This is a very important point, although fortunately the cartridge itself is extremely rare and not (to the best of my knowledge) in commercial production anymore, and I don’t think it was ever exported to the US in any quantity. But yes, if you happen to find a .455 Webley Automatic cartridge, don’t try and load it into a revolver.
This was my understanding as well. The M1 Garand was the standard battle rifle for most of WWII. If you were a grunt, you got a Garand. It was big and heavy, but was semi-auto and had a 30 caliber bullet with lots of powder behind it (much more than the Carbine). So your rifle outclassed the k98 Mausers and Japanese bolt-actions.
If you weren’t a grunt but were still expected to defend yourself due to the more mobile style of warfare compared to WWI, you got an M1 Carbine. This was necessary because officers and support folks couldn’t be expected to carry the big clunky battle rifles and do their normal jobs. The Carbine lacks the raw stopping power of the Garand, but is light and still semi-auto, so it was perfect for the role.
Side thought: Why aren’t there more responses towards answering the OP here? There doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer yet, but folks are all over the thread about ammo costs, replicas, korea, and other extraneous stuff. Not being mean, it just seems odd because this should be a more interesting thread.:dubious:
Because nobody has had the time to sift through the deployment numbers for both theaters and add up the total number of front-line grunts vs “armed” others. You then have to factor in the usage of the Carbine by the Marine Corps, or lack thereof. Just eyeballing the numbers, I’d guess that the OP is mistaken, and that the Carbine was used more in Europe/Africa than it was in the Pacific.
As I recall, the Marines used the Springfield 1903 through much of WWII. It wasn’t semi-automatic like the Garand, but it was much simpler to maintain, and well, the Marines were not our Warrior Cult of Blood Knights that they are today, they were pretty much a light infantry force that supported the Navy. They evolved into their current role through WWII and Korea. Worth noting, the Marines did most of their fighting in the Pacific, while the Army did much of the fighting in Europe and Africa (and the Pacific as well, the Marines were then as now the smallest branch of the Armed Forces). Not sure if they ever used the Carbine much in that war.
And there was the sour smell of obsolescence that followed the Marine Corps around in those days - on the hind tit for much of the new equipment that was becoming available.
I can ask my Dad about it; he served in the SeeBees in WWII in the Pacific Theater, quite often co-located with lots of Marines.
Granted, he’s going on 84 years old, and while he’s still “all there” upstairs, his memory may be hazy/vague just due to how much time has elapsed ('43-'45)
The M1 Garand doesn’t really outclass the K98 Mauser or the Arisaka Type 99, though. The K98 Mauser fires a 7.92x57mm Mauser cartridge and the Arisaka fires a 7.7x58mm cartridge that’s ballistically identical to the .303 British cartridge but rimless.
Nearly all the major service rifle cartridges of World War II (notably .303 British. 7.92x57mm Mauser, .30-06, 7.62x54R, 7.7mm Arisaka, and 7.5x54mm French) are pretty similar realistically; not necessarily identical but similar enough for their to be, IMO, not a great deal of practical difference between them.
So, considering that the ammo was equal, then the Garand was superior because it could throw more of that equal ammo down range faster than either of the other rifles, given that it was semi-automatic with an 8 round clip, versus the manually-cycled bolt actions of the other two weapons.
Yep, that is how I meant. I apologize for not clarifying it the first time.
That’s certainly true, but I don’t think it’s enough to “Outclass” the other rifles, IMHO.
What makes you so sure they still don’t do that?
The M14 was probably the 13th rifle type after the M1, there was an M15, (which was a modified M14), and then we have the M16 now.
I suspect the modern-day M4 Carbine is just the first official carbine we’ve had since the M1/M2/M3 series (all the same gun, just different variants).
Well, it outclasses them because it has several useful capabilities they lack. I suppose it’s possible that one of the other rifles in turn had its own advantages against the Garand (Accuracy maybe? Ease of maintenance can be an unsung godsend on the battlefield too, if a bolt action was less complicated…)
I own a Garand, a couple of SMLEs, a buttload of Mausers, and I’ve fired an Arisaka. I’ll take the Garand hands down. More rounds downrange faster, and it doesn’t give up anything in the way of accuracy or ease of maintenance. The .30-06 cartridge is better than the .303 or the 7.7 as well. The sucker is damn heavy, but it’s worth it.
“Outclass,” no. Better overall battle rifle, yes.
Post 6 asked about the availability of ammo, which is a legitimate question. Korea is relevant because the M1 Carbine and M1 Garand were both used there. I asked about replicas because of the suggestion that a new M1 Carbine would be commercially viable.
FWIW, the SMLE had a very good rate of fire and had a ten-round magazine.
Yes, but then you had to reload using stripper clips, as opposed to just cramming in another 8 round clip. Advantage - Garand. On the down-side, you couldn’t “top up” a Garand, and the ejecting clip made a very distinctive noise that could clue the enemy in that you were reloading. Advantage - everybody else.
Because the Department of Defense has several times reset sequences originally set up by the Department of War. Witness the M1 Abrams, which is neither the first tank, nor the first heavy tank, nor even the first main battle tank issued to our troops. Another example is the M551 Sheridan, which didn’t follow a M550, a M549, or anything else like it. The numbering system, in other words, has been thoroughly scrambled in the post-WWII era.
Didn’t Universal try this? I seem to remember seeing one at the ARMS show when I bought my Enforcer. Or was it something like a .45?
It is arguably superior IF you have the manufacturing and supply chain to constantly put an adequate supply of ammo into the front-line grunt’s ammo pouch. In many conflicts this proves to be difficult, and rates of fire are limited by logistics more than rifle design, and for every man hauling ammo from a rear area, you have one less on the front line firing at the enemy. In this case having rifles with a high rate of fire means you are reliant on the fire discipline of the troops to avoid running out of ammo, and in the heat of battle, such discipline may not be as reliable as you would want.
For battle rifles* semi-auto offers something like a 2:1 increase in aimed fire ** rate over a bolt action. It takes about a second to recover from the recoil of a .30-06 class rifle, and with minimal training you can work the bolt at the same time. Getting your cheek, shoulder, and right hand re-established and settled on the stock and trigger is what mostly adds the time, not so much working the bolt. You might well argue that it is more than 2:1, (I’d say less, actually, but maybe I aim slow) but it is nothing like the orders of magnitude improvement in the speed that the gun could be fired (but not aimed well, if at all) again. Lee Harvey Oswald fired 3 apparently fairly well aimed shots from a bolt action in less time than the people in the Limo, police, and Secret Service could react and seek cover.
If you track rounds expended per casualty over many wars, it is pretty obvious that most improvements in firepower mostly result in a much larger percentage of bullets ending up in the dirt instead of in the enemy. Depending on who’s numbers you trust, US soldiers currently fire 10-50,000 rounds per casualty. Snipers using bolt action rifles kill about 3 enemy for every 4 shots fired. (1.3 rounds per kill) *** When police used revolvers, about 1/3 bullets ended up in suspects. Now that they are using autoloaders, it is down below 1/10, with some notable “spray and pray” incidents where it was very much lower than that. Packing more “firepower” offers the psychological advantage of not feeling under gunned, but statistics fail to confirm the perceived advantage. Shooting a gun with limited capacity and rate of fire encourages the shooter to make each shot count. One well aimed shot is more likely to score a hit than five badly aimed (if at all) ones.
While this is clearly a case where the users can be blamed for poor fire discipline, the phenomenon is widespread and predictable enough that it is fair to say that many (even most) soldiers and police are prone to poor fire discipline, and equipping them with high capacity, high rate-of-fire weapons allows and encourages this trait to manifest itself freely. Restricting the rate of fire of the rifles (e.g. 3 rd burst, not full auto on the M4) may be preferable to, and more effective than, improved training. Heck, TPTB felt bolt action repeaters were wasteful, and ordered the early ones with magazine cutoffs to encourage fire discipline.
With moderate power (light recoil) rounds like the .30 carbine, 7.62x39 or .223, self loading rifles offer a significantly increased aimed fire rate, and shorter ranges make for faster aiming. Lighter ammo makes it practical to carry more ammo. Experience with the Garand showed that autoloaders might well be a good idea, but the .30-06 round was too heavy, bulky, and hard recoiling to make the most of the autoloader, and even the .308 M-14 was usually overkill for the shorter ranges of modern warfare. The .30 Carbine didn’t offer quite enough range, and so you end up with the .223 as the base line grunt rifle.
*Battle rifle: Fires a .30-06, .308, .303 or similar powered round, and expected to reliably inflict casualties at 500+ yards. NOT a medium powered assault rifle.
**here I would define aimed fire as putting at least 75% of rounds in a 12" diameter circle at 100 yards. Basically taking enough time to nearly insure inflicting a mortal wound on a man or deer sized target.
*** Yes, yes, yes: Apples vs. Oranges. Still the huge 20K:1 disparity is pretty stunning.