The Legendary Rifle That Fought World War II

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. It explains a lot, so basically infantry tactics changed from individual soldiers shooting individual enemy soldiers, as it were, to laying down a curtain of fire to force the enemy to keep his head down and then incapacitate him.

No, I don't think so. As I see it, the military object is to gain a dominating position by killing, disabling, or capturing the enemy. The strategy is to get infantry close enough to defenders to overwhelm them, personally. The tactic is covering the advance by massed firepower of the attackers. That is why, from rock to bow to flintlock to breech-loader to magazine-fed pellet-thrower the advantage of superior rate of fire has been the compelling force for the improvement of the individual weapon.

In comparison, horizontal envelopment by fire-and-maneuver has displaced the suicidal massive frontal assault tactic (a la Gettysburg, WWI Marne offensive)(counting on numbers superiority), through more economical use of force. And that would apply no matter what the individual weapon, given a reasonable parity.

So I'm not convinced that your argument holds as to the concept that drives development of higher rate of fire for the infantryman's personal weapon.

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