My Surprising Thoughts About The Rifles We Used In WWII

My Pre-War M1 Garand

When we think about WWII, we think about that great battle rifle-the M1 Garand.  Sure, thats the rifle that you see on Saving Private Ryan and every other great movie about the war.  Sometimes (especially if you are like me ) you also think about the M1 Carbine.  Certainly, when the United States adopted the Garand back in 1936 we intended that this is the rifle we would go to war with, the only trouble is that when Pearl Harbor was bombed, we didn't have enough of them to equip our armed forces.  So, what do you do? Ask the Japanese to please take it back and sneak-attack us again in a few years?

My Springfield 1903, refitted and rebarreled  for WWII

Let us digress, back before WWI we adopted the 1903 Springfield Rifle as the rifle we intended to fight the next war with.  We manufactured enough to outfit our army based on our previous experiences in war.  When WWI rolled around we discovered that we needed a much larger army than we had ever had before.  Even working our 1903 assembly lines around the clock, we could never make enough, soon enough, to equip our army.  Thus was born the Model of 1917 Rifle. (I hope to discuss this in depth in a future post)  So we ended up fighting a war with a rifle that we hadn't even considered when we declared war.

My Model of 1917 Remington, refitted for WWII.

So, Here we are, our fleet is in tatters, we have a tiny army, navy, and air force, and we have almost nothing with which we can use to attack our enemies.  We increase our production of M1 Garands, and even get another company to produce them, We rush the M1 Carbine into production (Which is much easier and cheaper to make than a Garand).  Still, we don't have, and won't have, enough rifles for a long time.  Well, what we did was drag our old M-1903 Springfield and Model of 1917 rifles out of storage and start issuing them to troops.  Then, since we still have all of the machinery to make 1903's, we give the stuff to Remington Arms and a typewriter company (Smith Corona), and start to making more outdated 1903 rifles.

My 1903A3 Remington

Okay, so if you look at the total rifle production figures for the Garand and Carbine for WWII, you see a combined total of over 9 million.  That's a lot of rifles!  Then you remember we had around 14 million men in the Armed forces and figuring that there were lots of sailors and air crewmen who had no need of a rifle you think, "Wow!, 9 million was plenty!"  Then you stop reading this post and go watch Band of Brothers for the 10th time and say   "Gee, look at all them Garands"  Well, it was a long time before we had all those Garands and Carbines, and I have tried to discuss this with people, but I have never had any cold hard facts...Until now.

I compiled this chart (as best I could) from information I read in several books written by Larry Ruth, Scott Duff, and Bruce Canfield (Lets give credit where credit is due)

Rifles Available for Use by US Armed Forces

Date             1903 (All models)     M-1917          M1 Garand          M1 Carbine           Grand Total

Dec 1941     1,905,964                 298,816          401,271              0                            2,606,051

% of Total         73.13%                  11.46%            15.39%               -

Dec 1942      2,244,212                 298,816        1,165,411             111,209                3,819,648

%  of Total        58.75%                   7.82%              30.51%               2.91%

Dec 1943       3,112,830                298,816         2,412,357           3,004,296               8,828,299

% of Total          35%                        3.38%              27.32%               34.03%

April 1944      3,190,294                298,816         2,826,794            4,281,894             10,298,982

% of Total           30.97%                  2.9%                 27.44%               41%

Dec 1944        3,190,294                298,816         3,483,825            5,017,430             11,990,365

% of Total           26.6%                     2.49%              29.05%                41%

This chart is very telling, as our first month of the war ended, 84% of our rifles, that's  more than 8 out of 10, were rifles that we never intended to use in WWII!!!

On the eve of D-Day (April 1944 figures) less than 3 out of every 10 rifles (read that carbine too) was a Garand.  Or, to put it another way, we still had more 1903's than Garands!  It is not until just before the battle of the bulge that we finally have more Garands than 1903's.

And what about carbines???  This was never intended to be used as a rifle, rather it was a replacement for the pistol for rear area troops to combat Hitler's Bliztkreig tactics, but if we hadn't used it as our go-to gun, what would we have done?

My Late-War Inland M1 Carbine

I am not trying to re-write history and convince you that Pvt. Ryan was really carrying a 1903, I am just saying that it took a lot more than just the Garand to win the war.