Bolt actions weapons are great for accuracy, and fighting at long range. To be really effective on the battle field it takes a automatic firearm. In 1918 the company Browning answered that request. The made a rifle called the BAR ( browning automatic rifle), this weapons was light enough to carry by one man, and it was fully automatic. Having held a BAR myself i can say one thing, you better be a big guy if you're lugging that thing around all day. The first rifle was 15 Lbs, but it got lighter has the years progressed. This weapon did see some action in WW1. The German solders where terrified of this automatic rifle. A bolt action rifle cant compete against a rifle like this. The only down fall was the weight and the caliber was very big, so the recoil was hard to control.(picture of a BAR a2). A self loading rifle design wasn't manufactured until 1936 with the introduction of the M1 Guarand. This was designed by a Canadian designer named John Guarand. this was a infantry cared semiautomatic rifle that fired 8 round before a reload. It was 9.5lb, easily carried by one man.
The huge advantage to this is rifle is that a American solders has a 8 rounds of rock and roll, and the German solder only has one. This was a huge advantage, if the solder misses all it takes is another trigger pull to fire again. I play airsoft against people with bolt action rifles,and a semi auto rifle is a huge advantage. During the war the Germans did a study on how solders engage targets, it was found that a long engagement was at 300 m, a large caliber rifle was not needed. The Germans designed a select fire magazine feed rifle that was chambered in a intermediate caliber.This was the STG 44 (not going to write the overly long German word). It was chambered in 7.9mm Kurtz, this was not as big as a full rifle caliber but not as small as a pistol round. The weapon had a effective range of 300m the long engagement distance of a solder. After WW2 countries started to copy this design.
(picture of a STG 44)
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ReplyDeleteThe automatic rifle I personally hold preference to bolt action rifles due to their accuracy and simplicity to operate in the field. I suppose this is mostly due to hunting implications that are associated with my field work and I rely on the accuracy of CZ to preform clean and humane kills. That being said there have been times when there was just too much game for one bolt to handle. I experienced this while boar hunting in Europe where herds of boar will cross a path and it is up to you to take as many as you can in that short time frame. A semi-automatic rifle is crucial for this type of quick and multiple target type shooting.
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