![]() Even with this, however, some may raise objections to calling the little rifle a true “assault rifle” citing its especially poor ballistics. Starting before D-Day, the development of a select-fire variant of the Carbine brought the program full-circle, and the M2 Carbine with full “rock-n-roll” capability was accepted for service on September 14, 1944. Kent is (probably erroneously) listed in the period description of the photo as the inventor of the M2’s fully automatic mechanism. Fred Kent assists Betty Brewer in firing an M2 Carbine equipped with a paratrooper folding stock. Although it did not enter service with the select-fire hallmark of the German Sturmgewehr, it was produced in far, far greater numbers (more than 16 times the number M1/M2 series of Carbines were produced than that of the German Sturmgewehr series, despite production occurring over a similar period of time). The emphasis on the rifle’s tremendous production history should not be missed: It is a necessary – though often-ignored – characteristic of the assault rifle that it must be cheap and easy to produce, or else it can only be a specialist weapon and not a standard-issue replacement for the conventional rifle. The production of the new Carbine during World War II is one of the era’s great industrial success stories, with 9 firms and numerous subcontractors producing 6,221,220 of the weapons between the start of production and the end of the war. The Light Rifle program had taken a mere 16 months from appropriation of funds to the selection of a design for production, and as a result the M1 Carbine’s production began in earnest in August of 1942. Roemer and Fred Humeston, based on David Marshall Williams’ work – and its selection in October 1st of 1941 proved the merit of Ordnance’s logic. This was a sound decision that allowed the swift selection of the winning Light Rifle – Winchester’s entry by William C. In the summer of 1941, due to the protests of the inventors and the results of firing tests showing a limited utility, the fully automatic requirement for the Light Rifle was eliminated, and with it the 50-round magazine requirement, to expedite development time. Magazines with capacities of 5, 10, 20, and 50 rounds should be supplied. The rifle must be designed with a box magazine which may be fed from clips or chargers. Selector change shall be made only with a special tool.Įqually relevant, the solicitation also included a requirement for high-capacity magazines:ĭ. The rifle is to be of the self-loading type, capable of being fired either semiautomatically that is, one shot for each pull of the trigger, or it shall be possible by the operation of the selector to fire the weapon automatically. Most relevant to our topic, the initial specifications for the Light Rifle dictated a weapon capable of select-fire, that could fire semi-automatically as a rifle would, or fully-automatically, like a submachine gun. The cooks, mechanics, drivers, secretaries, pilots, paratroopers, etc of the US Army could all use a weapon much lighter and handier than the standard M1, which, fully loaded, weighed about ten pounds. In the years preceding, requests had been generated within the US Army for a supplemental weapon to the new M1 Garand, which would provide a lighter weight, more convenient combat tool to soldiers in the ever-growing logistical tail of the force. Image source: ĭevelopment of the M1 Carbine, at the time called the “Light Rifle” (not to be confused with the later Lightweight Rifle program covered in another ongoing series of mine) began in earnest in the fall of 1940. ![]() He has chosen the minimum of camouflage in the hot climate. A US infantryman, possibly a Paramarine, fools around in the Pacific Theater with an M1A1 Carbine paratrooper variant.
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