M1 Carbine according to Wikipedia
Troops in the rear, paratroopers, or front line troops required to carry other equipment (such as medics, engineers and mortar crews) had found the full-size rifles too cumbersome, and pistols and revolvers to be insufficiently accurate or powerful. Submachine guns like the Thompson were more than sufficiently powerful for close-range encounters, but lacked effective range and were not significantly easier to carry and maintain than the existing service rifles (such as the M1903 and Garand).
Much the same constraints applied to airborne infantry, a concept that was also under consideration at the time. Prior to the development and issue of submachine guns such as the M3 "Grease Gun", a submachine gun like the Thompson was also much more expensive than pistols and most rifles of the period. The .30-06 Garand, then entering service, was as heavy and cumbersome as the existing service rifles. It was decided that a new weapon was needed for these other roles. While the range of a pistol is about 50 yards and the range of existing rifles was several hundred yards, the requirement for the new firearm called for a maximum range of 300 yards.
A carbine version of the standard-issue semi-automatic rifle was considered, but the .30-06 round for which the M1 Garand was chambered was found to be too powerful. The requirement was for a weapon lighter and handier than the Garand, with less recoil, but at the same time, greater range, accuracy, and effective stopping power than the M1911A1 pistols currently in use. The M1 Carbine was intended for use by soldiers who required a more compact, lightweight defensive weapon, and for soldiers who did not utilize an infantry rifle as their primary arm.
In 1938, the Chief of Infantry requested the Ordnance Department develop a lightweight rifle or carbine, though the formal requirement for the weapon type was not approved until 1940. This led to a competition in 1941 by major U.S. firearm companies and designers. Winchester at first did not submit a design, being too busy perfecting the Winchester Military Rifle in .30-06. The rifle originated as a design by Jonathan "Ed" Browning, half-brother of the famous weapons designer John Browning. A couple of months after Ed Browning's death in May 1939, Winchester hired ex-convict David M. "Carbine" Williams, a some-time bootlegger who had devised a short-stroke gas piston design while serving a prison sentence for murder. (This unlikely true story, a natural for the movie industry, was the basis of the 1952 movie Carbine Williams starring James Stewart.) Winchester hoped Williams would be able to complete various designs left unfinished by Ed Browning. Williams' first design change for the rifle was the incorporation of his short-stroke piston design. After the Marine Corps semi-automatic rifle trials in 1940, Browning's rear-locking tilting bolt design was considered to be unreliable in sandy conditions. As a result, the rifle was redesigned yet again to incorporate a Garand-style rotating bolt and operating rod.
The prototypes for the US M1 carbine were chambered for a new cartridge, the .30 M1. It chambers the .30 Carbine, a smaller and lighter .30 caliber (7.62 mm) cartridge, very different, in both design and performance, from the larger .30-'06 used in the Garand.
The .30 Carbine cartridge was intermediate in both muzzle energy (ME) and muzzle velocity (MV). It is essentially a rimless version of the obsolete .32 Winchester Self-Loading cartridge. The .30 Carbine had a round-nose 110 gr (7.1 g) bullet, in contrast to the spitzer bullet designs found in most full-power rifle cartridges of the day. From the M1 Carbine's 18 in (457 mm) barrel, the .30 Carbine cartridge produced a muzzle velocity of approximately 1,970 ft/s (600 m/s), a velocity between that of contemporary submachine guns (approximately 900 ft/s (274 m/s) to 1,600 ft/s (488 m/s)) and full-power rifles and light machine guns (approximately 2,400 ft/s (732 m/s) to 2,800 ft/s (853 m/s)). For example, the U.S. M3 submachinegun, chambered in .45 ACP, had a MV of 920 ft/s (280 m/s); the British Bren light machine gun in .303 British reached 2,440 ft/s (744 m/s); the M1 Garand firing .30-'06 had a MV of 2,800 ft/s (853 m/s). At the M1 Carbine's maximum listed range of 300 yards, its bullet has about the same energy as pistol rounds like the 7mm Nambu do at the muzzle. Bullet drop is significant past 200 yards.
81 mm mortar crew in action at Camp Carson, Colorado, April 24, 1943. The soldier on the left has a slung M1 Carbine.By May 1941, the rifle prototype had been shaved to a mere 7.5 lb (3.4 kg). Winchester contacted the Ordnance Department to examine their design, who believed the design could be scaled down to a carbine which weighed 4.5 lb (2 kg) to 4.75 lb (2.2 kg). In response, Major René Studler demanded a carbine prototype as soon as possible. The first model was developed in 13 days by William C. Roemer and Fred Humeston. It was cobbled together using the trigger housing and lockwork of a Winchester M1905 rifle. The prototype was an immediate hit with Army observers.
After the initial Army testing in August 1941, Winchester set out to develop a more refined version. This competed successfully against other carbine candidates in September 1941, and Winchester was notified of their victory the very next month. Standardization as the M1 Carbine was approved in October 22, 1941. Contrary to popular myth, Williams had little to do with the carbine's development, with the exception of his short-stroke gas piston design. As a matter of fact, Williams went about creating his own design apart from the other Winchester staff. Williams' final carbine design was not ready for testing until December 1941, two months after the Winchester M1 Carbine had been adopted and type-classified. None of William's additional design features were incorporated into later M1 production.
The M1 carbine was designed primarily to offer non-combat and line-of-communications troops a better defensive weapon than a pistol or submachine gun, with greater accuracy and range, but without the recoil, cost, or weight of a full-power infantry rifle. The carbine was also easier for less experienced soldiers and smaller-framed people to fire than the .30 caliber infantry rifles of the day. The carbine was more convenient to carry for officers, NCOs, or specialists encumbered with weapons, field glasses, radios, or other gear. Tankers, drivers, artillery crews, mortar crews, and other personnel were also issued the M1 carbine in lieu of the larger, heavier Garand. Belatedly, a folding-stock version of the M1 carbine was developed, after a request was made for a compact and light infantry arm for airborne troops. The first M1 carbines were delivered in mid-1942, with initial priority given to troops in the European Theater.
The M1 and its reduced-power .30 cartridge were never intended to serve as a primary infantry weapon, nor was it comparable to more powerful assault rifles developed late in the war. Nevertheless, the carbine was soon issued to infantry officers, machine-gun crews, paratroopers, and other frontline soldiers. Its reputation in combat was mixed. Some infantrymen and Marines, especially those who did not use a rifle as their primary weapon, preferred the carbine over the Garand because of the weapon's small size and light weight. The carbine also gained generally high praise from airborne troops who were issued the folding-stock M1A1. The carbine's exclusive use of non-corrosive primered ammunition was found to be a godsend by troops and ordnance personnel serving in the Pacific, where barrel corrosion was a significant issue, though not to the same extent in Europe, where some soldiers reported misfires attributed to bad primers.
In the Pacific theatre, soldiers and guerrilla forces operating in heavy jungle with only occasional enemy contact generally praised the carbine for its light weight and accuracy. Other soldiers and Marines engaged in frequent daily combat (particularly those serving in the Philippines) found the weapon to have insufficient stopping power and penetration. Reports of Japanese soldiers being shot multiple times in chest and body without immediate effect began to surface. Like the .45 Thompson, some troops found the .30 Carbine cartridge incapable of penetrating small trees and other light jungle cover. Aware of these shortcomings, the U.S. Army, its Pacific Command Ordnance staff, and the Aberdeen small arms facility continued to work on shortened versions of the Garand throughout the war, though none were ever officially adopted.
Initially, the M1 Carbine was intended to have a selective-fire capability, but the decision was made to put the M1 into production without this feature. Fully-automatic capability was incorporated into the design of the M2 (an improved, selective-fire version of the M1), introduced in 1944.
The M2 Carbine continued in use during the Korean War. As noted, the M2 featured a selective-fire switch allowing optional fully-automatic fire at a rather high rate (850-900 rpm) and a 30-round magazine. In Korea, all versions of the M1/M2 carbine soon acquired a poor reputation for jamming in extreme cold weather conditions, eventually traced to inadequate recoil impulse and weak return springs. A 1951 official U.S. Army evaluation noted the weapon's cold-weather shortcomings, and recorded complaints by troops for failure to stop heavily-clothed North Korean and Chinese troops at close range after multiple hits.
The M2 carbine was again issued to some U.S. troops in Vietnam, particularly reconnaissance units (LRRP) and advisors as a substitute standard weapon. These weapons began to be replaced by the M16 in the late 1960s, and many M1, M2, and M3 Carbines were given to the South Vietnamese.
The M1/M2 carbine was finally replaced by the M16 in the mid-1960s. The M1/M2/M3 carbines were the most heavily produced family of U.S. military weapons for several decades, most of these being the M1 version.
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OR has the M1 Carbine suffered from some poor PR?
