try more like <150 yards.

Well, several FAEs would have killed all the defenders and we could have walked onto the beach.  The 15,000lb daisy cutter would be good too.

I don't know for sure because I was not in WWII.  All I know is what I read and see on the History channel.  In addition I had the honor of working with a WWII vet for 12 years.  After getting out of college I went to work with a veteran of N. Africa and the war in Europe.  He landed at Omaha and fought until VE Day.  He told me many stories in the time I knew him.  He told me about the breakout of Normandy and the hedgerow fighting.  He told me about the advance to Germany and the Battle of Bulge.  He loved the M-1.  He told me that at many times he engaged the enemy at at distances greater than 300 yds.  

If he lied to me then I yield to your greater knowledge.

Yeah most fighting took place at shorter distances though I would stretch it out to say tops of 300-400 meters. This was one of the reasons for the Germans designing the StG 44.
I wouldnt say the vet lied to you. We are talking averages here.  He might have always been in the situations he described to you.

Was he a sniper?  I find it extremely hard to believe that he could even see the enemy at 300 yards.

My grandfather was in Europe during the war.  From what I gathered, he remembered that the hedgerows, cities, and dense woodlands made it practically impossible to see anything farther away than 100-150 yards, often much closer than that.  According to him, rifles and BARs were used to cover an advance to grenade range, with most of the killing being done by the grenades.  

My opinion is not based on what he told me though.  It is based on a finding of the U.S. Army after the war that most combat happened at close range, which was the impetus for the adoption of the assault rifle.

Modern,huh? Near as I can find , in 1949 when GE designed a .60 caliber, six barrelled gun for testing proved the 'motorized Gatling' concept, and it was followed by a 20 mm version, the T171, which was eventually in 1956 designated the M61. So, '49,'56? United States, General Electric and M61 "Vulcan"? Least , that's the best Hogg's Machine Guns can do.

I spent six years of my life studying stuff like this and wondering :) The only place a history degree is good I suppose.

At Normandy the M16 wouldnt have made a hell of a lot of difference until the sea wall was breached, up top it would, like the Garand, have been overkill, with Thompsons and other SMGs being sufficient to clear the bunker complexes and gun emplacements.

The average combat distance on the Western Front during WWII was UNDER 300m, thats WHERE the MKb42(W&H), the AK-47, and a decade later, the AR15, came from with their intermediate range cartridges. In the hedgerows and the forest campaigns the AR15 would have put Allied troops on par with the SS units carrying the MKb/STG series, but no more. The Sturmgewehr series is at least equil to the basic M16 as an assault rifle, and in my mind, probably a little better (but much heavier).

IMHO you need not look beyond a platform already avaliable (and indeed avaliable in 1918!) for a significant improvement on the Garand for the WTO campaign in WWII- a Browning BAR, lightened for semi-auto ONLY fire, with a 18-20" barrel and a muzzle break that would tame the .30-06 from that short a barrel.

Further, if we could do a dream gun, rechamber the above weapon into 6.5x55 Swedish or .280 British Experimental.

The BAR is a fantastic weapon, right up there with the M14 (if you've ever had the pleasure of shooting an OOW Semi-BAR, you know what I mean) and with the detachable mag capacity, it would give the troops the weapon to fully exploit the tactics of the time.

Personaly if I'm altering WWII, I'd ally with Hitler and go after Stalin. The Soviets turned out to be a far more dangerous cold-war adversary than Nazi Germany would have been. Fewer civilians would have died too.

Hitler would have went after us after polishing off the Soviets and he as much said he would. With his lead in rockets, jet engines, and nuclear technology I think we made the best available choice possible.

I think as someone else mentioned the coolest weapon to have had available would have been some helicoptor gunships. Slow moving armor would have been like shooting ducks in a barrel.

I do believe that some of the USMC guys around here would have the most credible opinions on this one, since they practice beach assaults fairly frequently (at least, they used to).

Me? In 6 years in the Army, I saw exactly [b]ONE[/b] M16A1 that wouldn't run, so I think it would've held up alright.

Hypothetically speaking, though........let's not forget the A10, or (for the guys who would still like to stay a little closer to the time period) the Skyraider, for close air support.

A-10's could also be used in air to air. Imagin an A-10 in a dogfight with WWII German ME109's/FW190.

It was after that war that researchers discovered that 90% of actual infantry combat occurs inwards of 250 yards. Also, SLA Marshall tells us that in that war only a quarter of all soldiers fired their weapons, and that was mostly those with crew served and belt fed weapons. The reasons for this were, among others, the problem of getting one man to kill another, and above all, the infantrymen not thinking their weapons were of any use in battle. I'd take the M16.

A lot of GIs lost their M1s getting to the beach.  They would jump into the water (because the Navy drivers wouldn't take them all the way in) and since they were carrying equipment that weighed more than they did, they dropped a lot of stuff (inculding their rifles) and would make their way to shore weaponless.  Luckily one company in the first wave made it ashore and mostly got wiped out (suffered 96% casulties) so there was a lot of equipment was laying around.  Maybe with the M16, they wouldn't have lost as many rifles on the bottom.  

[b] Atencio [/b]

Forgive me if I wont agree with you but even as early as the publication of Shirer's(definitive) "Rise and Fall" it was pretty clear to WWII historians that Hitler had no immidiet plans outside of Eurasia and the Mediterranean. Nazi dogma and 'history' viewed the 3rd Reich as the "New Roman Empire", and was not seeking literal global domination.

Hitler longed for a Nazi superstate that would be in size comperable to the western US, with satellite states, much as the Warsaw Pact became the Soviet's satellites. Hitler admired much in the British and the Americans as global powers and wanted to play at their level. He was nuts, but he wasnt crazy, he didnt want the whole world.

Eventually it would have lead to war, but once again, as historians have researched and shown us, the Reich was conservative by nature. Even after Eastern Europe, Hitler didnt see war with the west and the Soviets before the late 1940s or early 1950s!

What's more, if he hadnt been losing, I think Nazi conservatism would have all but shelved 'superweapons' including jets and rockets. Which despite recent publicity, were being developed just as hard by pre-war Allied nations as Germany pushed for them. The only difference is when it came to defeat Germany was desperate for any technology that could give her an edge, and the Allies were happy to move a little bit slower.

Just remember, it took some major teeth to be pulled just to get the Fw190 into production in 1940, and even as late as 1943 the RLM REFUSED to be 'bothered by' the need for heavy bombers, saying that their fleets of dive bombers and tactical aircraft would work just fine. Hitler even went so far as forbidding discussion of further intermediet power weapons when the trial production run of MKb42s were finished in early '43, and it took the crushing battles in mid 43 and 44 where soldiers and commanders wrote him BEGGING for more of these rifles that he finaly turned away from his Kar98 & MP-40 approach.

Despite what people would have you think about the "modern" German mechanized army, Poland and even Russia was invaded with some cavalry units...ON HORSEBACK. Many, MANY Russian artillery units relied on horses to pull their guns. And once again on the ground as in the air, superior armored vehicles were not implemented in large scale until after the very last moment in many cases. The famed Panther and Tiger series were ONLY mass-produced after upgunned Panzer IIIs and IVs continued to get the SNOT beaten out of them by the Russians.

I still stick with my decision that Hitler would have been a far less dangerous foe than Stalin during the first part of the Cold War, and Nazi Germany would have fallen faster to internal issues than Soviet Russia. The Soviets at least interpreted REAL history and used REAL science. The Nazis made it up as they went along.

Denken Sie wieder Herr Schicklgruber


Rebel Grey

Hitler had planned for invasion of Russia starting in 1937.  He had no intention of being on a level field with the U.S. and England otherwise he would have never began to plan operation Sea Lion, the invasion of England. If he did not want to invade the Soviet Union until the late 40s-50s why did he give the go ahead for the invasion in 1941.  I never mentioned a mechanized army. While you mention horsedrawn artillery, I bring up jet engines, nuclear power, and V1/V2 rockets. V1 rockets were used starting in 1941 ,hardly a time when Germany was loosing the war. In fact Germany started their rocket program in 1932.  The German military started experimentation with rockets as a means of getting around the treaty of Versailles. Rockets were not included in the treaty.  A4-V2 rocket experimentation began in 1938. Prehaps though the most damning evidence I have seen of Hitlers desire is a photograph of a globe that was found on his desk with the inscription "I am coming" over the Soviet Union and "I will be there soon" over North America.
I have never read anywhere outside of your reference of Hitler being or actting in a conservative manner. While Stalin was as ruthless as Hilter, the Soviet Union did not have the intellectual technology to rival the Germans. I would love to hear the rationale behind Germany falling to internal issues faster than the Soviets if we were allied to one versus the other.

In reference to Hitler,  I'm just very glad that Hitler survived to the end of the war.   This is because he made so many bad decisions that caused the Germans to use some superior technology in ways that resulted in those new devices being virtually wasted.

If Germany had been commanded by a more intelligent, forward thinking man who better understood the military applications of the new devices being invented,  the war would have been written quite differently.   I would even go so far as to state that it would have led to a nuclear EXCHANGE between allied and German forces.  We probably would have won eventually simply because the U.S. mainland was well isolated by distance and the access routes were well sewn up, and we would have continued to produce mass quantities of everything including nukes,  and Germany would have borne the brunt of such a nuclear exchange as they didn't have the advantage of having the production facilities located thousands of miles out of harm's way.

CJ

All of those present day goodies would have been nice, but how about just a few dozen CH-47s or CH-53Es.  Land several companies behind the enemy precisely without all of the problems of airborne drops.  Think maneuver not mass.

As far as M16s in WWII goes, intermediate range assault rifles were already in existence. They represented new technology experimented with first by the Russians in the first world war and perfected by the Germans in the second world war. But, just just like the tank in WWI, there was a lack of vision by senior WWII leaders for the revolutionary impact assault weapons would have in combat.

The modern "Sturmgewehr" was perfected by the Germans through sheer necessity by having to deal with increasingly overwhelming odds in their long retreat back to Berlin. Still, it was a struggle for German commanders to convince Hitler to switch from mass-producing KAR-98s and MP40s. Further, it would have taken nothing less than an industrial miracle to re-tool for the new weaponry. The Tiger and Panther tanks were awesome weapon systems, but again, they could not hold the Bolshevik wolves off long enough to re-tool for mass production of these superior tanks. That is why the lesser MkIIIs and IVs were manufactured almost to the end of the war.

Panzer Out

I dunno about the AR15, But can there really be any doubt, that Jackson the Sniper from saving Pvt Ryan would not have traded his left nut for a 20" Armalite AR10 A4 Flattop with a Luepold Tactacal Scope?

"Keep your heads down boys, this sniper knows his business"

RebelGray Wrote:


 Rebel Gray your post is a pretty interesting point of view (not that I agree) but that is a perspective I never would have thought of. But I do take acception to the above sentence.  
Although you might say this on a political level, it shows very little understanding of Germans themselves as their core selves.  Germans love Machines, they love technology, they love to to design them and build them.
Germans are meticulous craftsman, from fine Optics (ziess) to watchs to guns to tanks, airplanes.  Most of the brain power that fled Europe from about late 37-39 was Hungarian, German, Dutch.

And I am not talking about NAZI's(fascist) really at all. Or any political body for that matter.

Germans love to Tinker with stuff
 Who wouldn't build a Tank or a Gun or anything for that matter just to see one built. Why do you climb the mountain , Because its there!  Brilliant people who have built the machines of war and other things as well always had to contend with how governments use those things. As a people Germans can't be beat,  you have to understand their mindset.  

You hit the nail on the head, Benjamin0001: Germans are master craftsman in designing and building everything from cameras to rockets. That proved to be one of their downfalls in WWII because it led to the creation of a mechanized force with so many different tracked and wheeled vehicles it presented a logistics nightmare just to manufacture spare parts for all the various designs.

Take tanks for example. The Germans were constantly improving and diversifying their armored vehicle fleet while the Russians came up with one solid design and stuck with it (the omnipotent T-34).

The Americans had the Sherman, which may not have been the best tank, but produced in overwhelming quantities, even the mighty Tiger eventually had to succumb to superior numbers (but only after exhausting its ammo knocking out great numbers of Shermans).

The Germans were too technologically proficient for their own good.

Panzer Out

Not only did they make too many different types of vehicles, the quality of those vehicles was abyssmal.  I don't think craftsmanship is really an issue when the average German tank couldn't go farther than 150-200km without needing serious maintanence.  Another serious logistical problem was presented by the myriad different fuels used.  The U.S. Army used gasoline-only vehicles, the Germans used everything from gasoline, to diesel, to kerosene in their vehicles.

I'd say the designs were probably pretty good, if horribly over-complicated, as is the German tradition of mechanics.



They were constantly "improving" their tanks (personally, it looks more like they were just creating new maintanence nightmares for themselves) because they found their tanks to be woefully inadequate against the far superior T-34.



That, and our tanks [i]ran[/i].  Our tanks could be expected to run reliably without major mechanical support for extended periods of time.  Our tanks were driven, and could be expected to make it to the battlefield without a tank transport (of which we had none by the way).



Actually, it's more like they were pretty damned bad at designing reliable, uncomplicated machines that could compete with the Russian and American tanks that would keep on going.



German food is pretty good, if really heavy.

German beer is over-rated, but alright.

German women are nothing to write home about.

[;D]

Those "abyssmal" vehicles were used to conquer most of Europe and made it all the way to the gates of Moscow before Herr Schicklegruber, a corporal in WWI, took operational command of the armies in the east. If German vehicles were mechanically unreliable it was because there was no time to work out the bugs before being thrown into combat.

Panzer Out