M1 Carbine
military during World War II and the Korean War, and was produced in several variants. and foreign military and paramilitary forces, and has also been a popular civilian firearm.
In selective fire versions capable of fully-automatic fire, the carbine is designated the M2 Carbine.
The M3 Carbine was an M2 with an active infrared scope system.
Development history
A U.S. Marine with the M1 carbine in Guam, 1944.
A Saginaw M1 carbine, made in Grand Rapids, Michigan, used by Marines in the Pacific Theater in World War II.
The United States' M1 Garand rifle was originally developed to chamber a lighter .276 round, but this design feature was canceled in the early 1930s.
The M1 rifle would eventually be chambered for the same powerful .30-06 Springfield standard round used in other service weapons of the time, such as the Springfield M1903, the BAR, and the M1917/M1919 machine guns. This left the Army without the lighter, handier rifle it had wanted; in fact, the new M1 rifle was a pound heavier than the old M1903 Springfield.
For many specialist soldiers serving in the rapidly evolving modern army just prior to World War II, the requirement of a full-size infantry rifle as an individual weapon had proved unworkable.
This included service troops such as truck drivers, supply personnel, radiomen, and linemen, as well as frontline troops who needed a handier weapon such as paratroopers, officers, forward observers, medics, engineers and mortar crews. During prewar and early war field exercises, it was noticed that these troops, when equipped with the M1903 Springfield, often found their individual weapon too heavy and cumbersome.
In response, Major René Studler demanded a carbine prototype as soon as possible. The first model was developed at Winchester in 13 days by William C.
This competed successfully against other carbine candidates in September 1941, and Winchester was notified of their victory the very next month. The supervisor of the carbine project at Winchester, Edwin Pugsley, conceded that Williams' final design was "an advance on the one that was accepted", but noted that Williams' decision to go it alone was a distinct impediment to the project. Further, in a memo in response to a possible lawsuit by Williams, in 1951 Winchester noted his patent for the short-stroke piston had been improperly granted as a previous patent covering the same priniciple of operation was overlooked at the patent office.
Another stimulus to the carbine's rapid development was a concern over Germany's use of glider-borne and paratroop forces to infiltrate and attack strategic points behind the front lines, forcing support units and line-of-communications forces into combat with the enemy. Tankers, drivers, artillery crews, mortar crews, and other personnel were also issued the M1 carbine in lieu of the larger, heavier M1 Garand.
Belatedly, a folding-stock version of the M1 carbine was developed, after a request was made for a compact and light infantry arm for airborne troops. The first M1 carbines were delivered in mid-1942, with initial priority given to troops in the European Theater of Operations.
Combat use
World War II
The M1 carbine and its reduced-power .30 cartridge was never intended to serve as a primary weapon for combat infantrymen, nor was it comparable to more powerful assault rifles developed late in the war.
Some soldiers and Marines, especially those who were unable to use a full-size rifle as their primary weapon, preferred the carbine over the Garand because of the weapon's small size and light weight.
The carbine gained generally high praise from airborne troops in the early stages of the war who were issued the folding-stock M1A1, though negative reports began to surface with airborne operations in Sicily in 1943, and increased during the fall and winter of 1944.
In the Pacific theatre, soldiers and guerrilla forces operating in heavy jungle with only occasional enemy contact generally praised the carbine for its combination of light weight, short overall length, and accuracy at close ranges. The carbine's exclusive use of non-corrosive primered ammunition was found to be a godsend by troops and ordnance personnel serving in the Pacific, where barrel corrosion was a significant issue with .30-06 weapons such as the M1 Garand rifle and the BAR, though not to the same extent in Europe, where some soldiers reported misfires attributed to the weaker noncorrosive primers. Other soldiers and Marines engaged in frequent daily firefights (particularly those serving in the Philippines) found the weapon to have insufficient stopping power and penetration. Reports of the carbine's failure to stop enemy soldiers, sometimes after multiple hits, appeared in individual after-action reports, postwar evaluations, and service histories of both the U.S.
Army, its Pacific Command Ordnance staff, and the Aberdeen small arms facility continued to work on shortened versions of the Garand throughout the war, though none were ever officially adopted.
Some troops also found the .30 Carbine cartridge incapable of penetrating small trees and light cover, though it was markedly superior to .45-caliber weapons such as the Reising and Thompson submachineguns in accuracy and penetration. John George, a small arms expert and intelligence officer serving in Burma with Merrill's Marauders, reported that the .30 carbine bullet would easily penetrate the front and back of steel helmets, as well as the body armor used by Japanese forces of the era.
Initially, the M1 Carbine was intended to have a selective-fire capability, but the decision was made to put the M1 into production without this feature.
Fully-automatic capability was incorporated into the design of the M2 (an improved, selective-fire version of the M1), introduced in 1944. Parts kits T17 and T18 allowed the conversion in the field of semi-auto M1 carbines into selective fire M2 configuration.
The M3 carbine (a selective-fire M2 with the M1 infrared night sight or sniperscope) was first used in combat by Army units during the invasion of Okinawa.
soldiers had a weapon that allowed them to visually detect Japanese infiltrating into American lines at night, even during pitch blackness. A team of two or three soldiers was used to operate the weapon and provide support. At night, the scope would be used to detect Japanese patrols and assault units moving forwards.
At that point, the operator would fire a burst of automatic fire at the greenish images of enemy soldiers. The M3 with the M1 sight had an effective range of about 70 yards (limited by the visual capabilities of the sight). Fog and rain further reduced the weapon's effective range. It is estimated that fully 30% of Japanese casualties inflicted by rifle and carbine fire during the Okinawan campaign were caused by the M3 carbine and its M1 sniperscope.
Korean War
The M2 Carbine continued in use during the Korean War. The M3 with the improved M3 night sight had an effective range of approximately 125 yards.
In Korea, all versions of the carbine soon acquired a poor reputation for jamming in extreme cold weather conditions, eventually traced to inadequate recoil impulse and weak return springs. A 1951 official U.S.