>every single army in WW2: small machine gun in squads and assign medium machine guns to platoons, we have extra big machine guns in the company if it isnt enough>british: small machine guns in the platoon and all other machine guns with the divisionwhy were the british so weird about machine guns?it cant have been that good if no one, not even the british, use that system today
>>65620802The bongs, for better and frequently for worse, always did their own thing. Tanks, planes, ships, infantry weapons. These days they're pretty boring and it's the French who try the wacky shit.
>>65620802>small machine gun in squads and assign medium machine guns to platoonsOnly the Germans had true machine guns on the section level. The others' are best understood as automatic rifles. though the distinction has been lost to time in English.>assign medium machine guns to platoons,Those were on the company level where they existed, e.g. the United States, while machine gun companies armed with heavy machine guns sat on the battalion level in general.Brits used bren carriers instead.
>>65620846>The others' are best understood as automatic rifles. though the distinction has been lost to time in English.all the automatic rifles were used as LMGs in practice>Those were on the company level where they existed, e.g. the United Statescompany level MGs were assigned to cover for platoons and were de facto under platoon control during combat>Brits used bren carriers instead.the british company level UC was a staff car, and they only got a single one per company compared
>>65620853>all the automatic rifles were used as LMGs in practiceNot as "LMG" was understood as back then, which is why I said the distinction is lost in English. The automatic rifles were also factually somewhat incapable of filling the role of an LMG properly due to lack of ammo and resupplying capacity. A single machine gunner in a modern section realistically carries significantly more ammunition than the entire automatic rifle team did in WW2 and can provide a vastly superior amount of firepower. The modern LMG is in its operation closer to the WW2 company level weapon systems. The M1919 was specifically called and LMG as well.>company level MGs were assigned to cover for platoons and were de facto under platoon control during combatDoesn't change the fact that they're on the company level in the weapons platoon.>the british company level UC was a staff car, and they only got a single one per company comparedSupport company on the battalion level with a bren platoon instead of heavy machine guns.
>>65620883>The automatic rifles were also factually somewhat incapable of filling the role of an LMG properly due to lack of ammo and resupplying capacity.they were used just fine in that rolebelf-fed LMGs are better but mag-fed LMGs were nonetheless used successfullyin any case, this is all just sidetracking from the original premiseevery army in WW2 had their LMG (which includes automatic rifles) as organic squad weapons with platoons having their own machine guns (company-level on paper, subordinate to platoon in practice)whereas the british squad has no machine guns, with all machine guns (bren is a machine gun) in under platoon control and the vickers machine gun section being all the way up in divisional sections
>>65620902>whereas the british squad has no machine gunsWhere did you get this misconception from? The British WW2 infantry section is specifically built around the bren gun. Each infantry section has one bren gun in it. Three of them in one platoon.
>>65620902>with platoons having their own machine guns (company-level on paper, subordinate to platoon in practice)Only the Americans AFAIK. Everyone else generally kept them on the battalion level or above in either machine gun companies or machine gun battalions. Automatic rifles in rifle squads, machine guns in machine gun companies.
>>65620929I bothered looking it up and the Soviets added one HMG to the company for a while in the middle of the war, only to remove them.Germans added two HMGs late war into the authorized strength of rifle companies, KStN 131n, but not present in Volksgrenadier divisions.
