The Legendary Rifle That Fought World War II

BY Herschel Smith
7 years, 2 months ago

Popular Mechanics:

Garand never accepted royalties for his work and instead gifted the gun’s design to his adoptive homeland. Congress tried to grant him a $100,000 reward of gratitude, but nothing ever came of it. Garand continued working at Springfield on other designs until he retired in 1953. He died on February 16, 1974. He was 86.

Approximately 5.5 million M1 rifles were made between 1936 and 1956, and then proved themselves in some of the most difficult battles ever fought by the U.S. military. The M1 was finally replaced in 1961, by the select-fire M14, a rifle which owes much of its lineage to John Garand as its receiver, bolt, and sights were nearly identical to the M1.

I didn’t know that about John Garand.  By my estimation, the U.S. has had three premier weapons designers: John Moses Browning, John Cantius Garand, and Eugene Morrison Stoner.  It’s a shame that the complete Stoner system of arms wasn’t employed by the Army and Marines, including the Stoner 63.  It’s my understanding that the Stoner 63 is actually still in use among SpecOps today.

On a related note, Military.com has a history of long guns recently published, dealing in part with the M1.  I find it amusing that Lee Ermey is still complaining about the loss of the .30-06 round in favor of the .308 NATO.

“This was really a game changer as it was semi-automatic and held eight rounds,” R. Lee Ermey, better known as the “Gunny”, former United States Marine Corps staff sergeant and host of the Outdoor Channel’s “Gunny Time”told FoxNews.com. “It could be argued it helped win World War II.”

After the war the military planners sought to find a one-size fits all rifle, and the result was the M14, which was actually developed to replace four different weapons systems that included the M1 rifle, the M1 Carbine, the M3 “Grease Gun” submachine gun, and the M1918 Browning Automatic Bar (BAR). The upsized M1 had its fans, including the Marine Corps, which still issued one to each platoon in the Vietnam War.

“The M14 could hold its own against the bad guy gun, the AK-47,” added Ermey. “The problem is that it went with a smaller round than the M1, so it lost some of its punch.”


Comments

  1. On January 2, 2017 at 12:06 pm, Frank_in_Spokane said:

    And then there was THIS poor bedraggled clusterhump …

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1941_Johnson_rifle

  2. On January 8, 2017 at 4:38 pm, The Old Guy said:

    With all due respect to your opinion, Frank, the Johnson Rifle had a lot going for it, particularly when it was paired with the Johnson Light Machine Gun (think BAR or BREN gun). Both the rifle and LMG used the same barrel, so an over-heated LMG barrel could be swapped with that of a rifle in the same squad.

    The Johnson rifle loaded from stripper clips and could be topped up any time it was less than full.

    The one thing it could not do well was support a bayonet, due to its recoil action, and I suspect that was the primary reason for its rejection by the Army and Marine Corps.

    Was it funny looking? Sure. But don’t sell it short.

    The Old Guy

  3. On January 8, 2017 at 5:36 pm, Frank_in_Spokane said:

    I wasn’t expressing my opinion on the Johnson — I don’t have one — but rather what seems to be the opinion of history. Sorry if it seemed otherwise. :-)

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