Wanted: a Rifle

Without infantry, armies cannot win wars; without rifles, infantry cannot fight. The U. S. Army therefore thought hard and long before deciding in 1936 to junk its rugged, battle-tried Springfield rifle and adopt a new, rapid-fire, semi-automatic called the Garand (for Inventor John C. Garand, a civilian who works for the War Department). After nearly five years, the Army last week was still using mostly Springfield rifles, and thinking about Garands. Official excuse for this situation: that the Garand has not yet been supplied to the Army because it is still going through a normal process of trial, error, correction. Some critics think there is another reason: mis judgment, followed by scandalous reluctance to admit and repair a mistake. This week a serious charge against the Garand is being made public.

Last March a House subcommittee threshed out the Garand argument with the Army's Chief of Ordnance Charles M. Wesson. Cagey, capable Major General Wesson stood up for the Garand ("the best semi-automatic rifle ever considered by the Army"). When Congressmen wanted to know who originally sponsored the Garand, General Wesson passed the buck to the Infantry. He also confirmed a rumor which reflects more grave ly on Army bureaucrats than on their new rifle. In the fourth year (1939) of Garand tests, the Army discovered a de fect so serious that a new barrel had to be designed. As of last Feb. 16, the Army had on hand 28,088 Garands with the faulty barrel. It is still getting them (200 a day from its own Springfield Arsenal), will have 35,000 to 40,000 defective Garands in service before tools are in stalled to make the corrected barrel.

The Army has spent some $15,000,000 on Garands, needs at least $6,500,000 more to reach its goal of 240,559 new rifles by June 1942. After hearing General Wesson, the House committeemen ap proved a $2,000,000 appropriation for fiscal 1941 with this significant reservation: "The committee is unwilling to take the responsibility of not doing so, even though it later may be found that we have gone ahead too rabidly." Said Committeeman D. Lane Powers (New Jersey): "We do not want to appropriate for . . . additional rifles if what we hear and what we read and what we are told by some well-informed people is true."

One of Congressman Powers' informants was Major General Milton A. Reckord, who is head of the Maryland National Guard and executive vice president of the authoritative (though civilian) National Rifle Association. "My opinion," testified General Reckord, "is that the War Department has made a very grave mistake. . . ." Just how grave the mistake may have been, General Reckord's N. R. A. disclosed in the May issue of its American Rifleman.

A Rifleman expert (F. C. Ness) somehow got one of the jealously guarded Garands, tested it by firing a moderate 692 rounds in three days. Mr. Ness's verdict: "A fine combat weapon, with certain shortcomings. "He emphasized the shortcomings:

> Garands are supposed to be rapid-fire guns, banging out (from clips of eight cartridges) 26 aimed shots a minute, many more shots if unaimed. Mr. Ness wrote: "When we fired [the Garand] very slowly, loading each cartridge into the chamber by hand, the oil started to bubble out ... in tiny specks after 40 shots to 60 shots fired in 25 to 35 minutes." In brief: fired at speed, the Garand would get so hot no soldier could hold it.

> By Army account, the Garand is accurate at ranges up to 600 yards (far enough for ordinary combat). N. R. A.'s Garand was disgracefully inaccurate at 600 yards and less. On a 600-yard target, with the gun locked in a bench vise, its shots at the end of 60 rounds were hitting six feet below the mark. Reason: ". . .The barrel . . . warped or buckled as it heated from our slow-fired shooting (only 130 shots in three hours)."

> At the 395th shot, the N. R. A. Garand began to falter. During the final rounds it broke down, so hopelessly fouled by carbon that it could not be used until it was dismantled, cleaned, lubricated, reassembled--a complicated job for a soldier under fire.

One man who rubbed his hands over this report was a tall young Bostonian named Melvin Maynard Johnson Jr. Captain (Marine Corps Reserve) Johnson wants the Army to buy a semi-automatic rifle which he has designed. The Army has tested the Johnson rifle, says the Garand is better, has not published enough comparative data to prove or disprove its statement. "Ideal for combat and for battlefield firing," Major General Walter C. Short called the Garand last week, reporting its performance in Army maneuvers. Expert Ness rates the Johnson far above the Garand.

Whoever is right, Melvin Johnson makes sense when he says: "The point is not whose rifle, or whose face, or what procedure. . . . The real problem is to get a suitable, manufacturable, reliable, rugged rifle, and plenty of them."

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