Welcome back to Our American Stories, where we uncover the pivotal moments and remarkable figures that shaped our nation. Today, we’re honored to share the wisdom of Stephen Ambrose, one of America’s most celebrated historians and biographers. Though he passed in 2002, his epic storytelling and profound insights continue to educate and inspire, brought to you here thanks to the thoughtful stewardship of his estate. Prepare to journey back in time with Ambrose as he explores the crucial and often surprising world of weaponry in World War II, examining the tools that defined history’s greatest conflict.
From the ingenious simplicity of barbed wire, first developed on the American plains, to the devastating power of the atomic bomb and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, the Second World War was fought with an astonishing mix of old and new. Stephen Ambrose masterfully details how soldiers grappled with everything from improved World War I-era machine guns, like the formidable German MG 42, to the chilling, lasting impact of landmines that still scar battlefields today. Join this master historian as he reveals the engineering, the tactical importance, and the human drama behind the weapons that forever changed the face of modern warfare.
📖 Read the Episode Transcript
There were all kinds of ways in which people could go about killing each other in the Second World War, or in destroying other weapons, or in destroying buildings, factories, or bridges. Some of them were new. Some of them were of World War I vintage. Some of them went back, although somewhat improved in design, to the American Civil War. Some were as old as warfare itself. As a big generalization on the weaponry of World War II, for the most part, the war was fought with the same weapons that were used in the First World War, although there were significant improvements in many areas, but very little of.
The weaponry that we associate with the Second World War, in fact, originated with that war. Obviously, not rifles, or hand grenades, or machine guns, but also tanks had come along in the First World War. There even were the very earliest beginnings of aircraft carriers in the First World War. There were bombers in the First World War. There were weapons used in the First World War. You’ll see that were not used in the Second World War. Having said that, there were some tremendous breakthroughs in the Second World War.
Perhaps most dramatic were the coming of the intermediate-range ballistic missile.
And the atomic bomb. And there were some.
Awfully big advances in transportation in the Second World War. Well, the first thing you did in the Second World War when you took up a defensive position was to get the barbed wire stretched out in front of you.
Right there, you got the simplest.
Er, type of weapon of war, not a weapon, really, but an implement of war that was developed on the Great Plains of North America because they didn’t have any trees out there on any other way of making fences.
So the barbed wire was developed not as a.
Implement of war, but as a means of pinning up cattle. It proved to be ideal, however, to stop the momentum of a charging enemy, and was used by every side all over the world in the Second World War, and put up in front of your posi. Then behind that position and in front of it, if you could, you put in those devices of the devil known as land mines. Millions and millions of these awful things were put in place in the Second World War.
Hundreds of thousands.
If not millions, of them are still in place today, still live in France today. Do you know that they still lose between twenty-five and fifty farmers every year plowing fields, partly because they go over mines, others because they go over artillery shells that didn’t explode when they penetrated the earth? They’re just all kinds of live ordnance all around the world. Vietnam. It’s a terrible problem, all the land mines that are left over from that war.
The land mines.
Came in all types and sizes, from small anti-personnel, just gruesome things. The S-mine that Rommel loved so much and the Germans used so widely, especially in defending the Atlantic Wall. You stepped on or near water, and it would trigger a device that would pop the mine up into the air to just about groin level, and then it would explode there. It put a bit of terror into the hearts of men who saw it happen to others, and it had a big effect, very often on slowing.
Up the speed of advance.
Other mines were big enough to blow up tank tracks and stop a tank. These would not respond to the pressure of a foot going over them. The soldiers stepping on would and set them off, but the heavier pressure, a weight coming from a tank or a truck, would.
Then you’d put your machine gun in place.
After you had your barbed wire up and your minefield laid, you’d put your machine gun in place to cover as broad a field of fire as possible.
The machine gun was.
A development of the very end of the nineteenth century, and more so, the first part of the twentieth century. It was extensively used in the First World War. It was the big killer in the First World War, and so too in the Second World War. It was an improved weapon. In the Second World War, it reached its peak. The best of all the machine guns in the Second World War was the German MG 42, which had an astonishing rate of fire and heavy caliber, a lot of hitting power to it. Very high velocity, very accurate, very reliable weapon, but very heavy, heavier than the American machine gun, much.
Higher rate of fire.
Americans complained about the Germans having the better machine gun except when they were having to lug their machine gun on an advance or carry it back with them on a retreat, and the American lighter machine gun was at that point to be preferred.
And I make that illustration.
To point out that in weaponry, as with any other manufacturer, product or right, or with anything, whenever you gain something.
You lose something.
Germany had a very reliable weapon that could throw out a hell of a lot of lead, but it was heavy; it was harder to produce.
It was a lot.
More involved than just the weight of the gun, too. To keep feeding that gun, you had to have almost continuous belts of ammunition. You had to carry an awful lot more ammunition with you, and you tend to be.
Far more wasteful.
In firing the weapon than you were with American machine guns. Once that machine gun was put in place with sandbags around it or whatever protection you could get, and the field of fire was cleared out, then you put your infantry into the ground, dug holes or a trench. Their primary job was to defend that machine gun, which was the primary weapon for defending the immediate position. Small arms in the Second World War were not much improved from those of the First World War. The American M1 was a much better rifle than the Springfield 1903, but not all.
That much better.
It was a semi-automatic. The Springfield was bolt action. The M1 was a very reliable weapon. You could take it through a swamp, you could take it across the sand of a beach like Omaha, you could immerse it in salt water. You could punish that weapon in every way. Imagine mole when it would come up firing. Wonderfully reliable weapon.
But the German.
Rifles were also very good, so the Russians, just about everybody had good small arms. Artillery in the Second World War was very similar to, in many cases identical with, the artillery of the First World War. The most basic artillery piece of the First World War was also the most basic of the second. It was the 75-millimeter cannon and had a.
Reach that went up into the.
Four, five, six kilometers and more in some cases. The most feared artillery piece of the Second World War, the most respected, was the German 88-millimeter.
It had a dual function.
It was both Germany’s number one anti-aircraft weapon and their number one field artillery piece. The philosophy of the 88 was such that you could lay those, maybe, just flat out and fire straight across the field, and the velocity was such that the power of gravity wouldn’t begin affecting it until it had gotten a long way out there, a lot further off than the 75 did.
And we have more of these stories from Stephen Ambrose, and a terrific job on this storytelling editing by our own Greg Hangler, and a special thanks to the Ambrose estate for allowing us to hear these terrific stories. He put it: There were all kinds of ways people went about killing each other in World War II. Some were new, and some were as old as warfare itself. But the improvements in these weapons staggering. And, but the same old deal. You needed the barbed wire. Then there was, of course, the machine gun, and then there were the holes you dig in the ground to protect that machine gun. The story of the weapons of World War II with Stephen Ambrose here on Our American Stories.
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