Comments by "COL BEAUSABRE" (@colbeausabre8842) on "Q&A #14: Recoil, Nerf, and Forced Air Cooling" video.

  1. Ref the FG42. My understanding it was deeply influenced by the German experience on Crete. The fallshirmjager had been equipped with a relatively high proportion of MP40 submachine guns and found themselves outranged by the British who were using Lee-Enfield rifles (of course that's the tradeoff, for a given weight, you get more firepower, but less range from a SMG). So one of the "lessons learned" - or thought to be learned - was that the paratroopers needed a weapon with rifle range, but SMG firepower. Voila! The FG42. Now how much of the experience of Crete was unique (long fields of fire) and how much could be generalized, is something that history seems to tell us the Germans got wrong. After all, everybody accepts some loss of range with their assault rifles. Now, today, based on our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan with their long fields of fire, we have designated marksman rifles, to give the squad something to use for longer range engagements, but it is not general issue, it's normally one per squad. And that's fine, the enemy is carrying a lot of AK's with range capabilities like the M16/M4, only the occasional jihadi is carrying grandpa's Enfield or Mauser.
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  2. Let me add in regard to the question of the British and semi-automatic rifles, that the pre-World War II requirements were so rigorous that the US M1, which had been provided for trials, was rejected (38,000 were later sent under Lend-Lease, I'd sure like too know what happened to them as I've never seen any photos of mention or their use by Commonwealth troops. On the other hand, they got 200,760 M1 carbines which ended up in the SAS and the Chindits (and maybe other elements of the 14th Army) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_carbine#/media/File:The_Chindits_MH7287.jpg)
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