M1 Americas Battle Rifle
General George S Patton called the M1 Garand, “The greatest battle implement ever devised.” And with good reason: this hard-hitting 30.06 armed the ‘Greatest Generation’, as well as a few that came afterward.
After World War 1, the US Army had literally millions of Springfield, Enfield, and Mosin rifles lying around. While these were all adequate for the Doughboys of the Western Front, the military knew that these bolt-action rifles were all essentially 19th Century technology. Through a series of trials and tests in the 1930s, the Army experimented with various semi-automatics that could deliver a much higher volume of fire. By 1936, a single design by Mr. John C Garand stood at the top of the pile and was adopted as the “US Rifle, Cal. .30, M1”.
Read the rest in my column at Firearms Talk
