8/22/2011

In 1936, the United States was still in the throes of the Great Depression. The woefully misnamed “War to End All Wars” had concluded fewer than 20 years earlier, and its painful memories were still fresh in the minds of many Americans. Isolationist sentiment was prevalent, and there was little enthusiasm for anything military. It would seem a most unlikely time for the U.S. Army to adopt a state-of-the-art semi-automatic service rifle. Nonetheless, 75 years ago that is exactly what happened with the standardization of the “U.S. Rifle Semiautomatic, Caliber .30, M1.” Today, the M1 rifle, often referred to as the “Garand” in deference to its inventor, John C. Garand, is one of the best-known and most iconic military rifles of all time.

Even though the U.S. military had announced a desire to field a semi-automatic service rifle as early as 1900, the technology to develop a satisfactory arm of this type was slow in coming. A great many designs, foreign and domestic, were tested and evaluated during the intervening 30 years, but none were deemed suitable. The M1 rifle did not appear suddenly; it was the culmination of almost 20 years of toil by Garand, Springfield Armory and the U.S. Army Ordnance Dept.

A virtually unknown immigrant from Canada, Garand had begun work on a novel design for a light machine gun in 1918. His efforts came to the attention of the American government, and in 1919 Garand was offered a position at Springfield Armory and tasked with developing a semi-automatic service rifle. Garand’s initial rifle featured a novel primer-actuated mechanism, but this was eventually found to be unsuitable, so he switched to a more conventional gas-operated design.

Springfield also engaged the services of well-known gun designer John Pedersen to work on a semi-automatic rifle in parallel to the development of Garand’s rifle. Pedersen proposed a design that not only differed substantially from Garand’s, but he also touted the virtues of a .276 cartridge to replace the standard .30 Springfield (.30-’06 Sprg.). For a while, it appeared all but certain that the Pedersen and the .276 would be the new U.S. service rifle and cartridge combination. For a variety of reasons, however, including large stocks of .30-cal. ammunition still on hand from World War I, the Garand rifle, chambered for the .30-’06 Sprg. round, was recommended for adoption.

On Jan. 9, 1936, the “U.S. Rifle Semiautomatic Caliber .30 M1” was officially standardized by the U.S. Army. The word “Semiautomatic” was soon dropped from the rifle’s nomenclature and the official designation became “U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1.” As aptly put by Alexander Rose, “For the first time in living memory, the United States was actually ahead of its traditional competitors in rifle development; Britain, France, and Germany all went to war in 1939 with the same rifles they had used in 1914…The Garand couldn’t have come along at a better time.”

With the official adoption of the M1 rifle, the Ordnance Dept. made plans for mass production. The sheer magnitude of the engineering work involved, however, along with the acquisition of the machinery required to manufacture a modern firearm, made for a truly daunting task for Springfield, which had not tooled up to produce a new rifle since 1903. Severe budgetary cuts had resulted in the termination or retirement of many experienced workmen, and much of the production equipment on hand was antiquated. The precarious fiscal conditions in the late 1930s made the task of securing necessary funds very difficult.

Even after the Garand’s adoption, some within Springfield harbored doubts as to whether efficient mass production of the rifle was even possible. This was addressed by Edward C. Ezell in “The Great Rifle Controversy:” “[T]he belief of the industrial personnel at the Armory [was] that the M1 rifle could not be successfully mass-produced. They argued that the breech mechanism was too complicated to be fabricated in large quantities. Had the U.S. Army listened to these Cassandras, the M1 rifle would never have been manufactured. The opinion of the production people at the Armory did not prevail because John Garand knew his rifle could be mass-produced. That had been one of the basic elements of his design exercise. To prove his point he created and fabricated much of the special tooling required to manufacture the M1. Using that production tooling, the Springfield Armory and the Winchester Repeating Arms Company successfully produced more than four million M1s during World War II.”

Colonel James L. Hatcher also made reference to these production critics in a 1939 lecture he presented to students at the Army Industrial College: “Some poorly informed critics of the M1 rifle have pointed out several components as being impossible or very difficult to make. It may be of interest to you to note that the operations on these parts were tooled by Mr. Garand himself, and to the confusion of the critics, in each instance these are the operations being produced at the highest rate and with the least difficulty.”

The first machine-made production M1s were delivered in September 1937 at the initial rate of 10 rifles per day. By March 1, 1938, the daily rate had increased to 20; by July 1939 the rate had gone up to 80; and by Sept. 1, 1939, it was 100 per day. On Jan. 22, 1940, the daily rate of production had reached 200. While these would have been considered ridiculously low just a few years later, at the time they were deemed sufficient to result in arming the small U.S. armed forces with M1 rifles in a reasonable time period. As more M1s became available, a few were shipped to various Army installations for familiarization and limited field use in the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 1937.

Unforeseen production difficulties and the uncertain availability of continued funding resulted in the supply being far short of initial estimates. An interesting exchange of letters between the Cavalry Board and the Ordnance Dept. in early 1937 provides some insight into the military’s plans for production and issuance of the M1. The first letter was from Cavalry Maj. Charles Houghton to Lt. Col. Sidney P. Spalding at the Ordnance Dept.: “First, how many rifles, caliber .30, 1903 and 1917, have we in war reserve and in the hands of troops? Second, what is the present and prospective rate of manufacture of the new M1 semi-automatic rifle? The reason for these two questions is that it appears that some officers here at the Cavalry School are basing their plans and ideas on the probability that a M1 semi-automatic rifle will be in the hands of all Regular Army and National Guard troops within a relatively short time, and that there will be a sufficient war reserve to equip reserve units.”

Colonel Spalding’s reply cited the following estimates and pointedly mentioned the production and funding problems being experienced by Springfield Armory: “The total stock of Caliber .30 Rifles, M1903 is 901,548. Of these 506,514 are in the hands of troops. The total stock of Caliber .30 Rifles, M1917, is 2,174,893 of which only a very small number are in the hands of troops.

“The status of production of the Caliber .30 M1 Rifle (heretofore known as the U.S. Rifle, Semiautomatic, Caliber .30, M1) is as follows: It is estimated that 1,500 rifles will be completed by July 1st. During the fiscal year 1938 it is expected that 6,960 rifles will be manufactured. Of the first 3,370 to be manufactured the Cavalry School is supposed to receive sixty and the First Cavalry Division of Fort Bliss sixty. No funds for the manufacture of this rifle are carried in the estimates of fiscal year 1938. The guns manufactured during that fiscal year are to come from hold-over money.

“We are now struggling with the usual difficulties at Springfield Armory and definite facts are not available as to production possibilities or actual costs. It is difficult to forecast how many rifles will be provided for in future budgets. The gun is yet to have a real test in the hands of troops in large quantity, and until such a test has been made it seems to me we should at least have alternate plans based on material actually on hand.”