It is a classic showdown between Axis and Allies.
There is no denying that the United States military’s M1 Garand was truly the best of the main battle rifles used in the Second World War. Whereas the other powers largely relied on bolt action rifles that were essentially little improved versions of what had been carried in the trenches of World War I, the American soldier and marine had some semi-automatic firepower.
Yet the M1 Garand wasn’t the only semi-automatic weapon employed in the war and both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany employed semi-autos. However, they were no M1 Garand, and it is doubtful Gen. George S. Patton would have called those attempts “the greatest battle implement ever devised.”
Now these are the kinds of weapons the modern, mass armies of the Axis and Allies needed.
The concept of a “squad automatic weapon” was not new to the Second World War, and was in fact developed a generation earlier in the mud-soaked trenches of the First World War. The French were actually the first to deploy such a weapon, the largely disparaged Chauchat. While it suffered from design flaws it was still an innovative weapon.
During World War II that concept evolved and led to the development of squad automatic weapons, and even to the modern assault rifle.
The U.S. M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle
Lewis Gun: The World s First LMG (Light Machine Gun)
It’s a weapon that lives up to a nickname earned during The Great War “The Belgian Rattlesnake.”
It must be an automatic rifle, Robert Jordan thought. “How much does it weigh?” he asked.
“One man can carry it, but it is heavy. It has three legs that fold. We got it in the last serious raid. The one before the wine.”
“How many rounds have you for it?”
“An infinity,” the gypsy said. “One whole case of an unbelievable heaviness.”
Sounds like about five hundred rounds, Robert Jordan thought. “Does it feed from a pan or a belt?”