1941 - German propaganda picture of German soldiers in Russia

Even German propaganda can be instructive; in this case for showing the equipment used by the German army in 1941. In particular note the German soldier on the left, armed with a standard issue bolt action Mauser rifle. Despite the promise inherent in automatic weapons few countries began the Second World War equipped with significant numbers of individual automatic weapons. Instead, many armies held to outdated beliefs about the superiority aimed rifle fire held at great distances, even though the opportunity to employ rifles in such a manner remained unlikely in fluid, mobile warfare.

The German army was no exception. For example Adolf Hitler held to dated beliefs regarding traditional rifles throughout the war, even after Germany developed the first practical assault rifle in the War's final years. Hitler, and many of his peers, stubbornly insisted soldiers armed with assault rifles would just shoot up their ammunition. Hitler's disapproval of automatic rifles hurt German combat efficacy in the urban combat areas and forests the German army frequently fought in during the War, where the Mauser with its long barrel and low rate of fire proved unwieldy and ineffective.

The German army however more than offset a lack of individual automatic weapons by equipping the combat arms with copious amounts of superb crew served machine guns. German machine guns served as a model for infantry carried machineguns well into the Cold War era and beyond. For example, the US Army later copied the German MG-42 in developing the long serving M-60 machinegun of the 1960's-1990's.

Picture Courtesy US National Archives, local identifier no. 242-GAP-286B-4