The Inventor of the Greatest Battle Implement Ever Devised Speaks

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I think the "surprising" part was the inventor of the M1 advocating a smaller/lighter rifle and ammo.
 
I was trying to be a little humorous with my wording. The surprising part was supposed to be how thick Mr. Garand's accent was.
 
Zardaia, that's not really a surprise though. He was advocating that through out the design process and only made his rifle bigger because it had to handle 8 rounds of .30-06 instead of ten rounds of .276. MacArthur strikes again... At least it wasn't as bad as the cheapness that lead to the navy being sent to war with badly broken torpedo designs.
 
Nonsense Gorō Nyūdō Masamune died LONG before youtube LOL
No I did think it was going to be an interview with Kalashnikov :( I would think the greatest implement ever invented would be one still in combat military use after 60 years. Not knocking the M1 but it was a little long, heavy, and overpowered for a battle rifle, the video kept cutting out on me but I think he pretty much said that too.
 
Not knocking the M1 but it was a little long, heavy, and overpowered for a battle rifle,
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It was similar in length and ballistic power to all the bolt rifles of the day, and not much heavier. You want to see cumbersome, try room clearing with an SVT-40! I'll take the Garand any day! (Not that I dislike my SVT, just sayin'...)
 
The Garand design is actually lighter and more efficient than the Stoner design while at the same time being nearly as accurate, and more reliable. For example a 22" barreled m14 makes no use of lightweight alloys or polymer, and yet is lighter than a commercial 20" ar-10. If we were to scale down further to 5.56 and do it right (unlike the attempt by Ruger) we would also see that such a rifle would be lighter than our current service rifle. Add in a weight saving stock, and optics ....
I think personally the 276 with 15 round (never developed) dbm's would have been very cool.
 
Not knocking the M1 but it was a little long, heavy, and overpowered for a battle rifle,
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Overpowered? For the open country of Europe and N. Africa? No way. Look at the weapons being chosen by our troops in the desert now. It's not overpowered to be able to match distance with the enemy's rifles. Otherwise they sit out at 700 yards and pick off your troops one by one.
 
Mr. Garand was Canadian, not sure from what part of Canada. He did have a heavy accent, and he did have a small ice rink in his home.

When he ran into a difficulty, it was reported that he would smoke his pipe and skate.
 
Not really surprising. Garand had a GREAT idea. It is quite a testament to the greatness of that idea that once the Army was done screwing with it, it was still a pretty darned good idea.
 
dvdcrr said:
If we were to scale down further to 5.56 and do it right (unlike the attempt by Ruger) we would also see that such a rifle would be lighter than our current service rifle. Add in a weight saving stock, and optics ....
I think personally the 276 with 15 round (never developed) dbm's would have been very cool.
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That one I gatta see, I think the iron sights on a Garand weight more then my last M16 :D I was 8 or 9 years old first time I picked up Grandpa's M1 Garand, I remember thinking that was the heaviest gun in the universe. Fine looking rifle though.
 
foghornl said:
Mr. Garand was Canadian, not sure from what part of Canada. He did have a heavy accent, and he did have a small ice rink in his home.

When he ran into a difficulty, it was reported that he would smoke his pipe and skate.
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Garand was French-Canadian from Quebec...although his accent didn't really sound French in that clip.

Kachok, if we are talking service life...then Browning still wins.

1911 pistol 102 years in service
M2 Machinge gun 80 years in service
 
I'm surprised to see so many "non-believers" in the M1 Garand rifle. In order to fully appreciate it, you can't compare it to designs that came 10, 20, 50 years later. Compared to the other rifles of the day, it was far superior. Sure, towards the end of the war, the Germans, Russians, etc., had developed a few "competitors" for the Garand, but they were never implemented on a standard-issue basis. If I'm going to battle and have the choice between an M1 Garand, a Lee Enfield, a Mauser (of any kind), a Carcano, a Mosin, an Arisaka, etc... I wouldn't even have to think about it. M1 GARAND!

Overpowered? I don't even know what to say about that. LOL... How is there such a thing as overpowered in a battle rifle unless its so powerful you can't control it? The Garand had very mild recoil (at least compared to the Enfields, Mosins, and Mausers I've shot), and certainly allowed for accurate follow-up shots quicker than the others.
 
Don't get me wrong I love a Garand, always have, I would just hate to have to carry one and a full stick of ammo across Europe. When I say overpowered I mean that much energy was not needed by a healthy margin and the extra weight of the ammo made for logistics issues, if it were not for the weight of ammo the 30-06 would still be in service today. I think it would have been better served with a short action .264-.284 caliber IMHO, and I am an 06 fan.
 
How is there such a thing as overpowered in a battle rifle unless its so powerful you can't control it? The Garand had very mild recoil (at least compared to the Enfields, Mosins, and Mausers I've shot), and certainly allowed for accurate follow-up shots quicker than the others.
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Right, but the point he understood -- and that many others came to understand later -- is that it would be MORE controllable, faster on target, faster on follow-up shots, i.e.: a better FIGHTING rifle, even if made much lighter and more maneuverable, with a lighter cartridge. The big .30, the 8mm, the .303 etc. were not required to be able to hit a man at even trench warfare distances, and represented considerably more bullet and energy than is required to kill him. A lighter, faster handling, higher capacity rifle would have been a better all-around battle rifle, and Garand knew it, but the Army just wasn't ready to accept it.

This goes back to the basic concept of fighting weapons of all types. Human beings aren't that hard to kill or injure significantly. Way more power doesn't usually translate to making the enemy soldier "more dead" or even a whole lot more wounded. (Unlike dangerous game hunting, for example.) On the other hand, speed and smoothness in shootability makes a huge difference to how well your troops perform against the other guy's troops. Hits count, but FAST hits and volume of accurate fire count more -- usually a LOT more.

It makes sense to say, "this is a hunting rifle, or this is a target rifle" (where I'm taking single shots with plenty of time for recovery and establishing best conditions to set up the next shot) -- "so how is there such a thing as overpowered?"

But that question/statement does NOT apply to a violent conflict with similarly armed adversaries desperately trying to kill YOU faster than you can kill THEM.
 
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Read Hatcher's Notebook when you get a chance. He wrote a lot about Mr Garand and his designs. Also Hatcher's book of the Garand.
 
It's not overpowered to be able to match distance with the enemy's rifles. Otherwise they sit out at 700 yards and pick off your troops one by one.
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And that makes a certain kind of sense when both sides are sitting in trenches staring across "No-Man's Land." (Though the front-line troops, neither then, nor now, aren't "picking men off" at 700 yards. Taking a few lucky pot-shots, using volley fire, and occasionally employing snipers, sure.)

But a) it still DOESN'T take a .30-'06 to do that, and plenty of smaller, lighter weight cartridges will do the same or better at even longer distances, and b) that's not where many ... almost ANY, statistically ... of your casualties come from. Not a great idea to plan your weapon around the least important usage.
 
And some forget exactly what kind of guy Patton was and how very much he liked to make grand statements. :)
 
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