Hard to take this article too seriously when it makes an egregious error regarding the quality of US automatic rifles in the very first paragraph. The M1 Garand was one of the finest rifles built, and George Patton considered it the "greatest battle implement ever devised."
"It was officially adopted as a United States military bolt-action rifle on June 21, 1905, and saw service in World War I. It was officially replaced as the standard infantry rifle by the faster-firing, semi-automatic 8 round M1 Garand, starting in 1937. However, the M1903 Springfield remained in service as a standard issue infantry rifle during World War II, since the U.S. entered the war without sufficient M1 rifles to arm all troops"
While the M1 Garand may have been one of the greatest battle implements ever devised, it was semi-automatic, not fully automatic. The article probably refers to the M1918 BAR.
There weren't many automatic rifles in use during the war; the BAR was one of few since there were conflicting requirements. Most of the other "automatic rifles" were really submachine guns; until the Stug44 came along, the automatic rifle just wasn't that popular.
"They knew that their automatic rifles (First World War vintage) were slower and clumsier..."
This implies that the Axis had a better automatic rifle, which wasn't the case at all. The Wermacht didn't deploy an automatic rifle until the Stug44 in the last year of the war. Instead, they relied upon their bolt action rifles to provide protection to the core of the infantry unit, the MG34 and MG44.
The Japanese as well didn't use an automatic rifle in their infantry units, relying on the Ariska bolt action. The Italians too didn't use an automatic rifle to any extent.
If he wants to criticize the Army for using the BAR that's fine; but to imply that US weapons (other than the atomic bomb) were inferior to their counterparts is specious. The B-24, B-29, A/B-26 were far superior to any bombers the Axis ever deployed. The P-51, P-47, and P-38 were outstanding fighters.
The deuce and a half truck (that probably won the war) was far superior to any truck the Germans had.
And other than a crappy bunch of torpedoes throughout the war, the USN was equipped with excellent ships and aircraft. Sure in the beginning of the conflict there were issues with hardware (Brewster Buffalo, Devastator torpedo bomber, etc), but to make it as if the US equipment was trash is just mistaken.
Don't forget the VT (variable-time) fuse! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT_fuse) There's even a book about the engineering development: The Deadly Fuze: Secret Weapon of World War II (Baldwin, Ralph B.)
Yep, proximity fused anti-aircraft guns were essential in the Pacific.
I also think the concept of superior German technology is a tiresome and often unsupported one. At the outbreak of the war there tanks were outclassed by French tanks, they relied upon hundreds of thousands of horses, so on and so forth.
High tech was almost a curse for Germany; they could never build enough wonder weapons, and when one looks at the economic output of their opponents, the matter was really a foregone conclusion. Individually, the US, UK, USSR and even France before she capitulated had better economies than Germany. Now economics isn't the sole determinant when it comes to warfare, but when you're outproduced 3-1, and faced with opponents that are looking for unconditional surrender your chances are rather slim.
Finnish officer once said to me that when Finnish defense forces ceased to use horses at large,our mobility went greatly down. This happened somewhere around sixties. Only when Sisu Nasu came to use the situation was fixed.
I can understand, as horse needs no gasoline, can move in snow, is small enough to go between trees and is more silent than most engines.
That's exactly what George Patton should have said to motivate his troops. So I would not consider his quotations worth anything when considering the benefits of U.S. weaponry.
The way the article paints all US wartime equipment as inferior is a bit of an overstatement, but that doesn't significantly blunt the overall meaning of the article.
