The Contender: Winchester’s .224 Light Rifle

www.americanrifleman.org ^ | 2/19/2016 | Bruce N. Canfield

[ThinkingBuddha]

[grobdriver]

No Buck Rogers rifle that!

[marktwain]

Looks a lot like the mini-14.

[Chainmail]

It's a shame that our ordnance people weren't better at their jobs back then. We ended up with the "Plastic Fantastic" with its inaccessible chamber and horrible accuracy in combat and we lost many good people in the process. The Winchester design appears to be more reliable and rugged. When will our leaders learn to quit buying "least bidder" weapons when our young people's lives are at stake?

"It was determined that volume of fire was more important than aimed shots and that our military would be better served by infantry weapons with low recoil, firing smaller-caliber, higher-velocity projectiles. "

A cardinal mistake: high volumes of fire don't kill the enemy in close combat. Aiming does.

[imardmd1]

What did the cartridge for it look like? The .30 cal. M1 Carbine was seriously underpowered, not a real infantry weapon.

[ThinkingBuddha]

What did the cartridge for it look like? The .30 cal. M1 Carbine was seriously underpowered, not a real infantry weapon.

[Lurker]

The Carbine was designed and intended for rear echelon troops, clerks, cooks, and truck drivers. The Garand was deemed too large and heavy for that purpose.

L

[Sequoyah101]

Well excerpted post. Thank you for your effort.

[Durus]

It seems that you are claiming that the m16 is inaccurate. I’ve heard a lot of people make some pretty absurd claims about the m16 before but I’ve never heard that.

[FirstFlaBn]

The Carbine was designed and intended for rear echelon troops, clerks, cooks, and truck drivers. The Garand was deemed too large and heavy for that purpose.

Just about everything you said is mistaken.

The Army's Chiefs of Infantry and Artillery recommended development of a light rifle in June 1940. The SecWar accepted this recommendation.

The 1 October 1940 T/O for an infantry battalion (the last version before adoption of the carbine) called for 601 Garands and 313 pistols. The next edition, 1 April 1942, had only 60 pistols and 469 Garands - but 290 carbines. So, actually, the carbine replaced about 80% of the pistols and 20% of the Garands - not in rear echelon units, but in the very core of combat units. In WWII combat and combat support unit T/Os, it is very hard to find any cook or clerk authorized anything other than a Garand until you get to units like field artillery or chemical mortar that were 95%+ carbines.

Even higher up the chain, the infantry regiment service company - the closest administrative formation to the front - had over twice as many Garands as carbines (including Garands for all 14 clerks plus all 3 cooks and 25 truck drivers).

[Captain Rhino]

Excellent point. Here you have nearly 1000 soldiers that are supposed to be the very point of the pointy end of the spear, yet only 500-600 (depending on T/O) actually have the rifle caliber long range weapon. Of course, a lot of those pistols/carbines were issued to crew served weapons soldiers who were down at the company level (and lower) supporting the infantrymen (I can still say that, can’t I?) directly.

By the way, are the historic T/Os you analyzed available in a public on-line database?

[Chainmail]

The first versions of the M-16 fired a 55-grain bullet, used a powder that was not specified for the rifle and had ridiculous sights that could only be adjusted in administrative environments using a bullet tip. I have personally witnessed blizzards of massed M-16 fire miss bad guys in the open when he should have been hit immediately.

The dang things were designed for torrents of "to whom it may concern" rounds in consonance with army doctrine of the time.

On the other hand, I kept my M-14 long after everyone else was stuck with Matty Mattel through different forms of junior enlisted chicanery. My M-14 always fired and when it was properly aimed, nailed what it was aimed at. It could punch through cover, walls, gravestones, and pretty much else and dumped who it hit with the first round.

When I was eventually hit myself, my lieutenant crawled up to me and said "Sorry you're hurt Chainmail, but can I have your rifle?".

[dangerdoc]

bump for later.

Thanks for sharing!

[MileHi]

When I was eventually hit myself, my lieutenant crawled up to me and said "Sorry you're hurt Chainmail, but can I have your rifle?".

Thanks for your service.

[imardmd1]

Thanks. Nice pic. I wised up by simply going back and reading the article as it appeared in the American Rifleman. Freom that it seemed that the cartridge itself came just a bit shy of being useable on a wide scale.

[imardmd1]

Thanks. Nice pic. I wised up by simply going back and reading the article as it appeared in the American Rifleman. Freom that it seemed that the cartridge itself came just a bit shy of being useable on a wide scale.

[Chainmail]

Thank you MileHi.

[imardmd1]

Yeah, I know. Qualifued X-spurt with it in 1957. MOS was ammo truck driver for Service Battery of 105 SP’s.

[PLMerite]

“It could punch through cover, walls, gravestones...”

Hue ?

[Chainmail]

Not me - most of my time was southwest of Danang in and around Hill 55 ("Dodge City"). The enemy had some bunker systems, including some made of concrete. We had lots of older graveyards in the area and the M-14 could penetrate those concrete gravestones easily. House walls were not a problem and heavy foliage didn't deflect the 7.62mm stuff much.

The '14 was long and heavier but, ooh could it shoot!