The Legendary Rifle That Fought World War II

Popular Mechanics ^ | 30 Dec, 2016 | Matthew Moss

[MtnClimber]

In January 1945, just months before Germany's unconditional surrender in World War Two, George S. Patton famously declared the M1 Garand as "the greatest battle implement ever devised."

The accolade is well-deserved. This semi-automatic rifle served American troops in the fields of Northern France, the coasts of Okinawa, the dry heat of Africa, and the oppressive humidity of the Philippines. And in more ways than one, the M1 Garand helped win the bloodiest war in human history.

THE BEGINNING OF A WORLD WAR WEAPON

Fittingly, the gun that would help to liberate France was created by a French-Canadian—John Cantius Garand. Twenty years after moving to America at age eleven, Garand began working at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts on a series of semi-automatic rifle designs in 1919.

His timing couldn't have been better. After the nightmarish, bloody demonstration of modern warfare that was World War I, the U.S. military needed to replace its bolt-action rifles with a modern semi-automatic weapon that could vastly increase the average infantryman's firepower. During the First World War the U.S. had seen how useful semi-automatic rifles could be, especially the French-made RSC 1917, the first widely issued semi-automatic military rifle.

[imardmd1]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. It explains a lot, so basically infantry tactics changed from individual soldiers shooting individual enemy soldiers, as it were, to laying down a curtain of fire to force the enemy to keep his head down and then incapacitate him.

No, I don't think so. As I see it, the military object is to gain a dominating position by killing, disabling, or capturing the enemy. The strategy is to get infantry close enough to defenders to overwhelm them, personally. The tactic is covering the advance by massed firepower of the attackers. That is why, from rock to bow to flintlock to breech-loader to magazine-fed pellet-thrower the advantage of superior rate of fire has been the compelling force for the improvement of the individual weapon.

In comparison, horizontal envelopment by fire-and-maneuver has displaced the suicidal massive frontal assault tactic (a la Gettysburg, WWI Marne offensive)(counting on numbers superiority), through more economical use of force. And that would apply no matter what the individual weapon, given a reasonable parity.

So I'm not convinced that your argument holds as to the concept that drives development of higher rate of fire for the infantryman's personal weapon.