"US Para rifle to carbine ratio" Topic

It seems that US airborne uses more carbines than regular army. What is the ratio of M1 carbines to Garands in a typical squad?

See under "The Rifle Company" here:

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Note the change back to the Garand in December '44:

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Allen

The attraction of the carbine was particularly strong when parachuting in. Many men lost their garands during the D-Day drops. From then on a high priority in many veterans minds was how to DEFINITELY NOT lose their weapon. The carbine was of course very compact and hence quite attractive to the chute user.
OTOH when acting as infantry many of the paras wanted heavier weapons.
To complicate things different units had different preferences.

If you wanted a lot of carbines in a squad then I think the rhine landings are probably your scenario of choice.
Otherwise, VERY loose rule of thumb might be that some officers, some NCO and the occasional private would have the carbine.

Incidentally.
Many people greatly under-rate the carbine imo.
I know an ex special forces guy who ought to know his business and says they're highly effective.
Fairly recently I caught part of some TV doc about the FFL.
Apparently, they favoured the carbine in vietnam.
They demonstrated the effect of a rifle v carbine by shooting blocks of clay at fairly short range. The rifle blew a small hole in it's piece of clay. The carbine blew it's piece of clay apart.
The bullet shape means it imparts more kinetic energy.
So you might think a bigger gun would have more stopping power, but apparently not.

The bloke who sculpted the old Airfix set of figures was resolutely convinced they only issued Carbines and Tommy guns to the US Paras…

That clay is the very reason why the Garand is better is anything other than very close combat. You drill through most things (like small trees) and hit people hiding behind stuff.

The carbine was never intended to be a replacement for a rifle, just a slightly more accurate pistol replacment.

I've talked to a large number of ETO vets and when you talk to rifle platoon guys, not weapons or suppport guys, they vastly preffered the Garand. It was more accurate, longer range, and more penetating power.

The only real downside to the Garand is the funky slip system, but then an M-14 is in essence an M1 with a box magazine attached.

A lot of folks that were not in WW2 tend to like the carbine as it is lightweight, and has a better magazine system, but the Garand is just a superior battle rifle.

Thanks. I heard something similar when the M16 was compared to the AK, though they're both AR's. The M16 bullet would go straight through a man (punching a small hole) then exiting while the AK round would be lodged in the flesh.

Not to stray off topic too much but the the 5.56 round generally does not go through a body. After impact it tumbles and breaks apart producing horrendous internal damage. If anything, your more likely to see the tip of the bullet after it breaks apart exit the body (with an equally horrendous exit wound) than the whole bullet, depending on circumstances of course.

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The first illustration is the older M193 round used circa Vietnam while the second illustration is the newer M855 bullet.

In the ETO, as a general rule (in Parachute forces there are always exceptions!), anyone in the combat portions of a rifle company carried a M-1 Rifle. Some folks (I know two) chose to carry a Remington 1903 A-3 in Normandy – another one had a true Sprinfield 1903. Carbines/SMGs were generally for officers (not NCOs), men in the combat arms that had to carry other equipment (e.g., HQ radioman), or personnel in support (non-combat) elements of the division.

As an aside, if you had to carry other stuff, if a Garand seems heavy, a Thompson is DAMN heavy. A Grease Gun or Carbine is significantly lighter, but is not good at distance. If you aren't going to engage at any but close range, make the trade – if not, don't.

That said, except for very early on, enlisted personnel were not issued a sidearm – but they were authorized to carry one! So they got one – from home, by trade, by purchase, by hook/crook, whatever – they got it. So "issued" is not the end all some might think. Something does not have to be issued to be authorized – and as the "Dragoon" forces show, it doesn't have to be authorized to be carried! They had more German and italian explosives and AT stuff than US!

mark

Hi

Some years ago, I was given the task of looking into an SF game based on Jerry Pournelle's "Falkenburg" series of novels. This was based on being friends with Jerry AND a wargamer.

The falkenburg standard weapon was essentially the FAL/FN in 308. While we were chatting about weapons, he told me the story of the disappearing carbine. The short version was that he was an artillery officer in Korea and had a security company. The security was issued the carbine. He HATED the carbine, and kept having one of his more trustworthy sergents drive the truck over to a ditch, drop them off and inventing the paper work showing they disappered in transit.

And then VERBALLY asked for Garands.

This happened several times until he got his garands. Which HE felt gave him the edge to not be overrun.

I offered that there may have been a downside, as carbines often showed up later in south vietnam!

My dad was SF, and hated the carbine, being neither "fish nor fowl". He liked the Grease up close and the garand for long(his brother a para argued a lot with him about this, he hated the carbine, and thought the garand gave a squad some of the characteristics of a lmg). Anyway, his thinking was logistical. With the carbine, you had to have access to the ammo. With the grease gun, you could get .45 from pistol supplies as well. And the grease gun was super reliable in the mud!

R

Actually, my dad was an infantry oficer in Normandy, and he hated the carbine, which is why I dislike it as well. He, and everyone else at the front carried a garand. He tried to get an 03A4 but was never able to get ahold of one as the few that turned up were held onto.

And that is pretty much what I have heard from every single actual infantryman in WW2.

Now this is only MHO, but having fired a garand and a carbine, and having talked to a very large numbern of veterans, anyone that prefers the carbine for real combat useage (not as a sidearm or in a very confined area) has always turned out to be a poser. Truck driver, mortarman, etc.

Nothing wrong with it, unless your primary job is to shoot a rifle at the enemy. And then, as has often been told me, it is a pea-shooter.

Mom's dad was a ratello in the ETO, was issued a carbine. "Lost" his as soon as he could get his hands on a thompson.

Following on from this thread, I went and asked my father-in-law what he carried around in Korea during his time there during the war.

He told me that his immediate superior – a WW2 vet – got all of the clerks etc in their outfit to ditch their carbines prior to departure, as "they were no damn good" and to beg, borrow or steal Garands instead. He said about half of them managed to scare up a Garand.

Granted, that's not exactly primary source info for WW2, but it does seem to indicate a rifleman's preference for the Garand.

I guess I can see an RTO wanting a thompson, as if he gets in a position to use it spraying lead would give him time to get away. But the things are heavy. Just teh lags filled with .45 are heavy. And the mags had a tendancy to fall out at the worst times.

I'm guessing that the carbine was used by the South Vietnamese because their men tended to be smaller than Americans, and a Garand or M14 would have been quite a load for them -- or so some American in charge of handing out military equipment to Vietnamese might have assumed.

The paratroops used a version of the carbine that had a folding stock. Was that the M1A1? Later there was a version that could fire fully automatic, I believe the M2, but I'm not sure when that was introduced.

From a slightly different perspective…….

I know an ex CSM from the Greenjackets and he has told me that one time in the Province he came under fire from an M1 carbine.

His view was that any difference in stopping power between it and a full power round was completely academic.

Hi

Front, the Garand in average hands…possibly. Grew up with a lot of ops people who could kill you off hand at 400 yard with a garand, and do so shooting through the door. Not something the carbine could attempt.

Gallow, now that you are in america, go to your local gun range, SOMEONE will let you shoot the garand. I expect it will be a "moment".

Rocky

Just to offer another point of view, the most decorated US soldier in WWII, Audie Murphy, in his autobiography To Hell and Back, repeatedly mentions that he carries and uses a carbine, and through the war, when he loses his weapon due to damage, being wounded, etc., his replacement weapon is again a carbine.

Now, Murphy was not a big man, so that may be a factor, but from the conversations he puts down he doesn't appear to be alone in his preference. A soldier arriving at the front with newly issued equipment asks if he can trade his Garand for a carbine. When Murphy is transferred to the rear, another veteran asks to borrow "that lucky carbine". When Murphy is alone on the flank of a foxhole position and joined by another soldier, he borrows magazines, so the other was carrying a carbine as well. Etc.

Now Murphy was in Sicily and Italy and southern France. Much of the rifle combat is at close range, in forests or dug in positions with hard cover. He describes waiting for the enemy to stick their helmet out from behind a tree or out of a foxhole and shooting them in the head. He is constantly worried the enemy will do the same to him and looking for tricks to lesson his own risk, and the narrative style is very matter of fact. I think that if shooting through the cover was a real possibility, he would mention it, and if all it took to do that was to get a different weapon, he would do so.

He does describe incidents of house-clearing where he borrows a Thompson. I believe in one of these he does shoot through a door, although the end result is to scare the enemy on the other side into surrendering … not getting a kill through the door.

From this I conclude that some front-line soldiers did prefer the carbine.