Design the Garand to be new

[GrauGeist]

You can hear the "ping" because you're wearing hearing protection (at the gun range).
When the Garand was used in combat (WWII, Korea, etc.), hearing protection was not being used (by either side), so everyone on the field was as deaf as a doorknob.

 

[Airframes]

Sorry, what ya say ? This darned SLR .....................

 

[Airframes]

Firing the SLR ( The L1A1. a British-built version of the Belgian FN FAL, in NATO 7.62mm, but semi-auto only), was a joy.
For a military, mass-produced weapon, it was relatively compact (for the time ), well balanced and, if looked after, very accurate, and extremely effective.
It also made a very good close-quarter weapon as a club / bludgeon, especially with the original wooden stock, and was soldier proof.
Ignore any "civvy" reviews you may have seen, regarding this weapon - they're mainly enthusiast, amateur b*llocks - unless you've used one "in action", average civvy range use is not even relevant.
However, until one got used to "closing off the ears" - no ear defenders or even ear plugs in my day - the first round fired left a "BANG - CHiING" sound ringing in the ears for some time.
As for the Garrand clip ( or any other weapon's ejection system ) being audible, well, that might be so - but, under fire, and trying to win a fire fight, I think that would be the last thing I noticed !!

 

[special ed]

What? I can hardly hear you. Too many model airplane engines, target shooting and car engines, not to mention airplane rides. Say again, please. Speak up.

 

[GrauGeist]

lol...it would fun to have a thread about movie myths and blunders exposed.

Should I say this a bit louder?

 

[tyrodtom]

I had just the opposite experience with the 14. When I first used it, I was about 5'6"/130 lbs. Our instructor told us to fire three round bursts and start with a clean target. Fire one burst, aiming at the lower left corner of the target. Watch what direction the rounds "climbed." Each person was a bit different, based on height and strength. Do that a couple times to get an idea where the second and third rounds would go, then always aim so your second round would hit close to dead center. After a while, we could all get the second rounds within a couple inches (or closer) of the bulls-eye every time and our three round groups even started getting closer together. I was "lucky" I wasn't very strong as most of my "climb" was vertical. About half the time, I could put three rounds in the targets' 1) right hip, 2) right/center torso, and 3) left shoulder. (This was as seen from the targets' PoV, as if they were enemies facing me, as the muzzle climbed up and to my right.) I would get two of three in the target, the remainder of the time.



At the time I was back from a partial tour in Vietnam, as a crew chief/ door gunner, I was pretty familiar with MG techniques .
I was firing from the prone, no bipod. I just wasn't impressed by it's abilities on full auto.
But maybe it was just me.
I remember thinking if I had that a few months before in the chopper, I'd have left it on semi-auto.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

You can hear the "ping" because you're wearing hearing protection (at the gun range).
When the Garand was used in combat (WWII, Korea, etc.), hearing protection was not being used (by either side), so everyone on the field was as deaf as a doorknob.

Hello GrauGeist,

Actually if you are 30 or 40 yards from the firing line such as when loading and unloading your shtuff from the vehicle, or not directly involved with the relay doing the shooting, the chances are that you are not wearing hearing protection. On one range I went to quite frequently, the FAR end of the parking lot was probably not 50 yards away.

- Ivan.

 

[GrauGeist]

Ok, but we're your ears ringing from prolinged gunfire exchange, occasional mortar and grenade reports?

The point being: in combat, no one is going to hear a "ping". The adrenalin alone has the blood thundering in the ears, add to that, the eardrum's deadening from the repeated rifle report (yours and the others nearby) and you'd be hard pressed to hear the Hindenburg go up in flames behind you.

Don't take my word (or the other guys here) for it, ask an older vet next time to you meet one.

 

[The Basket]

There is always a reaction to new fangled gear so there is always a bit of inertia plus of cost the financial cost of new untried weapons.

So that's why we had conversion from black powder to smokeless rifles and single shot to magazine conversion.

Plus the concept of the super soldier with his one shot, one kill up to 1km.

Britain did however introduce the single shot SA80 so perhaps not every step is forward.

 

[glennasher]

Read General Hatcher's "Book of the Garand", if you're really interested in "fixing" the Garand, Hatcher was involved with the Ordnance Dept. before, during and after the War, it's worth the read.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Ok, but we're your ears ringing from prolinged gunfire exchange, occasional mortar and grenade reports?

The point being: in combat, no one is going to hear a "ping". The adrenalin alone has the blood thundering in the ears, add to that, the eardrum's deadening from the repeated rifle report (yours and the others nearby) and you'd be hard pressed to hear the Hindenburg go up in flames behind you.

Don't take my word (or the other guys here) for it, ask an older vet next time to you meet one.

Maybe that would be a good source of information and maybe not, but that opens an entirely new line of discussion that is a bit off topic here. Remember the rifle muskets that had multiple loads in them that were found after Civil War battles? How much shooting do you suppose the owner of that gun did? There were surveys after WW2 that suggested similar things were happening with soldiers that were not carrying fully automatic weapons.

In my opinion, the worst characteristic of the M1 Garand is that most of the operating mechanism is exposed but needs to be kept heavily lubricated to function properly.
The product-improved Garand (M14) corrected a few faults but also introduced some new ones to keep people happy.

- Ivan.

 

[The Basket]

One large issue is that the Garand was not happy with mud.

I would assume water rust dirt would be part of the testing so it's quite odd that the Garand would win here.

Whether this is a big deal I dunno. There will always be a spare rifle on the ground somewhere.

 

[tyrodtom]

Maybe that would be a good source of information and maybe not, but that opens an entirely new line of discussion that is a bit off topic here. Remember the rifle muskets that had multiple loads in them that were found after Civil War battles? How much shooting do you suppose the owner of that gun did? There were surveys after WW2 that suggested similar things were happening with soldiers that were not carrying fully automatic weapons.

In my opinion, the worst characteristic of the M1 Garand is that most of the operating mechanism is exposed but needs to be kept heavily lubricated to function properly.
The product-improved Garand (M14) corrected a few faults but also introduced some new ones to keep people happy.

- Ivan.

I would think the soldier with the multiple loads ( if he survived), when he realized what he had done,just dropped the rifle, and found another, there were probably many laying around. And maybe learned from his mistake.

 

[stug3]

Produce them so fast that by 1944 it's the universal bang stick of the Allies. Hand them out with the rations along with bucket loads of ammo.

Isnt that pretty much what they did with the carbine?

 

[k2keller]

Should the Garand be full auto like the AVS-36?
Should it have been stripper clip fed like an SKS?
Should it have a detachable box magazine like a M14?
I like the RSC-1918 and feel the design choices are a bit better perhaps.

Reverse engineer the STG44. You're going to have to have an intermediate cartridge like the 6.5 Arisaka already mentioned so start from scratch and end up with something like the 6.5 Grendel or 6mm ARC. Better for urban warfare than the Garand and still good out to 500 meters.

 

[manta22]

Having carried all three (M1 Garand in Basic Training at Ft Knox, KY, M1 Carbine at the Ordnance Guided Missile School in Redstone Arsenal, AL, and M14 in Germany), I feel qualified to comment on all three. In my avatar photo I'm carrying my trusty M14.

M1 Garand: It was big, heavy, powerful, and reliable. If you ever ran out of ammo you could beat an enemy to death with it. Try that with an M16... The rifle was more accurate than an average soldier and the 30-06 cartridge could penetrate small trees and light masonry but the ammo was big and heavy. Its length and solid construction made it a formidable weapon with a bayonet. It's clip was not much of a problem to a trained rifleman.

M1 Carbine: Short (especially the folding-stock versions), lightweight, and easy to handle made it popular, especially with support troops. The .30 carbine round was relatively small diameter so a 20 or 30 round magazine was not too large and heavy, even when two were taped together. Much has been said about the carbine's low power cartridge- unfairly, I think. If a comparison is to be made, it should be between a .30 Carbine and a .45 pistol, not a Garand. An average soldier can't hit the broad side of a barn with a .45 but that was the alternative to being issued a carbine. It is far more accurate and has more energy than a .45 ACP cartridge. I have no experience with an M2 Carbine so I won't comment.

M14: This rifle was very similar to the M1 Garand in size, weight, and ballistics but added a detachable box magazine for the new NATO 7.62 mm cartridge and a "flash hider" at the muzzle. Our M14s were issued with a selector lever for semi- or full-auto but on full-automatic it was unpleasant to say the least, wasted ammunition, and sprayed lead everywhere. Not a practical replacement for a good ol' BAR. Our M14s were recalled and we were re-issued with a semi-auto only version. The detachable larger capacity magazine was a mixed blessing- the increased ammo capacity was welcome but the rifle could not be fired close to the ground because of the projecting magazine.

In summary, all three were good weapons that performed well for what they were designed to do.

 

[glennasher]

Reverse engineer the STG44. You're going to have to have an intermediate cartridge like the 6.5 Arisaka already mentioned so start from scratch and end up with something like the 6.5 Grendel or 6mm ARC. Better for urban warfare than the Garand and still good out to 500 meters.

OR, as noted in Hatcher's book, they could have adopted the .276 Pedersen cartridge, which the Garand was optimized for, and been done with it. Douglas McArthur, then the Chief of Staff for the US Army, looked at the nation's stockpiles of .30/06 ammunition and declared that the rifle should be made for .30/06 since they had billions of rounds on hand. Billions, with a "B". Read the book......................................................Julian Hatcher was the author.

 

[GreenKnight121]

Yes - but the problem with MacArthur's math was that, by the time WW2 rolled around, not only were nearly all of the old 30-06 stock used up (with all of the various machine guns and rifles in use training used a LOT of ammo), but it had been determined that even with it's strengthening the Garand didn't like the M1 ball that had been developed in the 1920s - so much so that the manuals specified that only the lower-powered M2 ball was to be fired from Garands.

The M2 ball had an interesting genesis - the WW1 30-06 round had a flat base - the 1920s M1 ball had a boat-tail to increase range etc. This worked so well that the US Army found that many of its ranges were now unsafe with M1 ball, as it could exceed the designed "safe downrange" distance of the ranges. The Army then developed a lower-powered "training only" round - the M2 ball. By the entry of the US in WW2 the M2 had become the designated Garand round, with M1 being used for machine guns and M1903s.

 

[GreenKnight121]

I have both a SMLE (commercial-contract BSA No.1 Mk III built as part of a large contract for the Gulf States in the 1930s) and a sporterized No.4 Mk I. The No.4 does have a stiff magazine release, but it isn't that bad - the SMLE's magazine releases easily, and the magazine I picked up last weekend at a gun show fits easily into it (but not in the No.4, as there IS a difference between magazines designed for the two rifles). ALL of the magazines are rock-solid once they click fully into place.

 

[GreenKnight121]

The M1 Carbine was designed specifically as a "pistol replacement", NOT as a "light rifle".

The military .30 carbine round is between normal .38 special and .357 magnum rounds in muzzle energy - and its slightly smaller diameter aids in better penetration (good sectional density).