More were produced than the M1 garand, and were issued in large numbers to support troops, NCOs, airborne, and officers. There are stories from WW2 and the Korean war about its bullet being relatively ineffective in causing serious wounds (although with greater power than a 9mm round). Its performance in action is not so commonly depicted. Care to share?
I had an Uncle that landed on Okinawa with 1/22 6TH MARDIV. He landed carrying an M1 carbine, as befitted a Wireman . He traded that carbine for an M1 Garand at some point. In his words the carbine didn't pack enough "wallop" to knock "them N**'s down." He also opined that the Japanese were "hopped up on sake and drugs most probably." But take that for what it's worth, he also said they had been told that in training. So in his opinion the carbine wasn't that effective.
The M1 Carbine is better than a pistol for self-defense but it seriously lacks rifle-like knock down power. The cartridge it fires is really weak.
I've read an account (of a 82nd airborne trooper) who fired five rounds into an enemy soldier yet he continued to fight back. What exactly is this "knock-down" power that's often mentioned? I'd assume that getting shot once, even with a 9mm, would painfully drop someone to the floor.
Adrenaline is a wonderful drug. So is amphetamine and the Germans were not beneath using that. In Black Hawk Down SFOD-D Sgt. Howe noted that his CAR-15 with the 11.5-in. barrel could not reliably knock Somalis down. Sometimes after four or five hits on a militia man the enemy still limped away to die somewhere else. This is by no means an unusual phenomenon as shooters had observed like incidences all over the world with all kinds of weapon calibers. A more scientific definition for knock-down power I suppose is how big the hole the bullet could punch. In medicine they tell you that a man cannot be stopped until his brain ceased to send neural signals to his muscles. This require the destruction of the central nervous system, the spinal cord, or massive blood loss to induce shock. High velocity rifle rounds are good stoppers compared to pistol and submachine gun cartridge probably because those bullets really could penetrate barriers, did not deflect easily, and could shatter bones the fragments of which can cause further damage. If a bullet was too consistent such as the small 30 cal. could zap through a guy and the wound would slowly bled him to death without neutralizing his capacity to fight. M1 Carbine though was a pretty popular weapon with some raider units, the Alamo scouts that liberated the surviver of Bataan fielded in three men fireteams armed with a M1 Carbine, M1 Thompson and BAR each.
This is an odd question, but how many hits would it take to knock down the average opponent in ww2 with 8mm range rifle rounds/ carbine ammo/STG44 munition/45 ACP/ 9mm ?
There isn't a rule of thumb for it. A good shot would take a man down. Three bad shots to the extremities might do nothing at all. Some man through incredible force of will continued fighting after mortal wounding to their last breath. Read All Quiet on the Western Front. The obvious literary virtues of the book aside, Remarque was a stretcher bearer from the Great War.
My dad had one during his military service in the Dutch army as late as 1966. He thought it was a fine gun.
There is a very good ( and very complimentary ) account of the use of an M1 carbine in Captain C Shore's book, 'With British Snipers To The Reich'. I have also come across various accounts of the M1 being used to good effect in the house-fighting near the Arnhem bridge. No-one is ever going to dispute that the M1 carbine lacked 'hitting power'. But, from all accounts, it seems that in skilled hands it was extremely effective at ranges below 100 yards being helped considerably by its superior ergonomics and low recoil.
Stoping power for us was regarded as the ability to stop a targets forward momentum and put them down. History is repleate with examples of heavy rifles blasting holes in people only to see them continue coming. The bodies natural drugs like endorphines and adrenaline enable the victim to temporarily ignore the effects of major trauma (In some cases anyway). Meanwhile the parasympathetic nervous system attemtps to correct the problem by altering the victims metabolism (Vital's-Pulse, respirations, vascular contraction-dialation and so on)...for a period of time...then they crash hard! I've read that in the conquest of North America, Native American warriors would sometimes take a drug (paotee-sp) that would enable them to ignore pain. The magnum pistol was developed to counter this...it would hit with enough force to not just punch a hole in the victim but to actualy take them off their feet. Once their forward momentum is checked and they are now on their back they seldom get back up. Not sure just how accurate this account is but you can see from the example the difference between penatrative abilities and stoping power. A heavy round that doesn't go through the body transfers the kinetic energy to the body in the form of an increased hydrostatic shock. In this model you see the benefit from a heavy round coupled with a reletively low velocity. It literaly pushes the body to the ground. In the case of todays hyper velocity rounds as used by the M16 or AK-74 we see a different kind of damage. Because of the comparitively lite weight of the projectile you get a flight tragectory that is easily thrown off. This is why the AK-47 was a superior weapon in the jungle as it's bullets would not be thrown off their flight path as easily by hitting branches and such. However once the round hit's the body the story is different. When a bullet from a Enfield or M1 hits a body it makes (in most cases) the wound follows a linear path through the body. Anything in it's way is removed...say a bone is hit, the round will simply remove the portion of bone that blocked it's path. Now a hyper velocity round will behave differently, it tumbles on impact shredding everything it comes into contact with...even a slight nic to a vital organ has the ability to turn septic...add into this the increased likelyhood of gross internal bleeding as multiple organs are hit and you see the problem compounding. When a hyper velocity round strikes a bone it shatters the bone (explodes may be more accurate) sending fragments into the surrounding tissue...again compounding the problem in terms of treatment and healing. The M1 Carbine has neither of these abilities to a great extent. It poseses neither the penatrative or kinetic qualities to make it an ideal manstoper. It does have the ability to kill some one thats true but does not compare well against it's stable mates in the US arsenal for the time, that being the M1 Garand ot the Thompson SMG. As a lite complementary weapon to a driver, radioman or other it was quite usefull. It's lite weight and ability for it's user to carry larger ammo loadouts would also make it a benefit in say the jungles of Borneo or other area in which long range insertion was key...mind you in those locales most wound become infected fairly quickly so not killing a person outright doen'st mean they won't succumb soon enough so the reletive stoping power of your weapon is somethat negated due to enviornmental conditions.
Any round or weapon which used it has pros and cons attached. I personally have found over the years that bullet placement is as, if not more important than the bullet itself. The other day the Military Channel did a show on the French Foreign Legion, and they said in Vietnam the Foreign Legion loved the little M1 Carbine (in the M2 select fire), and the only problem was they couldn’t get enough of them. They then showed with ballistic clay what the difference in wounds were between the M1 and I think it was a Garand (might have been a different rifle). The FMJ rifle round made a nice hole going in and a bigger one going out. At fifty feet the M1 .30 carbine BLEW the ballistic clay apart from top to bottom, with it laying there as a single flat sheet, and this shocked even the fellow doing the shooting. At longer ranges (even over 50 yards) it is far from effective, but at close range, the M1 .30 carbine will deliver its stored energy to the target with more result than the faster rifle bullet. IMHO, the .30 carbine is very much like a .30 magnum pistol round fired out of an 18 inch barrel. The round is very long for its diameter, and only decent as a weapon of war in short/confined distances. House to house, in the jungles/woods, or other close range combat situations. It is definitely not a "sniper" round, and while it will (in theory) reach out to 300 yards, to call that an "effective range" is more than a bit of a stretch. At any distance over a 100 yards the bullet drops like a stone, it just runs out of momentum and "falls off the table". I took many a white-tail deer with my Inland M1A1 folding stock over the years in the heavy brush cover of the Judith River here in MT, but never even thought about using it on medium sized game over 75 yards, or larger game at lesser ranges. BTW, the M1A1 folding stock was slightly heavier than the more common full wood stock, its advantage was compactness and its canvas leg holster, not lighter weight. Another aspect of the little carbine is this, it was NOT intended to be a front-line rifle, or to replace the Garand. The idea was to supplement the M1 rifle, and provide a more effective weapon than a pistol for rear echelon soldiers in the ETO. It was adapted for the PTO, but that wasn't its original destination, or application in my opinion. Here is a link to a report on the weapon, although I dislike its claim of a 200 meters range, the rest of the article is informative: Modern Firearms - M1 Carbine From another site (I have lost somehow), here is a quote from a retired US soldier; "I served two tours in Vietnam. Each time I arrived I was issued an M-16, which I quickly placed back in the arms room as soon as I could acquire an M1 carbine. No, they didn't have the long range killing power of the AR/M16, but I NEVER, I repeat, NEVER had a malfunction. There isn't a soldier alive that has been in combat that can say that about an AR/M-16, and there lots of dead ones that wish they could. For close in, you can't beat the little carbine." NRA Vietnam Veteran U.S. Army (Ret.) I agree with that fellow, the little carbine is a sweetheart at close range, and there are surely a number of deceased Germans who would (if they could) also agree.
a working carbine is certainly better than a jammed M-16a1! I have heard and read many reports of the lack of stopping power of both of them. In war you usually dont get aimed shots you see flashes of the enemy and shoot at that. How many soldiers say they never saw their enemy in battle even once?
I will say this: The M1 is a comfortable weapon to fire. The recoil is light and it just fits you nicely. I have always found the M 16 clunky and uncomfortable to fire. A good M1 will fire alot of rounds with absolutely no problems. Clearing a jam is easy. Not like the M16 where you have jams, have to keep it clean and, really know the weapon to do that. Given a choice between a pistol an M1 or an M16 I'd take the M1.
I own a couple of M1 carbines, 1 in a repro m1A1 stock and 1 in a regular stock. They are a fantastic gun to take to the range. While I have fired them at the 200yd range with reasonable accuracy, some old timers told me I'd never even hit the target at that range, I have noticed that the holes were not always perfectly round at that range making me think the bullet was becoming unstable at that range. 150 yds on in is definately a more accurate effective range. As others have brought up it was not designed to be a replacement for the Garand but more a replacement for the 1911a1 for rear echelon and support troops. A screwdriver is a handy tool but makes a poor hammer just as the carbine makes a less than perfect MBR.
I also have the privilege of being able to own a carbine. Based on my experiences with firing it and speaking with my grandpa who acquired the rifle in Korea i definitely believe the weapon gets a bad rep. It is important to remember that there would be only a few of these compared to the hi powered garands in a single company. I can say the rifle is very comfortable and after fifty plus years of being in existence very rarely malfunctions. One factor nobody has discussed however is having to carry this rifle EVERYWHERE you would go as a soldier. The 'Pa says that just about every soldier in his company would have preferred the carbine, which could still get the job done and didnt weigh 11 pounds!
