Evening star., 1941-03-02

g. In the opinion of military experts,
the johnson seni-automatic, while an
excellent weapon of its type, ranks only
third or fourth among possible substi-
tutes for the Garand.
A Winchester model, recently sub
mitted, was so esteemed that the Ord
nance Division encouraged its further
development. Not enough JohnsonS
have been supplied to make service trials
possible. Army engineering tests show
that the johnson is half pound over
weight, that it is poorly balanced, that
the recoil is unpleasantly heavy, that
abnormally high pressure is required to
force ammunition from clip to magazine,
that the safety-locking device is defec-
tive and that due to the absence of a
wooden handguard, the weapon soon be-
comes too hot to handle. One reason
alone, it is said, would preclude the use
of the johnson as. military arm: Its
construction is unsuited to support the
standard bayonet. principal infantry
weapon in night fighting.
Defects Eliminated.
4. The Garands tested by Capt. Van
Orden contained defects which the Army
itself had discovered and which have
now been eliminated. Two of the latest
models were recently fired for 5000
rounds each at the rapid rate of 80 shots
a minute. There was no distortion of
the barrels" reported Capt. Rothwel H.
Brown, rife expert of the 29th Infantry,
land the guns were exactly as accurate
at the end as they were at the begin
ming"
S. The reload requirements of machine
guns and rifles are different. In a recoil-
operated semi-automatic, the action of
the parts is slowed up because they carry
the bayonet's weight. When Browning,
of machinegun fame, attempted to de-
sign shoulder weapon, he shifted to gas
operation. Experiments have been made
for a quarter-century, but no country
has ever adopted a recoil-operated
shoulder piece. If the German Mon
dragon was discarded it was for other
reasons than gas operation. Despite its
semi-automatic feature, the Garand has
been so simplified that it has only "a
components as against 90 in the Spring.
field and 11o in the johnson.
6. The eight-cartridge clip was delib-
erately adopted in the Garand to in
crease the weapons fire-power. The
War Department does not plan to equip
men in the same ranks with Springfelds
and Garands. There are to be divisions
armed exclusively with Garands.
7. 1t is true that the Garand barrel,
unlike that of the Johnson, cannot recoil,
as it is screwed into the stock But pro-
visions for free vibration make the
Garand more flexible in this respect than
the Springfield. The Garand is COM
pletely adaptable to machine-shop tech
nique.
Types of Cartridges.
s. MI and M-2 cartridges contain pre-
cisely the same amount of identical
powder. The only difference is that a
metal cone added to the projectile's base
in the MI gives it a streamline effect
and increases its weight by % grains.
For these reasons it shoots farther and
is accurate to greater distances than the
f1at-based projectile. Yet the Army has
made M-2 ammunition standard not only
for its Semi-automatics but for all
Springfelds and machine guns The
Garand rifle was not the motive for the
change. 1t was the development of the
8l-mllllmeter mortar according to Gen.
George c. Marshall, chief of staff. This
weapon removed the need for long-range,
indirect fire by machine guns and rifles
which evolved during the first World
War. The lighter M-2 cartridge is fully
accurate up to 1000 yards, has a less
wearing recoil and reduced the weight
of the soldiers equipment, including 232
cartridges, by five-sevenths of a pound.
In thousands of actual tests, the Garand
has fired MI. and M-2 cartridges in
differently.
9. Any gun barrel becomes heated
when it is fired rapidly, and that is why
both Garands and Springfields are fitted
with wooden handguards. If hot oil ever
spurted back from Garand into SOL
dier's eyes, it was because he had lubri-
Gated the weapon too generously. The
infantry has developed graphite jelly,
which does not run, to take the place
of oil.
10. The fact that the United States