Post by merc on Nov 24, 2019 14:30:01 GMT
ww2 US ARMY and USMC individual weapons
The United States of America was the first country in the world to completely arm its infantrymen with a semi-automatic rifle, which was one of the lighter and probably the most realible among any other semi-automatic rifle used by other countries. The old 1903 model rifle was widely distributed at the beginning of the war to compensate for the scarcity of Garand, then the production of semi-automatic rifles got under way and they were quickly substitutes, although a good amount of selected Springfields were used by the snipers.
The ammunitions adopted were excellent and were distributed abundantly to the soldiers. The decision to keep the old BAR, which was a project of the First World War, could be exceptionable, but the speed of shooting of the Garand rifle made the presence of a real light machine gun more unnecessary, also unlike the other armies, every American infantry company had a platoon of support, well supplied with mortars, that gave it a formidable firepower. The Johnson light machine gun, derived from an automatic rifle adopted by the USMC, wich was also adopted by the Marines, who had a certain autonomy in the supply of armaments. The semi-automatic carbine was in practice a miniature Garand, and fired a cartridge of the same caliber, but much lighter, it was distributed to soldiers of non first-line combatant corps such as artillery or signal corp. The sub machine guns were widely distributed, first the M1 model, derived from the Thompson, heavy and expensive, but very reliable, then came into production the model M3, which used many metal sheet parts, it was ecomic, light and quick to produce, even then the soldiers were very reluctant to replace the old trustwhorty M1, as happened too in Great Britain when the Sten was issued.
The United States of America was the first country in the world to completely arm its infantrymen with a semi-automatic rifle, which was one of the lighter and probably the most realible among any other semi-automatic rifle used by other countries. The old 1903 model rifle was widely distributed at the beginning of the war to compensate for the scarcity of Garand, then the production of semi-automatic rifles got under way and they were quickly substitutes, although a good amount of selected Springfields were used by the snipers.
The ammunitions adopted were excellent and were distributed abundantly to the soldiers. The decision to keep the old BAR, which was a project of the First World War, could be exceptionable, but the speed of shooting of the Garand rifle made the presence of a real light machine gun more unnecessary, also unlike the other armies, every American infantry company had a platoon of support, well supplied with mortars, that gave it a formidable firepower. The Johnson light machine gun, derived from an automatic rifle adopted by the USMC, wich was also adopted by the Marines, who had a certain autonomy in the supply of armaments. The semi-automatic carbine was in practice a miniature Garand, and fired a cartridge of the same caliber, but much lighter, it was distributed to soldiers of non first-line combatant corps such as artillery or signal corp. The sub machine guns were widely distributed, first the M1 model, derived from the Thompson, heavy and expensive, but very reliable, then came into production the model M3, which used many metal sheet parts, it was ecomic, light and quick to produce, even then the soldiers were very reluctant to replace the old trustwhorty M1, as happened too in Great Britain when the Sten was issued.