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originally posted by Nashwan:

I don't want to quible(sp?) but Lee Enfields were chambered in .303

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originally posted by Tobiwan:

Yes they were....well the one I fired certainly was.

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Nashers , grab this stat! Tobiwan , which M1917 did you fire ?

Please go back and reread my post so you can see where you made your mistakes . Nowhere in my post did I mention the LEE Enfield . The rifle I referred to was the M1917 ENFIELD (notice the lack of Lee in front of Enfield) chambered in 30.06 . This rifle was manufactured by Eddyston , Remington and Winchester by the hundreds of thousands . . Ever hear of any of them ? It was the most common rifle used by the U.S. in WWI and saw action in WWII . It was chambered 30.06 to insure there would be ammunition available . Also the 30.06 is a much better round than the British .303 . Here's what it looks like :

A guy named Sergeant York used the M1917 Enfield chambered in 30.06 to win the Congressional Medal of Honor .

Yes, the gun I fired was a Lee-Enfield MK4 or something...it did'nt look that one in the picture, it had a metal magazine that stuck out the underside...and it used .303 rounds.

M1917 Enfield means nothing to me but I've heard lots about Springfield 03s!!

Tell me, what is different between the .30-06 and the 7.62 NATO (.308 Winchester I think...we call them R1 bullets here)?
They are both .30 cal US ammo arn't they..

I've fired a Mauser KAR/G98 that used R1 or 7.62MM Ammo...it had been converted from the original 7.92mm....anyhow it was much better than the silly Lee-Enfield, that .303 is bloodly loud.

I know about the 7.62mmx51 NATO and the Combloc 7.62mmx39 I just was'nt sure where the .30-06 fitted in.

Is the .30-06 more powerful than the .308/NATO?

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Originally posted by Gespenst:
Why do you think Enfields were chambered in 30.06 , because those bullets were available . Without U.S. supplies the war's outcome could have been much different

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The rifle I referred to was the M1917 ENFIELD (notice the lack of Lee in front of Enfield) chambered in 30.06 . This rifle was manufactured by Eddyston , Remington and Winchester by the hundreds of thousands . . Ever hear of any of them ? It was the most common rifle used by the U.S. in WWI and saw action in WWII . It was chambered 30.06 to insure there would be ammunition available.

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From what I remember that was the problem with all the wartime full power cartridge type rifles, 30-06, 303, whatever. The 7.62 is the descendent of a midwar German idea, of a "kurtz" or short, cartridge. The idea was that a lower power round would be lighter and more controllable shooting in bursts (not as much climb). It would not shoot as far as the heavy versions but soldiers were not generally engaging at really long ranges anyway. And it was still heavier and more effective than the pistol ammunition used in the submachine guns. The kurtz cartridge lead directly to the development of the "Sturmgewehr" or Stormgun, the direct ancestor of the AK-47 and all modern assault rifles. Hitler was against the this idea (as millions of the old cartridges were in supply) but development took place in secret anyway and when the Sturmgewehr finally got to the front it was so increased the firepower of the infantry squads (previously based on a combination of boltaction rifles and machineguns) that it was quickly adopted. Only the chaos in Germany late in the war prevented the whole Wehrmacht changing over. Somehow I think more made it to the Russian front than the Western, as the Russians changed over to the AK-47 fairly quickly while the US took until the Vietnam war to get the M-16.

Like Yossarian said, the 5.56mm is just another move in the same direction (lighter weight so more ammo could be carried and I presume less kickback). The lower stopping power of the 5.56 is compensated for by the tumbling effect of the lighter round, which does more damage when it hits. I imagine though the lighter round in forest situations would be more deflected by twigs and things.

Feel free to correct me, I'm going from memory only (no books here).

[This message has been edited by Yossarian1369 (edited 04-25-2000).]

I won't dispute anything except the part about the Spit. It was a totally new design first conceived for the Schneider cup race, I believe. It was a superb float plane and later evolved quickly to match the 109 which could be seen coming over the horizon. As I recall from the story, the designer, I don't remember his name, was desperate to finish it before his death, as he had a terminal illness.

Machineman - you took the words out of my mouth about the twigs and branches. The Marine Corps did NOT want to convert to the M-16 as the early versions were notoriously unreliable and the small round was subject to wind deflection and deflection by even small twigs. (I remember the first time I fired the M-16 it felt like I was firing a .22 rifle.) They were in love with the M-14. I know, because I was a Marine at the time and I, too, was in love with it. Yes, the M-14 was heavy, but we loved it! My last rifle qualification, I got 6 bulls out of 10 shots at 500 yards! You won't do THAT with an M-16. The M-14 continued to be used by many troops as a sniper rifle, sometimes modified, until dedicated sniper rifles became more prevalent in Vietnam. The M-14 was reknowned for its accuracy and reliability. On qualification week in Parris Island, we were told NOT to field strip our weapons that week as it would change the "dope" (sighting information) we were accumulating during the week on sight adjustments at different ranges. If we got a jam, then we would, of course, HAVE to to tear them down. Nobody I saw who got a jam and had to strip their rifle qualified as more than "Marksman", the lowest qualification. I slopped Lubriplate grease into my action so much that the first firing day I kept getting hot grease thrown in my face! By qual day, with the action of the famous Parris Island sand, pulling back the action felt like dragging coarse sandpaper across a pie pan. But it worked perfectly! And we qualified many experts, including me. I can tell you an almost identical story about qualifying with a range M-1911 .45 pistol. These weapons just worked, time and time again.

Thinking about it, I believe the .303 version was the M1917. Guess I'll have to dig my old books out

[This message has been edited by stag (edited 04-26-2000).]

How much longer do you think it would have to have lasted? After the war studies were done into the extent of the nazi's experiments into nuclear warheads and they were years off, at the very least 10 years. After the hard water plant in Norway was destroyed Germany vertually gave up the research into the area. Even with the hardwater plant intact, they were still years behind the Americans. Do you think the V2 would have been capable of carrying a nuclear device, considering the time period were talking about? I don't think so.

>>. If Britain hadn't stood fast in 1940, the world would be a very different place.<<

Yes, but if she had negotiated peace after the fall of France or even in '39. Germany still would have attacked Russia as this was the be all end all reason for world war II and still would have lost, Germany would have been swallowed up by Russia if something internal hadn't been done about Hitler and a seperate peace term wasn't brought about.

As for the inital subject of this thread; I doubt very much if allied aircraft were told to strafe civilians.<<

Why? are they above such orders?

Tony

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Originally posted by TonyH:
>>I suspect if the war had lasted longer, A V2 carrying a nuke would have brought it to an end.<<

See below.

>>. If Britain hadn't stood fast in 1940, the world would be a very different place.<<

<Yes, but if she had negotiated peace after the fall of France or even in '39. Germany still would have attacked Russia as this was the be all end all reason for world war II and still would have lost, Germany would have been swallowed up by Russia if something internal hadn't been done about Hitler and a seperate peace term wasn't brought about.>

If Britain had sued for peace in 1940, The Telemark factory would never have been attacked. Without Britain, there would have been no airfields for the eighth airforce to fly from. Even if America had decided to declare war on Germany (even this would have become unlikely, as isolationists had a strong voice at the time) Trying to send an invasion fleet across the atlantic would have been all but impossible. So Germany has an intact industrial base, And aircraft which are not needed to defend the fatherland are sent east. The Russians Had no strategic bombers.
The German army got to the outskirts of Moscow. With the extra rescources, don't tell me they couldn't have made it.

<Why? are they above such orders?>

No. But they tended to be more practical, and less sadistic than the Nazis.

An afterthought. In 1945, the Nazis almost had a working nuclear reactor (I believe it still exists in Germany). It would have killed anyone that went near it, due to non-existent shielding. But then I doubt that a blond haired blue-eyed party member would have been sent in to retrieve the plutonium.

[This message has been edited by TonyH (edited 04-27-2000).]

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Did Hitler ever look in the mirror?

The Nazis would have conscripted them.

Perhaps they'd breed them as food supplies which delivered themselves?

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Originally posted by Yossarian1369:
What if pigs had wings?

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Originally posted by Yossarian1369:
FYI: Here's a pretty good page on the M1917 Springfield for those interested: http://shoga.wwa.com/~dvelleux/m1917.html

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