British Army adopts M1 Carbine as primary rifle for Normandy

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
  • Start date
Savage arms in the USA made 1,000,000 No4 Mk1s between 1941 and 1944 if some or part of that order was instead M1 or M2 carbines then that would very likely cover the needs of 21st Army group
 
From Post #15
OTL
Inland Manufacturing Division of GM Nov 5 Tool Room Prototypes
Winchester Repeating Arms Co. Dec 41 5 Tool Room Prototypes
Inland (GM) May 42 start, Sept 43 end, 999994 produced
Winchester Sept 42 start, Feb 44 end, 350000 produced
Underwood Nov 42 Start, Jul 43 end 100000 produced
.
You know what Inland built for GM before 1941?
Steering Wheels for cars and trucks.
Underwood made Typewriters.
Zero history with firearm production. 7 months for Inland to tool up with a brand new design, ordered right off the drawing board
I can't see the British being so tardy, in going from factories that are already making firearms, albeit very crude ones, let alone waiting til mid' 43 to do it.
The time to do it is when replacing all those weapons lost in France, in 1941 as US production is starting for the Carbine
These were all significant engineering factories with complex machinery (or access to new machinery) and skilled workers for at least a training cadre for new staff.
Sten production was in a wide range of small garages, minor fabricators and (literally) big back yard sheds. Sten producers are not going to be able to make M1 Carbines other than a few of variable quality and tolerances in a few cases. To make British M1 Carbines means an existing factory/s has to stop making No4s, Brens or other skilled engineered war products and retool and train for the M1 Carbine. In the middle of a war when they are flat out making weapons already. It is a bit like saying you could make metal Mosquitos instead of wooden ones yet the factories, materials and skills have negligible cross over. The Sten was an out sourced gun. The 'factory' (much like the old Tower system of the 18th century) simply assembles the parts delivered to them from hundreds of sub contractors. There is a now double domestic garage near my house when I was young which was used to make Sten butts by part time local mothers. No disrespect to those excellent ladies but they are not going to be making M1 Carbine there. The UK likes of Inland, Winchester, and Underwood had long since been turned over to arms or other complex war production during the preceding five years of war, including a period of perceived home invasion. You have Stens. They are workable for the task. Not at all ideal but workable. To use the Americanism 'it ain't broke so don't fix it'. The Sten is the expedient solution IOTL at that point in time. In the same way the USA kept on making M4 Sherman tanks. They were the expedient solution to their problem. There is merit to the M1 Carbine but not for the OP role at that time.

'7 months for Inland to tool up with a brand new design, ordered right off the drawing board'. A cessation of 7 months production in the flat out existing war economy of the UK is worse than regular visits from Mr Goering's nice Luftwaffe. At least the existing machinery and patterns usually survive him popping in to drop off some presents.
 
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'7 months for Inland to tool up with a brand new design, ordered right off the drawing board'. A cessation of 7 months production in the flat out existing war economy of the UK is worse than regular visits from Mr Goering's nice Luftwaffe. At least the existing machinery and patterns usually survive him popping in to drop off some presents.
In 1941 the British are opening entire NEW factories to build the NEW No 4 Mk 1 as well as continuing production of the existing No 1 Mk 3 in some older plants and through sub contracting. Other rifles than the No 4 could have been made in some or all of the new plants if the British had wished to.
 
How many Carbines would they need?

21st Army group - 1,020,581 officers and ORs

So how many of them are at the sharp end - Infantry, Artillery, Armor and Engineers?

A quarter? A third?

So between 255,145 and 336,792 weapons (not taking into account BREN guns and Sniper rifles)

The rest can use SMLE/actual No4 production and Sten guns (unless the M1 production exceeds the above figure)

Some US Army non combat units for example were still using M1903s when they invaded Germany!
 
In 1941 the British are opening entire NEW factories to build the NEW No 4 Mk 1 as well as continuing production of the existing No 1 Mk 3 in some older plants and through sub contracting. Other rifles than the No 4 could have been made in some or all of the new plants if the British had wished to.
True. Fazakerly, Maltby and Shirley. They are coming on line in 1941 and planning was very early 1941 at best. The invasion scare was still perceived as real. The army was short of infantry small arms, the Home Guard standard was ex US small arms to meet the Germans at home. What might they have chosen to make instead of the No4 which was a known and very serviceable item within existing training and logistics? A serious question not a put down. It would have to be something using rimmed .303" and a certain success in use. I can think of several possibilities but none that meet the necessary criteria of the day. By the time of arming of infantry for Overlord these 3 factories are in constant No4 production so a change later means forgoing existing rifle production. The Sten sidestepped that by going outside the small arms factories. Way too early for an M1 Carbine.
 
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My preferred option would be for Britain to have got hold of some SVT 38's from the Finns during the Winter War and done some work adapting them to .303 and smooth out a few kinks coming out with a British SVT 40 optimised for mass production.
 

Deleted member 1487

My preferred option would be for Britain to have got hold of some SVT 38's from the Finns during the Winter War and done some work adapting them to .303 and smooth out a few kinks coming out with a British SVT 40 optimised for mass production.
They had that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLEM-1
Same exact operating system. The rimmed cartridge was dropped due to the lack of reliable feeding (the SVT-40 wasn't known for reliability or accuracy) in the Belgian design, but the Brits already had the 7.92x57 in production for the Besa MG.
 
The British did not screw it up. They recognised the need (see the report that began the subject) but also recognised that the latter part of the war was not the time to change everything and had the Sten in service to mix with the No4. To address the issue and rearm the infantry was something to attend to post war. They then decided on an assault rifle. To whit the No9 which was specifically to replace both the No4 and Sten in all their roles..

BTW the lack of need to use aimed individual fire at very long ranges was recognised in WW1 and prompted the removal of the volley sights. The .303" in the No4 would fire out to long distances anyway so the sights were marked according to the capability of the weapon, if not the average user. In the simplified No4 with 'flip' rear sights they sighted to 300 and 500 yards only.
Thats fine. They should have tweaked the STEN to put grips and a better magazine on it and called it done. Having said that they did fine with what they did. If the US had been in a similar situation they would have been wise to do similarly but they had the option to go with an M1 before they started heavy ramp up.
 
My preferred option would be for Britain to have got hold of some SVT 38's from the Finns during the Winter War and done some work adapting them to .303 and smooth out a few kinks coming out with a British SVT 40 optimised for mass production.
Except they weren't reliable, not even the lower power of the .303 vs the 54R round would help in that
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
Some US Army non combat units for example were still using M1903s when they invaded Germany!

The standard individual weapon in the infantry units of the French 1st Army in 1944-45 was the M1917 in .30, along with some '03s and light autos (SMGs and carbines), as well as BARs and some M29s. The French had received a small number of M1 Garands, but they went largely to the units that were planned to be available for direct attachment to US Army units, like the French paratroops trained under US aegis (not the French SAS units).

The Canadians, Poles, Indians, South Africans, Belgians, Dutch, Greeks, Czechs, Palestinian/JBers, and Norwegians organized by or under British aegis were all armed with standard British weapons as well, including the SMLE/Sten/Bren mixture.

The point being, none of the Allies - even the smallest contingents - that operated in the ETO saw the concept of equipping a line infantry battalion (or anything more) with M1 or M2 carbines as a standard weapon as a good idea that appears to have been put in practice. Even the special operations units - the British Army and RM commandos, for example - were not equipped in such a way.
 
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The point being, none of the Allies - even the smallest contingents - saw the concept of equipping a line infantry battalion (or anything more) with M1 or M2 carbines as a standard weapon appears to have been put in practice. Even the special operations units - the British Army and RM commandos, for example - were not equipped in such a way.
The Six US Marine Divisions, of roughly 17,000 men, had over 10k Carbines to 5k Garands. M2 carbines were coming in for Okinawa, supplanting the M1. This was the 1944 F series TO. The early 1943 D Series Division bad near equal numbers of Carbines and Garands, with under 500 M1903 aithorized.
Over 500000 M2 carbines were made new by the end of the war, and an undetermined number of conversion kits that anyone with a TM could accomplish. It was an almost a drop in kit, just some wood needed to be inletted.
 
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The Six US Marine Divisions, of roughly 17,000 men, had over 10k Carbines to 5k Garands. M2 carbines were coming in for Okinawa, supplanting the M1. This was the 1944 F series TO. The early 1943 D Series Division bad near equal numbers of Carbines and Garands, with under 500 M1903 aithorized.
Over 500000 M2 carbines were made new by the end of the war, and an undetermined number of conversion kits that anyone with a TM could accomplish. It was an almost a drop in kit, just some wood needed to be inletted.

One could argue with justification that the primary rifle for the US military was the M1 carbine, with the M1 rifle for specialized combat units.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
What did Inland and Underwood produce after stopping M1 Carbine production in 1943? Could they have built another 100,000 carbines for the British in fall 1943?
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
The Six US Marine Divisions, of roughly 17,000 men, had over 10k Carbines to 5k Garands. M2 carbines were coming in for Okinawa, supplanting the M1. This was the 1944 F series TO. The early 1943 D Series Division bad near equal numbers of Carbines and Garands, with under 500 M1903 aithorized.
Over 500000 M2 carbines were made new by the end of the war, and an undetermined number of conversion kits that anyone with a TM could accomplish. It was an almost a drop in kit, just some wood needed to be inletted.

Presumed this should have been obvious, but the USMC did not deploy any infantry battalions to the ETO in 1944-45.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
One could argue with justification that the primary rifle for the US military was the M1 carbine, with the M1 rifle for specialized combat units.

Not in any reality-based universe. Rifles were M1, M1903, and M1917. M1 carbines, by definition, are not rifles in the context of the US Army during WW II.
 
What did Inland and Underwood produce after stopping M1 Carbine production in 1943? Could they have built another 100,000 carbines for the British in fall 1943?
That was just for the first contract. I think I land made 1.5M more on the next contract that continued thru war's end
 
Presumed this should have been obvious, but the USMC did not deploy any infantry battalions to the ETO in 1944-45.
You somehow think Marines wouldn't have had that Carbine percentage had they deployed East rather than West?

Fortified Japanese on the Atolls were far harder enemy than anything in the ETO. Marines picked the Carbine heavy deployment for a reason, with a team being a Carbine, a Garand, and a BAR at times
 
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