Based on combat footage I’ve seen, it seems like wars have evolved to have longer and longer distances between enemies with more shooting into a cover. How did WW2 compare to this?
Apologies if this is a common question, my searches came up empty both on this sub and the internet.
The typical engagement ranges for infantry were much closer than you might think.
In the early 1950s, the American Operational Research Organization (ORO) compared British AORG WWII studies of the European Theater and ORO studies of the Korean War and found:
The agreements of the two independent studies is striking. For attack and defense in European actions, it was found about 80 percent of effective rifle and LMG fire takes place at less than 200 yd and 90 percent at less than 300 yd, according to the estimates made by the men interviewed. About 90 percent of LMG fire was at less than 300 yd.
Further ORO research into Korea showed similar findings. The Korean War examples are still instructive since all the belligerents were using WWII-era weapons in terrain similar to much of the terrain WWI was fought over.
Of 602 men questioned about use of the M-1 rifle in Korea, 87 percent said that at least 95 percent of all their firing was done at targets within 300 yd range (day time offensive fighting). For day time defensive fighting, 80 percent of the men said that rifles were used at 300 yd or less.
North Korean and Chinese soldiers tended to land their hits at even closer ranges. A Korean War-era study by the Surgeon General of Turkish casualties found the men had been shot from a mean range of just 100 yards.
In jungle fighting, the combat ranges could be even closer, for obvious reasons. ORO quoted a study of fighting on Bougainville in 1942-1943 found that "almost all rifle bullet hits [on American troops] were received at ranges less than 75 yd."
Operational Research Organization (ORO) researcher Norman Hitchman cites two key factors in why infantry engagement ranges were so short:
When it comes to marksmanship, consider: 1) The rifles of the day weren't as accurate as today's military rifles. 2) armies had to take men who'd never held a rifle before and turn them into riflemen with just a few months of training. Shooting is an extremely difficult skill to master, especially when you're loaded down with equipment, freezing or overheat, stressed, and have people shooting back at you.
What the rifle can do in theory and what the rifleman can do in practice are two different things. The 1951 Manual for the M-1 rifle states:
At ranges over 500 yards (460 m), a battlefield target is hard for the average rifleman to hit. Therefore, 500 yards (460 m) is considered the maximum effective range, even though the rifle is accurate at much greater ranges.
When it comes to visibility and marksmanship, you also have to remember this is in the days before magnified optics were widely-issued to combat troops. For example, a U.S. infantry platoon had only one M1903A4 or M1C sniper rifle. And that only had a 2.5 power telescopic sight. Everyone else had to use iron sights. The same was true for most combatant nations, who often tried to issue a few rifles with optics to each company. A German rifle company might have had ten or so scoped G43 or K98k rifles, for example. Everyone else gets a rifle they have to aim with the naked eye.
When it comes to visibility, you have to account for sightlines, rough terrain, bad light and camouflage and it's damn hard to see someone 300 yards away in rough country, much the less shoot him.
Hitchman again:
...map studies of Canada, France, Germany, Korea, North Africa, and the US ... showed that 70 percent of the ranges at which an erect human target can be seen by a defending prone rifleman are less than 300 yd (and 90 percent are less than 700 yd).
As a result, you get a result like this, where engagement ranges are determined in large part by spotting ranges.
https://i.imgur.com/gbOWalK.png
If you'd like to read the full ORO report yourself and see its recommendations for how to design a better infantry rifle, here you go: Operational Research Organization Technical Memorandum T-16 "Operation Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon" by Norman Hitchman (June 1952) http://www.cfspress.com/sharpshooters/pdfs/Operational-Requrements-For-An-Infantry-Hand-Weapon.pdf
If you'd like to read about the subsequent impact these findings had on US Army development, heck this out:
Ballistics Research Laboratory Memorandum Report #593 "An Effectiveness Study of the Infantry Rifle" by Donald R. Hall (March 1952). https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/377335.pdf
