M1 Garand. Ahead of it's time?

Why do you think that the M1 Garand was the only automatic rifle in WWII? The Gewehr 43 didn't come until later in the War, so how come it took everyone (especially Adolf) so stinkin' long to get away from bolt-action?

I understand the Brit's reason, they were expecting a similar war to the first one and maybe didn't see a need for advancement.

The Nazis were constantly researching new technologies, eg the V1, Tiger tank, and whatnot. I'm pretty sure that they were looking for an automatic rifle early on, they just didn't find the answer until later.

And my final, question- should the BAR be considered the first automatic rifle? I don't think there is an answer, I just want to see what people think.

P.S. By automatic I mean self-loading, not fully automatic.

 

M-1 was not a weapon ahead of its time, but long overdue. Garand was the only standard infantry weapon adequate for the conditions of modern war during the Second World War due to the ineptitude or the lack of sufficient industrial know-how of other nations. The French was capable of making a semi-automoatic battle rifle, but lacked the funds to finance it. Tsarist Russia possessed a viable design, Fedorov Avtomat, but did not have the factories of quality to make functional copies. The Russian SVT was reasonably accurate and robust, but no where near the legendary toughness of the M-1 Garand and therefore found wanting to meet Russian's war time need to arm its millions of ill-trained conscripts.

 

Was it ahead of it's time, or where the folk behind it more forward-thinking and the powers that were being genuinely open to new ideas?

 

I think it was long overdue, the world had been using bolt-action for over 20 years! The job was just finally taken up by someone who could do the job right...

 

Actually, designs for semi-automatic rifles were laid out in many nations, but the weapon itself was very expensive and did not offer a huge difference in effective firepower.

It was considered uneconomical to produce millions and millions of them when its deficiencies could be marginalized by mass issue of light/medium machineguns and submachineguns in infantry sections.

 

This is quite accurate.

In fact, the US itself seemed in no hurry to fully equip it's infantry formations with semi-automatic battle rifles. Despite the fact that the Garand was adopted in 1936, for the first year of WW II, US troop formations were still equipped largely with bolt-action rifles. Certainly, no WW II belligerent felt that it's infantry was at a great disadvantage against troops armed with semi-automatic rifles.

Economics, issues of mass production, and logistical factors played a much greater role in the various decisions to eventually adopt semi-auto battle rifles than the slight advantages in fire-power they represented.

The first bolt-action rifles purchased for military use date back to the American Civil War and thus, bolt-action rifles, by 1940, were battle tested and reliable weapons which had proved themselves over seven decades on thousands of battlefields around the world. Why should armies hastily abandon such weapons for more expensive, difficult to manufacture, more complex, and potentially unreliable rifles, when they really did not offer all that much improvement in firepower, accuracy, and general effectiveness?

 

Gentelmen:

When the Marine 1st Division was Sent to Guadalcanal they were equiped with 1903 Springfields and BARs. Theie infantry squads has two BARs each. This gave each squad a robust pir of six man fire teams. The Japanese Army just was nor prepared to handle this much fire power.

As Ever,

Walter L. Marlowe

( Airborne all the Way)

 

When you say that, do you mean that you think the automatic rifle was not necessary? I think the M1 Garand was a key element in winning the war. Squads with BARmen may have been effective, but once the BARman got killed, or if you got separated from your squad, then what? I think the M1 Garand made each trooper a unique threat.

That is a good point, though, and is probably the reason why there wasn't a rush to make a faster rifle. With BARs and M1918A1s in your face, it's hard to see the usefulness of an automatic rifle.

 

The M1 rifle was not a key element in winning the war. It was a positive factor, but not a significant one at the operational level.

The reason why is because German troops they faced were armed with large numbers of submachineguns and light/medium machineguns.

IE
A typical German infantry section of the time period June 1944:

~2 MP40s, 6 K98 rifles, 1 MG42

Typical US section

~1 BAR, 10 or 11 M1s.

The ubiquitous German MG42 severely amplified the German small unit's firepower.

But small arms were not the overwhelming casualty producer- the winner goes to firepower. Artillery, mortars, etc. inflicted most of the causalties on both sides.

US logistics, artillery, air, and tank superiority were the key elements.

 

I never gave it much thought before, but it is interesting that the semi-automatic rifle as exemplified by the M1 and M1 carbine were a fairly unique bridge in the development of battle rifles. The Johnson was more a curiosity. Although the M1 remained in service for awhile, the entire next generation of battle rifles across the world were selective-fire, in other words true automatic rifles.

Clearly the concept and implementation of the assault rifle had its roots in WWII (StG44). While fully automatic, post-WWII NATO 7.62mm designs were still arguably battle rifles and not true assault rifles. Obviously the Soviet block jumped on the Kalishnokov design.

Am I forgetting anything here? Were there any other significantly deployed semi-auto battle rifles during or after WWII?

 

Mr. Marlowe,

Paratrooper squad was armed with a Browning 30 cal. air-cooled machine gun on paper. Did any BAR find its way to Airborne Divisions?

Capt. Ordo,

The semi-automatic rifle was not a decisive factor in the war. The Americans had more and better artillery pieces, airplanes, ships, trucks and numerous tanks. The German squad in static fighting could generate as much as if not more firepower than their US counterpart, so much so that the GIs eventually
countered by stockpiling spare BARs. The Garand would be a tremenous assesst in house-to-house fighting and trench clearing however, since bolt-action rifle equipped soldiers would be forced to rely primarily on his spade, bayonet and grenades to fight. As could be imagined, shooting the enemy would have been preferred.

 

i agree on it being long overdue. its about time i suppose

 

Yes. I know that. The M1911 Colt pistol is called an automatic pistol. Automatic pistol is even written in trademarks on the side of some models. It does not fire full auto. But it does automatically reload. The same as the M1 Garand.

 

There's really a long history of semi-automatic firearms beign referred to as "automatic" based on being auto-loaders. I think it just adds to the confusion.

 

Keep in mind that the very name itself incorporates "automatic" into it. M1911 ACP. A utomatic, C olt, P istol. Most self-loading pistols are refered to as "automatics", as opposed to revolvers, or single shots, or single action, or double acition.

The ACP is however to distinguish the round itself from other .45 caliber pistol rounds, made by both Colt and Schofield.

 

Gentelmen:

A Parachute Infantry Platoon in WW II had 3 squads of 15 men each. They were large because squads 1 & 2 had a cal. 30 Aircooled 1919 MG included The third squad had a three man 60mm Mortor team included. The thinking at that time if we were required to act as line infantry the Comany commander could create hisown weapons platoon with 6 cal. 30 MGs and 3 60mm mortors.

This was dont for a short time then stopped because we had trained the other way and our supply service was not as robust as a line division. We were in many respects a light formation for sustained combat.

As Ever,

Walter L. Marlowe

( Airborne all the Way)

 

the m1 garand was an advantage because you have eight rounds one right after the other but the k98 and other bolt action rifles all you have is one shot and then you have to bolt it to reload