M1 - How did they do IT?

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I occasionally take out my M1 Garand for some dry fire practice. Most times the practice takes place at night in my house. When it's dark it is impossible for me to pick up the front post in the peep sight.

So how in the heck did all those soldiers in WWII and Korea fire the the darn thing at night? Were they totally dependent on star shells and flares? Did they just point in the general direction and fire?

This thing gives me a real appreciation for just how difficult and scary night battles must have been in the days before Night Vision devices became universal.
 
Ok I am neither a soldier, ex soldier or any thing close to there of.

That being said most people I have talked to who have been in firefights at night pretty much say that you really are not aiming at a target per say as much as you are dumping lead towards the muzzel flashes.....seems like this is what normally happens in daylight as well.

Chris
 
I don't know about the how they trained in the Garand days but when I went through basic in 1978 we were taught to look right over the the sights and point to where the targets was and shoot. The idea to was to put fire in the direction of the target, not aimed shots.
 
I read an interview with a Korean War paratooper. They used to tie a string from the back sight to the front as a sighting aid.

U.S. rifles all have front sight ears, so the technique of looking over the sights, as taught on the M16, would work about as well.

Men on patrols in WWII or Korea typically favored submachineguns.
 
Amega ranges is releasing a scout rail for the Garand in June. I plan to put one on one of my Garands with an Aimpoint Comp ML2. I think that should bring the gun into the 21st century.

When I took my urban carbine class with my Garand, the only downside of the Garand over the AR guys was the ability of the ARs to sport red dots for the night shoot. The problem will be solved soon.
 
VG,

Yours is the second post I have read recently where someone talked about tying a string between front and rear sights on a Garand.

It doesn't seem plausible, for several reasons:

1) Ejecting brass and en bloc clips would either sever the string, or be hindered by a tough enough string, possibly causing a jam.

2) How the heck would you reload? It would appear that having something strung between front and rear sights would keep you from inserting an en bloc clip.

I am not sure, even, that a piece f string would be much of an improvement. If you have enough light to see the string, I would think that there is enough light to roughly align the barrel in the direction of the enemy.
 
I think the string method was used for instructional purposes only.

My take on the whole thing is that if it's too dark to see your sights, it's too dark for aimed fire anyway. An exception might include a MG position blazing away, in that case just look for the silhouette of your front sight against the muzzle flash.
 
The trick is to aim very low. Most everyone will aim very high at night because they look over and above the rear site then hold the barrel up till they can sort of see the end of it. I had an instructor who was a SGT Major in the Big Red One Division in the Korean War. This old war horse could tell when it was going to rain by how all the Chinese lead and steel in his body would change in feel. He said the Koreans and Chinese shot way high at night.
 
An account of the Battle of the Bulge - by a company commander - said that after dark the preferred weapon was a hand grenade. Short range but area effect and nothing to show where it came from.
 
"When I took my urban carbine class with my Garand, the only downside of the Garand over the AR guys was the ability of the ARs to sport red dots for the night shoot. The problem will be solved soon."

I don't want to hijack the thread or get into an argument, but I have a question about the M1. First of all, let me say that I have an M1 and have had other M1s. I like the M1. The thing I always wonder about is topping off the magazine (tactical reload). Let's say you engaged a target with several rounds and the action was over for the time being. You don't know when the SHTF again. Obviously you want the rifle fully loaded in case you need everyone of them. Is it possible to top off the magazine without ejecting all the rounds currently in the gun ? I realize you can simply eject the rounds in the gun and insert a fresh clip, but this doesn't seem practical to me during war. You would soon end up with a pocket full of loose ammo and no more in clips. How did they get around this, or did they ? How DID they do IT ?
Since I don't understand this, it seems like a rifle fed by a detachable magazine would be far superior. As much as I enjoy my M1, every time I shoot it, I think about how glad I am that I have weapons with detachable magazines.
 
The closest I got to combat was the transition firing course, where we crawled under the barbed wire with live fire above us. (Well, we were told it was live fire. I should argue?) I was reminded of Mauldin's Willie&Joe cartoon with the cutline, "I can't get no lower. Me buttons is in the way!"

I think about that when I consider firing from the prone position with an M1 versus a box-mag rifle. :) Mr. Custer, I might not WANT my head that far off the ground!

Save the clips; reload from loose ammo. Pray for resupply.

Art
 
Troops in those days were trained in night vision and night shooting.

The key to night vision is the rods in the back of the eye. Unlike the cones, the rods contain rhodopsin (visual purple), which aid in seeing in low light. The rods are off-center, and rhodopsin is consumed with use. Troops were trained to use off-center vision, and move the eyes in rapid, jerky motions to keep the area of interest moving from one spot on the back of the eye to another as rhodopsin was consumed.

Shooting in daylight over the sights was a key to learning to shoot without sights at night -- which was how the training sessions culmated.

In defensive positions, each fighting position was assigned a sector, Principal Direction of Fire (PDF) and a Final Protected Line (FPL). Stakes were used to align the rifle at night on the PDF and FPL, and an improvised bar was used to slide the rifle from side to side to cover the sector.

Wrapping the muzzle, just behind the front sight with engineer tape, to enhance muzzle awareness was also a common practice. And at one point, real luminous tape was available (but withdrawn due to its radioactive nature.)
 
444, here is my answer. It is pure opinion.

I think box magazines for battle rifles (30-06, .308) are a liability not an asset. An enbloc clip is much faster to load and easier to carry than the bulky box mags. You don't have to manage partially loaded clips and they weigh less per round. They are cheap and expendable.

To do the so-called tac reload, you eject the loaded clip and insert a new one. You can eject it into your hand or the ground. It is fast and easy. If you think about it, the whole issue of tac reloads are way, way overrated. If there is a lull in the hostility, you better be tac loading behind cover. If you are behind cover you will have time. Heck, the best tac reload is to empty your gun. I think it is one of those things that rarely comes up in real life. But, because of the shooting schools, gets beat to death in training.

That is my opinion. Feel free to disagree. I love a good debate.
 
The en bloc clip is an extremely fast reload, and "topping off" was not a priority -- you may recall, the Krag rifle was designed to be topped off with single rounds (the magazine could be filled with the bolt closed and locked on a loaded round) and it was NOT a star against the clip-loading Mauser.

At the same time, no one issued battle ammo in loose rounds -- Enfield and Mauser ammo came in stripper clips. In actual combat, the practice was to shoot the rifle dry, then reload.

The M1 was as fast to load as a Mauser, and much faster to operate -- a man with an M1 didn't worry about topping off when his opponent was armed with a Mauser or Arisaka.
 
I would seem to me that you would have to be concerned with keeping the rifle topped off. Maybe it is just me, but any chance I got I would want to make sure I had all the ammo loaded in the rifle that it would hold. The M1 may be faster to reload than a Mauser, but if you are carrying a rifle with two rounds in it and three targets present themselves, you have a problem (I realize this is a big problem anyway, but .............). I suppose you could just empty the gun every time you fire it, even if it is just two or three rounds, but this would assume you could always count on having as much ammo as you needed at all times.
This seems especially weird when the previous rifle, the 03 Springfield had a magazine cut-off that allowed you to fire single shots and keep loading single rounds so you could keep the magazine topped off unless you needed it.


As an interesting side note: has anyone heard of the Lord Robert's Match ? Otherwise known as the mad minute ? This is fired from prone at 300 yards. The object is to get as many shots in the bull (24" bull) as you can in one minute. Legend has it that the record was held by a British rifle instructor who fired 38 bulls in one minute using an Enfield Bolt gun. That is some seriously fast shooting and loading with a bolt gun. Note that today, at this particular match, the guys firing M1s arn't coming close to that even though it is semi auto and is loaded with an en bloc clip. Of course this doesn't mean anything, we don't know the skill level of the guys participating, but I find it kind of interesting what a guy skilled with a bolt gun can do.
http://www.geocities.com/swedishmauser1896/lordroberts.htm
It sounds like a lot of fun.
 
I suppose you could just empty the gun every time you fire it, even if it is just two or three rounds, but this would assume you could always count on having as much ammo as you needed at all times.
Click to expand...

We had an excellent supply system, so the soldiers just emptied it into the enemy position(Or close) and reloaded. Depends on how much ammo you carry and how much time you have. Pull back the rod, catch the cartridge(Or don't if you have plenty), pull out the clip and insert a new one.
 
Its a heck of alot faster to reload an M1 with a partial magazine than a mauser with a partial magazine- pull back and hold bolt, hit clip latch button, push in new clip- no problems:D A partial clip can be loaded back into the rifle without a problem as long as the cartridge rims are seated back into the groove in the clip.

Mauser- either pull single rounds off clips- cumbersome- or cycle the bolt until all the rounds are ejected- slow.
 
Mauser: Fire, eject, and leave bolt all the way back. Stip as many from the clip as will go in the partially-empty mag. Remove clip with extra round(s) and put in pocket or designated loose-ammo pouch. Rifle is "tactically" reloaded, FWTW.

A person with big hands *can* heel the op rod of an M1 back while holding a few loose rounds, catch the round ejected, and single-load the loose rounds in the enblock clip just like on a bolt rifle. It's very hard, and I've never heard of anyone doing it in combat. But I also don't have a lot of personal contact with WWII/Korea vets, either. Those who were there, please speak up.
 
You don't use the front sight, you point and shoot. You are shooting at shadows and muzzle flashes.
 
The M1 may be faster to reload than a Mauser, but if you are carrying a rifle with two rounds in it and three targets present themselves, you have a problem
Click to expand...
That's just one reason why you don't want to seperate yourself too far from the rest of your fire team. You buddies can cover you while you reload and vice versa.
 
Right.
I was just trying to get some discussion of what was done by the GIs in the field.
Maybe I am dense but I honetly can't believe that they fired all the rounds in their rifle every time they fired it at all.
I also have a hard time believing that they simply accepted the fact that it was loaded to less than full capacity.
But, like I say, I am dense.
As usual, the standard disclaimer applies: I am not trying to be argumentitive, I am not trying to say one weapon is better than another. I was just interested in finding the errors in my logic.

I decided to cut to the chase and call a friend of mine that was actually issued the M1 in the Marine Corp. He never served in combat but was in immidiately after the Korean conflict and had mentioned to me that most of his unit were guys that had served in combat in Korea.

His answer: "Having never served in combat, I don't know" "That is a good point that I never thought of" "I don't remember anyone mentioning anything about it".
 
444, I think it is not as complicated as you think. Just lock back the bolt, hit the clip eject and catch your unused rounds. Put them in your pocket. Pop in a new clip. 3 seconds total time spent.

If a person is in too much of a hurry to do that, they should not be tac reloading.
 
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