Why Did America Win the Race for a Semi-Automatic Infantry Rifle?

[Slamfire]

Part of the puzzle is that we attempted to stick with bolt action rifles too long, seeing that they didn't work that well in ww1 was a wake up call, if I recall my college history class correctly.

Either you are thinking of the Pederson device, or how well machine guns did in trench warfare compared to rifle fire. I have read something to the effect that 300 machine guns stopped the July 1916 British Somme offensive. In a large part responsible for 60,000 causalities in one day!

But what does surprise me, after reading a book on the German experience on the Somme, was the lack of German progress on a semi automatic rifle. I have read in this book numerous personal accounts of Germans shooting their M98 rifles till the barrels glowed. While this strains belief, I do believe that it shows their infantry men had long periods of high rate sustained rifle fire in defense of their positions. But the Germans stuck with a five round rifle all the way up to WWII. They could have at least put a 10 round box magazine on the thing.

 

[lathedog]

The cost to procure individual weapons is pretty cheap compared to the big picture of recruiting, training, feeding, clothing, and deploying a soldier to a warzone. Like today where a good AR style rifle is worth about $1k (street value) compared to $500k+ to send a soldier to 8 weeks of basic training. Changing out an issue weapon once spares are in stores and everyone is tained around suipporting that weapon is another matter.

Back to the Garand:
The Army ordnance board had examples of many of the other competing designs to compare to, and they all had faults that made them less suitable than retaining an existing bolt action design.

Hatcher documents all the crackpots with a single example of a hand-made cobbled together barely functioning semi, who came stomping down the hall with a local congressman backing their claim to a "superior" arm. The use of political pressure to ram unwanted weapon systems down the military's throat is nothing recent. Luckilly, in this case, the US got the best available weapon and it was developed in-house by government employees.

The Johnson was a pretty decent rifle in many ways, but the hard fact is that the Marines used them early in the war (part of their decision to not jump on board with the Garand as soon as they could/should have), then ditched them pretty fast. In a weapon starved world at war no one else showed much interest in them. I think that says a lot.

 

[Roswell 1847]

But the Germans stuck with a five round rifle all the way up to WWII. They could have at least put a 10 round box magazine on the thing.

The Mauser, the Lee Enfield, and the Springfield all three had 20 round Box Magazine coversions built before the end of WW1.
The Enfield Magazines were never issued and somehow disappeared between wars.
I've seen images of both the Mauser and Springfield extended Magazines, these replaced the floorplate and loaded by stripper clip just as the original magazine did.
Neither was particularly useful, though the German mag seems to have been used just as you figure it would be, for uninterupted rapid fire defending positions from assault.

 

[Trebor]

Timthinker,

I have some reading assignments for you. They relate to both this question and the one you posted in the other thread. Read these and you'll get a better understanding of the why's and how's of weapons design from the start of the 20th Century up to the development of the M-16.

The Book of the Garand, by Julian Hatcher

This is *the* book to read about the U.S. search for a semi-auto and the development of the Garand.

The Black Rifle, by R. Blake Stevens & Edward Ezell

The Great Rifle Controversy, by Edward Ezell

The AK-47 Story, by Edward Ezell (Notice a trend here?)

The M-16 Controversies, by Thomas L. McNaugher

The FAL Rifle, by Blake Stevens

Machine Gun, by Anthony Smith (More of a social history, but worth reading)

Read those and check out the footnotes and bibliographies for further resources. I was able to find most of these at a large university library. Inter-library loan can be your friend. You may also find used copies on-line.

 

[Tony Williams]

Alternatively, if you just want one volume which summarises the development of the modern military rifle, then you can try THIS

 

[PercyShelley]

If the Pederson rifle had just used a fluted chamber, it wouldn't have needed the silly lubricated ammo.

That said, it only had two more rounds than the Garand, and was only half a pound lighter. You also have to squint real hard to figure out how a scope would mount to it.

I think the SVT-40 is somewhat underrated as a war rifle and as an influential design. The usual blurb is that it was too complicated for troops to maintain. In comparison to the Mosin-Nagant for conscript troops, maybe, but both the Belgians and the Germans saw fit to appropriate details of its design into their own autoloaders, and German troops seem to have snapped them up when they found them. It clearly had merits.

 

[macFarlaine]

I think the simple answer is you are the best? That's what you are always telling the world on a daily basis.I reserve judgement....

 

[Old Guy]

FAL Book

The FAL Rifle, by Blake Stevens

Trebor

A quick funny story, many years ago in a Canadian Court Toronto, Ontario, a biker known as Johnny Sombrero had an expert witness employed by him, in the court, in his defense.

The Crown (Equiv; DA) was quoting from a book he had open in front of him, little yellow tags sticking out all over.

After he listened to these persuasive quotes for a while the Expert Witness asked "Is that volume you are reading from by Blake Stevens" the Crown a little miffed to be interrupted, said "Yes, why do you ask?" "I am that Blake Stevens" Mr Stevens said!

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The Johnson was a pretty decent rifle in many ways, but the hard fact is that the Marines used them early in the war (part of their decision to not jump on board with the Garand as soon as they could/should have), then ditched them pretty fast

While some Marines were reluctant to use the Garand, the Corps position was that they wanted it -- but couldn't get enough from the Army early in the war. They bought Johnsons because they were available -- from a Dutch contract that couldn't be delivered because the Nazis overran Holland.

When Army units arrived on Guadalcanal, and the Marines saw the Garand in action, that pretty well cleared up any prejudice some of them might have had against the Garand, and shortly after there were enough Garands for general issue.

 

[Vaarok]

Actually, it was the Japanese overrunning the Dutch colonies, and the Marines were ordered to bury their Johnsons before Guadalcanal because supplies of M1s had arrived with the Army reinforcements, and thus they were ordered to rearm with M1s in order to standardize logistics. The M1941 LMG remained in service for some time afterwards, and troops were quite loath to trade it off for a BAR.

Get the book "Johnson's Rifles and Machine Guns" for primary sources.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

You are correct -- I mis-remembered the Johnsons were originally sold to the Dutch colonies, not to the mother country.

However, the Marines never had many Johnsons (mostly Raiders and Parachute battalions were armed with them.) The Marines certainly overcame any prejudices they had against the Garand when they used them in action.

The Johnson LMG was a fine weapon -- but should have been belt-fed.

 

[Lonestar.45]

Easy, because America had the logistics and supply to keep them fed with ammo.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Easy, because America had the logistics and supply to keep them fed with ammo.

But that wasn't a factor in designing the weapon. The Russians, Germans, and Japanese all wanted a semi-automatic rifle, but were unable to come up with a really good one.

 

[Cosmoline]

We had the advantage of coming into the war mid-way through and with a very small standing army. So whereas the Brits would have had to replace millions of Enfields and revamp a huge global military, all we had to do was make sure we equipped the new recruits with new rifles. We would have had to make new ones anyway, so why not make a semi? Look at the difficulties we're having in replacing the AR platform now. Once you've issued the weapon system and geared everything around it for decades it's very hard to replace in large numbers.

But we didn't win the race for long. The Soviets also issued millions of battle rifles and subguns. They had entire shock troop divisions equipped with these by late '44. By '47 they had beaten us to the assault rifle, of course.

 

[Cosmoline]

Part of the puzzle is that we attempted to stick with bolt action rifles too long, seeing that they didn't work that well in ww1 was a wake up call, if I recall my college history class correctly.

They worked pretty well in WWI! I don't know where you heard otherwise.

Another issue is that we had different small unit tactics than the Germans. They based their units around the all-important machine gun. Everyone else was either supporting it or defending it. We went in expecting each man to carry tremendous firepower, and didn't but the same emphasis on the crew served machine gun.

The Brits could have had Saive's prototype SAFN, but decided it wasn't worth it. The existing Enfields worked well enough. Still, it would have been pretty cool to see British paras come in with battle rifles SUPERIOR to the Garand during D-Day.

 

[HorseSoldier]

They worked pretty well in WWI! I don't know where you heard otherwise.

They were reliable and rugged in the particularly ugly field conditions of the trenches. Full-power rounds were still overkill when used across a couple hundred meters of moonscaped no mans land, but were less of a liability in other ways when used in the defense (with stockpiled ammo) with supporting machineguns and artillery.

For use in the assault and trench raiding and such, though, they left a whole lot to be desired, for the various reasons that eventually favored the SMG and assault rifle. Volume of fire was inadequate for suppression (so we saw the Chauchat, BAR, Pedersen Device, etc. developed), weapons were too unwieldy for quick handling when the fight was in the trenches themselves (hence the SMG), and even when an attack actually made some headway, troops would exhaust their carried basic load of ammunition pretty quickly and then be reliant on guys carrying resupply on their backs at foot-speed across artillery swept moonscape again (not entirely solved by improvements in weapons).

All that said, the magazine fed bolt action rifle was a major improvement over its predecessors. I doubt you'd find many troops from back then who would have preferred their existing kit over, say, a Garand or M14/FAL/G3 or AK/AR-15/etc, but they had the best equipment technology of the era allowed for.

 

[Timthinker]

Trebor, thanks for the recommended reading list. In particular, Hatcher's book on the Garand is something I will attempt to locate. I look forward to reading his bibliographic sources for more information. Many thanks!


Timthinker

 

[Vern Humphrey]

They were reliable and rugged in the particularly ugly field conditions of the trenches. Full-power rounds were still overkill when used across a couple hundred meters of moonscaped no mans land, but were less of a liability in other ways when used in the defense (with stockpiled ammo) with supporting machineguns and artillery.

It has been my experience that when you try to shoot people in combat, they will hide behind things. You need to be able to shoot through logs, sandbags, concrete, earth berms, and so on. Often, it takes many shots to penetrate. Advantage to the most powerful rifle.

Another often overlooked point is that rifle -- and especially machinegun -- fire was used to interdict rear areas. It was very dangerous to be on top of the ground within a mile of the enemy's trenches.

For use in the assault and trench raiding and such, though, they left a whole lot to be desired, for the various reasons that eventually favored the SMG and assault rifle.

Neither submachine guns nor assault rifles existed in WWI -- they were all developed after the war.

 

[41magsnub]

Vern, this may be nit picking a bit but the German MP18 did see service towards the end of WWI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP18

 

[Andrewsky]

The French had some semi-automatic rifles by 1917 and they were used in battle.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Vern, this may be nit picking a bit but the German MP18 did see service towards the end of WWI.

At the very tail of the war -- by the time it was fielded, there was little fighting left to go.

The Italians also had a side-by-side arraingement of two automatic, pistol caliber guns for use on aircraft.

The French had some semi-automatic rifles by 1917 and they were used in battle.

And they were such roaring successes that in WWII the French Army in WWII was fully equipped with them.

 

[Gator]

Another good book is "Misfire" by William H. Hallahan. It details the Ordnance Department's procurement of small arms from the Revolutionary War up to Viet Nam. It will leave you scratching your head!

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Arms procurement has always had two problems:

1. Proponency. The "experts" tend to overpower the users. Hence the Ordnance Department, which doesn't use the guns, decides to a large degree what the Infantry and Cavalry get.

2. Politics -- we procure weapons made in the most powerful Congressman's district.

 

[Slamfire]

1. Proponency. The "experts" tend to overpower the users. Hence the Ordnance Department, which doesn't use the guns, decides to a large degree what the Infantry and Cavalry get.

I have had to deal with the user on numerous occasions. The user sets the system requirements through the ORD. And they deliberately set requirements that doom systems to failure, or very expensive redesign, no matter what you tell them.

One system I worked on, the user rigged the requirements to get a truck they loved and were familiar with: the HEMTT. The HEMTT was the only system they knew which could pull our proposed equipment and fit onto a C141. To go up to the C17, they would get something else. The longest section in the ORD was their justification of the C141 requirement. "B52's had been around forever, C141's would be around forever, blah, blah, blah."

We told these guys, you are going to loose 17" of ground clearance and this will really limit where you can go, but it made no difference. Hell or Highwater, they wanted a specific truck and would not back off the requirements.

Well guess what, later a better truck appeared which would fit on the C141, but the system will always have too low a ground clearance. As expected, the Air Force retired the C141 per presented draw down plan. Of course the system has experienced damage due to this low ground clearance and the user blames the developer!

I will not describe the "Universal Power Converter" they wanted. But because this was outside the realms of both the known and unknown universes, they did not get it.

The users insistence to keep to 308 diameter and 30-06 velocities no matter what, doomed the lightweight rifle program. And now the user has the .223 and will have for decades to come!

2. Politics -- we procure weapons made in the most powerful Congressman's district.

It is an unfortunate fact that without Congressional support, no cup, can, or boots, would ever be funded. These guys run the country for their benefit, not ours.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Our current dual-proponancy system is better that it used to be. But it could be a nightmare.

I was at Benning in '69 and we had a briefing on "What's new." One captain in the audience stood up and asked when we were going to be issued 60mm mortars -- he was in Viet Nam in '64 and his unit formally requested them.

The Ordnance representative then painted a glowing picture of the new 60mm under design and asked "Wouldn't you rather have a mortar with the weight of a 60mm and the range and power of an 81?"

This almost sparked a fist-fight. And finally we got the new mortar -- in the late '70s, long after the war was over.