EXPLAINED: The Finest World War II Squad Guns
Now these are the kinds of weapons the modern, mass armies of the Axis and Allies needed. The concept of a “squad automatic weapon” was not new to the Second World War, and was in fact developed a generation earlier in the mud-soaked trenches of the First World War. The French were actually the first to deploy such a weapon, the largely disparaged Chauchat. While it suffered from design flaws it was still an innovative weapon. During World War II that concept evolved and led to the development of squad automatic weapons, and even to the modern assault rifle. The U.S. M1918 Browning Automa...
Source: nationalinterest.org