How The M1 Garand Changed World War 2

By Author: Chauncey Meyer
Total Articles: 38
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The Garand was the brainchild of John Garand, who developed it while trying working away at an assignment to develop a gas-powered semi-automatic rifle in Springfield Armory. The Garand became was finished in several years, and replaced the bolt-action rifles the Army was using prior. By 1936, contracts was secured to the major Branches, plus the weapon what food was in production.

The Garand was evolutionary, and not quite revolutionary. It had not been a technology invented that made headlines, and yes it certainly didn't have any as drastic effect for the reason that airplane, the tank, and the nuclear bomb. However, the Garand took existing improvements to rifles in the era, and improved them. Firstly, it had become gas-powered, making it possible for recoil to be more controlled, and also the gas released to power the mechanism that loaded another round on the breech. This same mechanic also made the rifle semi-automatic, which means that a soldier did not have to hand-load ammunition (as they quite simply did in the last century), and didn't have to chance ...
... a bolt on the receiver (because they did while in the first world war).

Overall, these improvements made the American Rifleman quicker, and often better. With all the inclusion of magazine fed ammunition (rather than the 5-round clip originally made for the weapon), American Infantry could bring even more amount of fire towards enemy before the need to reload the Springfield. This is in direct opposition on the Type 99 Rifle as used by the Japanese, which had a 5 round clip, but was operated manually by bolt action. The Germans had the Gewehr 1941, however, it proved unreliable, and the majority German Infantry were equipped with bolt-action Karabineers. The Ussr had the Tokarev, which were a shock towards the Germans (as they was more established problem for Soviet Infantry), as well as British had the Lee Enfield that was bolt-action. Therefore, of all the Allies, merely the the Soviets were built with a comparable infantry rifle. Of your Axis, precisely the Germans a semi-automatic rifle, nonetheless it suffered with bad design, and older 6000 produced, 1200 were returned as 'un-serviceable'.

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