Garand combat question

[Jmurman]

I was thinking the other night about how the GI carried ammo for the Garand in combat.

I have a few cans of Korean KA ammo that comes with En Blocs and a cloth bandoleer. It would seem to me that the cloth bandoleer would be horrible to use in a combat situation due to the difficulty in getting the clip out quickly.

What did the GI use for a bandoleer and what was their normal "combat load"? Were there any field mods that GI's used to have immediate access for ammo?

 

[Chipperman]

Sometimes they would have one clip at the forward portion of the sling. The sling would be run between the two rows of cartridges of the clip, and would be placed just below the forward sling attachment.

I believe there are some screen shots of this method in SPR.

 

[Dave Markowitz]

Ready ammo was carried in a cartridge belt with individual pockets for each clip. Theoretically, extra ammo was carried in bandoleers and during a lull could be transferred to the belt.

Maybe if Vern Humphrey chimes in he can tell us how he carried reloads for his M1 in RVN.

 

[VG]

LTC John George reports in his book "Shots fired in Anger" that they even received ammo on stripper clips, but this was on Quadalcanal, very early in the war.

 

[MrMurphy]

What the others have said. Spare clip on the sling, 10 more on the belt and however many bandoliers they had available.

 

[cheygriz]

The "normal combat load" was 80 rounds, at least in peace time. There are ten pockets in a cartridge belt, thus ten 8 round clips. the "actual" combat load was 80 rounds, plus however many clips the individual could stuff into his sling, pants pockets and wherever else he could squirrel it away, plus as many bandoleers as he felt comfortable carrying.

 

[RON in PA]

Re: the stripper clips on Guadalcanal, they were five rounders for the 1903 Springfield. The Marines were armed with the 1903 and the M1 didn't make its appearance until the Army arrived later in the compaign.

 

[cheygriz]

Re: the stripper clips on Guadalcanal, they were five rounders for the 1903 Springfield. The Marines were armed with the 1903 and the M1 didn't make its appearance until the Army arrived later in the compaign.

Ron is correct. An interesting aside here: The same ten pocket ammo belt was used for the Springfield as for the Garand. (Can you believe the army actually got it right for once?) The Springfeild was loaded from five round stripper clips. The ammo belt carried TWO five round strippers in each pouch, allowing the basic ammo load to be 100 rounds. when the Garand was issued with it's eight round clips, the basic ammo load for the faster firing Garand actually went DOWN twenty rounds from the load for the Springfield.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The Army issued two belts, the pistol belt (which was simply a web belt with eyelets for attaching equipment and suspenders) and the cartridge belt, which had pockets for clips.

Normally, you wore the cartridge belt, with 10 8-round clips, and carried two bandoliers slung cross-ways. I never had a clip on the sling -- but in one fight I was in, Vietnamese soldiers had clips hung on every part of their equipment and uniforms that you could imagine.

 

[Forrest]

Re: a clip stuck into the front of the sling. In David Hackworth's book "About Face", he tells of an embarrassing incident in Korea IIRC when he went to the mud along with the front end of the rifle and ended up with an enbloc mess. Looks salty to carry a clip that way though, I believe that's why he did it.

There was an incident in Korea where -06 ammo was supplied in an emergency fashion either on 5-round clips or 20-round cardboard boxes, to troops fighting the Chinese with the M1 rifle. Previously ejected clips had to be rounded up from the ground, in the dark. This is from one of SLA Marshall's books, can't remember the title. Incident happened on the western part of the line late in 1950.

 

[NMshooter]

Porkchop Hill. Great book.