I need a .276 Garand POD

[acrsome]

Discussion on another thread has motivated me to work on my first ATL. I want to have adoption of the Garand rifle in .276 Pedersen, and I mean the original PD-42, as God and the Infantry Board intended, not the later T2, but I'm stuck on two possible POD ideas.

Frankly, I'm surprised that no-one has done this before. Has anyone?

Anyway...

The Semiautomatic Rifle Board (SRB) in 1928 recommended ceasing development of the .30-06 Garand in favor of the .276 Garand and the .276 Pedersen rifles. (At that point, it seems, the US Military was pretty well sold on some sort of smaller caliber.) However, the next year they reversed themselves and recommended pursuing both calibers of Garand plus the Pedersen. Eventually the .276 Garand would win the final trials of 1932 anyway, but Ordnance Bureau resistance and the intervention of Douglas MacArthur would lead to scrapping it in favor of the .30-06 Garand.

So, I foresee two possible PODs.

First possible POD: the SRB never reverses itself, and only .276 rifle development goes forward. Eventually the .276 Garand wins as in OTL, presenting the Ordnance Bureau with a fait accompli and no .30-06 alternative. The problem with this is that the Bureau and/or MacArthur may actually be so opposed to the whole idea of a second caliber that they nix it anyway. I'm not sure about this, though, because the US military had been doing trials on cartridge lethality since the end of WWI and at almost every point displayed a lot of enthusiasm for a smaller caliber. MacArthur's objections were (apocryphally) logistic, due to large existing stocks of .30-06 and a desire not to have separate rifle and machine-gun calibers. Again, though, I'm not sure. The large stocks were of the older M1906, which had been replaced by the new M1 ball a few years earlier. So those stocks weren't quite as important as one might think. The common-cartridge difficulty remains, though, and even if history has proven it to be minor, at the time there was a lot of concern about it.

Second possible POD: Pederson returns to the US sooner after the 1931 trials to find to his great disappointment that his rifle has not been selected, so he turns his full attention to at least guaranteeing acceptance of his cartridge. He enlists Garand (they knew one another well) and go find MacArthur, who may never even have fired these rifles, to hold a private demonstration for him a la the Spencer rifle and Lincoln or the AR-15 and LeMay. Mac was a very large man, and had a certain interest in jungle fighting, and the lighter/shorter .276 Garand would have seemed incredibly handy to him. (Reports from those who have fired them report that while the size/weight differences don't seem large on paper, the resulting change in center of gravity makes a very noticeable difference.) Coupled with it's other benefits that might tip the balance for him. Maybe throw in some industrialist to explain that during the next war that everyone knows is coming the US is going to produce so much ammunition that not having a common caliber will be a trivial issue.

Which do you think, and why?

I have all sorts of other weirdness planned (this is going to be at least partially tongue-in-cheek gun porn) with for instance the BAR and Johnson rifle. I may totally butterfly the M1 carbine away with the M1E5- after all, the official requirements for the carbine weren't issued until October 1940. Even more weirdness post-war with the *FAL, *EM2, and *M14. Oddly, I'm thinking of very negative effects on the Vietnam war, but that's far in the future. I'm invoking a pretty strong butterfly net- especially for WWII- so that you people don't eviscerate me over minutiae. Plus, honestly, a .276 Garand would be an evolutionary improvement over the original, not a revolutionary one. The big changes are post-WWII, and anyone familiar with post-war firearms procurement can probably see what's coming.

 

[The Chevalier]

A very interesting POD, and something I do not see often on the forum. I'd imagine that the second POD would be better story telling wise and you might as well go with that. If they could convince MacArthur of the usefulness of the .276 then its development would continue. With that you defiantly butterfly away the .308 cartridge.

 

[marathag]

Again, though, I'm not sure. The large stocks were of the older M1906, which had been replaced by the new M1 ball a few years earlier.

Now M1 Ball didn't work well in the Garand, and most of those stocks were sent over to the Navy to be used in MGs, so a new round was made for the Garand in any case, the M2 Ball.

 

[Obergruppenführer Smith]

1. Kill ZH-29. That rifle completely undermined Pederson's pitching point about how full-power rifle cartridges cannot be used for reliable semiauto rifles.
2. Have Pederson not be so much an egoistic prick and actually show that he is putting in his best effort, not going around the world in middle of trials trying to sell his stuff as if he already won.

 

[acrsome]

Well, yes, in POD#2 Pedersen comes back to the US earlier. Not soon enough to save his rifle, but enough to have a shot at saving his cartridge. (There was no way to save the rifle, anyway.)

But if you're worried about the ZH-29 you have to worry about the Mondragon, too, etc. I was unaware that either had much influence on the US trials. Had they? I didn't seem them listed in any trials since WWI, which is all the further back went.

EDIT-- Well, Wikipedia at least says that a ZH-29 in .276 Pedersen was submitted to US Army trials at some point, and cites a believable link to the Springfield Armory Museum.

I found this particularly amusing:

Most rifles also had a unique hold-open system, when the magazine had been replenished, pressing the trigger allowed the breech to close and chamber a fresh round. A second pull on the trigger then fired the gun. However, this attracted unfavorable comment.

On some level they couldn't have been serious, there...

 

[Catsmate]

Kill MacArthur.

 

[Obergruppenführer Smith]

But if you're worried about the ZH-29..... I was unaware that either had much influence on the US trials. Had they?

Before the ZH-29 was given to the US to test in July 1929, the .30 Garand was already killed. It was after the testing of ZH-29 that work on the (dropped) .30 gas-operated Garand was resumed, leading to T1E1 and the subsequent survival of development. In other words, without the ZH-29 which showed that you could make a sturdy functioning full caliber semiauto that weighed less than 10.5 pounds, the .30 Garand's development would never have been revived, and thus only the .276 Garand would have made it into the final selection.

 

[acrsome]

Kill MacArthur.

Mac was probably really just implementing what the Ordnance Bureau convinced him of. I don't know how much was really his own thoughts on the matter.

 

[acrsome]

Before the ZH-29 was given to the US to test in July 1929, the .30 Garand was already killed. It was after the testing of ZH-29 that work on the (dropped) .30 gas-operated Garand was resumed, leading to T1E1 and the subsequent survival of development. In other words, without the ZH-29 which showed that you could make a sturdy functioning full caliber semiauto that weighed less than 10.5 pounds, the .30 Garand's development would never have been revived, and thus only the .276 Garand would have made it into the final selection.

So, you're for a variant of POD option #1, then? I'll admit that it's kind of fun to think that a minor change in Czechoslovakia might have such an effect in the US...

Do you have some sort of cite for the ZH-29 being the deciding factor in resurrecting the .30 Garand? I'd like to read that. Well, I'd like to read anything about all of those trials, actually. I'm mostly going off of Wikipedia, a few other websites (hard to find good ones), and Canfield's book at this point.

And, actually, now I'm thinking of a way to combine the PODs, and that also makes Mac look rather canny...

 

[FleetMac]

Mac was probably really just implementing what the Ordnance Bureau convinced him of. I don't know how much was really his own thoughts on the matter.

Unless we can find smoking-gun evidence of correspondence to MacArthur convincing him to slay .276, I don't think we can ever definitively know how much of that decision was of Mac's volition. However, given what else we know about Dugout Doug's personality "quirks" and behavior during WWII and Korea, I think we can fairly extrapolate a high degree of unreasonable hubris and self-assurance in his character, which points towards the .275 Garand's cancellation being his doing. It should be more than plausible enough to hang the focal point on him; getting him out of the way one way or another makes adopting the .276 Garand easier, even if not a slam-dunk.

Given the mention up-thread of a private demonstration of the new rifle, would it be possible to have POTUS overrule MacArthur, if we're not getting rid of him? I think that would be Herbert Hoover, although I'm not sure he would be all that much of a helpful audience for the new gun.

 

[acrsome]

Unless we can find smoking-gun evidence of correspondence to MacArthur convincing him to slay .276, I don't think we can ever definitively know how much of that decision was of Mac's volition. However, given what else we know about Dugout Doug's personality "quirks" and behavior during WWII and Korea, I think we can fairly extrapolate a high degree of unreasonable hubris and self-assurance in his character, which points towards the .275 Garand's cancellation being his doing. It should be more than plausible enough to hang the focal point on him; getting him out of the way one way or another makes adopting the .276 Garand easier, even if not a slam-dunk.

Well, yes, "we can't know"... so I feel free to speculate!

But we do know that while the Infantry Board, Cavalry Board, and joint Semiautomatic Rifle Board were all in favor of the .276 PD-42 cartridge, the Ordnance Bureau was resistant. They were also the bright guys who, when it looked like they were going to lose that fight, dumped new requirements on the cartridge that resulted in the .276 T2 with a larger case capacity, effectively neutralizing any advantages it had over the .30-06. OTL only 2500 rounds of T2 were ever made, and to my knowledge no rifles, because by then the decision had been made to go with .30-06 after all. So it may not be much of a stretch to assume that their campaigning influenced MacArthur.

My idea for a combined POD and a canny Mac has to do with the T2 cartridge. I'd need to read up on the ZH-29, though, and I suspect that sources might be scarce on that one.

Given the mention up-thread of a private demonstration of the new rifle, would it be possible to have POTUS overrule MacArthur, if we're not getting rid of him? I think that would be Herbert Hoover, although I'm not sure he would be all that much of a helpful audience for the new gun.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that, either. I don't see Hoover being that interested- he was a Quaker, and had both a Depression and a re-election campaign to keep him occupied. I could be wrong, though.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

As an aside, apparently the British were also looking into adopting the 7mm caliber pre-WW1, but the war derailed their efforts to adopt it. Apparently their encountering of the 7mm Mauser at the hands of the Boer really interested them in it's potential. I wonder how much of a factor that played into their resumption of testing the caliber after WW2 with the .280 x 43mm.
Apparently the US also faced that exact same situation in 1898 at the hands of the Spanish, who also used the 7mm Mauser in Cuba. Any idea of Pederson developed his cartridge based on that?

 

[acrsome]

As an aside, apparently the British were also looking into adopting the 7mm caliber pre-WW1, but the war derailed their efforts to adopt it....

I'd found references to the pre-WWI British interest, too, and it plays into my plans for post-war. Which, frankly, are a lot better-developed than my plans for WWII itself so if I ever get this thing going there will probably be an immediate hiatus as I figure out the war...

Apparently the US also faced that exact same situation in 1898 at the hands of the Spanish, who also used the 7mm Mauser in Cuba. Any idea of Pederson developed his cartridge based on that?

My understanding was that the Americans were impressed by the greater volume of fire of the Mauser as compared to their Krag rather than the cartridge, though the cartridge was probably better, too. Unless I'm mistaken the 7x57mm is also not nearly as intermediate as the .276 Pedersen. It's very much more in the league of .303 and other powerful battle rifle rounds. Or at least, it launched much heavier projectiles than the .276.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

My understanding was that the Americans were impressed by the greater volume of fire of the Mauser as compared to their Krag rather than the cartridge, though the cartridge was probably better, too. Unless I'm mistaken the 7x57mm is also not nearly as intermediate as the .276 Pedersen. It's very much more in the league of .303 and other powerful battle rifle rounds. Or at least, it launched much heavier projectiles than the .276.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7×57mm_Mauser

11.2 g (173 gr) Factory Military 700 m/s (2,300 ft/s) 2,746 J (2,025 ft·lbf)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.276_Pedersen

it produced velocities of around 2,400 feet per second (730 m/s) with 140 or 150 grain (9.1 or 9.7 g) projectiles.

Depends on the cartridge used. A lighter bullet like Pederson's would be faster and more powerful (in terms of Joules) if matched with the Mauser cartridge due to the increased 6mm of length and increased propellant behind it. Pedersen's round was most 'intermediate' than the Mauser...but the Mauser was significantly more 'intermediate' than the .30-06. The 7mm Mauser and Pedersen's round are a lot closer in performance than the Mauser than the .30-06. In a lot of ways it seems the Mauser round is to the Pedersen as the .30-06 is to the post-WW2 NATO 7.62.

 

[acrsome]

Re: 7x57mm.

Yeah, that's what I mean- a 162-grain projectile at 2600 feet/sec or 173-grain at 2300 feet/sec. That's 3300 J versus the Pedersen's 2800 J. Significantly more powerful, though much less so than .30-06 (but then what isn't?).

Re: Pedersen: it produced velocities of around 2,400 feet per second (730 m/s) with 140 or 150 grain (9.1 or 9.7 g) projectiles.

There are conflicting sources (one of my many frustrations). The Wikipedia page on the Pedersen rifle for instance quotes a 125 grain projectile at 2600 feet/sec. And enthusiasts who have broken PD-42 ammunition down for examination also quote 125 grain projectiles- I have found at least three of these. Some of the enthusiasts quote a 125-grain projectile at 2740 feet/sec instead, so I assume that was either a further-developed PD-42 or more likely there is confusion because the 2600 feet/sec figure was recorded at 73 feet from the muzzle, which equates to 2740 feet/sec at the muzzle.

The performance you cite above I think may be the T2, fired from the test-rigs. Again according to enthusiasts, the T2 ammo is much harder to come by on the collector market. I can find ballistic tables for the 125-grain PD-42, but have yet to find one for the T2. The T2 truly wasn't as well developed.

 

[Catsmate]

Mac was probably really just implementing what the Ordnance Bureau convinced him of. I don't know how much was really his own thoughts on the matter.

Perhaps, but I feel that killing him off would only help (and not just with the adoption of a .276 Garand rifle).

 

[acrsome]

But the more I think of it the more I'm liking the idea of turning his bullying and primadonna attitude against the Ordnance Bureau for once. I have already tentatively thought out one hell of a fun verbal exchange. And maybe I get a chance for butterflies to actually turn him into the heroic epic figure that he knows he is...

But I'm still accepting ideas.

Again, anyone have any sources on how the ZH-29 led to the resurrection of the .30 caliber Garand? I'm finding it hard to believe that was the case, since the .30 caliber Garand prototypes had already proven that it was at least possible. And, from what little I can find on the ZH-29 it had worse problems.

Another question- anyone have any sources on MacArthur's physical whereabouts in late 1932 to early 1933? Clearly as Chief of Staff he was stationed in Washington, and it looks like he left rarely. Where in the Washington region did he live, for instance? Where might Pedersen and Garand catch him that would be amenable to an impromptu riflery session? (And don't say "the Bonus Army.")

Oh, and I need a villain from the Ordnance Bureau. It might be best to make up a fictional one as a sort of a stalking horse for the whole organization, though...

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Looking at different cartridge performance, I wondering if a 9g 7mm bullet like that used with the British .280 on the Italian 6.5mm cartridge might be pretty ideal for WW2 through to modern powders, when you could cut things down a bit.

 

[acrsome]

9 grams is 139 grains, so within the right league. But for now I'm sticking to the historical 125-grains, at least until postwar when I may introduce a boat-tail and other improvements for the standard 7x51mm NATO cartridge.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

9 grams is 139 grains, so within the right league. But for now I'm sticking to the historical 125-grains, at least until postwar when I may introduce a boat-tail and other improvements for the standard 7x51mm NATO cartridge.

I thought the M2 bullet was BT???