WI: M1 Garand designed around .250-3000 cartridge

[phx1138]

Would be there for the M1903 that would be issued to less important areas, and LL to Allies.

No change for Machine Guns for the rest.

As it was, in the '60s there was a lot of milsurp 45 and 30-06 with pre 1939 headstamps available for mailorder, cheap. It was only the stuff with pre1920 datestamps that was kind of iffy for it being totally reliable.

Had a more duds and squibs even with those, but oddly, the 30-40 Krag was always good, no matter how old

I do agree it would still be useful, but that misses the point. AIUI, CoS MacArthur vetoed the .276 on the basis of the existence of .30-'06 stocks, & I don't see a CoS doing differently in a period when money is tight. Could the .30-'06 be surplussed off, to (say) P.I., or LL to Britain? Yes. Or surplussed to civilians? Yes. Ditto the '03 Springfields, for all that. Would it happen is another matter--& that, I'm dubious of.

The bigger issue is that if they don't adopt a select fire, magazine fed M1

Conceivable, but it doesn't seem likely.

they need a new LMG/Auto rifle to replace the BAR... TTL's Johnson LMG would probably be considerably lighter and might do away with the short recoil system due to how low recoil the cartridge is and might avoid the side mounted magazine (at least I hope he would).

I take it you're thinking of a .250 equivalent to the M60? That works for me--& again, money becomes an issue...

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Conceivable, but it doesn't seem likely.

Agreed.

I take it you're thinking of a .250 equivalent to the M60? That works for me--& again, money becomes an issue...

No, a .250 caliber Johnson LMG or Lewis 'assault phase' rifle.

 

[phx1138]

No, a .250 caliber Johnson LMG or Lewis 'assault phase' rifle.

Okay, that works; I was treating the M60 in much the same way: squad auto/BAR replacement.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Okay, that works; I was treating the M60 in much the same way: squad auto/BAR replacement.

The M60 was not a concept the US army was considering until they encountered the MG42 in combat for a while. One thing a new LMG/AR in .250 Savage has going for it is if it make the hurdle with the M1 Garand and can be 'carbine-ized' the US Army wasn't looking for a new LMG/AR until about 1938 when Johnson came up with his idea. If the BAR was then simply way too much gun and didn't have the quick change barrel to sustain automatic fire, then the lighter Johnson LMG designed around the .250 Savage may well get the pick, as it would likely be cheaper than a heavily modified BAR. TTL's Johnson would probably be considerably lighter too, probably 4.5-5kg due to the lighter round it would be dealing with. Which means the gunner would be able to carry a significantly more ammo than with the BAR and with a quick change barrel would be able to sustain fire much better. Plus apparently the Johnson could be reloaded with M1 stripper clips IOTL, so that would also really help in combat if the riflemen could feed the Johnson. It would also help with the weight a lot then if they only carried about 10 magazines for the gunner team and have a bunch of stripper clips to recharge them.

Though the site can be a bit far out at times, this article was interesting in the Johnson Rifle/LMG section:
http://www.combatreform.org/lightmachineguns.htm

I'm curious how a Johnson rifle and LMG equipped US squad would fair if both weapons were in .250 Savage. Apparently both systems were considerably cheaper than their OTL alternatives.

Edit:
Looking at the alternatives a bit and US Army concepts of longer range shooting, I'm actually thinking that they'd be more inclined to adopt something like the .257 Roberts rather than the .250 Savage since they at least tested a .257 bullet/cartridge in the 1920s for the 'Pig Board' caliber study.

The .257 Roberts also known as .257 Bob [2] is a medium-powered .25 caliber cartridge. It has been described as the best compromise between the low recoil and flat trajectory of smaller calibers such as the .22 and 6mm, and the strong energy but not the strong recoil of larger popular hunting calibers, such as the 7mm family and the popular .30-06.[3]

Plus the cartridge, though low pressure for civilian use, was capable of much higher pressures with more modern powders and actions, so it would be adaptable for 'military use' with higher powered loads quite easily. A 125 grain bullet could be easily pushed to 850m/s and probably more with ball powder.

The NRA also favors the .257 Roberts:
https://www.americanhunter.org/articles/2018/6/1/head-to-head-257-roberts-vs-250-3000-savage/

Regarding performance, I feel that as good as the .250-3000 is, the .257 Roberts offers a stepped-up level of both trajectory and terminal performance. Pushing a 117- or 120-grain bullet to 2700 fps or more makes for a great load for deer and antelope that is really easy on the shoulder and allows for not only accurate shot placement, but a pleasurable shooting experience. The combination of the Savage Model 99 and the .250-3000 is an undeniable classic that has sent a lot of deer to the Great Alfalfa Lot in the Sky, but the rifle is long discontinued. The .257 was designed to run in a bolt gun, and any receiver that was designed for the 7x57mm Mauser will handle the .257 Roberts perfectly.

While there are certainly faster .25s—like the .25-06 Remington and .257 Weatherby Magnum—the .257 Roberts is one of those sweet-shooting, yet effective cartridges that can handle appropriate game species out to sane hunting ranges.

As a bonus it would make the conversion of the MG42 to .257 Roberts extremely easy, as they both effectively use the same case. Something about the US fielding a 6.5mm MG42 copy sounds extremely interesting to me.

 

[marathag]

As a bonus it would make the conversion of the MG42 to .257 Roberts extremely easy, as they both effectively use the same case.

1940s Ordnance Department could still screw that up too.

They were either clowns or slaves to NIH

 

[Deleted member 1487]

1940s Ordnance Department could still screw that up too.

They were either clowns or slaves to NIH

A lot less things to screw up when all you need is a rebarreling. IOTL they had to convert the entire receiver to take a longer, wider, more powerful cartridge.

 

[marathag]

A lot less things to screw up when all you need is a rebarreling. IOTL they had to convert the entire receiver to take a longer, wider, more powerful cartridge.

But not rocket science.

US had the Colt Potato Digger in 30-40, 6mm Navy, and 30-03 and then 30-06, and foreign sales in 6.5mm Greek, 7mm Mexican, 7.62mm Russian, 7.65mm Mauser, .303 British and 7.92mm Mauser, all done before WWI

The Japanese were anble to take the basic 30 caliber Browning all the way up to 30mm

No, Ordnance wasn't trying, or clueless.
I vote equal parts, given how they also screwed up the .60 cal program and 20mm

 

[Deleted member 1487]

But not rocket science.

US had the Colt Potato Digger in 30-40, 6mm Navy, and 30-03 and then 30-06, and foreign sales in 6.5mm Greek, 7mm Mexican, 7.62mm Russian, 7.65mm Mauser, .303 British and 7.92mm Mauser, all done before WWI

The Japanese were anble to take the basic 30 caliber Browning all the way up to 30mm

No, Ordnance wasn't trying, or clueless.
I vote equal parts, given how they also screwed up the .60 cal program and 20mm

Could be. Still a post-war M60 in 6.5mm Roberts/Mauser would still be highly interesting.

 

[EverKing]

Sorry to bring it back to an older comment, I've been away the past few days.

I do wonder how you overcome the "legacy" issue of the large stocks of .30-'06.

Let's not forget Fire Support with the M1919 Browning .30 cal. They can burn through plenty of stock with those.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Running the Johnson

I suspect that it would be run in a similiar fashion to the British Bren gun

That is a gun team of 2 or 3 men (Gunner, Assitant and JNCO gun team leader) with about 10 plus magazines between them and then 2 to 3 mags each carried by the remaining riflemen in the squad with a bandiolier of 60 rounds each in M1 stripper clips - enough to reload the empties.

The Johnson Mags were 20 rounds each so its likely that more could be carried - possibly a 3rd more?

The Gun team leaders role would be to 'hoover up' the spares and swap them for empties from the rest of the squad as the ready use magazines are used up

Bren gun teams had about 24 x 30 (28 in practice from what I understand) round magazines scattered among the gun team and rifle team (depending on the strength of the given Section) plus roughly enough ammo to refill them all once.

How did that differ from the BAR - was that simply the BAR gunner and Assistant carryign all the ammo?

I have seen TOEs for US rifle squads that has the BAR assistant with an M1903 Springfield - probably due to the lighter weight over an M1 Garand and the shared use of M1 Stripper clips for the BAR - but I have never seen that confirmed. I also suspect that in practice this setup did not occour.

 

[phx1138]

Sorry to bring it back to an older comment, I've been away the past few days.

Let's not forget Fire Support with the M1919 Browning .30 cal. They can burn through plenty of stock with those.

I agree with that, but I can't help recall MacArthur's excuse for not allowing the .276 M1. It's that I don't see being overcome (absent somebody else as CoS TTL).

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I agree with that, but I can't help recall MacArthur's excuse for not allowing the .276 M1. It's that I don't see being overcome (absent somebody else as CoS TTL).

Wasn't their another issue with the Pederson round in that it needed lacquering to work properly - or was that just for the Pedersen rifle?

 

[longsword14]

Wasn't their another issue with the Pederson round in that it needed lacquering to work properly - or was that just for the Pedersen rifle?

Just the rifle. Need lubrication for toggle delayed blowback. Engineers at Mauser ( later at HK ) got around it by fluting the chamber.

 

[phx1138]

Wasn't their another issue with the Pederson round in that it needed lacquering to work properly - or was that just for the Pedersen rifle?

For the Pederson round, IIRC, that's true. IIRC, the Garand design used a different (non-lubed) round. TTL, the lube issue doesn't arise--but the lube wasn't (AFAIK) raised as the key problem.

 

[marathag]

Sorry to bring it back to an older comment, I've been away the past few days.

Let's not forget Fire Support with the M1919 Browning .30 cal. They can burn through plenty of stock with those.

One of the reasons the original AC-47s had 10 Brownings, was one way to burn up the surplus 30-06 and not touch the 308 NATO stocks at all

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Running the Johnson

I suspect that it would be run in a similiar fashion to the British Bren gun

That is a gun team of 2 or 3 men (Gunner, Assitant and JNCO gun team leader) with about 10 plus magazines between them and then 2 to 3 mags each carried by the remaining riflemen in the squad with a bandiolier of 60 rounds each in M1 stripper clips - enough to reload the empties.

The Johnson Mags were 20 rounds each so its likely that more could be carried - possibly a 3rd more?

The Gun team leaders role would be to 'hoover up' the spares and swap them for empties from the rest of the squad as the ready use magazines are used up

Bren gun teams had about 24 x 30 (28 in practice from what I understand) round magazines scattered among the gun team and rifle team (depending on the strength of the given Section) plus roughly enough ammo to refill them all once.

How did that differ from the BAR - was that simply the BAR gunner and Assistant carryign all the ammo?

I have seen TOEs for US rifle squads that has the BAR assistant with an M1903 Springfield - probably due to the lighter weight over an M1 Garand and the shared use of M1 Stripper clips for the BAR - but I have never seen that confirmed. I also suspect that in practice this setup did not occour.

If not in .30-06 they could probably have fit more or even dropped the single stack concept and go double stack to fit a full 30 rounds. BARs were down to 1 man teams by the end of the war with the rest of the squad carrying more magazines. I'd expect the Johnson would probably stay 2 man due to the extra barrels.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Any idea if we'd see a .250 Savage or .257 Robert M60 or would it be more like a belt feed modification to the Johnson?

 

[EverKing]

Any idea if we'd see a .250 Savage or .257 Robert M60 or would it be more like a belt feed modification to the Johnson?

I think the .257 Robert (which is based on a necked down 7mm Mauser) would still be consigned to Civilian use and not adopted for Military use if we have a militarized .250 Savage (.25 Caliber Rifle, later possibly adopted as 6.35 x 49mm NATO). Regardless, I would think an M60 using the .25 US cartridge would be very likely. It think competition with the FN MAG would still happen, with the "home-cooked" MG-42 derived T161E3 still winning the competition as M60 just because of the preference to use native designs. Even if the Johnson were adopted for use in WWII (replacing the BAR) I think the M60 would still be developed and operate more-or-less as OTL as its development cycle when through early stages where it very closely resembled the Johnson or FG-42 before slowly evolving into something more akin to the MG-42.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

I think the .257 Robert (which is based on a necked down 7mm Mauser) would still be consigned to Civilian use and not adopted for Military use if we have a militarized .250 Savage (.25 Caliber Rifle, later possibly adopted as 6.35 x 49mm NATO). Regardless, I would think an M60 using the .25 US cartridge would be very likely. It think competition with the FN MAG would still happen, with the "home-cooked" MG-42 derived T161E3 still winning the competition as M60 just because of the preference to use native designs. Even if the Johnson were adopted for use in WWII (replacing the BAR) I think the M60 would still be developed and operate more-or-less as OTL as its development cycle when through early stages where it very closely resembled the Johnson or FG-42 before slowly evolving into something more akin to the MG-42.

Do you think they would '7.62 NATO' the 6.35mm cartridge? By that I mean up the pressure and powder power and potentially shorten the round to reduce weight. That way they could say up the weight to the round to 115-125 grains and still push it to 850m/s or beyond.
The reason though I'm not so sure that the M60 would be in 6.35mm is that the military identified the need for a larger caliber round that could utilize AP and a variety of other special bullet loads that would have better performance in a larger, heavier bullet especially at longer ranges. Even a longer heavier 6.35mm AP bullet won't be able to achieve the penetration a 7.62mm M2 AP round could. The M60 was conceived as primarily a medium machine gun though with some GPMG abilities, which the 6.35mm round would potentially struggle with. IOTL the US army only considered the 6x45mm SAW as only a SAW/light MG round, not for a GPMG round; ITTL we are discussion the 7.62 round wouldn't be going away, it would just be kept as a MMG/HMG round. So I'm wondering if they'd just upgrade the Johnson in 6.35mm with a belt feed mechanism and some lightening in general and have an early SAW rather than go with an 6.35mm M60.

 

[marathag]

Do you think they would '7.62 NATO' the 6.35mm cartridge?

I think in a TL with as 250 Savage based round adopted, 7.62 NATO would be the new hat the 30-06 wears for Machine Gun and Sniper rifle use.