British Army adopts M1 Carbine as primary rifle for Normandy

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Dave Shoup

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I remember being on a sort of German-wank site a few years back where they insisted that the Wehrmacht loved the M-1 carbine, and that they would replace all the individual weapons in select PanzerGrenadier platoons with them when they picked up enough guns and ammo to make it work...anybody else ever hear that one?

No, but given the exigencies of German supply by 1943, not surprising. For most of 1943, the German armored formations in the west had more French-built tanks dating from 1940 and before than they had German-built tanks; divisional scales of German-manufactured equipment didn't really get into their hands until the winter of 1943-44 and afterwards. Artillery, trucks, small arms, etc. were pretty variegated, even into 1944-45.
 

Deleted member 1487

No, but given the exigencies of German supply by 1943, not surprising. For most of 1943, the German armored formations in the west had more French-built tanks dating from 1940 and before than they had German-built tanks; divisional scales of German-manufactured equipment didn't really get into their hands until the winter of 1943-44 and afterwards. Artillery, trucks, small arms, etc. were pretty variegated, even into 1944-45.
What does that have to do with the 1944-45 campaign? That's what he was referring to. There is no way that units in France were getting M1 Carbine in 1943, they'd have had no access to any; any captured ones would be in Italy in tiny numbers considering the Germans were retreating and having to leave their own gear behind.
 
I remember being on a sort of German-wank site a few years back where they insisted that the Wehrmacht loved the M-1 carbine, and that they would replace all the individual weapons in select PanzerGrenadier platoons with them when they picked up enough guns and ammo to make it work...anybody else ever hear that one?

I think it is mentioned in this video on Forgotten weapons - where I am sure that the guest speaker mentions that the Germans would collect the Carbines and ammo if they could.


And these chaps seem to like the Carbine and the best SMG of the war!

49900232_1895443167252133_3815234631746191360_n.jpg


From WW2 Colourised Photos on FB

19 January 1945
'Truce Train from St Nazaire'

Fallschirmjäger (Paratroopers) of the St.Nazaire garrison await the arrival of an empty train returning from Nantes after it had transported 13,000 French civilian evacuees from St.Nazaire. They would be checking that no unauthorised personnel may have boarded the train, on it's return journey.
The train had left Cordemais station for Nantes after repairs had been made to the railway lines. The refugees arrived in Nantes, leaving behind them the ruined town that had had no coal, gas, electricity or bread, for months.
 
So part of that kludge looks like it was an M-16, once upon a time. The rest of it?


I think the point there is that the idiots who dreamed it up were expecting too much of the enduser: hence;

If you're taking something apart that you're not supposed to take apart then it's either your fault, the fault of the person who trained you incorrectly or the fault of the person who designed your training incorrectly, not the person who made the thing.

Let me explain why that is wrong.


I counted a dozen small parts that Private Joe Infantry will lose in the dark.

Sometimes, the designer has to think it through better... (Extractor is a disaster.).

If the rifle had been developed through to stage four, the barrel change out would have been better thought through, and disassembly at the charge handle would have changed.


Note the further refinements in the LMG and the additional design disasters?
 
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 had 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.

Weight and close quarters combat (less than 50 meters to close on Joe Isiumarine in his cave was the norm.) The Marines had to move under machine gun fire and mortar bombardment on some of those expletive deleted coral atolls. 4.3 kg rifle vs. 2.4 kg carbine same loadout of ammo in weight (2x cartridges with the carbine.).

Load weight is a burden to slow down attacking infantry. An assault rifle would have helped. They had the M1 carbine, so... use what is available.
 
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I counted a dozen small parts that Private Joe Infantry will lose in the dark.

Marines didn't dump their Johnsons, like the Reising that also had a lot of fiddly bits


There is also the point from what I remember from many years ago.

Sergeant didn't want you disassembling every last part for normal cleaning. If it was broke, that's what the Armorers were for. Turn it in.
Your job was to keep it clean, his to do the Depot level stuff. Don't F with stuff above your grade.

In a battlefield situation, if you couldn't clear the jam/whatever was the problem in short order, get another weapon. There should be one around
 
That's a lot further than I've heard it. I have seen it claimed that they liked it and would grab it if they could find one with enough ammo, plus there are a fair few pics with them being used by German troops, but you also have to consider that the StG was preferred if it was available.
Never really made sense to me unless they were the ones advancing steadily, or their armored pass rushers were always in the other guys' backfield. Even in the Bulge, not that much of that sort of thing.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
not sure why I typed Devers in place of Hodges.

Breaks down this way in 1944-45:

Allied 21st Army Group - Montgomery
Canadian 1st Army - Crerar
British 2nd Army - Dempsey

US 12th Army Group - Bradley
US 1st Army - Hodges
US 3rd Army - Patton
US 9th Army - Simpson
US 15th Army - Gerow

US 6th Army Group - Devers
US 7th Army - Patch
French 1st Army - de Tassigny

Allied 15th Army Group (aka AAI/CMF) - Alexander, then Clark
US 5th Army - Clark, then Truscott
British 8th Army - Leese, then McCreery
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
What does that have to do with the 1944-45 campaign? That's what he was referring to. There is no way that units in France were getting M1 Carbine in 1943, they'd have had no access to any; any captured ones would be in Italy in tiny numbers considering the Germans were retreating and having to leave their own gear behind.

Simply to illustrate that the German order of battle outgrew German industry as early as 1943, if not before - given the number of Czech tanks and Austrian artillery and French trucks they were using in the 1939-42 campaigns, pretty clear they had more manpower than equipment.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
I think the point there is that the idiots who dreamed it up were expecting too much of the enduser: hence;

Historically, if 1,000 18 year olds present themselves at the recruiting station, (very) roughly 10 percent are going to be outside the "90 percent man" grouping - too tall, too short, too fat, etc.

Of the remaining 910 or so, they will (likely) break down about 240-250 Cat. I-IV each.

So if you equipment isn't designed for (at least) the Cat. IIIs, your pool of 1000 is down to about 480-500.
 

Deleted member 1487

Simply to illustrate that the German order of battle outgrew German industry as early as 1943, if not before - given the number of Czech tanks and Austrian artillery and French trucks they were using in the 1939-42 campaigns, pretty clear they had more manpower than equipment.
That was less a function of the growth in OOB as much as equipment losses in battle, namely the losses in the retreat from Moscow and Stalingrad, as well as the increase in strategic bombing and it finding pressure points (see the losses in production from the Battle of the Ruhr and Hamburg).
In 1941 despite the OOB increase exceeding the output of factories they had equipment to cover the gap. Remember the war started years before rearmament was completed. From 1942-43 industry largely met the need for equipment; in Summer 1943 despite the massive losses in equipment and men industry was getting ahead of losses, but they were peaking and were about to hit the downslope in both production staying ahead of equipment loss and manpower being unable to be replaced to anywhere near workable levels. Arguably by summer 1943 they were beyond that point and it was in fact 1941 that was their peak manpower point, but that's a discussion for another thread.

The point about using US equipment was that the Germans didn't need it or honestly have any significant amounts of it until Normandy.
 

Deleted member 1487

Never really made sense to me unless they were the ones advancing steadily, or their armored pass rushers were always in the other guys' backfield. Even in the Bulge, not that much of that sort of thing.
Apparently in the Bulge that was the only time they really did have enough US captured gear for it to matter. After all they effectively destroyed a US infantry division in one of the worst mass surrenders in US military history (the 106th). Several depots were overrun during the offensive, so there was quite a bit of gear and ammo captured.

But here is some info:
http://www.bavarianm1carbines.com/germanyww2.html
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
That was less a function of the growth in OOB as much as equipment losses in battle, namely the losses in the retreat from Moscow and Stalingrad, as well as the increase in strategic bombing and it finding pressure points (see the losses in production from the Battle of the Ruhr and Hamburg). In 1941 despite the OOB increase exceeding the output of factories they had equipment to cover the gap. Remember the war started years before rearmament was completed. From 1942-43 industry largely met the need for equipment; in Summer 1943 despite the massive losses in equipment and men industry was getting ahead of losses, but they were peaking and were about to hit the downslope in both production staying ahead of equipment loss and manpower being unable to be replaced to anywhere near workable levels. Arguably by summer 1943 they were beyond that point and it was in fact 1941 that was their peak manpower point, but that's a discussion for another thread. The point about using US equipment was that the Germans didn't need it or honestly have any significant amounts of it until Normandy.

Too much manpower or too little equipment are two sides of the same coin.

Apparently in the Bulge that was the only time they really did have enough US captured gear for it to matter. After all they effectively destroyed a US infantry division in one of the worst mass surrenders in US military history (the 106th). Several depots were overrun during the offensive, so there was quite a bit of gear and ammo captured. But here is some info:
http://www.bavarianm1carbines.com/germanyww2.html

The 106th Division reported 6697 POW, 417 KIA, 1278 WIA, and 53 DOW in WW II; two of the division's three regiments (422nd and 423rd) were destroyed on the Schnee Eifel in December, but the division headquarters, division troops, engineers, artillery, and the third regiment (424th) were able to withdraw; the division, with the separate 3rd and 159th infantry regiments attached, remained assigned to the V Corps in February and 15th Army from March, entering Germany in April, 1945. Simultaneously, the 422nd and 423rd were rebuilt in France and returned to the US with the 106th Division after VE Day. So, not exactly "destroyed"...

Data is all from Stanton.
 
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Historically, if 1,000 18 year olds present themselves at the recruiting station, (very) roughly 10 percent are going to be outside the "90 percent man" grouping - too tall, too short, too fat, etc.

Of the remaining 910 or so, they will (likely) break down about 240-250 Cat. I-IV each.

So if you equipment isn't designed for (at least) the Cat. IIIs, your pool of 1000 is down to about 480-500.

You've heard of McNamara's "100,000"? Those poor misused citizens were not Cat III (more like Cat V). I know it is outside the scope of this topic, but you should not expect Joe Infantry to be a rocket scientist. I can see problems if your rifle has more than 25 parts, and if some of those parts are smaller than a nail file.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned
You've heard of McNamara's "100,000"? Those poor misused citizens were not Cat III (more like Cat V). I know it is outside the scope of this topic, but you should not expect Joe Infantry to be a rocket scientist. I can see problems if your rifle has more than 25 parts, and if some of those parts are smaller than a nail file.

Speaking from experience .... yes.
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
Listen, the amount of times Britain could have been ahead of the game is boggling. But all those come with the benefit of hindsight. I do agree that adopting the not-quite a Carbine Danuvia would be neat, but it is always going to suffer from a case of "Not Designed Here".

Not really the issue, there was a thesis on the equipping of the British Home Guard where it it was shown to have been seriously evaluated with BSA produced a small batch of them in May 1939, but with the war on the doorstep and the army not requesting a weapon like that until December 1939 it was basically ignored. Thereafter, that is when the request for an SMG ASAP came, they were in full wartime panic mode and went for the cheapest option available. NMH was not a factor, as BSA redesigned parts of it and ultimately the Sten was based on a simplification of a German design.

What was the unit cost? Lanchester cost 14 Pounds, that's roughly $60 to the M1 Carbine at $42
From what they showed it was the Danuvia 39M with simplifications that BSA introduced, mainly in the overly complicated trigger mechanism. Thing is this was before Danuvia was the manufacturer, as the paper points out that it later went into production for the Hungarians with success.
They don't mention caliber, so I don't know for sure. I would assume 9x25.

Since the Thompson wasn't adopted until 1940 I doubt that was the reason it was rejected considering the insane expense of the Thompson (10x as much) before factoring in the ammo that wasn't even made in Britain.

I think the issue was that the British delayed too long on adopting it, so when there was the need for a lot of weapons ASAP they had to adopt whatever the US was willing to sell.

Maybe part of the problem of the Kiraly was that it was in 9x25mm, a caliber they didn't want or that it was overbuilt for a 9x19mm...

Edit:
Wikipedia says this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Small_Arms_Company

But I can't find reference to the 9mm Export in the source cited, which is the thesis I'm using as a source. It would stand to reason as the Kiraly design was in 9mm Export (9x25), so unless BSA changed it to 9x19mm it should be in 9mm Export.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ForgottenW...rimental_bsakiraly_machine_carbine_1938_1939/

It seems to me that, with a more basic sear trigger, the BSA-Kiraly machine carbine could be chambered in .303x25mm using 9mm case tools. They have the barrels and barrel production. However the original driver for 9x19mm was captured Italian ammo. So IF BSA got to build these in 9x19mm, THEN they might make some in (ASB) .303x25mm to make full use of the strength of the design OR maybe in .30 Carbine to provide common logistics for D-Day (log-wank).

The price could drop from £5 per once they start optimising the process. A 40 round mag is pretty long, so hopefully a drum or 32 round curved double row mag would be developed. This is a more likely carbine than the M1 to be adopted due to L-L trade terms and dollar shortage.

The ASB lever-delayed blowback assault rifle in 6.5mm Arisaka seems a good bit of kit to me. Good out to 300-400m?
 
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The price could drop from £5 per once they start optimising the process
Can't see anything getting that cheap for anything other than straight blowback. Machinging for that means much more money for the tooling to do it accurately

That's more machining than the Blish Lock in Tommy guns
 

perfectgeneral

Donor
Monthly Donor
Can't see anything getting that cheap for anything other than straight blow-back. Machining for that means much more money for the tooling to do it accurately. [vid] That's more machining than the Blish Lock in Tommy guns
The starting price from BSA was £5 each for a decent order. Sterling.
 
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