WHICH RIFLE?

You also have to look at timing.
And ammo,
and timing,
and ammo,
and timing
and ammo...........

Remington model 8 was patented in 1900 and first sold in Europe as the model 1900, it was first sold in the US in 1906.
It did not use full power cartridges. 3 out of 4 of it's rounds were simply rimless versions of the ammo used in the WInchester 94 lever action rifle (also designed by Browning).
It was also developed at the same time as the Browning Auto 5 shotgun and used the same basic principles.

While Browning was genius he also took a while to fully grasp the idea of royalties and in his early years would often develop several slightly different designs (each with a separate patent) and offer the group of designs to a manufacturer (usually WInchester) in a lump sum package deal. Manufacturer bought them all to prevent Browning from selling the similar designs to competitors.
Trying to design automatic weapons for civilians in the late 1800 and very early 1900s presented a host of problems compared to designing military weapons as the designer never knew what kind of ammo the customer was going to stick in the gun, especially shot guns.
Winchester was still cataloging black powder ammo in some calibers (and shotgun ammo) in the 1930s.

A gas operated shotgun trying to use blackpowder paper shells before WW I doesn't sound like a great idea and neither does a gas operated blackpowder hunting rifle.
John Browning designed guns over a period of in excess of 40 years that saw a huge change in powder and metallurgy. What he decided to do at different points in this spectrum may have been guided by the conditions he thought the guns would be used under.

As a further note on ammunition in WW II the US had 3 basic grades of .30 cal ammo. AIrcraft machine gun, ground machine gun and rifle.
These grades had nothing to do with accuracy or velocity but had to do with the quality of the Brass. The higher grades were better quality brass and were less likely to have an extractor pull through a rim leaving a cartridge case stuck in the chamber or to have a cartridge head pull off the body leaving the cartridge body stuck in the chamber. This was common enough that a broken shell extractor was issued in the basic tool kit that came with just about everybody's machineguns.

WHEN a gun was designed (and by who/nation) has some bearing on the design of the extractor and the type of action (or the need for oilers/lubricated cartridges ) to keep the gun firing. Most early gas operated guns tapped the gas well out on the barrel for several reasons. One of which it meant the pressure in chamber was very low and going to be a lot lower in just a few more inches of travel of the bullet, which makes for easier extraction.
This is taken care of in most short recoil guns by the fact that the bullet has left the barrel by the time the large recoiling mass of barrel and bolt has recoiled the short distance to the unlocking point.

Between metallurgy of the guns, metallurgy of the cartridge cases, and advances in smokeless powder it gets a bit tricky trying to compare guns designed even 20 years apart in the first part of the last century.

I was saying that semi auto rifles were relatively common and that they were around with various methods of rechambering. So using Model 8 as example.

Further to the discussion on short recoil we have the Barrett M82 so certainly short recoil has its uses.

If I was designing a rifle I would go long stroke piston.

parsifal said:

I should clarify something about naming. here in Australia, most people refer to the carbine as the M1, whilst the garand is just the garand. I realize that is technically wrong but it is the naming convention I'm used to.

sorry if ive caused any confusion over this.

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Same in Italy.

Hello The Basket,

I guess a lot of this is the order of priorities that we place on a service rifle and the expectations that we have.
Durability, Accuracy and Reliability are essential in my opinion.

Civilian / Commercial guns generally do not have the same level of durability as military guns.
A co-worker of mine from a few years back who was an avid hunter once told me about his latest hunting trip out west with a "super magnum" rifle. When he was done, I explained to him why I would probably never own such a thing.
For his trip, he fired a few sighters to make sure his gun was zeroed. He then fired about 4 rounds on game.
At the end of the trip, he probably had half of the 20 round box of ammunition left and the gun was done for the year.
The M1A Target rifle I have been describing probably had shot about 300 or so rounds so far that year and was not nearly done.
I am a civilian hobbyist. Remember the 3000 rounds of brass that Javlin collected from 1 day's visit by some military folks?
If a military rifle can't last AT LEAST 10,000 to 20,000 rounds then it isn't worth much and I would actually expect several times that life span from the major parts (minus the barrel).

As for accuracy, I would expect 3-4 MOA average or better from a decent military rifle. A little worse than that and you are in the range of the typical assault rifle. Hopefully a good design with just a bit of reworking can shoot group sizes no worse than half that size and become the basis of a sniper or designated marksman gun. The problem is that if you design in enough goofy features, then it becomes nearly impossible to improve or maintain accuracy.

Regarding the idea of a long stroke piston, you realise that the MAS 40 is actually a gas impingement gun right?
There are also good versus better gas piston guns. Compare the SVT-40, SVD, and Zastava M76.
All use the same basic operating principle. The SVD is an accurate gun. The other two are not for various reasons.

Since we mentioned gas impingement guns, I am somewhat surprised the Ljungman AG42 has not come up.
Interesting design with god awful handling. I have never actually fired a Ljungman but have fired a Hakim quite a bit and even fired a Rashid a few times and both are essentially copies of the Ljungman design.

There are a couple interesting designs I remember seeing in Bolotin's book about Soviet Small Arms, but I can't seem to find my copy right now.

- Ivan.

The overwhelming consideration for a military rifle are cost.

Production of the weapon is just one part of that issue. Durability or longevity is another. The supply of ammunition already in stock will often dictate the calibre that will be used

logistics is another big consideration. those nations that fielded a plethora of calibres and types suffered as a result of that diversity. Nations that remained standardised did better

The arguments about a self loader versus a reliable bolt axtion are very secondary to these more mundane considerations. If the cost of a weapon is prohibitive such as the otherwise excellent FG42 it is a waste of time, because you do not want to spend large amounts of limited money or factory space churning out over expensive or over complicated side arms and personal weapons. Personal weapons are responsible for no more than 10% of total casualties. by far the most important weapons are heavy weapons, Artillery in particular.

so for me, simplicity, cost, availability, standardisation are the main considerations.

The difference mainly between civilian and military is in the military you get what you given. Don't like Bullpups so here is a SA-80. A civilian or collector can pick and choose.

Indeed DI for French Semi autos. And AR-15s. Everything has its advantages

parsifal said:

The overwhelming consideration for a military rifle are cost.

Production of the weapon is just one part of that issue. Durability or longevity is another. The supply of ammunition already in stock will often dictate the calibre that will be used

logistics is another big consideration. those nations that fielded a plethora of calibres and types suffered as a result of that diversity. Nations that remained standardised did better

The arguments about a self loader versus a reliable bolt axtion are very secondary to these more mundane considerations. If the cost of a weapon is prohibitive such as the otherwise excellent FG42 it is a waste of time, because you do not want to spend large amounts of limited money or factory space churning out over expensive or over complicated side arms and personal weapons. Personal weapons are responsible for no more than 10% of total casualties. by far the most important weapons are heavy weapons, Artillery in particular.

so for me, simplicity, cost, availability, standardisation are the main considerations.

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If we should take this idea to the extreme, then just issue rifle-muskets because we have them and they cost very little to operate? Or perhaps issue pistols or nothing at all?
Small arms may not cause a lot of casualties to the enemy, but what other weapon works better to defend the lives of your soldiers in a hazardous and unfriendly environment?
Even an expensive rifle does not cost much money in the military budget.
A good rifle may be expensive but a well trained soldier is a lot more expensive.

- Ivan.

The Basket said:

M1 Garand is pretty much perfect as a main combat rifle.

Would take that over anything much else.

Of course, an assault rifle would have been nice but I is thinking to early for the WW2 in terms of mass use.

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Hello The Basket,

I came across this post of yours in a thread about determining the characteristics of the ideal battle rifle for WW2.
I find it very interesting that you are now the most outspoken AGAINST the M1 Garand.

Thoughts?

- Ivan.

Ha. I tell you what I tell them. I have no recollection of that. I have been hacked.
I am not against the Garand. Far from it. And in a historical context the Garand was there and the MAS-40 was not. In WW2, I would have liked a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range. But they didn't have them either.
So my hacker probably thought that since the Garand was there and available then that was the best rifle of the moment. Which it is certainly from a Allied view.
What is v What if. Any issue I have is due to its rough field ability to withstand harsh conditions and Fanboys who go overboard when it weren't all that.

Military rifles were supposed to be durable (at least up into the 1950s) which means long lasting even if certain parts were replaceable.
And barrels were an expendable item. After a certain number of shots the authorities expected to replace barrels. At least in peacetime.
Cost of labor and parts changes over time. The idea back in the early part of the last century was that it was cheaper to rebarrel/rebuild and existing gun than but a whole new one.
Reliable can have two meanings or conditions and is different than Durable.
One meaning is how well it works in difficult conditions. Sand/mud, etc. Another meaning is how well it works (how often it breaks parts) in "ordinary" conditions. How often do firing pins, extractors, ejectors and springs break or need to be replaced?
Please note that most old machine guns came with a tool/parts kit so the gunner could replace the most commonly broken parts in the field. Exact parts might vary from gun to gun given experience.
Machine gunners often had extra days/weeks devoted to such training that riflemen did not get.

Since in WW II there were only about 3 semi autos that saw anything approaching wide spread service (numbers even getting close to a million guns) getting reliable numbers of parts breakage/malfunctions per 1000 rounds fired is a bit tough.

There are reasons that the early auto loading rifles were not adopted in large numbers and why it took another 10-20 years after the end of WW I for it to start happening. Part of it was money and part of it was that until the late 30s the same desperation/urgency that existed in 1917/18 didn't exist and more time/effort was spent trying to fulfill ALL the requirements the general staffs wanted. (some of which were almost impossible to reconcile).

As a "battle" rifle the Garand, what ever else it had for faults, did have the best sighting system of any of the semi-autos and better than most of the bolt actions which also has some bearing on things.

For most combat shooting you could ignore trying to line up the front sight exactly in the center of the rear circle. Simply look through the circle, put the front sight on the target and shoot. Distance between the sights was just under 28in which beat the heck out of rifles with sights out on the barrel.
Being a fraction of an inch off center was not going to affect things much.
And in poor light you weren't trying to see exactly where the front the sight was in the rear notch. In poor light at lot of troops (and hunters) tend to shoot high as by the time they can "see" the front sight it is higher than the top of the rear sight.

The three rifles one assumes is the FAL, AK and M16.
Or SKS.
SKS was always second fiddle to the AK apart from Kalashnikovs funeral!!!

Ivan1GFP said:

If we should take this idea to the extreme, then just issue rifle-muskets because we have them and they cost very little to operate? Or perhaps issue pistols or nothing at all?
Small arms may not cause a lot of casualties to the enemy, but what other weapon works better to defend the lives of your soldiers in a hazardous and unfriendly environment?
Even an expensive rifle does not cost much money in the military budget.
A good rifle may be expensive but a well trained soldier is a lot more expensive.

- Ivan.

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Yes, you can take the concept to the extreme and it will break eventually. bend a piece of wire back and forth and eventually it will snap. Doesn't diminish the concept, just proves that we are not thinking about the issue.......

Spending a lot of money on a semi automatic rifle for a small gain in lethality, perhaps at the expense of the numbers of forces in the field, or reliability or standardization is dumb. More seriously if you upgrade your rifles at the expense of more vital or lethal elements of your army , like your levels of mechanisation, and/or your army's artillery park, is far less effective than spending your defence dollars than upgrading other elements that probably also need upgrading. It is wasting resources if you spend money on the latest rifle toy to serve some suppressed element of the male egos rather than fix the more vital elements of the army.

Half measures are even worse, as the Italians in the lead up to WWII found to their cost. Fielding an army in which half the rifles have been modernised and half not, will invariably lead to logistic issues. It is almost inevitable that the replacement program will do more harm than good. This is precisely what the Italians found when they tried to increase the calibres of their mannlicher carcanos from 6.5mm to 7.35mm. notwithstanding the shortcomings of the Carcano rifle, they would have been far better in the 1920-40 period, sticking with the original calibre, and puring the saved funds into their equally bad artillery situation.

Clearly, the individual soldier needs a personal sidearm able to provide him with protection . but he also needs to have artillery supporting capable him effective enough to kill the enemy before he can get to ones own trenches in an organised fashion and in sufficient numbers. Saving lives, incidentally, is not the primary objective of war incidentally, its winning. You don't win wars with having a few super hot, unreliable side arms to parade up and down the battlefield showing off. You need a reliable, easily produced, single calibre weapon capable of engaging the enemy so as to keep him busy whilst your artillery deals the killer counterpunches, or in an offensive situation, blows a hole in front of your own advancing Infantry.

The role of Infantry is either to hold ground already taken, or occupy enmy ground after it has been cleared of threats. Seldom does that mean relying on personal side arms, even in places like the Jungle. The Infantry is vulnerable once it breaks cover, but dug in it can stand a lot of punishment. The weapons they carry for self protection are mostly to keep the enemy infantry pinned whilst the ground is taken, or that enemy is neutralised by other means like artillery, mortars or HMGs. Sometimes, if the troops are lucky they can be assisted from the air. Most often the aim is to firstly probe for weak spots, then encircle, and then apply enough pressure to force the encircled enemy to expend ammunition and either get itself killed, or surrender. Their choice really.

If you have large amounts of funds then maybe it pays to modernise your small arms inventory. If that comes at the expense of other elements of your army then it is probably not a good idea. There are the previously mentioned Italians, but even the US army suffered to an extent from this. Having decided to adopt a top shelf (for the time) self loader, the US army entered WWII with inadequate manpower, terrible artillery and only partially motorised. This goes a long way to explaining why it was 2 years before the US army was risked in significant combat in the ETO, largely failed except on the defence in the Jungle and was not up to the task of opening a potentially vital second front in either 1942 or 1943, and really needed to use peripheral avoidance strategies in the PTO rather than tackle the enemy head on. Due to the brilliance of Mac and Nimitz, this paid off in the finish, but it was a road made harder because of the inherent failings in the US land forces, which can to an extent be blamed on adoption of a swanky personal side arm at a time when other issues were bedevilling the USGF,

Hello Shortround6,
It is hard to argue against the features of the sights on the M1 Garand and the M14 series.
There is still a bit more to the story though.
First of all, in preparation for the execution of Private Eddie Slovik, the weapons of the selected shooters were examined.
It was found that at least one of them was off by several feet in Windage at 100 yards. When asked about that, the soldier explained that the enemy soldiers would run that way about half the time anyway.... <sigh>
Some people will use the new feature correctly. Some will not.
Another aspect of the M1 Rifle sights of the time is that they had a tendency to shift laterally under recoil because the springs would be unloaded by the recoil. That was "solved" but putting a locking bar on the rear sight. The locking bar would need to be loosened in order to adjust the sight. This issue was solved after the war and most Garands today have the newer replacement sights which do not have this problem. The original locking bar sight was staked in place and disassembly would require replacement so not many are seen today. It is something that takes a little getting used to when shooting.

Hello The Basket,
It seems to me that the CETME / G3, M14 and the SAFN / FN-49 should be pretty well represented among post-war rifles.
It is interesting that you should mention the SKS. I was looking for my Soviet Small Arms book to find out more about Simonov's earlier design, the AVS-36.
The SKS Is actually quite a good design. Other than a small magazine capacity and lack of automatic fire, it is a pretty good carbine and has superior accuracy and handling to the AK-47 series.

Hello Parsifal,
While I am not in disagreement with you about priorities, I do not believe that the selection of the M1 Garand as the standard service rifle was at the expense of anything else. It was a relatively expensive rifle to produce, but that did not result in just token numbers in service. I believe there were about 4 million produced during the war.
From a tactical standpoint, the extra firepower of the Garand made up for the lack of a really good Light Machine Gun in US Army service.
The US Army had its issues, but every army had its issues at the time.

- Ivan.

Comparing or using the Italians as an example in a military context is a very sticky wicket but at least they had the sense to drop the 7.35mm when the obvious occured. Problem for the Italians is the 6.5mm Carcano needed replacement.
I doubt adaption of the Garand had much to do with American preparedness in the wider context.
SKS is a good example of why any weapon must be seen in the broader context rather than service life or use by the home nation.
A rifle is a sign of prestige of one's own industry and military virtue so giving out a pile of junk is not going to give the troops the extra vigour needed to charge headlong into a machine gun. Facing a firing squad using SA-80s is probably the simplest way of not getting shot.

Ivan1GFP said:

Hello Shortround6,
Hello Parsifal,
While I am not in disagreement with you about priorities, I do not believe that the selection of the M1 Garand as the standard service rifle was at the expense of anything else. It was a relatively expensive rifle to produce, but that did not result in just token numbers in service. I believe there were about 4 million produced during the war.
From a tactical standpoint, the extra firepower of the Garand made up for the lack of a really good Light Machine Gun in US Army service.
The US Army had its issues, but every army had its issues at the time.

- Ivan.

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It is debateable as to what impact (if any) the Garand had on overall defence capability. But this cuts both ways when you think about it.

Certainly the garand had a superior rate of fire to any of the older traditional rifles that it should be compared to, and no real vices in terms of accuracy or range. It had a couple of minor issues that are hardly even worth mentioning. Like all rifles of its era one could say it was a tad heavy and perhaps a little susceptible to dirt. Maybe. But it was a well designed and built piece of kit.

However it undoubtedly acted as a brake on the expansion of the USGFs in the lead up to war. I don't have production numbers up to December 1941, but from April there is a report that production of the weapon had reached just under 3000 per month. By the end of the war about 4million garands had been built….not nearly enough to allow for the type of expansion the General board had been looking for. The US army expanded from a front line force of 10 divs 9very poorly equipped and at sub-cadre strengths), in December 1941, to about 90 Infantry divs by the end of the war, of which about 70 were able to be in front line battle at any time. Moreover whilst the training schools had capacity to spare, the numbers of recruits able to be churned out could not exceed 20000 per month by wars end. This was found to be far from adequate, and in part the constraint was generated by the shortage of small arms for front line forces. The average losses per div in the ETO June 1944 to April 1945 was in the order of 4000 per div, with the median commitment rate at 60 divs. That means that American losses were unsustainable as a function of the training school output, and that does not include losses in the PTO or Italian front. how much of that is due to rifle outputs we will never know, but even if it is just a legacy of the prewar situation, it shows the negative impacts of a restricted output, at least potentially.

By comparison, the germans alone produced 7 million 98Ks (but I confess I don't know if that was from commencement, in 1935, or just during the war0, refurbished several million captured weapons, fielded nearly 500 divs and could sustain a replacement rate of around 40000 per month. Not enough for the eastern front, but if you take out that TO, how much Doo-Doos are the americans in with their 70 divs (for the ETO) and replacement rates half that of the germans. How much of this retarded mobilisation was due to the garand. I don't know. But with small arms manufacture at the very best slightly over half that of the germans there is at least argument to support the notion that the garand held back the expansion of the USGFs. Certainly in the lead up to war, there were so many shortages, both material and in terms of training, and the expansion after the DoW so slow as to strongly suggest the garand was a factor. At 3000 per month, the US was producing enough small arms to equip a mere 3 divs per year in 1941

Pre-War/WWII Era USMC M1 Garands

Photos of army and marine platoons in mid 1941 through mid 1942 show the mix of rifles amongst recruits, allowing a glimpse into the somewhat complicated weapons armament situation during the early years of WWII and pointing to an inadequate supply of weapons for the army. After dunkirk the British army suffered from this problem as well, but was smart enough to stick to the script and churn out proven designs. About 1.5 million rifles were built domestically after 1940, and a further 3 million from the dominions, and the US, easily equalling garand output.

The Basket said:

The three rifles one assumes is the FAL, AK and M16.
Or SKS.
SKS was always second fiddle to the AK apart from Kalashnikovs funeral!!!

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I believe I used the words "since IN WWII" and to me that means the M1 rifle, the Soviet SVT 40 and the German Ger 43 although the last was under a 1/2 million. So any comparisons should be to those rifles or any of earlier odd balls.

Soren said:

Well the Stg.44 is infact a "Rifle", but I can follow what you say. Maybe he should have written "Full powered rifle", then there would be no mistaken.

Also I agree that the K98k is a sweet thing to shoot, amazingly accurate and safe. I bet you could weld the barrell shut and the action still wouldn't blow up.(Wouldn't recommend trying it though)

Of the rifles above though, the M1 Garand is clearly the best, its semi-auto, easy to use, safe to use(Except there's a risk you might lose a finger when reloading ), and its atleast as accurate as any of the rifles above out to 400m, which is more than enough in most situations.

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I trained to fire and hit "dog" targets with the M1 out to 500 yards as part of USMC rifle training at boot camp

parsifal said:

It is debateable as to what impact (if any) the Garand had on overall defence capability. But this cuts both ways when you think about it.

Certainly the garand had a superior rate of fire to any of the older traditional rifles that it should be compared to, and no real vices in terms of accuracy or range. It had a couple of minor issues that are hardly even worth mentioning. Like all rifles of its era one could say it was a tad heavy and perhaps a little susceptible to dirt. Maybe. But it was a well designed and built piece of kit.

..................................
Pre-War/WWII Era USMC M1 Garands

Photos of army and marine platoons in mid 1941 through mid 1942 show the mix of rifles amongst recruits, allowing a glimpse into the somewhat complicated weapons armament situation during the early years of WWII and pointing to an inadequate supply of weapons for the army. After dunkirk the British army suffered from this problem as well, but was smart enough to stick to the script and churn out proven designs. About 1.5 million rifles were built domestically after 1940, and a further 3 million from the dominions, and the US, easily equalling garand output.

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The US was short of a lot of things during the first few years, blaming the slow build up of US forces on the Garand seems a bit much. How much of the slow build up was due to supplying the British with small arms after Dunkirk ( or making plans to)?
How much was due to a general shortage of machine tools and manufacturing capacity?
The US built just over 1 million No 4 MK Is for the British with first guns coming off the Savage (actually Stevens) production lines in July 1941 (1st Contract signed in March 1941).
Remington was getting ready to build M1903 Springfields in 1940/41 using old machinery from the Rock Island Arsenal, this was partially worn out and was replaced over time with new machinery. There was a short diversion in which some design work was done to covert the M1903 to .303 caliber to supply the British but it was not needed and few, if any guns were produced in .303. Remington would build almost 1.2 million 03s while Smith Corona (of typewriter fame) would build almost another 234,000.
Savage and some other contractors would build almost 1.75 million Thompson submachine guns. How many for the British?
And then you have the M1 Carbine, for good or evil, the US built about 6 million of them in WW II, in 6 different factories. One would think that just perhaps, if they projected a shortage of M1 Garands, one or more of these factories could have tooled to make the Garand (since only about 1 screw was shared between the two weapons changing in mid stream was out of the question) to begin with?
As it was only Winchester made Garands in WW II in addition to the Springfield Arsenal. And that contract was late in the game.

Ive no doubt that once the production wheels got greased, there was no stopping the juggernaut. however in the absence of any better data, we have this one off comment that Garand production in the critical year of 1941 was running at 4000 per month, or 3 divs per year. That had to be a huge bottleneck to the training regime in 1942 and 1943. given that the US was taking, on average, 18 months to train and ready its divisional sized formations, it was this massive bottleneck in 1941 that mattered, not the massive flood that followed in 1944. the 1944 production is basically meaningless to the army fielded for the war. And in 1941 the Garand was in short supply.

so too was just about every other item in the US army, but it was the shortage of skilled riflemen that dogged the US army effort in 1943 (and after). they were forced to used half trained fillers like cooks and drivers to fill the gaps that developed as the critical 1944 campaigns dragged on. Moreover, US formations always lacked both staying power and hitting power. the hitting power arose from the US army's refusal to distribute the best artillery to divisional level, but the lack of staying power can be attributed to the lack of reserves and inability to fill experience with experience. The British army was also running short by this time, but its shortages arose because of the manpower shortages outright, not the trained manpower shortages that bedeviled the US army.

how much of these shortages arose because of the shortages of small arms is unknown, but the fact that the most acute weaknesses in the US army relate to the shortages of trained infantry, and the trained Infantry were basically waiting to receive their modern personal sidearms in the critical time slots of 1941-2, speaks volumes about the effect of the garand on the overall army effectiveness. ive heard zip so far to refute or disprove that hypothesis.

it gets worse.

In both 1942 and 1943 there was a real need to open a second front in the ETO. the Russians were screaming for it. The allies were unable to deliver. The British were the main culprits in this, they simply were scared of the manpower losses should the operation fail. But the there were also very serious doubts about the trainng, experience and most importantly replacement rates for the US army in both these years. you guessed it, the main concern was in the ability and recuperative powers of the line infantry once it went into action. again, how much of this is the fault of the Garand. but if the garand is exonerated, what or who was responsible for this serious failing?

If you look at photographs of the early Pacific island invasions, often the guns being carried were not M1 Garand and yet the landings occurred. In some of these photographs, the troops are carrying M1917 Enfields and I believe those had not been manufactured since the end of the Great War. There were plenty of suitable substitute weapons such as the Springfield, Johnson, or Reising that were available.

- Ivan.