AT-Rifle Team

2021-12-22T17:56:56Z

2A02:A03F:C17D:A400:3872:15DB:9A58:975: /* IRL */

The AT-Rifle team is a unit in Flames of War availble for the German army to recruit. In reality, German AT-rifles were largely an ad hoc collection of captured equipment, outdated weapons, or typically overengineered weapons that were introduced just too late to be relevant in the battlefields of WWII.

==IRL==
The Origin of the Anti-tank Rifle started in the battlefields of WWI. See, there were these big fat [[Rhino|METHUWL BAWKSES]] called armoured cars, which both sides hated very much. Now, early attempts by both sides to make standard infantry rifles work as AT rifles... range from interesting but overdone to absolutely terrible, look it up for a good laugh. By the time even the kinks in these weapons had been ironed out, the Germans brought up their own solution: just manufacture a dedicated rifle meant to shoot armoured vehicles in the first place! Enters the Mauser M1918, also known as the ''Tankgewehr''. While it had a good chance of breaking the user's collarbone if shouldered incorrectly and produced a ton of noise, the design was surprisingly effective. The design was relatively straightforward: combine the idea of a bolt action rifle and a breech loading cannon, strap it into a system that can be fired from the ground, throw a big fucking round into the gun, aim at a tank, and turn the occupants into mush.

After the end of the war, AT rifle development slowed, with very few actually being developed outside of Poland, Britain, Germany, the USSR, and Finland. The most likely weapons you'll be looking at on these models is the Panzerbüchse 38, a renamed Mauser M1918, and Panzerbüchse 39, a version with a slightly larger round, but otherwise had no real changes compared to his daddy the 38. In spite of this, the PzBs both shared the traditional German weapon problem of being way too complex to operate reliably on a battlefield. Its mechanical system was incredibly complex, which slowed production and made maintenance a pain in the ass. Worse was that the dirty commies and the British had both taken a look at the idea, and both simplified it and made them into five-shot bolt action versions (the Boys and the PTRD). Once the allies discovered the AT-rifle had become irrelevant against heavier armor, they simply replaced them with M2 Browning machineguns to deal with lighter threats, and developed Bazookas and PIAT's to deal with heavier armour.

In spite of its shortcomings they were retained until 1944 (when armor technology had long exceeded the ability for the AT rifle to remain relevant) and was completely phased out in favor of more powerful weapons such as the Panzerfaust and Panzershrek, or where converted to fire rifle grenades. Today, the AT rifle concept is still in service as an "anti-materiel rifle". After all, why chuck an expensive guided missile at a target like a truck or car when a couple of .50 cal bullets/shells will do the work just fine...

{{Template:German Forces in Flames of War}}

MG34 Platoon

2021-12-22T12:46:34Z

2A02:A03F:C17D:A400:3872:15DB:9A58:975:

The MG34 platoon is a unit available in flames of war equipped with an MG34. It earned a ferocious reputation in WWII as the primary MG on tanks, as well as serving as the inspiration for the FG42 and his far more sexy cousin, the MG42. It is widely considered the first general purpose Machine Gun.

==IRL==
The MG34 started out as a derivative of the Solothurn M30 Machine Gun. The Germans tinkered with the design until they created the beast known as the MG34. After working out the kinks in it, they were sent into service in the Spanish Civil War, and were well liked for their performance as well as their general reliability.

MG34s typically shot 7.92mm (that's roughly 31 caliber for you Yanks), and could be equipped with a drum that held from 50-75 rounds, or could be equipped with the infamous belt magazines for [[Dakka|sustained fire]] (although German doctrine instructed that sustained cyclic rate fire was wasteful and should be avoided at all costs). It had an effective range of about 2 kilometers and variants of the base design were used on everything from tanks to AA turrets to aircraft. Additionally, unlike earlier machine guns, the MG34 had no need for water to cool it, as it was air cooled, relatively revolutionary compared to the weapons of WWI. The MG34 was also the first to include an option to be fired in single shots like a rifle, which <s>was retarded</s> was used mainly for ranging shots with a tracer round, and also by a few snipers in the correct circumstances.
<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
Small aside:
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
After reading that last sentence, you're probably wondering who the hell would be insane enough to use a goddamn machinegun as sniper rifle. The thing is, a MG uses rifle-caliber ammunition (if not bigger) with the same effective range, correctly set on its tripod it is a perfectly stable firing platform, and its traversing-elevating mechanism allows it to compensate for distance as well if not better than your regular's sniping rifle stock and bipod. USMC sniper [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock Carlos Hathcock] is famous for sniping with an even heavier "Ma Deuce" .50 BMG in Vietnam, but he was not the first nor the only man to use a machinegun to snipe. That said, it remains an infrequent happenstance because first a MG's tactical role is to throw firepower downrange and suppress the enemy, and your platoon leader [[RAGE|won't be happy]] if [[That Guy|some giggling idiot]] [[Blood Ravens|borrows]] his [[Dakka|fire support]] to [[Vindicare|take potshots at the enemy from very far]]. Second, a fully-equipped MG is also not man-portable; which heavily limits its usage as a sniping weapon. But, it can be done, and a single shot semi-automatic setting on a MG is not as stupid or useless as it sounds at first.
</div>
</div>

At the time, and even until the end of the war, the MG34 retained it's status as one of the most advanced weapons on the battlefield. The American B.A.R. and Johnson was pretty much a joke, the M1918 and BESA were far too cumbersome for service as general purpose MGs, and Bren didn't have the ability to sustain fire as well against an MG34, nor was it as portable. The only one that came 'close' was the Russian Degtyaryov DP-27 LMG in terms of cost, portability, adaptability and ease of use, but even those paled in firepower with only roughly one third the rate of fire of a MG34 and no belt-feed mechanism for sustained fire.

And before you try to say that this was Wehraboo wank, kindly remind yourself that A) its design predates the Nazi's even if they were the main users, and B) pretty much every LMG since WWII has used the base design of the MG34/42 as its overall design because, yes, it was *that* good!

{{Template:German Forces in Flames of War}}

2d4chan - User contributions [en]

AT-Rifle Team

MG34 Platoon