Comments by "bakters" (@bakters) on "Soviet Infantry Small Arms Advantage Late in WW2? TIK Q&A" video.

  1.  @Paciat  "Also soldiers were trained to burst shoot an MG 42? So? It only proves my point that even in 1943 6 men caaaying ammo for it wasnt enough to fire it on full auto." MG-42 was not a water-cooled heavy machine gun, which is supposed to fire continuously. It was a light MG, which a single man could carry. One belt of continuous fire would overheat the barrel, but unlike BAR (which served in a somewhat similar role), you could change the barrel quickly. If you fired in short aimed bursts, you could at least in theory achieve the same tactical effect without the need to change the barrel as often. But I've read somewhere, that by the end of war the Germans have problems with providing enough barrels to replace the shot-out ones. Apparently, exercising trigger discipline under extreme stress is not an easy task, so quite a few barrels were damaged. (Still, better than BAR, where you'd have to replace the whole gun.) Anyway, MG-42 is considered to be the best machine gun of wwII and beyond. Probably still better than "the pig" of Vietnam era.
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  2.  @Raskolnikov70  "modern-day armies eventually settled on an intermediate-cartridge" They didn't "settle" on this one cartridge. Actually, all modern armies use at least four cartridges. High caliber heavy MG (50BMG, 14.5mm), regular MG caliber (7.62 NATO, 7.62x54R), intermediate cartridge (5.56, 5.45) and a pistol round (9mm NATO and Luger). An intermediate cartridge is an ineffective MG round. That's why nobody actually replaced anything, they just added yet another round to their supply chain. The main reason why nobody did it earlier, was probably this added logistical strain which amounted to not that much extra effectiveness. Once all the armies fully mechanized, it was a much easier pill to swallow. Anyway, Germans are often laughed at for their apparent lack of consideration when adopting new marginally more effective weapons, which required a separate supply chain, but in this case they don't look too bad... Your "typical" German squad would need only 8mm Mauser and some small addition of 9mm Luger once in a blue moon. The Soviets would need a full supply of 7.62x54R and a full supply of 7.62 Tokarev. In case of trouble, the Germans could feed their MG with smallarms ammo, while the Soviets not so much. They could run out of either ammo and lose battle effectiveness, while the Germans would keep on fighting.
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  3.  @Paciat  Firepower eats ammo, that's how it works. Yes, the US squad could work around the deficiencies of BAR thanks to their excellent rifles, but the squad was still centered around the BAR. I wasn't aware that the Soviets managed to pump out so many SVTs. Weird, since it wasn't a mature design yet, quite finicky with corrosive ammo, but apparently they tried their best. Not my fault that the US Army in wwII was using wwI "walking fire" concept weapon. That's what they had, that's what they used. Not the best, by a long shot, but it still worked way better than nothing. Overall the quality of US equipment was probably the best out there, but BAR was not really well suited for the role it was used (SAW/LMG).
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