What would be the issue small arms for the European and Asian theaters?

Small arms? We use guided missiles, drones, and various HE bombs now. Since we were the "invaders" in Both Europe and Asia, there's really no reason to have put boots on the ground. We could have offered support with the above, since there was no reason to claim or reclaim ground. Would have been really simple to stay ahead of the allies with good weapons, supporting their advance.

It's an interesting question, though.

Uhhh, we did at the end.
Fat Man and Little Boy worked real good!

Wouldn't make much of a difference if we used our modern arms. It's the man and they did pretty góod . Don't get me wrong, I'm sure our guys would love a good saw or 240 at times

Compared to the 30-06 in their Garands. The Marines probably would have laughed at the M-16 and 556, just like the grunts in Nam did.

Tom Clancy wrote a book in the 90s about a modern world war minus the nukes. It was chilling, and like many of Toms books,probably a very close, and reliable guess. It was called Red Storm Rising. A good read.

We will never again have wars like the two world wars. The nukes would fly far sooner given the circumstances. In a WW2 setting, probably about the time the germans crossed the Maginot line.

The Germans with their manpower limitations could have made good use of the increased firepower of the Garand or the like.
I hate to think what they could have done with a 1000 or so B-52's armed with 60's era munitions.

If you were to include the presence of our modern politicians, it wouldn't matter what weapons were used, we'd all be speaking German

WWII, was pretty advanced and our military hardware from 1950-60's has striking resemblence to that of WWII Germany's. Even WWII there were nukes, drones, missles, plenty of unconventional warfare (special units), radar, and lord knows what else. They were not as advanced in some was as today but development in that era brought us to where we are today and in some ways the analog tech back then was more simple and reliable.

This if real would shake things up.

Always thought that if one modern submarine could go back in time. Six sub launched missiles from afar, 1 for each of the Japanese carriers on the morning of Dec 7th right before launch when the carriers were full of fueled and armed planes.

Would have been incomprehensible to the Japanese.

JDAMs would have really helped with the 8th AF losses.

Drones and Satellites may have kept Bastogne a little more peaceful.

By the time they were finished...sticks.


They were all pretty determined.

Got to remember if the Allied force could have developed modern weapons as we have today so could have Germany and Japan. Germany was close to missile delivery systems and nuclear weapons. Look at where our early nuclear scientist came from

We will see the answer to this question soon enough. The 20th century was the bloodiest and cruelest ever due to technology advances. Just wait on the next huge worldwide convulsion.

P.S. Rifles and boots will only be useful for occupation if there is any need to occupy.

Yeah the m16 would have been a hit at Bastonge.

I've often wondered what would have been the outcome at Little Bighorn if Custer's men would have had even 20 M-1 carbines and ammo.

It'd be a bitch....but tactics would eventually compensate.


Probably be fewer civilian casualties.

I read some where about the number of rounds fired per kill of the M1 in WWII vs M14 and Vietnam.The difference much more for the M14

In reality IF Hitler would have allowed the use of the Me-262 earlier and allowed the manufacture of the MP-44 it would have been a lot worse!