How Reliable Was the Garand as a Service Rifle in WWII?
- Thread starter Welding Rod
- Start date
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Mosin and Mauser rapid aimed fire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF7AvZnTQYQ
Mauser rapid aimed fire....by a leftie (from a bench)....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUiJhhDNrHI
Mauser rapid fire again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC3zsPOIYag
Enfield rapid fire....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x3lOZ4yX6Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF7AvZnTQYQ
Mauser rapid aimed fire....by a leftie (from a bench)....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUiJhhDNrHI
Mauser rapid fire again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC3zsPOIYag
Enfield rapid fire....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x3lOZ4yX6Y
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Just my take...
Remember, the prototype for the Garand was made in the 1920s and refied over the years until it was accepted in 1936.
It was further revised and most of the problems worked out by the start of hostilities in late 1941.
Many of the other semi-auto designs probably looked at the Garand and the designers worked to improve on the Garand and put his own spin on a semi-auto battle rifle.
Much of the bad press about the Garand around 1940 was from the Johnson rifle folks. It was in their financial interest to bad talk the Garand so that they could win the military contracts.
It is amazing how bad information and old wives tales persist long after something has been revised and corrected. In another gun example, look at the M-16.
The Corps did not accept the Garand at first sticking to the Springfield 1903A3. The Marines on Guadalcanal quickly learned the benefits of the Garand. i have read they would follow around the Army soldiers so they could scarf up dropped Garands.
The Japanese were working on a clone of the Garand during the war. Lack of development and production resources prevented rifle coming to the battlefield. They would not have made any effort if they thought there was no value in the Garand.
At the beginning of WWII, the militaries of the world considered most engagements would be at long yardages in open fields. As the war progressed, shorter ranges and urban warfare became more common, hence Germany's development of the Sturmgewehr 44.
There were many implements of war that were obsoleted or rendered less optimal during the war that the US military elected to not update as the war was drawing to a close.
Towards the end of the war, the government was looking to upgrade the Garand for a variety of reasons and a variety of desired results. The M14 was the ultimate result.
While the M1 Garand was not perfect, it was king of the battlefield rifle during WWII.
Remember, the prototype for the Garand was made in the 1920s and refied over the years until it was accepted in 1936.
It was further revised and most of the problems worked out by the start of hostilities in late 1941.
Many of the other semi-auto designs probably looked at the Garand and the designers worked to improve on the Garand and put his own spin on a semi-auto battle rifle.
Much of the bad press about the Garand around 1940 was from the Johnson rifle folks. It was in their financial interest to bad talk the Garand so that they could win the military contracts.
It is amazing how bad information and old wives tales persist long after something has been revised and corrected. In another gun example, look at the M-16.
The Corps did not accept the Garand at first sticking to the Springfield 1903A3. The Marines on Guadalcanal quickly learned the benefits of the Garand. i have read they would follow around the Army soldiers so they could scarf up dropped Garands.
The Japanese were working on a clone of the Garand during the war. Lack of development and production resources prevented rifle coming to the battlefield. They would not have made any effort if they thought there was no value in the Garand.
At the beginning of WWII, the militaries of the world considered most engagements would be at long yardages in open fields. As the war progressed, shorter ranges and urban warfare became more common, hence Germany's development of the Sturmgewehr 44.
There were many implements of war that were obsoleted or rendered less optimal during the war that the US military elected to not update as the war was drawing to a close.
Towards the end of the war, the government was looking to upgrade the Garand for a variety of reasons and a variety of desired results. The M14 was the ultimate result.
While the M1 Garand was not perfect, it was king of the battlefield rifle during WWII.
Ash
Member
And yet the Garand is easier to fire rapidly all the same - and easier to learn to fire rapidly than the others. Only the #4 Enfield has sights that come close and the Garand is faster to reload.
...no is not...talking by experience in the field....look at how fast these guys reloads their bolt action with stripper clips...the superiority of the sights could be disputable as well...matter of personal preference.
Yes the Garand was firing faster but, again, had other drawbacks.
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YouTube garand shooting and you will find average shooters shooting faster than these bolt gun experts. There were a couple shooters at the range one day exercising an old garand and I flat could not believe how fast they were shooting. It was nearly full auto sounding.
Nobody negates the fact that the Garand shoot faster than a bolt...the fact that was easier to train a soldier to "spray and pray" is another matter.....the British were actually initially opposed to semiauto because they thought it was going to lead to excess ammunition consumption....it would be interesting to know (if th figures are available) what was te ratio of rounds on target vs. wasted for American troops compared to the others....
SharpsDressedMan
member
Personally, I like the balance of the M1 Garand. I have had the opportunity to go to Camp Perry on numerous occasions and shoot the Garand in competition. I might even be inclined to choose it over other fighting rifles if it could be had in new, unissued condition, instead of the used & rebuilt, unknown round count guns most of us are shooting. Mine still works flawlessly, but how much life it still has, or how long it WILL remain flawless is probably lessened by its use and age. I'd like to see 10 new, quality M1 Garands compete against 10 new M14's and 10 new M16A2's or M4's, etc. To each their own.
I believe it was the utility of the Thompson sub-machine gun that led the Germans to develop their intermediate round, individual carried assault rifles. The Thompson had proven to be exceptional in close combat situations but wasn't powerful enough for the open battlefield. So the Germans hit on the idea of making a single soldier carried machine gun with more power than the .45 ACP gun the Americans carried. The Thompson was another of America's great success stories of the war. In house to house fighting they were hard to beat despite their weight. It wasn't hard to see that a larger round would have made them very formidable so the Germans designed one and built some but not nearly enough. If the Germans hadn't attacked Russia so early in the war it could well have been a totally different war. They could have been the ones with the bomb not to mention jets, assault rifles and their great tanks (although the Soviet designs proved to be better because of simplicity, cost and angled armor).
Welding Rod
Member
Very astute comment SDM. This is why I asked specifically about reliability during WWII and not just generic reliability. The idea was to get a sense of the reliability of the model, before it was as likely to have served beyond a reasonable service life.
One of the benefits of the Garand is the ease of maintenance. Except for mounting the barrel to the receiver and checking the head spacing on the bolt, parts were not fitted to each rifle. So, if parts were in spec, they pretty much could be put on any rifle. You will never see parts with matching serial numbers on a service issue Garand.
With head space gauges on hand, bolts could even be swapped out to find one that fell in spec with no machining required unless the chamber was excessively worn.
So, the rifle was easy to return to service when service in the field was required.
"It was an imperfect design, but did very well for being the first widely issued military semi-auto rifle. The men carrying it did the fighting and winning, so it's a mistake to assume there's something inherently perfect about the Garand...."
Someone here hit the nail squarely on it's head.
Did you know James Paris Lee was an American?
I would be interested to know of statistics regarding rounds fired to casualties inflicted.. I have read in a couple of books that the Germans typically received more and more accurate fire from troops with bolt actions than with the Garands, and the logistician in me suspects this may be from soldiers squeezing that trigger as fast as they could in whatever manner and in whatever direction. Many recorded histories and AARs and such indicated that soldiers tended to be quite enthusiastic in their ammunition expenditure when trouble arose. Not that I blame them, terribly..
PS, a tad off topic, but.. we do know that S.L.A. Marshal's notes disproved his later assertions, correct? Soldiers were largely unhesitant in firing, only hesitant in ceasing fire..
This is a great thread..
Someone here hit the nail squarely on it's head.
Did you know James Paris Lee was an American?
I would be interested to know of statistics regarding rounds fired to casualties inflicted.. I have read in a couple of books that the Germans typically received more and more accurate fire from troops with bolt actions than with the Garands, and the logistician in me suspects this may be from soldiers squeezing that trigger as fast as they could in whatever manner and in whatever direction. Many recorded histories and AARs and such indicated that soldiers tended to be quite enthusiastic in their ammunition expenditure when trouble arose. Not that I blame them, terribly..
PS, a tad off topic, but.. we do know that S.L.A. Marshal's notes disproved his later assertions, correct? Soldiers were largely unhesitant in firing, only hesitant in ceasing fire..
This is a great thread..
Ash
Member
Saturno, yes, the Garand is faster. It is faster to reload 8 rounds in one block that generally slams the bolt automatically than it is to reload two 5's in the Enfield. Only the Carcano was just as fast reloading. And considering the Enfield was carried by our friends (of course, we mean the fully-adjustable #4 sights, not the two-stage flip battle sights that were not as good as what came on the Garand), and the discussion is vs. the Mauser, with superior sights and faster reloading of 8 rounds (consider, the Garand reloads 40 rounds 5 times while the Mauser reloads 40 rounds 8 times - it really is basic math even if you say both take exactly the same length of time - filling an Enfield magazine takes two chargers, which takes longer, else you're stuck at the same rate as the Mauser).
We're talking soldiers, not a handful of men who trained with Mausers longer than they could have trained during war. Even so, take the best trained Garand gunner vs the best trained Enfield vs the best trained Mauser, and the Garand still wins.
I know based on what I have personally owned:
Enfields
2 ShtMLE's
1 #4 Mk 1
1 #4 Mk 2
1 #5
Mausers
1 GEW 98
2 K98k
4 Turkish 1903
2 Turkish 1938
1 Turkish 1893
1 Swedish 1896
1 US Rifle M1917
70 Mosins of various models
2 Carcanos (M1938 and M1891)
3 M1 Garands
3 M1 Carbines
7 M14-types
4 Fed Ord
1 Armscorp
1 LRB
1 Springfield M1a
Most of that collection has been sold off over the last decade as I simplified into fewer arms (and got into swords of the late 1700's and early 1800's).
The Garand beats my beloved Mosins.
We're talking soldiers, not a handful of men who trained with Mausers longer than they could have trained during war. Even so, take the best trained Garand gunner vs the best trained Enfield vs the best trained Mauser, and the Garand still wins.
I know based on what I have personally owned:
Enfields
2 ShtMLE's
1 #4 Mk 1
1 #4 Mk 2
1 #5
Mausers
1 GEW 98
2 K98k
4 Turkish 1903
2 Turkish 1938
1 Turkish 1893
1 Swedish 1896
1 US Rifle M1917
70 Mosins of various models
2 Carcanos (M1938 and M1891)
3 M1 Garands
3 M1 Carbines
7 M14-types
4 Fed Ord
1 Armscorp
1 LRB
1 Springfield M1a
Most of that collection has been sold off over the last decade as I simplified into fewer arms (and got into swords of the late 1700's and early 1800's).
The Garand beats my beloved Mosins.
Roadking Rider
Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2012
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- 466
One of the things that was so great abouth the Garand is that know matter which company made it all the parts would fit and function.
John Garand initially did not design the M1 to shoot a 30-06 round. If I remember correctly it was designed to shoot a 308. It was only because we had so much mil surplus 30-06 rounds for the 1903 laying around in storage that the M1 shot the 30-06.
John Garand initially did not design the M1 to shoot a 30-06 round. If I remember correctly it was designed to shoot a 308. It was only because we had so much mil surplus 30-06 rounds for the 1903 laying around in storage that the M1 shot the 30-06.
Ash
Member
It was designed it to shoot a .276 round designed by Pedersen that was considerably less powerful than the 30-06 but would have allowed 10 round clips, which would have been even better and faster to reload.
30Cal
Member
Scoring hits at 600yds. M1. It loads 8rds pretty quick; about as quick as anything out there. And he doesn't have to come off the stock to cycle the bolt. Same rate of fire; better shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vaux15iX3Q
The Garand was originally designed around the 30-06. The Ordinance Department was convinced to look at the 276 Pedersen so requested John Garand to redesign the rifle for that cartridge. The Garand design was still prefered over the Pedersen rifle because the Pederson rifle required lubricated cartridges.
General MacArthur (I forget his actual position at the time, but he was in charge of that kind of stuff) put the kibosh on the 276 Pedersen cartridge because of the inventories of 30-06. So, Garand redesigned the rifle again with the evolutionary things he had learned to date.
I do not know actual numbers, but I would expect the percentages are very low.
Soldiers found the benefit of covering fire so many rounds were fired down range to keep the enemy's head down while soldiers advanced to a position where they could more easily neutralize the threat.
During the war, the Army still trained the troops with careful aimed fire. The platoon leaders in theater would retrain the replacements to covering fire.
The_Armed_Therapist
Member
Well, we don't speak Japanese or German.
USSR
Member
Hardly, since the Germans already had the MP 38 and MP 40, which correlated to the Thompson submachine gun. While you can argue that the 9mm was less powerful than the .45, they filled the same role and had the same effective range. If anything that we carried encouraged the German's to develop an intermediate round cartridge and rifle, it would have been the M1 Carbine, which extended the range dramatically from handgun cartridge weapons. Just MHO.
Don
clamman
Member
Out of all the responses, post 55 wins, hands down.
If I remember correctly, this was the argument that was raised in opposition to metallic cartridge, breech loading firearms by General Ripley (chief of procurement) during the Civil War. It wasn't until President Lincoln interceded that orders were placed by the US government for Spencer carbines.
We keep talking in circle....when I said that the Garand is not faster to reaload I meant the single operation of reloading not the total math about number of rounds.
I repeat my own opinion, the Garand had its advantages and its rightful place in the history of infantry rifles, I plan to buy one myself sometime in the future, but it had its drawbacks, it was far from perfect. Easier to train a soldier with rapid fire?? Yes obviously.
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While I could in no way be considered an authority on the subject of reliability of the M1 – as far as I was concerned it was as reliable as the 1911 I was carrying, and I had NO doubts about either one. I had both an M1 and an M14 but I preferred the M1, mainly because I didn’t like the magazine hanging down below the stock on the M14 – because that magazine kept me from getting as low to the ground as I wanted <grin>.
In 1972 I was on my 2nd tour, in the central highlands (Pleiku and Kontum area), assigned to a small Military Intelligence team. We were in civilian clothes and carried pretty much whatever personal weapons we wanted, as long as we could cover our section of the bunker line with the requisite M16s, M60s and M79s. Most of the guys favored S&W Model 15s with 4” barrels, carried in locally made western-style holsters with bullet loops on the belt. The ammo was GI-issue M41 ball, of which we had several hundred rounds; we were unable to get any more of it as the aviation units were drawn down (unless we had something we could trade to the ARVN for it). Personally, I preferred the 1911, and I had two, an actual 1911, and a 1911A1 which had been accurized by the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) at Fort Benning, GA., for a Lt. Colonel in the II Corps G-2 shop. I had traded him a Kel-Light flashlight for it when he got ready to leave, since he couldn’t take it (the .45) home with him.
Inasmuch as I was fairly competent with an M1 (having fired Expert with it in 1965 at Ft. Sill, OK, and trained with it in ROTC) I immediately appropriated the two I found in the CONEX container in which we kept all our ammunition and other goodies such as M79 rounds, claymores, etc. Now as you can imagine, there was a bit of difficulty in coming up with the .30-’06 ammunition since at this time M1s really weren’t Standard A equipment in the inventory. Not to be denied in my quest to be a bit different (and special, at least in my view) from the run-of-the-mil M16-totin’ GI, I scrounged up some C-rations and went down the hill to an ARVN guard post on the highway, running between Pleiku and Kontum. Those guys had an M1919 machine gun on a tripod which, as you know, used belted .30-’06 ammunition. They traded me 4 cans of belted 4-in-1 ball / tracer ammo for a case of Cs. I KNOW I got the better of the deal because most of the boxes inside the case were left over ham and lima beans from other cases of Cs.
After de-linking all that ammo, I set the tracer cartridges aside and, looking at the loose rounds in the ammo cans, thought to myself, “Great, now you can at least fire it as a single shot!” Fortunately I had friends – a guy who was working as an advisor to the so-called Phung Hoang (or Phoenix) program, and a fellow spook working for ‘Big Brother’. A day or so after my plea for assistance, they showed up on my doorstep with a couple of sand bags full of M1 clips. I was in business. They only charged me a dozen lobsters from Nha Trang on the next courier flight!!
After spending a couple of evenings loading the clips, I was almost ready to go to war – except I didn’t have a really efficient way to carry enough ammunition to participate in a serious, formal head-butting. Eventually I ended up with a claymore bag that I carried roughly 240 rounds in – man, that was heavy, and awkward to run with. Try as I did, I never found one of the cartridge belts with the 8 or 10 pockets to hold the individual clips. Later on I did have a couple of the cloth bandoliers holding the filled clips, but they were / are extremely difficult to get the clips out of in a hurry.
Did I ever use the M1 in a combat situation, i.e., a ‘firefight’? Nope. All I can attribute that to is that the VC / NVA knew I was ready and they didn’t want to chance it <grin>.
I did use it, however, when I realized this guy was hostile . . . . . . . .
In 1972 I was on my 2nd tour, in the central highlands (Pleiku and Kontum area), assigned to a small Military Intelligence team. We were in civilian clothes and carried pretty much whatever personal weapons we wanted, as long as we could cover our section of the bunker line with the requisite M16s, M60s and M79s. Most of the guys favored S&W Model 15s with 4” barrels, carried in locally made western-style holsters with bullet loops on the belt. The ammo was GI-issue M41 ball, of which we had several hundred rounds; we were unable to get any more of it as the aviation units were drawn down (unless we had something we could trade to the ARVN for it). Personally, I preferred the 1911, and I had two, an actual 1911, and a 1911A1 which had been accurized by the Army Marksmanship Unit (AMU) at Fort Benning, GA., for a Lt. Colonel in the II Corps G-2 shop. I had traded him a Kel-Light flashlight for it when he got ready to leave, since he couldn’t take it (the .45) home with him.
Inasmuch as I was fairly competent with an M1 (having fired Expert with it in 1965 at Ft. Sill, OK, and trained with it in ROTC) I immediately appropriated the two I found in the CONEX container in which we kept all our ammunition and other goodies such as M79 rounds, claymores, etc. Now as you can imagine, there was a bit of difficulty in coming up with the .30-’06 ammunition since at this time M1s really weren’t Standard A equipment in the inventory. Not to be denied in my quest to be a bit different (and special, at least in my view) from the run-of-the-mil M16-totin’ GI, I scrounged up some C-rations and went down the hill to an ARVN guard post on the highway, running between Pleiku and Kontum. Those guys had an M1919 machine gun on a tripod which, as you know, used belted .30-’06 ammunition. They traded me 4 cans of belted 4-in-1 ball / tracer ammo for a case of Cs. I KNOW I got the better of the deal because most of the boxes inside the case were left over ham and lima beans from other cases of Cs.
After de-linking all that ammo, I set the tracer cartridges aside and, looking at the loose rounds in the ammo cans, thought to myself, “Great, now you can at least fire it as a single shot!” Fortunately I had friends – a guy who was working as an advisor to the so-called Phung Hoang (or Phoenix) program, and a fellow spook working for ‘Big Brother’. A day or so after my plea for assistance, they showed up on my doorstep with a couple of sand bags full of M1 clips. I was in business. They only charged me a dozen lobsters from Nha Trang on the next courier flight!!
After spending a couple of evenings loading the clips, I was almost ready to go to war – except I didn’t have a really efficient way to carry enough ammunition to participate in a serious, formal head-butting. Eventually I ended up with a claymore bag that I carried roughly 240 rounds in – man, that was heavy, and awkward to run with. Try as I did, I never found one of the cartridge belts with the 8 or 10 pockets to hold the individual clips. Later on I did have a couple of the cloth bandoliers holding the filled clips, but they were / are extremely difficult to get the clips out of in a hurry.
Did I ever use the M1 in a combat situation, i.e., a ‘firefight’? Nope. All I can attribute that to is that the VC / NVA knew I was ready and they didn’t want to chance it <grin>.
I did use it, however, when I realized this guy was hostile . . . . . . . .
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