How did America end up with the only sem auto in ww2?

[IlikeSA]

Part of it may also be the research funding and population. Britain was funding planes, radar, naval equipment and intelligence (code breaking). Germany was funding airplanes (jets), tanks, rockets, and artillery. Japan was funding ships, and were winning the wars they were fighting against China, Britain, France, and the Netherlands in Asia. They had no need to build a better rifle for their infantry. All of these country's populations were smaller than the US.

The US on the other hand was funding research as well, from the A bomb to the carrier, big bombers to individual weapons, and had both the economy and the geniuses to invent new weapons. Consider for a moment why we divide high school football into 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A and 5A teams. The 5A teams have a massive population to draw good players from in comparison to the smaller schools. The US had a large educated population in comparison to the other countries, the Soviet Union included.

The Soviets had just finished a bloody civil war, had a purge of leadership, and were just trying to feed themselves and get on their feet. They lost heavily in the first part of the war as well, and it wasn't that they had many genius inventions, but their equipment worked for the time line it was needed.

 

[crazysccrmd]

See, the problem is it's a WAR. There's no squad bean counter to keep track.

Rounds shipped vs. enemy killed is a pretty solid broad measure of marksmanship though. Sure, some rounds get shipped but not shot, and some people who are killed are killed by bombs and disease, and some people who are shot don't die. But in general, if you're shipping huge numbers of rounds and not killing anyone with them, it means your marksmanship has gone seriously south.

There's a lot more shooting involved with killing the enemy than just a single bullet in each head. Rounds shipped has no real world reflection on marksmanship.

 

[Aragon]

I'm not a mechanical engineer but was it really that complex to devise a semi auto rifle for the average soldier or was it just too expensive to feed them? Considering the Garand was called the finest battle implement ever devised I find it difficult to believe nobody just gave it a chance.

I have always wondered why the Garand was not designed with a 20 round removable magazine? There are plenty of easy conversions floating around out there today using BAR and M14 magazines.

It wasn't due to a lack of genius. I'm sure there were concerns about wasting ammo, the cost, etc.

 

[GRIZ22]

A lot of people make an issue about poor marksmanship in combat. They obviously haven't been there. The enemy doesnt stand still. They are out there bobbing and weaving. Time of flight for M2 ball at 200 yds is about .25 sec. Someone at a slow jog moves almost 9 feet per second. Even if you lead them at 200 yd and they zig instead of zag you will miss by over 2 feet.

You also need to consider that in conventional ground combat most casualties are inflicted by artillery. It's been that way since they started compiling stats on that stuff. Thats since the Civil War or War of Northern Agression, whichever you prefer.

Rifles don't win wars.

 

[Branko_D]

Soviets were in the process of rearming the troops with semi-autos when the war broke out. After the initial disastrous losses they needed to replace, well, everything, so they switched back to making bolt-actions. They could crank them out faster and they needed to quickly produce a few million to cover losses.

Germany came late to the party regarding that one, partly due to doctrine, which led to the US being the only power to arm troops en masse with semi-autos in WW2.

 

[jmr40]

Which, of course, is precisely what happened. Something like 10,000 rounds were shipped to theater for every Axis soldier killed by any means (including those that involved no ammo, like aerial bombardment).

It's been getting worse ever since.

Saying it is getting worse isn't truly accurate. It was a change of tactics developed on the battlefield by soldiers who found a way to stay alive. Throughout WW-2 instructors in basic training were still teaching soldiers to aim carefully and conserve ammo. The 1st thing veterans taught replacements when they got into action was to forget that useless tactic.

They found it much more effective for part of a unit to throw as much lead as possible at the enemy forcing them to keep their heads down and not be able to return fire. This allowed other soldiers to advance on their position un opposed. Having every soldier with a semi auto made this tactic possible.

Another tactic used especially at night in the Pacific was to mount machine guns in locked positions aimed about 2' off the ground. Several were set up aimed so that a steady stream of bullets would overlap. During the night time mass attacks so common with Japanese soldiers the gunners simply kept up a steady stream of fire without aiming at anything in particular making it impossible for anyone to advance without getting hit.

Both tactics used up lots of ammo, but kept soldiers alive. The USA's greatest contribution to the war was the ability to produce weapons and ammo in huge numbers. I suspect one reason other nations didn't field as many automatic and semi auto weapons is because they didn't have the manufacturing capacity to support them with enough ammo. We did.

 

[Jim Watson]

I have always wondered why the Garand was not designed with a 20 round removable magazine? There are plenty of easy conversions floating around out there today using BAR and M14 magazines.

It wasn't due to a lack of genius. I'm sure there were concerns about wasting ammo, the cost, etc.


Garand's first rifle in 1920 had a 20 round box magazine. Probably from a BAR.
I assume the brass was worried about conserving ammunition. The packet loading of the Pedersen, adapted to the Garand about the time gas operation replaced primer setback, must have seemed a Godsend to the War Department.

There were a bunch of box magazine M1 derivatives right at the end of the war. Somebody finally caught on that more firepower might be helpful in the invasion of the Japanese Home Islands. We didn't invade so they were abandoned and we went to Korea with what we had.

 

[Tirod]

Battle field tactics and hit ratios showed the more ammo downrange the better. It wasn't the aimed fire producting a significant number of casualties, it was the UNAIMED fire that the enemy walked into - unintentionally from both sides.

More hits, less combat power. The side with healthy moving soldiers dominates and wins. The amount of ammo flying downrange didn't go from bad to worse, it went from inadequate to effective. Precision shooting on the battlefield is nice, but not sufficient. Combat is chaos, not a sunny Saturday afternoon on a mowed grass range.

The Garand being the most efficient or best semi auto on the battlefield, no. Not even. It has major reliability issues with the bolt to operating rod connection, the external op rod itself, the gas cylinder is difficult to disassemble and requires frequent detailed cleaning which jams when neglected and requires gunsmith level service to repair when forced apart. Not to forget the institutional stupidity of the 8 round charger. Very little was improved when it was updated as the M14 and even in peacetime service it was known as a horrible weapon to fire on full auto. That feature was taken out of service completely. The series had the shortest lifespan in service in American history - it's revered simply because soldier had it - not because they are trained firearms engineers, gunsmiths, or experts about the choices then.

We went into the fight with a second rate semi auto with limited capacity and it was NOT fielded across the board for years into it. Many units trained with 03's, deployed, and got their Garands much later. They also got other squad automatics which also proved to be even more problematic and which failed in combat even worse.

Here's one happy review that does note some issues: http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/12/14/hindsight-is-3006-critique-of-the-m1-garand/

Note that a lot of the critiques of the Garand on the net point out it was the first successfully fielded semi auto in military history and that's why we had superiority on the battlefield. In that specific set of circumstances, yes. The German production of bolt action Mauser's peaked in May of '45 even tho the country was overrun on two fronts and soldiers fighting in Berlin. Late war Mausers were still being produced in huge numbers. Had the General Staff not been as micromanaged they may have well adopted more semi autos sooner.

It was a battlefield tactic on the Russian Front to employ squads of machine gunners to stem the number of Soviet troops by full auto ambush, and it was a hugely successful tactic. The Russians simply added more bodies to the front lines and won because they could "afford" the attrition and high death rates. It was incredibly expensive in manpower and it did go to prove that the side with superior firepower can dominate the battle nearly every time. As the round count expended goes up, so does the other sides casualties. In the case of the Soviets, tho, they weren't fighting a two front war and had the dead bodies to throw on the fire.

We learned from that and within 20 years after the war not only adopted a full auto soldiers rifle but downsized the round and increased the magazine capacity to boot. Nonetheless - it's still the tactic to fire single controlled rounds, not spray and pray. And our further development in future firearms is to use a caseless round so the soldier can carry another 40% more with the same power per bullet. We've been in a capacity race ever since and the side with the most bullets usually wins, even when outnumbered.

PS Im a Ford guy but really, the Torino is a overinflated poser car.

 

[WardenWolf]

Soviets fielded their SVT-38 and SVT-40 rifles in significant numbers - a million or so were produced - though their mainstay rifle was still the bolt action Mosin-Nagant.

All of these had "issues" to a greater or lesser degree.

Actually the SVT-40 didn't really have issues. It was a lightweight, reliable, accurate, and effective rifle on par with our much later M14. It was honestly better than the Garand. Unfortunately, Germany's invasion and the threat to the Tula plant forced them to halt production in favor of the easier-to-produce Mosins. Captured SVT-40's were highly prized by German troops, who rapidly put them into use against their former owners.

The reason the British did not field one was because the British military felt that giving their troops semi-auto would cause them to waste more ammo. This flawed way of thinking continued even into the 1950's.

Ultimately, though, the primary reason was that only the US had the manufacturing capacity to churn out sufficient semi-auto weapons. Our factories could operate with complete immunity, without any threat of enemy attack. This was ultimately what won the war: while we could lay siege to the enemy and damage their ability to keep producing weapons of war, they could do nothing to stop the endless tide of airplanes, ships, and other equipment we were producing.

 

[BSA1]

The old saying is Generals prepare to fight the previous war. The Thompson sub-machine was designed as a "trench broom" for cqb when clearing trenches in WW1. The Garand was a result of high rate of fire and ammunition needed in trench warfare.

The primary long gun when WW2 started was the bolt action Springfield 1903 rifle.

 

[ATLDave]

Many good points. jmr40 is certainly on to something when he says that American tactics, especially post Civil War, are geared towards spending money/munitions in order to conserve American lives. Unlike most of the other combatants in WWII, American soldiers were not vassals of royalty nor the subjects of authoritarian regimes. They were citizens, and many were volunteers. All of American culture would happily exchange a few hundred dollars' worth of "wasted" ammunition if it meant adopting firepower superiority techniques that reduced American casualties. And so we did.

That's not a BAD thing.

There's a really interesting book that examines America's unique war culture (not an anti-war term; the author says that all societies have a particular culture of war that impacts/determines HOW and when and why they make war). http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Culture-War-Operation/dp/0415890195

 

[lysanderxiii]

Each country had a different infantry doctrine. America was the only one that based the squad on individual riflemen. The Germans built their squads around the light machine gun (the MG34 and then the MG42), and likewise the British (the Bren gun). Therefore, to the British and Germans, bolt-action rifles were fine because they merely played a supporting role to the light machine guns (while economizing ammunition themselves). The riflemen basically carried ammunition for the machine gunners.

For example, in the British Pattern 37 web equipment, the Basic Pouches (issued to every man) were designed to carry Bren magazines. It just happened that they could also carry bandoleers with Enfield rifle chargers. But even the riflemen were supposed to carry extra Bren magazines. Compare that to the standard American web equipment, which had individual pockets for Garand (or Springfield) clips.

So, the answer is that these other countries (Britain, Germany, etc.) could have fielded semiauto standard rifles. They just didn't want to, and therefore they didn't put the resources into development and production of them.

This.

To all others about the US getting into the war late, remember the M1 was designed in the late 1920s, adopted in 1932 and type standardized in 1936, long before the war was even though of by Hilter and Japan....

 

[Schwing]

I have always wondered why the Garand was not designed with a 20 round removable magazine? There are plenty of easy conversions floating around out there today using BAR and M14 magazines.

It wasn't due to a lack of genius. I'm sure there were concerns about wasting ammo, the cost, etc.

I have questioned this as well. I would not be surprised if it was an ammo consumption concern mixed with the overall weight with a 20 round mag while being mobile. I don't consider myself a pansy but I wouldn't want to schlep that around any more than I had to.

As a side note, I remember reading in one of my civil war books recently that leaders on both sides of that war expressed concerns about adopting guns like the Spencer and Henry repeating rifles. This was partially because of the cost of the rifles and the fear that line soldiers might be more careless with their ammo if they had more immediate shots available. I am sure that both issues were mulled over ad-nausea by the bean counters in every country involved in WWII.

 

[murf]

as far as i know, the garand was the only "battle" semi-auto rifle used in wwII, all the others used kurtz rounds.

please, correct me if i'm wrong.

murf

 

[JShirley]

The Soviets had fielded the first practical assault rifle before the end of WWI.

A lot of the reason semis weren't fielded in larger numbers was almost certainly logistics. Even some bolt-action military rifles had magazine cut-off levers to enforce a slower rate of fire- with a bolt action!

 

[lysanderxiii]

Many good points. jmr40 is certainly on to something when he says that American tactics, especially post Civil War, are geared towards spending money/munitions in order to conserve American lives. Unlike most of the other combatants in WWII, American soldiers were not vassals of royalty nor the subjects of authoritarian regimes. They were citizens, and many were volunteers. All of American culture would happily exchange a few hundred dollars' worth of "wasted" ammunition if it meant adopting firepower superiority techniques that reduced American casualties. And so we did.

That's not a BAD thing.

There's a really interesting book that examines America's unique war culture (not an anti-war term; the author says that all societies have a particular culture of war that impacts/determines HOW and when and why they make war). http://www.amazon.com/The-American-Culture-War-Operation/dp/0415890195

Pooh.

The British in WW1 did not start drafting men into the Army until 1916.

And last time I checked the French have been a Republic since 1870, so they were hardly "vassals"...

 

[JShirley]

Actually, ATLDave is correct on the first point, that the US has long had a history of being willing to expend vast amount of ordinance to preserve even a few lives. That's just the first sentence, though, and the rest is very debatable.

John

 

[lysanderxiii]

I have questioned this as well. I would not be surprised if it was an ammo consumption concern mixed with the overall weight with a 20 round mag while being mobile. I don't consider myself a pansy but I wouldn't want to schlep that around any more than I had to.

As a side note, I remember reading in one of my civil war books recently that leaders on both sides of that war expressed concerns about adopting guns like the Spencer and Henry repeating rifles. This was partially because of the cost of the rifles and the fear that line soldiers might be more careless with their ammo if they had more immediate shots available. I am sure that both issues were mulled over ad-nausea by the bean counters in every country involved in WWII.

1) Ammunition supply today is a given. It comes by truck, helicopter, or can be air dropped right on top of you, so today, the idea of being without ammo is almost unthinkable, even if you are out in the jungle on an extended patrol.

In 1860, ammunition came by mule, and the last few hundred yards, by man-pack. That alone should give one enough reason to think twice about condemning Generals and "bean-counters" about their decisions about ammunition expenditure in combat.

Even as late as WW1, most supply traveled by mule and man.

2) A 20 round box magazine for a BAR weighs almost 2 pounds, tack that onto a 9-10 pound rifle. And the other thing is why does a rifleman need a 20 round magazine in a semi-auto rifle?

It might have been nice to have a detachable magazine that could be topped off (as the MAS-49 did), but twenty rounds? No.

It should be noted that all the points about the Garand's magazine, its capacity and ability to top-off were noted in the final report on the Garand, recommending adoption. All were noted as deficiencies, but none were considered "show-stoppers".

 

[Rockrivr1]

This is a good video from Rock Island Auction that goes over how the M1 Garand was adopted. In 1932 the Army's review of a new rifle had come down to the Garand and the Pedersen, both of which where in .276 caliber. From the tests run the Garand was determined to be the better rifle. Though Chief of Staff of the Army, General MacArther decided that it was not a good move to try and institute a new caliber when billions of 30-06 rounds were available. He made the comparison be redirected for the current round available. Garand had a prototype just about ready at that time for 30-06 and Pedersen had to try and catch up, but not in time. The Garand was adopted and started production just as WWII was ramping up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwntZVIoPpI

 

[lysanderxiii]

Actually, ATLDave is correct on the first point, that the US has long had a history of being willing to expend vast amount of ordinance to preserve even a few lives. That's just the first sentence, though, and the rest is very debatable.

John

Since World War 2.

Prior to that, the US has had a rather spotty record of expending ordnance in lieu of men's lives. At least, it is no better, or worse than any other army.

Since WW2, the US has had a tendency to try and solve all combat situations with plastering the area with ordnance of various types. And in many cases, the results were not that good.

 

[kBob]

The BAR is the Browning AUTOMATIC RIFLE. It was not considered tactically to be a machine gun.....ever.

U.S. Infantry depended on AUTOMATIC RIFLES for the base of either squads or fire teams right on through Vietnam and up until the adoption of the Squad Automatic Weapon with the adoption on the Mini-MAG.

The BAR was used to fire 2 to 3 round bursts, not 6 to 9 round burst like a true machine gun.

The M-14 with Bipod or M-14A1 were used to fire 2 to 3 round bursts, not 6 to 9 rounds like a machine gun.

The M-16A1 with that crappy clothes pin bipod was used to fire 2 to 3 round bursts not well I hope you get it by now.

They were not meant to be machineguns in the military sense and should not be considered such.

From WWII on ward many and then most platoons of 30 to 36 men included two belt fed machine guns with tripods that could be locked for per planned fire, or used to set up pre planned FIRES using multiple settings.

Browning 1919 series guns were used even into the M-14 days then finally replaced by the M60.

While actually assigned to the platoon weapons squad during the Veitnam era, the two M-60s were usually attached to a rifle squad each. Thus effectively giving two out of three squads while moving a belt fed gun.

You may bet your bottom dollar that Joe Snuffy the rifleman carried spare mags for the BAR, the M-14, and even the designated M-16A1 auto rifleman AND might well be carrying ammo for the belt guns. Maybe a round for the platoon Anti Tank weapons. Maybe even a mortar round for the Company Mortar Platoon.

I think the Roman term Marius's Mules has ALWAYS applied to base line Infantrymen.

I get tired of hearing the BAR and BREN compared. They were not the same thing. Actually having used both I think the BAR is a better AUTOMATIC RIFLE than a BREN gun, handier to carry and use in the job of an autorifle. I think the BREN comes no where NEAR a Browning 1919A6 or M60 as a machine gun.

To me the BREN was neither fish nor fowl and sure as heck not good red meat.

Interesting argument about the Thompson up stream, neither side trotted out the M1921 guns not ready to go at the end of WWI but three years is close. The US Post Office was the first federal agency to purchase Thompsons BTW.

My understanding was that the M2 carbine was used on Okinawa as the T3 system of an early active IR night scope system and M2 Carbine (with cone flash suppressor) and did rather well.

Garand offered several prototypes with removable 20 round magazines, with the .276 Petersen models being the neatest, shorter and lighter than the rifle as adopted.

Winchester is often praised for such quick work on the M-1 Carbine.....they actually had been working on a .30-06 rifle to compete with the Garand, supposedly cheaper to make, that featured (wait for it) a 20 round removable magazine and they were trying to come up with a simple mod on the BAR magazine to allow it to be used in both guns. This .30-06 was having issues in testing, but was fairly easy to scale down to make the .30 Carbine.

Yes the US was "late" in the war. Of course all those Soviet troops fighting in North Africa, Italy, Burma and through out the pacific were a big help don't you think?

and of course the Soviet Navy was a big help in getting suppies from the West to the USSR.....which never paid a wit for any of it..... What you say the navy was largely non existant? Lots of US and Western merchant marine guys did not make it home supplying some of those Russian Divisions and Airforce assets.

I wonder how the percentage of Infantrymen in an European engagement lost compared to those fighting compared to places with names like Tarawa......

How about we just agree that all the Allies helped defeat the Axis threat and leave it at that?

-kBob

 

[Llama Bob]

Saying it is getting worse isn't truly accurate. It was a change of tactics developed on the battlefield by soldiers who found a way to stay alive. Throughout WW-2 instructors in basic training were still teaching soldiers to aim carefully and conserve ammo. The 1st thing veterans taught replacements when they got into action was to forget that useless tactic.

They found it much more effective for part of a unit to throw as much lead as possible at the enemy forcing them to keep their heads down and not be able to return fire. This allowed other soldiers to advance on their position un opposed. Having every soldier with a semi auto made this tactic possible.

This is a nice theory, but it's also absurd. At 10,000 rounds per kill, it's impossible for for person or even a 10 man squad to carry enough ammo to accomplish much. 10,000 round of .30-06 weighs something like 700 pounds. The idea that this was some sort of new, EFFECTIVE, tactic is disproved by the sheer weight that would be required to carry the ammo to kill even one opponent.

The reality is that the changes in tactics and weapons changed the rifle from a tool for killing the enemy into at best a tool for scaring the enemy, and at worst a very expensive noise maker.

 

[ClickClickD'oh]

Oh for the love of god, can we please stop using the 10,000 rounds fired per kill figure for anything. It includes rounds fired from everything in theater, not just soldiers individual small arms. It's patently absurd to try to draw a conclusion about the effectiveness of a soldiers rifle while also counting rounds fired from jeeps, trucks, tanks, airplanes, ships at sea and everything else under the sun.

So please, pretty please, stop using it as a data point as if it means anything.

 

[FL-NC]

In regards to the comments on rounds expended vs. enemy kills- I often wonder about the raw data used to determine this. Speaking from my personal experience, I, and others I worked with, fired thousands of round deployed against those that ended up in a combatant. Most of these rounds were used in training. We rehearsed all of our missions, to include live fire in shoot houses. Many rounds were used for test fire/zeroing, which was done with ALL weapons systems that were going on missions- this includes weapons like SAW, M240, M2HB, MK47/MK19. sniper systems. and individual weapons (M4,grenade launchers, pistols, etc.) Also, when a unit is ambushed- especially a mounted unit- there is typically a large (but hopefully controlled) expenditure of automatic weapons fire, which is directed toward known and suspected enemy positions in order to suppress them and rapidly gain fire superiority. At that point, we normally called in ARTY and/or CAS.

 

[Llama Bob]

It means quite a lot once you dig into it - it means that marksmanship, but the point of WWII, had become almost non-existent. By Vietnam and the current wars (where that number has risen somewhere north of 100,000 rounds/kill) marksmanship can simply be toe tagged and buried.