Even during the early battles on Guadalcanal, the Japanese realized that against US Marines still carrying mostly pre-War vintage weapons such as the Springfield .30-06, water cooled Brownings, and BARs–they had a significant disadvantage in firepower both in terms of “organic firepower” (infantry weapons) as-well-as-in mortars, artillery, and command and control. The IJA quickly began to realize that offensive operations against the Western Allies was becoming almost tactically impossible by 1943 as their adversaries gained experience and newer weapons such as the M1 Garands. One would think Japan, knowing they were in store for a lot of jungle fighting, would have focused more on submachine-guns; I think recall hearing that Japan produced less submachine-guns in the whole War than the US did in a little over a month at the height of production…
I think the Japanese had a few Bergman subguns and they manufactured some copies in 8mm (and that’s not much of a round) plus the gun weighed 8 pounds! And it was NOT easy to manufacture!
http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/jp_8mm/index.html
I doubt there was any TOE specs for subguns in their army.
Deaf
It definitely helped that we blew up most of their factories from 42 to the end…
That and thankfully their quality control, especially ammo, was poor.
George John, in his book, “Shots Fired in Anger” spoke of the poor crimping on the bullets, lack of moisture seal of the ammo crates, and well even some of the slugs wiggled in the cartridge cases (I’ve seen Italian ammo do the same, wonder if they used the same crimp machinery.)
He said GI ammo just worked and worked. Never saw a misfire.
And we all know when you have your weapon fail on you, you lose confidence, and that confidence is reflected in battle performance.
Yes the Japanese fought hard and cruelly, but our GIs knew they were ahead in many ways.
Deaf
It can easily be said the easiest to spotted weapon from the Second World war. I want to say the most massed produce weapon of the world. I hope you guys dont mind me bringing this thread back to life…
I think we won but the M1 Garand is a very nice weapon.
It was indeed. It was a excellent weapon but it can never be a sweet as the 1903 Springfield
The 1903 is only a nice sniper. I don’t like the normal sight it’s only a stripe.
well It was effective for the first months of the war and it did work. It was reliable for sure thought
Funny, a lot of marines on Guadalcanal ditched their Springfields if they were able to acquire a Garand…
But not all B). Sure the m1 grand was much more effective but there were a decent amount who enjoyed the Springfield
that sucks I have the garand the carbine the mosin nagant, and a 1911A1 pistol would hate to lose any
I’ll agree Nick on this issue.
I’ve talked to 4 family members that served using the M1 Garand and none of them had ever heard of the empty clip noise issue until I asked them about it. My Grandfather and Great Uncle served during WW2 Europe, Uncle during Korea and my Father served between Korea and Vietnam. The movies have the muzzle sound muted and the ping sound very exaggerated.
Total agreement with Forager on an earlier post in this thread:
Recently my Father and Uncle were talking about what they called “GI Thumb”, which I assume is the same as M1 Thumb, my Uncle only saw it happen during cleaning and once during an inspection when the rifle was thrust back into a soldiers chest awkwardly by the inspector causing the soldier to grasp the rifle in the wrong area thus inducing the GI Thumb. To the soldiers credit he didn’t flinch or cry out, but my Uncle said you couldn’t count the tears after it was over. I’ll admit that I received GI Thumb while messing around with cheap Chinese repo clips that weren’t properly sized to fit the rifle, I junked those and kept USGI without any problems with a 1943 rifle.
As far as M1’s having problems in winter, I’ve always heard that it was the M1 Carbine not the M1 Garand in Korea during very sub below zero temps. Some of that may have been due to warm metal going out into -20 plus degrees producing condensation then freezing, or just the damn cold period. Some M1 Garands may have suffered the same condition. There are well documented reports that during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir that several M1 Garands wooden hand guards caught on fire during the sustained combat in -35 degrees, could be why the M14 has a metal upper hand guard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Chosin_Reservoir
My Great Uncle who served with the 134th Infantry Division during WW2 Europe felt extremely confident with the M1 and said in his experience the ping sound wasn’t that audible in midst of a fire fight for someone to hear 60 to 80 yards away, in which many of his engagements occurred. My Great Uncle arrived 26 days or so after DDAY at Omaha Beach and pushed into France fighting thru the hedgerows, villages and small towns in France. During those engagements you had mortar or artillery fire going off along with the small arms fire from both sides which is extremely loud.
The M1 was and is a very good semiautomatic rifle, the other Infantry rifles are more than well worth noting such as the Lee Enfield, K98K, Mosin Nagant, Springfield 03 or 03A3, early Ariska rifles. I own at least one example of each and prefer the M1 Garand.
though I really wonder what would have happened if the army used the Johnson m1941 instead of the M1 Grand.
I’m not sure how conclusive one could be regarding the extended use of the Johnson M1941, but you might be able to get some indications of the Special Service Force’s use of it as well as opinions of OSS men that carried them…
More to the point, certainly a few years ago I was always taught to yell “MAGAZINE” at the top of my voice when reloading so that the other guys in my section would pick up the rate of fire while I reloaded. If the ping noise of an empty clip were really that dangerous, there’s no way they would have taught us to yell that we’re out of ammunition!
The Johnson infantry rifle was a bit more subject to damage than the Garand, and was longer in reloading. The Johnson was loaded using two stripper clips,one after the other to load the rotary magazine. This required more time to complete than the 8 rd En Block clip of the Garand. There was a similar problem with the U.S. Krag-Jorgenson Rifle which used a loose ammo side loading mechanism that was time consuming. This flaw became apparent when confronted by the Mauser action Rifles which used the ordinary stripper clip.
The design of the Johnson may have been better thought out than the Garand, but that did not make it better for the conditions it would find itself being used in. I was a big fan of the Johnson light machine gun, but not the infantry rifle.
Aw okay then that makes a little more sense then what I read about it in the books.
I believe a little while ago I remember dissembling a M1 and boy o. Every complex rifle breaking it down and cleaning it. After assemble it again 2 hours went by (for cleaning one that was really dirty for the first time). Then I went on to cleaning the Thompson submachine gun and that was really easy (since it only took about 30 mins with it 4 pieces to clean, with the version that was available to use.). what a difference!
They were simply a miracle of design, quality, and effectiveness and reliability.
They were built to withstand use and abuse.
Take apart a SVT or a K 43 or some others-flimsy, easily broken parts that took extra effort to reassemble or service.
The Garand was simple and easily maintained. It could go a long ways between cleaning if necessary.
Guys like
FALs and FN 49s, but I think the Garand was a stroke of genius that set the bar for a long time.
I have owned all of them and carried a Garand sniper for a short while in VN, but it was impractical in my are which was heavily foliated.