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The M1917 A3 , an updated version of the M1917, saw extensive service during World War II. It was the prefered rifle to launch grenades. The USMC used this rifle extensively.
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Originally Posted by ovcatto
True but does that qualify it as being superior to the M1?
I considerthe Garand far superior as a military rifle. For the civilian shooter the 03 or 03A3 is perferable because of its flexibility in using various sorts of ammo. I can load the 03 satisfactorily with anything from a parlor load to full power. The Garand is limited. to only a few loads. But soldiers aren't experimenters nor should they be. For them it should be the Garand.
Of all the standard service rifles fielded by the U.S. military was the M1 Garand the only rifle without peer during its time of service?
Snip -
Yes it was. You asked about "Standard Issue". There are a lot of folks talking about guns that were never standard issue. Numbers don't mean much either. I spent 18 years in the service, from Viet Nam to Desert Storm. During that time I shot a garand many times. I never shot, nor did I ever see a M1 Carbine.
Bar none, the M1 Garand was the best rifle ever handed out, standard issue. The accuracy far outweighed what some of the tinker toy guys did. The M1 Garand is used in every major competition yet today. There have been no other firearms that were standard issue, that have come close to what the Garand did.
People talk about the great iron sight on a Garand. Due to the peep being small and the way you have to focus, the sights on a garand are equal to having a 4 power scope, only without the baggage.
The Garand, stock out of the cosmoline, is used for long range competition of 1000, 1250, and 1500 yards. There is NO standard issue weapon that will even come close at 1000, yet 1250 or 1500.
The M1 was certainly a good rifle. I don't think it was without peer though. The Mauser M1898 arguably was the better rifle. That 114-year-old design is still the benchmark for sniper and sporting rifles and any bolt-action rifle is invariably compared to it. The M98 action also has defined many of the cartridges we use today, including the .30-06 used in the M1. The 1903 Springfield was enough of a copy of the Gewehr 98 that the U.S. Government paid Mauser a royalty for every one made until WWI broke out. The .30-06 itself is designed around the M98 action as the '06 and its temporary forebear the .30-03 are simply a 57 mm Mauser case stretched to be as long as the standard Mauser action will take (see the independently derived and introduced one year earlier 9.3x62 with a nearly identical case length and COAL for proof of this).
I would say the Sturmgewehr 44 (Stg 44) is the rifle truly without peer in WWII. It pioneered the concept of a simple gas auto shooting a short-cased, lower-powered bullet that pretty much every infantry rifle currently used employs. The Stg 44 and its cut-down 7.92x57 7.92x33 Kurz was essentially ripped off wholesale by the Soviets and turned into the AK-47 and 7.62x39, which continues to be one of the most successful military rifles ever made. The M1/.30-06 was too heavy, had much more range than really needed, recoiled too much (probably due to the steel buttplate more than anything) and the ammunition was heavy to carry a lot of. The M14 moved more in the direction of the Stg 44 by introducing a shorter, lighter-weight rifle with lighter ammunition and less recoil...and the M16 arguably went too far with its .22-cal rounds.
I guess if you REALLY think about it, the M1/.30-06 was just REALLY ahead of its time as it appears better suited to the current Middle East conflicts than the current Stg 44-inspired AK-47 the terrorists use or the M16. The terrorists hide farther away than the close urban combat of WWII and there are many complaints of the .223 being inadequate to dispatch them. There are also many reports of the terrorists' 7.62x39s not being accurate enough or long range enough to dispatch U.S. soldiers either. The enemy is commonly using the much more powerful .30-06 class 7.62x54 in SMLEs and Dragunovs (and horrible home-made clones thereof) to pick off our boys. I think the old '06 in an M1 might just be the medicine there. Modern recoil pads make the '06 much more pleasant to shoot and carrying a few pounds more of ammunition isn't an issue if you ride around in an armored vehicle weighing well over 5 tons.
The "olde gray gunny's" thoughts, though lengthy...
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Originally Posted by iknowftbll
Someone who has a lot of experience with all the various options may be able to say if anything else was superior to the M1 Garand more so than I can. All I am going to say is that when I got an opportunity the other night to fire an M1 Garand that had fought in WWII, I jumped on it. The sights on that weapon are amazing. The wood, the smell, the history. It was a real pleasure to have that opportunity.
Agree with most everything all have said, but let's acknowledge the shortcomings which, by and large, they overcame with the much better-human-engineered M14, or the semi-auto M1A.
The overall weight of the M1 battle rifle assembly plus sling and necessary '06 ammo, plus that way-overkill ammo ballistics for most every combat "sitch" our European theater troops encountered, could be held against it. Talk about having to lug something around, and it was also quite long & bulky, wasn't it? (Oh & btw, the "ting" sound when it ejected that clip holder was often used by enterprising GIs, who would drop it onto a nearby rock, then look for the opposition to pop up, all ready to shoot. Then, BINGO, our grunt would pick him off!).
Of course the rapid fire, stay on target aspect of a reliable autoloader cannot be overstated in a real combat situaiton. Just keep the boys offa dat full auto switch, Sgt!, since the M1 did climb viciously, and soon youz outa dah ammo! Bad BAD!!.
The Canadian Army did not allow (until their acquisition of that black girly mousey AR/M4 gun...) any full auto in the fields. Our FNs? All semi.
The obvious major advantage of our miserably incompetent black Mouse-gun, the original M15 (I know, I know; but it's my personal opinion...) I grant you, is it's outstandingly light weight, plus the ability to carry mounds of ammo. Ineffective ammo to be sure, but still, it kept the opposition's heads down. Out to about 250 m anyways. At that time, in the Canuck Army, we were carrying (lugging around...) the Belgian FN in 7.62X51 {.308}. Lighter, faster shooting, probably far more accurate than the M1.. and in an open battlefield environment, that .308's ballistics, about to ≈800 - 1000m, were indeed , OK... useful. In some open field shooting in Europe, or out on the vast Canadian tundra... and so on.
The change to the .308 round was a partial improvement, with the American MIC (Mil-Industrial Complex) fighting anything else all the way. The Brits had engineered an excellent round they'd been working on diligently for many years, a 7mm calibre on a shortened .308 cartridge (the 7mm MK1Z) that would have been excellent, or even better in my mind, as a 6.5mm version in an even slightly smaller cartridge!
(BTW, this WIKI article is VERY interesting and shows the influence of the American MIC in it's blatantly obvious ability to keep the ball rolling in exactly the direction they want it to... <sigh>.
Well... there goes any useful technical progress, eh guys?) {bbtw #2: example? we're only now, 2012, getting to mandating a piston-op'd recharge mechanism on the next-gen Mouse gun. Since it's growing up a bit, and if our guys in the field do indeed luck out and gain a 6.5 or 6.8mm round, shall we now call it now The Rat Gun? OK? Rat Gun it is. Still smells a bit like a rodent... As in: ever checked out & compared it to say, a SIG 556, which, if in 6.5 Grendell, would be a KILLER rifle! Or the latest offerings from FN? We lose, they all win, hands down.)
As regards the 6.5 Grendell or 6.8 SPC round: Why has it taken this long to arrive at these carts, because after all, they are inherently excellent, and really quite useful all the way out to 600-700 m or more. You see what the frugal and efficient Russian militrary did with their already excellent and unquestionably reliable AK platform, and with their already nicely sized 7.62 X 39? Why, durned if'n they didn't go and "wildcat" it a bit, and drop it down to a really excellent (though still a bit calibre-challenged..) 5.56 X 45mm on the same basic cartridge base. Easy conversion, excellent results! And... it's easily good out to about 350+m as it is, but... if they'd have gone to a 120gr 6.5mm @ 3600 fps, it's be good to go out to 550 m.
Anyhow, did I drift off topic? Sort of, but it still has to do with why that M1 was good and yet not perfect. The military back then was still slightly stuck back in first World War mentality for sure. Hitler, Patton, Montgomery and the rest, all had those trench battles in mind, "...Owlde Chep! Hoist the Union Jack, By God! Fix bayonets! Look the damned hun right in the eye, boys! Let's put on our brightest red jackets and charge them, with horses if we can possibly round up a few!"
Only the Germans, with their typical teutonic engineering enthusiasm (V-1 & V-2 rockets? Jet powered fighter aircraft, had advanced engineering-wise far ahead of the rest of us, to come to the roller-locked MP-43s and their progeny, with their stamped receivers for rapid assembly time, and the stunning StG 44 mit zah 7.92 X 33 über-efficient short cartridge, and the spectacular MG-42 and so on? Wow!), tinkered with the generally accepted formula.
Finally, I admit to having my very own personal (ündt shlightly tuned-up) Springer NatMatch M1A, stainless-steel bbl'd, epoxy-bedded, mit theh low-power Leupold scoped rifle. It shoots my handloads ("Not in an M1A, surely? OMG!") into <1" groups of 5 shots. I'd have loved to have carried such a fine weapon (maybe with a slightly lighter synthetic stock?) in the later part of both the Euro and South Pacific theatres, in WW-II and into Korea. Nothing else out there would have touched it's long range battle abilities or proven reliability.
Well, back to my nappy time!! (and PS: I'm actually of full British heritage, with even a touch of 'royal' in my blood {which prob'ly 'splains my slightly insane-inbred mental state I'll admit...} but I just appreciate logically and engineering-wise, what those desperate and battle-hardened Huns were capable of!)
As you know I am generally and admire of both your wit and wisdom, but you are way off base on this thread on more issues than I care to highlight so let me illustrate by just pointing out one.
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Originally Posted by rifleman
Only the Germans, with their typical teutonic engineering enthusiasm (V-1 & V-2 rockets? Jet powered fighter aircraft, had advanced engineering-wise far ahead of the rest of us, to come to the roller-locked MP-43s and their progeny, with their stamped receivers for rapid assembly time, and the stunning StG 44 mit zah 7.92 X 33 über-efficient short cartridge, and the spectacular MG-42 and so on? Wow!), tinkered with the generally accepted formula.
The Nazis didn't get the idea about the Stg 40 until after years of having their butts handed to them by Soviet troops armed with the Tokarev SVT 40. Now why the brilliance of German engineering took 4 years to come up with the idea... well frankly I don't really care.
Well heck, at least they got them into production despite the declining affairs of "zha var", right? And I do also openly admire the Russians and Comrade Kalashnikov's AK, it being a spectacular little engineering feat.
Btw, there's an excellent book on the history and implications of the AK, called, appropriately, "The Gun" by C. J. Chivers (Simon & Schuster,2010). v. informative about many aspects of the design and politics of the AK.
The AK is indeed quite different than the German version for sure! I was just comparing it and other more advanced and innovative rifles to the various old style American Garand efforts, ovcatto. Which were, you must admit, pretty much a combo of old world wooden stuff, with long barrels and lots of weight, and the more modern thoughts of John Garrand.
Anyhow, when the M1A/M14 was put into production, it surely didn't last too long, and none of the later battle firearms has ever gone with such overpowered chamberings since then, unless they are special purpose (.338 Lapuas and .50 Barrets for example)
All that being said, I still enjoy shooting both the M1 and the later M1A. Both are major fun, but that's still not really a good reason for their choices, at the time, as our premier battle rifles when other better options were available at the time, as had been well demo'd by our opponents!
(btw #2: New semi-automatic reproductions of the MKb 42(H), MP 43/1, and StG 44 are being manufactured in Germany today by SSD (Sport Systeme Dittrich) and distributed by HZA Kulmbach GmbH[24] in the original 7.92x33mm Kurz chambering.)
Recently saw an article that said the M14 (son of M1) is being taken out of storage, retrofitted with a Sage all-aluminum stock, and shipped to Afghanistan. It's called the 'EBR.' The article said the troops like them to the degree that they don't want to turn them in for maintenance for fear that they won't get them back.
The Sage stock allows better scope mounting than a stock M-14 (they are all shipped with a Leupold scope. It incorporates the accurizing tricks that are commonly used by M14 match shooters. Each rifle is tested before shipping, and average group size is .89 inches at 100 yards. The main drawback--they are very heavy--approx 15 lbs, compared to about 9 lbs. for the stock M-14.
V. true. The M1 EBR is often seen slung onto the backs of the one or two top-end shooters in the squad. The others will "protect" this particular aset as he's able to do what they cannot with their mouse guns, at the ranges often encountered out there. I'd sure want to be the official "lugger" of one if I were still young & strong enough to participate (though we ought to get the hell out of thereASAP from a political perspective.)
Just give each Afghani person about $20k in American gold, depart the next day or sooner and leave 'em to their own devices. But then, if some of them come over and try to smoke us or one of our major cities, why then we'd be fully justified in "smoking" them back, now wouldn't we? [Of course, neutron bombs don't "smoke" so much...]
Anyhow, yep; the good old M14 still hangs in there. That quick repeat fire option allows an effective snipe to really keep their collective heads down at pretty respectable distances. Not like a .338 Lapua or .50 Barrett, but you also don't have to lug between 20 to 45 lb around either!
...During the Civil War, there was parity between the 1863 Springfield and the 1953 Enfield. During WWI, the M1917 Springfield was on a relative equal par with the Mauser Gewehr 98, or the British Lee-Enfield. Even today, the M16 can't claim superiority over a huge range over the standard issue rifles of other nations, but it during the Second World war was there any rifle that challenged the overall superiority of the M1 Garand?...
From my reading of history, despite its shortcomings, no. Equipping so many of our soldiers with semi-autos far outweighed any advantage the STG44 may have had.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rifleman
...The obvious major advantage of our miserably incompetent black Mouse-gun, the original M15 (I know, I know; but it's my personal opinion...) I grant you, is it's outstandingly light weight, plus the ability to carry mounds of ammo. Ineffective ammo to be sure, but still, it kept the opposition's heads down. Out to about 250 m anyways. At that time, in the Canuck Army, we were carrying (lugging around...) the Belgian FN in 7.62X51 {.308}. Lighter, faster shooting, probably far more accurate than the M1.. and in an open battlefield environment, that .308's ballistics, about to ≈800 - 1000m, were indeed , OK... useful. In some open field shooting in Europe, or out on the vast Canadian tundra... and so on.
I just bought my first FN-FAL, what an amazing battle rifle! Head and shoulders above the M1A it should have been our weapon of choice, it’s a shame we were required to choose an American made weapon…
Btw, there's an excellent book on the history and implications of the AK, called, appropriately, "The Gun" by C. J. Chivers (Simon & Schuster,2010). v. informative about many aspects of the design and politics of the AK.
It is actually a great book.
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I was just comparing it and other more advanced and innovative rifles to the various old style American Garand efforts, ovcatto. Which were, you must admit, pretty much a combo of old world wooden stuff, with long barrels and lots of weight, and the more modern thoughts of John Garrand.
Well if that is the criteria why not throw in the Steyr-Aug A1, the L86A1 or the FAMAS F1? The question was concerning the M1A in context of the era in which it was fielded. How it compared in any category with the Lee-Enfield, the K98 or the SVT-40.
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Anyhow, when the M1A/M14 was put into production, it surely didn't last too long, and none of the later battle firearms has ever gone with such overpowered chamberings since then, unless they are special purpose (.338 Lapuas and .50 Barrets for example)
Let's see, I was handed an M14 in 1970-71 to cover teams boarding Vietnamese trawlers and fishing vessels. We had M-16's but for some reason the chief gunner's mate like the idea of us using the M-14 because of the ranges that we were engaging other vessels. Which is the same reason that box stock M-14's found themselves being used in Iraq and Afghanistan where the range of engagement often exceeded 300m. It was only later in the war that the more modified versions started to show up. Seems like the rumors of the demise of up-caliber rifles have been highly exaggerated.
PS - why do you think that an 11.5 lbs M14 vs a 9 lbs M16 is a herculean task?
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The "olde gray gunny's" thoughts, though lengthy...
personal (ündt shlightly tuned-up) Springer NatMatch M1A, stainless-steel bbl'd, epoxy-bedded, mit theh low-power Leupold scoped rifle. It shoots my handloads ("Not in an M1A, surely? OMG!") into <1" groups of 5 shots. I'd have loved to have carried such a fine weapon (maybe with a slightly lighter synthetic stock?) in the later part of both the Euro and South Pacific theatres, in WW-II and into Korea. Nothing else out there would have touched it's long range battle abilities or proven reliability.
} but I just appreciate logically and engineering-wise, what those desperate and battle-hardened Huns were capable of!)
