What was the best combat rifle ever in it's time?

[MadBurgerMaker]

Voted M1.  Semi auto...led to the M14...

[dps]

I am not a gun expert, but I can't see the AK not winning this.

Sure, it has not been used in a world-wide conflict yet, but if you consider its relative efficiency with its ease of use and maintenance, and compare those to its contemporary rivals, nothing gets even close.

And if it would have been used in a world war, it would have come off as even more superior, because in an all-out prolonged war, you just can't beat numbers, and while you need to actually train people to use stuff like the M16, you just form your Brezhnev Jugend give them AKs and they are good to go.

Americans don't need to be trained to use firearms--we're born knowing how, because we're better than foreigners. 

[Mr.Penguin]

The Enfield all the way. It helped the BEF slow the entire German army to a crawl.

Surely you mean the entire 1st German Army under Von Kluck, on a limited part of the Western Front (some 25 miles of the front)...

Otherwise...

[Josquius]

The Enfield all the way. It helped the BEF slow the entire German army to a crawl.

Surely you mean the entire 1st German Army under Von Kluck, on a limited part of the Western Front (some 25 miles of the front)...

Otherwise...

Which in turn fucked up the entire thrust.

[Mr.Penguin]

The Enfield all the way. It helped the BEF slow the entire German army to a crawl.

Surely you mean the entire 1st German Army under Von Kluck, on a limited part of the Western Front (some 25 miles of the front)...

Otherwise...

Which in turn fucked up the entire thrust.

Not really, as both parties after this first encounter did their best to avoid each other. The British by pulling back as fast as they could, While the German Comander Von Kluck stedfast believing that the BEF had withdrawn into the fortess of Maubeuge, despite what his aerial recon told him, he believed it was only the British cavalery he was pursueing south. However the 7 regiments that the Germans had pull out of the frontline, as no longer battle worthy, would be missed at First Battle of the Marne...

What really fucked up the thrust was the Comander of the French 5th Army, Charles Lanrezac. He saw as one the few dangers coming and pulled back just in time to safe his Army being flanked and preserving the 5th Army's combat streng, and as such forced the part german thrust to turn early, resulting in the gab between the 1st and the 2nd German Armies that played such an important role in the First battle of the Marne...

Charles Lanrezac was also the guy who was so kind to tell the British, that the offensive into Beligium had been called of and that two full German Armies was heading their way, "and by the way, we are pulling back, have fun"...

[lustindarkness]

Nicolas Cage taught us the AK47.