Garand vs Enfield vs Kar 98

[Boroda]

Originally posted by Batz
[BBorroda from what I have read the SVT rifles weren't liked at all. I wasn't aware the Naval Infantry preferred it. Do you know if any Naval Infantry units were involved in liberating the Baltic Islands? If so could you list them? [/B]

Naval Infantry were educated personell, usually aqainted with Navy hardware, being more complicated then plowshares and Ford-son tracktors. Even now Marines and Navy have more complicted weapons then most of the NATO units

AFAIK Naval Infantry (Morskaya Pehota, or Marines) "liberated" Baltic islands like R... Ra... Damn I can't remember that Danish Island that in fact was a Slavic fortress maybe 1000 years ago....

[Pei]

Originally posted by Batz
So? All the British attacks Vichy did was kill good men (1000 killed on 1 ship).  

It destroyed good ships that could have been used by the Axis powers to threaten British forces in the Med. Not nice but necessary. If  Hitler had asked for those ships what would the Vichy regime do with half of the country occupied by the Germans? Whatever Vichy France's nominal independance it was effectively a puppet regime for the Third Reich.

Now if the French regime in North Africa had seen sense and let the allies land (and join their fleet with the allies) then life would have been much less painful in the Med, but they were under orders not to, most of them had family at home in France (i.e. within reach of the Vichy Police and the Gestapo) and the Royal Navy didn't have time to be polite.

[Boroda]

Bornholm.

If I spell it correctly - Bornholm island was "liberated" by Soviet Naval Infantry.

Naval Infantry are people without nerves and self-security. They are simply crazy. Worse then airborne troops.

[cpxxx]

I'm not quite sure how this thread degenerated into another French bashing exercise. Apart from Operation Torch as far as I know America never fought a war against the French.

But to get back to the gun issue. The reasons I believe are as somebody said the Germans and British stuck with the bolt action rifle was simply because that is what they had to hand. Semi automatics were regarded with suspicion and I tend to think the US got lucky that the Garand was so good. Semi automatics jam a lot more than a bolt action rifles. They are more complex to make and were relatively heavy.  Every automatic and semi I ever fired jammed at some point. The Lee Enfield never did once.

In fact though the day of the military long rifle were just about gone at the start of WW2and definitely on the way out at the end. The warring powers just didn't know it yet. The assault rifle appeared and submachine gun and machine gun played a much greater role. Accuracy and range were not longer as important. Artillery, mortar fire and machine guns covered that distance. The Garand was the middle ground, it produced heavy firepower from a section. Accuracy it not really relevant in that situation just weight of fire.  

I seem remember that the Lee we used was sighted out to 1400 yards. When I saw that a man was covered by the foresight at 300 yards. I wondered just how you could hit anyone 1400 yards out with ironsights. It is fast firing though for a bolt action. We were well trained and could saturate at target but I doubt if we could come close to a semi of any sort. As a member of the part time reserve in Ireland in the eighties we were trained on it as our standard rifle. It actually lasted like that to the nineties although to be fair my unit actually used the FN FAL most of the time and has sinced move to the Steyr AUG.  The Lee Enfield is a classic weapon and I'm glad I'm one of the last few to be trained on it as a green recruit. A tradition going back nearly a century. When the army began to get rid of them some fool in the media worried that they might fall into the hands of third world fighters. which is hilarious with all the AK47's and the like in circulation. In practice most of them (some practically brand new) seem to have fallen into the hands of honest US gun owners and are well appreciated. I found them very accurate and these were well used military tools.

As for the Garand I seem to remember seeing one or two in the hands of Haitian rebels on TV a week or two ago. So it is still going strong.

[Boroda]

Originally posted by cpxxx
I seem remember that the Lee we used was sighted out to 1400 yards. When I saw that a man was covered by the foresight at 300 yards. I wondered just how you could hit anyone 1400 yards out with ironsights.

Original Russian Empire's infantry Mosin's rifle adopted in 1891 had a sight measured up to 2000 "sazhen'", or almost 3000m! Later a Dragoon version adopted in 1930 with some minor changes had a sight measured up to 2000m...

Kalashnikov's Automat is a weapon that is as durable as a three-line rifle. Noone cares about accuracy above 300m, but the sight was measured up to 800m.

SVD sniper rifle, one for an "otdeleniye" (8-10 soldiers) in Soviet/Russian Army has an optical sight measured up to 1350m. Hehe, Russian Army has one sniper per 8-10 soldiers!

[Gunslinger]

Guns
The was that the battle where the French had pulled back and told the Marines to pull back as well and they refused, and then the germans started coming and the Marines started shooting at 700 and 800 yards and the french told them "you can not hit at those ranges"
The Marines broke the attack before 500 yards?

You are correct.  The first day...in fact...the first time the Marines were allowd to fight they were picking off german targets at great distances with ease.  The Germans couldnt even see there opponents.  It did alot to weaken their moral.  These marines werent snipers they were regular trained marksmen.

My whole point about my previous post was not that the garand was not accurate...its an awsome weapon.  The point I was trying to get at was that at the time (WWII) alot of commanders wanted their infantry to plan their shots.  An infantryman given a semi auto rifle is awfully tempted to just start shooting away with the fit hits the shan.  All the weapons mentioned in this post are fine weapons IF the tactics are sound.  Bolt actions dont work well at close range.


PS at the battle of belleau woods during WWI the germans told the Marines they faught like "teuflehunden" (not sure of spelling actually).  To this day Marines still call them selves "devil dogs"


Just a little history

[Boroda]

Originally posted by GScholz
Nevertheless this was the finest infantry weapon of WWII:

No doubt it was. But fortunately it didn't help.

Sorry, but how many of that StG-s were produced? Nazis were unable to make a semi-auto rifle like Garand or SVT, but have made an SG-44 automat, that later was copied by Americans as M-16...

/*don't you understand it's a troll? */

[lazs2]

the johnsons weren't liked because of the thin barrel that would actually bend fairly easily...  It was a pretty decent rifle tho.  I believe the marines used em and the bayonet mounting was kinda odd.

the .303 and the russian round were rimmed..  I have a perfect SMLE and nice naggant and neither are even close to the clean bore Garrand I have..  Garrands are very accurate and dependable and fire a full power load.  

I have jammed a SMLE but the bolt is very fast but..

You can't beat the Garrand for comfort, accuracy and ruggedness...  I believe also that we got very lucky on the design of this gun and it was a real marvel for the time.

Garrands still win matches...  It was kind of a sad day at camp perry when marines started to notice that the Garrand was actually outsxhooting their beloved 1903.

Mostly tho... the Garrand is just plain fun to shoot.   shooting the others from a bench with the stock steel butplates will give you a sore shoulder in not many rounds...  

Shooting 15 rounds is not a "mad minute" with the Garrand... shooting accurate at twice that many is childs play with a little practice.   As others have said here... we got lucky.

The M1 Carbine was a pretty lucky semi auto too... it was perhaps the first "assault" weapon even tho it was intended as a replacement for a pistol or an intermediate between pistol and Rifle....   It came in M2 version which was full auto capable with standard 15 round bottom fed magazine.

In my opinion... the firearms that the U.S. had in WWII that outclassed other weapons they oppossed were...

50 cal Browning

BAR

Garrand

M1 carbine

Thompson sub machine gun

Colt 1911 45 acp pistol.

lazs

[lazs2]

Oh... and a favorite of mine... the model 97 Winchester 12 guage pump gun.

lazs

[Dune]

Lazs,

I agree with your list except I would take the Bren over the BAR.  Having owned both of them, I think the Bren was a better gun.  In fact the UK was still using them during the Falklands.

And I would add the MG 42 to your list.  It was a better medium MG than the 1919.

[MrCoffee]

I've had the opportunity to shoot the garand and its a very accurate rifle. If I ever start collecting rifles someday, it or an M1a1 will be part of my collection. Im not really into the assault rifle stuff but wouldnt mind having an custom ar-15 heavy barrel etc...

[Fishu]

btw. M1903 is based on the Kar98K and US actually paid royalties to a german company until the WWI broke out

[lasersailor184]

Umm, the STG was not the greatest gun of WW2.  Not even close.


While it was the first Assault Rifle, it by no means was the greatest assault rifle ever.


Heck, even the M1 carbine was better then it.

[polka]

I've actually won a 100 yard open sight competition with a Lee Enfield #1 mkIII.

Given a 1 shot situation with equal shooter talent, I think the three rifles would be about even. But after the first shot I would favor the Garand, especially in the prone position.

As for recoil, I used to shoot a Lee Enfield #5 jungle carbine. It was much shorter and lighter than the other models. It was quite possibly the worst recoil I have encountered. I let a friend shoot it and he still has not forgiven me.

[lasersailor184]

You obviously have never fired a M38 Nagant...