Joint Garand-Pederson Rifle wins in 1922?

Shackel

Banned
What if Garand and Pederson teamed up around 1924, and created a more improved rifle that beat the Thompson rifle, getting the rifle produced around 1927.

Could this have led to a much faster development of things like the "M14" or even the assault rifle itself, having two "innovators" working together?
 
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I don't think so. The big things keeping small calibers and assault rifles from happening is massive stocks of 30-06 and conservative ordnance officers. You'd have to make something VERY good to get over those hurdles.

Edit- Thinking about it though even if they just make prototypes that could have a big impact on designs when the time comes when the Army wants automatic rifles.
 

Shackel

Banned
Well, prototypes WERE made, which is where I came up with this. The M1 Carbine popped up when people said that the M1 Garand was too bulky for close range operations during testing, so could that lead to the accelerated production of the M1 Carbine around 1928-1930?

If THAT happens, with two innovators working at once, could the idea of creating a "mobile BAR" appear, having an "Automatic Carbine" along the lines of the M16 appear in time for WWII?
 
Well, prototypes WERE made, which is where I came up with this. The M1 Carbine popped up when people said that the M1 Garand was too bulky for close range operations during testing, so could that lead to the accelerated production of the M1 Carbine around 1928-1930?

If THAT happens, with two innovators working at once, could the idea of creating a "mobile BAR" appear, having an "Automatic Carbine" along the lines of the M16 appear in time for WWII?

The thing which finally led armies to adopt assault rifles was the realization that most combat is conducted at quite short ranges, and that volume of fire was more important than accuracy. Up until the middle of World War II, armies around the world, including the US Army, believed that a soldier needed a weapon which had a long range and extreme accuracy. It was only the experiences gained during World War II which changed that opinion.

So unless you somehow change World War I so that there is a lot less trench fighting and long-range sniping, and a lot more dirty, close-in, house to house fighting, it is hard to see how those opinions are going to be changed so as to make the adoption of an assault rifle possible before World War II.
 

Shackel

Banned
I know about how the assault rifle came to be, but I was wondering if the IDEA could have popped up earlier, maybe even getting a couple prototypes out, which, if there are no other PoDs, could evolve into full weapons in Mid-WWII, maybe even as early as the Spanish Civil War.
 

Larrikin

Banned
1922

Nobody, but nobody, was looking to re-arm in 1922, they were all broke, either physically, mentally, or financially. The only country that was still looking towards expanding its military was Japan.

That is why the UK acquiesced to the Washington Naval Treaty.

By the time the .276 Pedersen bullet and the Garand rifle were being seriously considered in the early '30s the Great Depression was on. For Macarthur to have tried to change the calibre of the US Army's rifle would have been completely unfeasible. The fact that the rifle itself was changed, but took until 1942 to become standard issue gives you an idea of the financial situation they were in.

The US, UK, France, etc, had hundreds of millions of rifle/machine gun bullets in stock, and there is just no way they were just going to throw them out in the early 20s.

Germany may have been a chance to go to an assualt rifle prior to WWII, but that's about it.
 
Well, prototypes WERE made, which is where I came up with this. The M1 Carbine popped up when people said that the M1 Garand was too bulky for close range operations during testing, so could that lead to the accelerated production of the M1 Carbine around 1928-1930?

If THAT happens, with two innovators working at once, could the idea of creating a "mobile BAR" appear, having an "Automatic Carbine" along the lines of the M16 appear in time for WWII?

That wasn't really the rationale behind the M-1 Carbine; rather around 1939-40 or so, while studying German blitzkrieg tactics, the Army realized that rear-area support types traditionally not armed with rifles because of the nature of their duties could suddenly find themselves in a firefight with enemy troops and needed something better than a pistol to protect themselves, and decided on a sort of light compact rifle firing a sort of hopped up pistol round. It was also realized that the weapon could also be used by front-line troops who might not normally carry rifles, such as officers, weapons crews, & radio operators.

The winning proposal was a Winchester design that combined elements of the actions of the M-1 Garand & the Winchester Model 1905 rifle, and used a cartridge derived from a commercially unsuccessful .32 round developed for the 1905 rifle, which proved unfortunately underpowered (military loads have the about the same stopping power as a .38 Special, itself considered marginal as a pistol cartridge). The carbine, because of its light weight and large capacity was often misused as an infantry rifle, and the poor stopping power of the round (stories from the Pacific in WW2 & Korea of soldiers emptying a magazine into a charging enemy solider without stopping him) combined with the fact that even light cover or vegetation would stop or deflect the round (i.e. the complaints against the 5.56mm of the M-16/M-4 magnified), led to much of the M-1 Carbine's poor reputation, exacerbated by rather uneven quality control.

The idea of such a weapon being seriously considered by a military, as others have stated, would probably require WW1 infantry combat being radically different than OTL, with a lot of close-quarters fighting, as there probably wouldn't be much of a civilian market for such a weapon to justify the costs- too small of a cartridge to make a hunting rifle, a .22 would be adequate for plinking 'varmints', & and the people who might want a lot of close-quarters firepower would likely go for a SMG, as otherwise, the concept would be too radical for the military.

If there were greater budgets for small-arms & ammo R&D and procurement in the interwar era (including a willingness to dispose of a lot of WW1 surplus stocks which were tiding the world's militaries over in that era), as well as military establishments more likely to take risks, which in itself would likely require notable changes to economic & political factors there might be semi-auto weapons along the lines of a M-14 or a SKS with a high-capacity magazine firing cartridges such as .276 Pedersen, the .276 round the British experimented with and planned to adopt before WW1, or a version of 7.62x39 Soviet developed earlier as standard infantry weapons in WW2.

About the only weapon that might change thinking that I'm aware of is the automatic rifle developed by Federov, which used Japanese 6.5mm Arisaka rounds with a reduced load. From what I've heard, the few thousand that were around were liked in the Russian Civil War, but were plagued with reliability issues that weren't resolved due to the disruption of R&D and manufacturing. A POD that causes that weapon to be more widespread, well-known, well-liked by users, and debugged might provide an example, although it would still but up against traditional notions of proper rifle marksmanship and cartridges in the military establishments, as well as budgetary & political constraints.
 
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Shackel

Banned
Larrikin, I'm talking about Post-WWI America, when it was in economic prosperity. Also, the final testing(when it had won) was being done for the M1 Garand DURING the GD.

In fact, interest in semi-automatic rifles in the U.S. Army popped up in 1916.

I'm essentially talking about the REAL history of the M1 Garand, but I'm just wondering what would have happened if the second and third testings against the others were taken out of the contest by a Joint Garand-Pederson Rifle on the FIRST testing.
 
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That wasn't really the rationale behind the M-1 Carbine; rather around 1939-40 or so, while studying German blitzkrieg tactics, the Army realized that rear-area support types traditionally not armed with rifles because of the nature of their duties could suddenly find themselves in a firefight with enemy troops and needed something better than a pistol to protect themselves, and decided as a sort of light compact rifle firing a sort of hopped up pistol round. It was also realized that the weapon could also be used by front-line troops who might not normally carry rifles, such as officers, weapons crews, & radio operators.

The winning proposal was a Winchester design that combined elements of the actions of the M-1 Garand & the Winchester Model 1905 rifle, and used a cartridge derived from a commercially unsuccessful .32 round developed for the 1905 rifle, which proved unfortunately underpowered (military loads have the about the same stopping power as a .38 Special, itself considered marginal as a pistol cartridge). The carbine, because of its light weight and large capacity was often misused as an infantry rifle, and the poor stopping power of the round (stories from the Pacific in WW2 & Korea of soldiers emptying a magazine into a charging enemy solider without stopping him) combined with the fact that even light cover or vegetation would stop or deflect the round (i.e. the complaints against the 5.56mm of the M-16/M-4 magnified), led to much of the M-1 Carbine's poor reputation, exacerbated by rather uneven quality control.

The idea of such a weapon being seriously considered by a military, as others have stated, would probably require WW1 infantry combat being radically different than OTL, with a lot of close-quarters fighting, as there probably wouldn't be much of a civilian market for such a weapon to justify the costs- too small of a cartridge to make a hunting rifle, a .22 would be adequate for pliking 'varmints', & and the people who might want a lot of close-quarters firepower would likely go for a SMG, and otherwise, the concept would be too radical for the military.

If there were greater budgets for small-arms & ammo R&D and procurement in the interwar era (including a willingness to dispose of a lot of WW1 surplus stocks which were tiding the world's militaries over in that era), as well as military establishments more likely to take risks, which in itself would likely require notable changes to economic & political factors there might be semi-auto weapons along the lines of a M-14 or an SKS with a high-capacity magazine firing cartridges such as .276 Pedersen, the .276 round the British experimented with and planned to adopt before WW1, or a version of 7.62x39 Soviet developed earlier as standard infantry weapons in WW2.

About the only weapon that might change thinking that I'm aware of is the automatic rifle developed by Federov, which used Japanese 6.5mm Arisaka rounds with a reduced load. From what I've heard, the few thousand that were around were liked in the Russian Civil War, but were plagued with reliability issues that weren't resolved due to the disruption of R&D and manufacturing. A POD that causes that weapon to be more widespread, well-known, well-liked by users, and debugged might provide an example, although it would still but up against traditional notions of proper rifle marksmanship and cartridges in the military establishments, as well as budgetary & political constraints.


A bit off topic but its always suprised me how everything I've ever read on the M-1 Carbine either said it was underpowered junk or one of the best rifles ever. Even primary sources and vets seems divided on it, some loved it and others hated it just as much.
 
A bit off topic but its always suprised me how everything I've ever read on the M-1 Carbine either said it was underpowered junk or one of the best rifles ever. Even primary sources and vets seems divided on it, some loved it and others hated it just as much.

There seem to be 2 basic issues with the M-1 Carbine & it's varied perception, as I understand it.

One of them was erratic quality control- some manufacturers produced carbines that were fairly solid and reliable, while others produced utter pieces of crap that supposedly malfunctioned if one looked at them cross-eyed and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

The other was the questionable stopping power of the .30 Carbine round, and whether someone holds that against the weapon seems to have been based on their experiences with using it, such as whether or not it took a dozen or so rounds to take down an enemy solider. Someone who though it made a nice subsitute for rifle might have been more likely to have had such a bad experience, than say a machine-gunner or a truck driver who carried one as a personal defense weapon in lieu of say a .45.

The Korean War also seems to have had an effect on perceptions, as the weapon didn't handle extreme cold very well and the round didn't handle the thick, multi-layer winter uniforms often worn by Chinese troops very well (could be defeated or greatly slowed by those uniforms compounding) its low stopping power (much less than half the energy at the muzzle of a .30-06, or 7.62 NATO, & about half to 2/3 of the current 5.56 round depending on the precise loading), so someone who fought in Korea might have a more negative view of it than someone who fought in WW2.

However, to further complicate matters, from what I've heard on other forums, the Germans seemed to have liked captured examples of the carbine a lot.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
The Korean War also seems to have had an effect on perceptions, as the weapon didn't handle extreme cold very well and the round didn't handle the thick, multi-layer winter uniforms often worn by Chinese troops very well (could be defeated or greatly slowed by those uniforms compounding) its low stopping power (much less than half the energy at the muzzle of a .30-06, or 7.62 NATO, & about half to 2/3 of the current 5.56 round depending on the precise loading), so someone who fought in Korea might have a more negative view of it than someone who fought in WW2.

So...I'm still kind of in the dark on this. What's the civilian measurement for the carbine round, then? I mean...is this a round I've shot? Is it a 30-30 or something?
 
So...I'm still kind of in the dark on this. What's the civilian measurement for the carbine round, then? I mean...is this a round I've shot? Is it a 30-30 or something?

From what I remember, the .30 Carbine round (also known as 7.62x33 & .30 SL) is generally sold commercially under that name, although as far as I can tell from a quick internet search, the only weapons outside the M-1 carbine & its derivatives (which are somewhat popular as sporting weapons for historical renacting, smaller game and target shooting) that use the cartridge were the Magal, an unsucessful variant of the Israeli Galil to replace the M-1 Carbines used by Israeli police but withdrawn after a few years due to significant reliablity issues (the Israeli cops went back to their carbines according to Wikipedia), and a couple handguns.

The .30-30 (also known as .30 WCF & 7.62x51R) is an entirely different cartridge, an older sporting round dating from the 1890s, with a rimmed case & a flat-tipped bullet, commonly used in level-action rifles. It's about twice as powerful as the .30 Carbine round, and considered the smallest practical deer round.
 
Why would anyone think Pedersen and Garand would want to work together, or that they could? Pedersen was a well known and highly paid designer. Garand was an unknown loner who liked to ice skate in his living room. They were both ambitious men and had strong opinions of how to design rifles.

Designing something like the M-14 or an assault rifle is not a problem, but it must be requested by the Army. If the Army issue requirement for such a weapon, designers will compete for that contract. That's how it works.
 

Larrikin

Banned
Post WWI America

Larrikin, I'm talking about Post-WWI America, when it was in economic prosperity. Also, the final testing(when it had won) was being done for the M1 Garand DURING the GD.

In fact, interest in semi-automatic rifles in the U.S. Army popped up in 1916.

I'm essentially talking about the REAL history of the M1 Garand, but I'm just wondering what would have happened if the second and third testings against the others were taken out of the contest by a Joint Garand-Pederson Rifle on the FIRST testing.

Post War the US economy went into a short, sharp recession that was stopped by Harding cutting taxes, govt regulation, and govt spending. The US position at the WNT was also driven by the fact that Congress was NOT, NO HOW going to pony up the money to finish all those warships on the construction ways.

They had just invested in millions of rifles and hundreds of millions of rounds. No matter how interested the Army was in automatic rifles, they weren't going to get new ones, especially in a new caliber.

As it was, although they got the Garand, the only other "new" weapon the Army got before WWII below the artillery/tank range was the M2. They went into the second War without an LMG, and all their other machine guns were Browning's WWI era work.
 

Shackel

Banned
First of all, the date was screwed up. I mistook the name "M1922" in it's first testing in 1924 as the actual YEAR. This is a MID-1920s.

Also, about your "no new caliber" thing, the rifles were REQUIRED to have the lower .256 caliber because the rifles before it were bulky due to bullets that were basically too much for typical engagement range.

Once again, addressing your "it wouldn't be adopted" thing, the testings were ALREADY BEING DONE for who got to be produced. It wasn't porduced EARLIER because there was NO CLEAR WINNER.(One must wonder, though, what would have happened if Thompson got the win)

This thread is about what happens after it wins, not why it wins or how it is totally implausible(While I must say that a Joint Pederson-Garand project is a bit strange, it could also be subsituted for one or the other doing better in the first test, beating the others, leading to a Pederson or the M1 Garand in 1927)

P.S. DD, that was quite informative. Thanks. :^D
 
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I know about how the assault rifle came to be, but I was wondering if the IDEA could have popped up earlier, maybe even getting a couple prototypes out, which, if there are no other PoDs, could evolve into full weapons in Mid-WWII, maybe even as early as the Spanish Civil War.

Yes...if you change World War I as I stated in my earlier post. Simply putting two designers together is not going to do that. There has to be a perceived need. Designers generally don't just tinker around with random ideas. They work to produce something to meet a perceived need. If you change World War I somehow so that it involves lots of close-in, house to house fighting, then there will be a perceived need. If you don't, there won't. Simple as that.
 

Shackel

Banned
I know that putting two designers together won't do anything, but it was simply the idea. Looking back on it, it was a pretty stupid thing to do in the first place.

To be honest, I think I should have used the original idea, which was either Garand or Pederson screws up or does better than the rest, and their rifle succeeds and gets produced much earlier.
 
I know that putting two designers together won't do anything, but it was simply the idea. Looking back on it, it was a pretty stupid thing to do in the first place.

To be honest, I think I should have used the original idea, which was either Garand or Pederson screws up or does better than the rest, and their rifle succeeds and gets produced much earlier.

Another thing to consider is that Garand & Pedersen's designs worked on fairly different principles, and although Pedersen's rifle was ahead in the earlier trials, it was much more complex, having a third more parts than Garand's, which ultimately led to Garand's design pulling ahead.

As for the ammo, there was considerable opinion that the .30-06 might be more cartridge than was necessary (although the Army also developed the M1 174-gr. ball cartridge to replace the original 150-gr M1906 round, to get greater range and accuracy as better suited to doctrine that had machine guns & rifles engaging area targets at long range [1000-1200 yards] to create a 'beaten zone' to suppress and weaten the enemy), and a .256 round (the minimum) and the .276 Pedersen were subjected to competetive trials against the .30-06 (using pigs & goats as targets), and all 3 rounds were found to have adequate power out to 1200 yards. However the .256 round tested was rather inaccurate, which was why at first the .276 round was selected.

Serious opposition to that round seems to have first come from the Chief of Infantry around 1930, but the final decision to stay with .30-06 was made about a month after Garand's design being declared the winner, for budgetary reasons (the army wasn't sure it would even be able to keep the money that had been appropriated for the new rifle, and a new cartridge would push Congress too far, especially since there were millions of .30-06 rounds and hundreds of thousands of rifles, BARs, and machine guns in inventory the armed forces had been relying on that would have to be replaced or rechambered for the new round).

Had say R&D of the Garand occured so that it was ready for service a couple years earlier, Congressional parsimony when it came to Army procurement would mean that the earlier development wouldn't have accelerated the changeover to the M-1 by very much. Hell, the Army had a hard time getting enough money to replace about a million early production M1903s that were potentially unsafe to use due to recievers & bolts that hadn't been properly heat-treated as a result of manufacturing errors, and even then, had to keep those weapons in war reserve stocks rather than disposing of them to avoid awkward political complications.
 
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