It snowed hard yesterday. Ever since I was a kid and I watched the movie Battleground, I have associated a December snowfall with a Garand.
The M-1 is not perfect, by any means. It is a heavy rifle that fires a heavy-duty cartridge. Ammunition is contained in an eight-round "en-bloc" clip.
You cannot "top off" a M-1, you can only load it with a full clip. Nor is it easy to have the magazine loaded and the chamber empty, a M-1 is either in "condition one" or "condition four." The clip stays in the rifle; you place it in the action and push it down with your thumb. You had best use your right hand and have the base of your hand up against the handle of the operating rod.
If you don't, when the clip latches in place, the bolt will slam shut if you have not blocked the movement of the operating rod. If your thumb is still in the way, you will suffer the malady known as the "M-1 thumb.'
Watch the soldier firing the M-1 in this short video. He fires eight shots and when he fires the last round, the clip is ejected.
In combat, the clips are pretty much single-use items. Resupply was by issuing cloth bandoleers. The bandoleers hold six clips, for 48 rounds.
If you don't have any clips but you have cartridges, you wind up with a self-ejecting single-shot rifle.
The M-1 will probably go down in history as a transitional weapon. It was pretty much the only semiautomatic rifle widely used in the Second World War. It was a significant advance over the bolt-action rifles of the First World War, virtually every other combatant of in WW2 essentially used the same rifle it had on hand from WW1 (they issued submachine guns for additional short-range firepower). The Germans leapfrogged over the M-1 in developing the MP-44 and the StG-45, the first assault rifles. The Russians soon followed with the AK series. The US did not follow along until the adoption of the M-16.
None of that detracts from the M-1 as a rifle. It is a great rifle and, unlike its predecessor the M1903, it doesn't beat you up when you fire it. It just feels right, it feels like a weapon, not a toy. You can use a M-1, with a reduced capacity clip (yes, you can buy them) for hunting all large game in the Lower 48.
As the man says:
3 comments:
It was (and is) a GREAT combat weapon. While it doesn't have the environmental resiliency of the AK and thus requires careful cleaning and maintenance, and also doesn't have the fire volume capacity of that POS M-16, it has the advantage of a full-size round with sufficient knock-down power and accuracy to score first or second round hits at 400 meters. With iron sights. You won't do that with modern infantry weapons, other than perhaps the FN/FAL system or the rejuvenated M-14.
The concept behind the 5.56 round was to significantly increase the soldier's basic ammo load without increasing the load weight limit. Stoner's first pitch was for a 7.62 weapon. The Infantry Mafia was married to the M-14 at that time and suggested the Mattell for the ARVN, since their troops were struggling with their M-1s. The Air Force bought up some AR-15s because they liked the .223 round that was used in their survival rifles.
Those Air Force Air Police and Special Purpose troops looked so sexy with their black rifles that someone in Ordnance said to give 'em to the ARVN, but we want some too!
Today's short carbines like the M-4 and TAR-21 are good for the urban environment that the US will face for the next 10 years, but once out in the wilds of the Middle East and South Asia a round with more drop power is needed.
Hey, Lurch, welcome back! I heard you've been off your feed.
I've not seen an AR-10, so I can't comment on them. Ever shot one?
Thanks, nice to be back, and I[]m slowly getting stronger. No, never fired the AR-10. Just that dog ass M-16, which I made a point of not carrying as soon as I got into a LRRP team.
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