German Army

Did the German army employ a uniform type of rifles for its infantry?

Were the officers the only one who were equipped with pistols?

The only combat role where bolt-action rifles are the best even today, are sniper rifles, where their long effective range and high accuracy are the only things that count. These are bolt-action rifles which are adapted with magnifying telescopic sights, and often also with additional enhancements such as bipods, cushions, and higher standard production, all in order to maximize the sniper's ability to deliver the few selective shots that can sometimes affect the battlefield more than a hail of less accurate bullets.

Semi-Automatic Rifles

Semi-Automatic Rifles were the natural development from the bolt-action rifle. By simply adding an automatic reloading mechanism, these guns provided the soldier with a significantly faster rate of fire, not just technically, but also because he could keep his aiming eye on the sights and on the target between shots, making continuous aiming and firing possible. These quickly became the basic personal weapons of World War 2 soldiers.

Sub Machine Guns

A German invention from the end of World War 1, these are the small and handy equivalents of machine guns, capable of a rapid rate of automatic fire, much faster than possible with a rifle, and they were also mechanically very simple and reliable, and also very cheap and easy to produce. Their smaller and lighter ammunition, similar to that of pistols, meant that a soldier could carry many more bullets than a rifleman. While they give each soldier a tremendous firepower, their main disadvantage is their significantly lower range and accuracy, even in single shot mode, which is the combined result of weaker ammunition, shorter distance between the front and rear sights, and simpler and less precise production. These features made sub-machine guns the weapon of choice for short-range combat, elite storm troops, tank crews, and it was also very attractive to armies which needed to urgently mass-produce weapons in the early stage of the war. Most sub machine guns of World War 2 were similar to each other, as they all had the same simple and successful mechanism of the original German MP18 sub machine gun, and wartime improvements were focused on making them even simpler to produce.

Assault Rifles

These all-purpose guns were developed and used by the German army in the 2nd half of World War 2 as a result of studies which showed that the ordinary rifle's long range is much longer than needed, since the soldiers almost always fired at enemies closer than half of its effective range. The assault rifle is a balanced compromise between the rifle and the sub-machine gun, having sufficient range and accuracy to be used as a rifle, combined with the rapid-rate automatic firepower of the sub machine gun. Thanks to these combined advantages, assault rifles such as the American M-16 and the Russian AK-47 are the basic weapon of the modern soldier.

Pistols

Pistols are generally not suitable for military fighting. With their very short effective range and little ammunition, they are carried in combat by soldiers who are not expected to use them as their main fighting weapon, such as airmen, senior officers, non-combatant soldiers, and other military roles which for practical reasons, or even traditional reasons, are not carrying a sub-machine gun or a rifle.

---