The Assault Rifle
The Germans intended to re-equip all of their infantry with the MP-44 (as a replacement for both the submachine guns and bolt-action/semiautomatic rifles). Since the rounds were smaller (shorter) than the standard German rifle round, many more could be carried. Period photographs of German infantry equipped with the MP-44 suggest a soldier carried three additional clips in a standard carrier. Thus, the "ideal" German soldier in 1944-45 would be going into combat with 120 rounds. That represents a lot of "punch" for an infantryman of this period. Of course, the Germans never got close to that ideal.
An analysis of combat behavior by the US Army after the war showed that the willingness of soldiers to even fire their weapon decreased proportionately with the distance from a machinegun. Part of the rationale for equipping the troops with an assault rifle was that it gave everybody a machine gun of sorts. The German introduction of the MP44 effectively altered the dynamics of infantry combat since it combined the (useful) range and (most of the) accuracy of a rifle with the raw firepower of the submachine gun. Perhaps possession of an assault rifle got more of those terrified soldiers to fire in the direction of the enemy. To some extent the probability of causing enemy casualties is determined by the number of rounds directed towards the enemy and in so far as soldiers are directing rounds towards the enemy they are contributing to the battle. (Of course, firing with some amount of aim will increase a given soldier's contribution.)
I have never encountered any studies of the actual impact of the MP-44 on the battlefield. It would be interesting to find out how many units were equipped with it and how they performed relative to units armed with the regular assortment of rifles and submachine guns. Perhaps they performed rather well on the Eastern Front because the Soviets adopted the concept of the assault rifle many years before the US and UK did (even though they had all the pertinent data). The US did not produce a real assault rife until the adoption of the M-16 in the 1960s. Did the MP-44 cause a significant (noticeable) change in the combat performance of German infantry? Would its use help to explain the rather definite qualitative advantage the German units had in combat against the Allies (even later in the war when Allied training and experience were
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