M1 Garand service years

What year did the M1 Garand come become the standard issue rifle for American GIs? and what year did they stop issuing it?
Nick

 

The M1 'Garand' was accepted into service for the US Army on 9th January, 1936.

As to when it went out of service, that's a little more difficult ! The M14 ( developed from the M1 ) entered service in 1957 and was supposed to supplant the M1, but references state that M1s saw service in Vietnam.....

Maybe our friend mp38 can help here.... ?

 

Why didn't the Germans develope a semi auto rifle of their own earlier? Why did they wait so long to come out with the G43? Did they think that the K98 was sufficient enough? Thanks for all your input.
Nick

 

Actually they did.

Back in 1940, it was realised that there was a need for a self loading rifle for use by the German army. Two design were submitted for trials. One by Mauser and one by Walther. The Mauser design was found unsuitable and the Walther design was put into production as the G41 (W). It was used in small quantities only on the Eastern Front were it too failed to live up to expectations, being too heavy for comfortable use and the recoil system was too complex for service conditions. As well, it was very time consuming to manufacture and also difficult to reload in combat.

When they started to capture stocks of the Soviet Tokarev SVT40 semi auto rifle, the Germans quickly studied and adopted the Russian rifles' simpler recoil system for the G43. The G43 proved to be easier to manufacture and easier to reload in combat conditions, being very popular with front line troops as against the G41(W). As soon as the G43 proved itself, production of the G41(W) ceased.

The G43 proved itself an excellent sniper rifle (I can testify to that) and remained in service after the war with the Czech Army.

 

I've got one photo of the New York national guard in 1970.....they are still using M-1s and BARs! I did see a 1960 regular army basic training yearbook once and the men were training with M-1s. I'm gonna guess that's about as late as it went, though. My dad went through basic in 65 and had an M-14.

 

I saw a Guatemalan border-guard with an M-1 last year!

I don't think semi-authomatic rifles. They're too heavy for me... Perhaps for standar infantry fighting I would use one, but for sniper tasks I stay with the Mauser...

 

Just seen a news program from Greece about the next Olympic games in Athens, and guess what? They showed a state reception for some bigwigs with an honour guard and yes, they were carrying Garands. And I have seen pictures from a South American country (can't remeber which one) that shows their troops carrying Garands.

So somewhere in the world the old Garand is still in service. Sixty odd years since it first came out. Is that a record??

 

That's amazing-i thought it was a record that Australian troops in Vietnam still used the Bren gun (albeit in very small numbers. The Garand is a very reliable weapon though.
Another favourite of many smaller countries is also the M1 Carbine.

 

The M14, which is basically an M1 Garand with a shorter barrel, flash suppessor, and 20 round detachable magazine. It also fired the common 7.62Nato round rather than the WWII American .30-06.
The M14 entered service in 1957. It was still being used in the late 1960s. My father used one in Vietnam in 1967! You still see the M14 used by many cerimonial units, such as the "Old Guard". My best friend was a member of the "Old Guard" at Ft. Meyer.

As for the German Semi-autos. They did have several semi-autos before the G43. Two of them that actually entered service where the G41M and the G41W. The G41M was made by Mauser, and the G41W was made by Walther. The G41M was produced in very limited numbers, and now is very rare to find! The G41W was produce in quantites for just over 2 years, and most of them went to the Eastern Front. The G41W is also a very rare weapon to find, since they were mostly lost in Russia. The Germans also made use of the Russian VT40 very much!
You have to remeber that the German infantry tactics were very different than the Americans. The Germans Infantry was based on the "squad", and at its center was the "Machine gun", either MG34, or MG42. They usually had a 2-3 men on the MG, one as the gunner, one as the loader, and one to carry ammo, and spare barrels to the gunner and loader. One man in the squad was the "squad leader", usually an NCO or even a junior officer, that carried a Machine pistol (like MP40). He would decide were to place the MG to where it could do the most damage, and yet still be protected. The other 6 men in the squad were riflemen, usually carying K98s. The squad leader would position them on the flanks to protect the Machine gun, nothing else! There main job was to make sure that nobody got behind the machine gun.
These tactics were developed at the closing of WWI, in which the Germans used assault troops like this, and were extremely effective!!

The Americans used a tactic known as "fire and Manuver." The American infantry unit was set up with a BAR, .30 cal Browning MG, and the rest had M1 Garands. Usually the NCOs or junior officers had a Thompson SMG or a M1 carbine. The American tactics were to close on the enemy at all times. They would fire at the enemy with BAR and MG fire, while the riflemen with M1 and Thompsons would manuver to close with the enemy. The American never believe in staying put. A good American infantry commander was always advancing to close on the enemy. Sometimes they paid the price, but more often than not, they would overwelm the enemy infanty. A great example of this would be if you saw the HBO mini-series, "Band of Brothers". This shows one of the Americans best divisions, the 101st Airborne, 506th, e-company. These guys were extremely aggressive in thier infantry tactics, but more often than not they would overcome much larger numbered enemy forces! Great show to watch! HBO is currently re-aering it on Tuesday nights at 9pm EST. Do yourself a favor, and watch it!

So you see, with the German tactics, they didn't really see a need for a semi-auto rifle. The K98 was rugged, reliable, accurate, easy to teach a trainee to use, and available in very large numbers!
Perhaps they could have done better with a semi-auto rifle, but I don't think it would have made a difference in the results of the war.

Matt

 

P-38 is right about the infantry tactics. My grandfather says that a 1939-1942 infantry division's men were tremendously effective with their K-98s. There was no need of a semi-authomathic rifle. The machine gun did nearly all the job, but also, having some 20 men who are perfectly trained, are good shooters and well leaded, with Mausers then they were even better than machine guns, because 20 rifles firing at you are more lethal than four machine guns, because it is aimed and precise fire!

The problem came when you face the American tactics and their weapons, which really give them a great advantage.

 

Several things to clear up:-

1) I LOVE THE M-14 RIFLE!!!! BEAUTIFUL WEAPON
2) I have always wondered-how is it that with an aimed shot, riflemen equipped with rifles such as the K98 Mauser could ever miss their target, can someone patch that up for me????

 

I feel like I could answer your second question, but don't understand it quite well, Ryan is your name? Sorry, bad memory...

 

The problem is not with the gun but with the shooter. Even how well you aim if you lose the sight contact while you press the trigger it is quite probable that you don´t hit the target.The important moment is while you press the trigger and shoot, the gun must stay steady. If you loosen up the shot is bad. This is the simplest mistake known by professionals and hunters.
Like we in Finland like to say " Siberia teaches you..."

The Russian snipers had several kind of bullets, like the dum-dum´s, which had different proportions of powder, and the bullet would fall differently as you shot. I read that some of the kills claimed by Russian snipers were not correct as the bullet hit the helmet instead of forehead ( good for the object..) as the bullet had more powder than what the gun was directed for. The victim naturally fell but was not dead.

 

Well, I meant that all the infantry-soldiers in the regular Wehrmacht infantry divisions early in the war were very well trained. My grandfather trained his men on shooting a bit more. He liked accuracy (being a sniper). Of course it was not a company or batallion of snipers, but an unit of very goos shooters. Later in the war there was not so much time for training...

 

Yes Friedrich-the Name's Ryan-thanks Kai-but what I mean is, like I can forgive a slight miss, but I have heard tales of infantrymen expending lots of ammunition and hitting nothing-and in many cases firing at nothing, usually houses in the French Campaign and not Allied troops!!!

 

Panzerknacker,

That must have something to do with war tiredness, I think.After being awake for more than 24 hrs it hits you. Also they used to drink wine to keep themselves busy so that might be another factor to explain this.
There are several cases in the Finnish army I read that the men shot to the air from their fox holes, and got no aim of the enemy at all.Making noise soothed themselves.Otherwise totally useless.

 

The Royal Marines went in to action in Desert Storm in 91 with Bren Guns

 

Panzer, ask yourself why the M-14 had less then 10 years of active service

[ 29 September 2002, 09:38 AM: Message edited by: Smoke286 ]

 

In 1966, the Marines used the M14 at Boot Camp, Parris Island, SC for qualification but took out the M-1 for ITR (Inf Trng)at Camp Lejeune, NC. Reason given was Marines were parsimonious and had been given remaining U.S. military stocks of .30-06 and intended to use them up. This stopped by 1968 but ITR continued to use the M1919A4 for field training. As an aside, after ITR, I was sent to the NROTC Unit at UCLA as a Midshipman. Our Springfields were shortly exchanged (1966)for brand-new M-1's. Mine was a 2 million or so numbered International Harvester. We also had several Singer Sewing Machines, Reminton Rands and I think, Royal Typewriters. I've always wondered how that mix got put together. At the same time and into the seventies (I understand) the Calif Nat'l Guard had M-1 and M1919A4's. At the end of my time in the Marines in 1971 during landing ops from the U.S.S. Dubuque, an LSD, the ships armory was opened up by our Ordnance Sergeant and we got to fire the BAR, M-1, Carbine, Thompson and M1919A4. In Vietnam the Vietnamese Regional Force (RF) Companys in Que Son Valley carried M-1's, BAR's, carbines and M1919A4's though Popular Force (PF) Platoons had M16's. RF's were U.S. Army advised and roughly equivalent to county troops while PF's were village troops usually paired with a Marine Squad sized Combined Action Unit. The 7th Marine Sniper Platoon had an unused M1D, but we stuck with the Remington 700's.

 

What do you mean?

Different's M1A Gallery :: M14 In Action :: 071118_10thMtnDivIraq_USAF_photo

There is also the sniper version, M21, and the upgraded versions, i.e EBR.

M14 rifle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia