M14 and T-65 round development

[TiroFijo]

Very interesting 1952 American Rifleman article... 60 years ago

It reflects the US ordnance point of view vs the british, with comments on why steel core bullets were regarded as state of the art back then.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/arti...tomatic-rifle/

[200RNL]

From the article:

"Meantime, the mass attacks of Chinese and North Korean hordes against U.N. troops are too fresh in memory for U.S. and British brass to think about any other type of shoulder weapon."


Kind of reminds me of the present situation. We are in the middle of a war and changing rifles and or cartridges during hostilities is not practical. That's one reason why we will not see much change today. Another is that there's a fiscal disaster on the horizon and there will be no money.

[RiflemanBobcat]

From the article:

"Meantime, the mass attacks of Chinese and North Korean hordes against U.N. troops are too fresh in memory for U.S. and British brass to think about any other type of shoulder weapon."


Kind of reminds me of the present situation. We are in the middle of a war and changing rifles and or cartridges during hostilities is not practical. That's one reason why we will not see much change today. Another is that there's a fiscal disaster on the horizon and there will be no money.

A little like the Brits in WW1 and us in the 1930s: They wanted to ditch .303 for the P13/14 rifle and its high-velocity .276 cartridge, but the onset of WW1 precluded changing the Army's service rifle and caliber, and after the war, they realized that a) .303 worked well enough, and b) they had no will or money to invest in rearming the military when they suddenly had all these wartime stocks left.

And us, when the M1 was recommended for adoption in .276 Pedersen, but the economics of the Depression (and existence of war surplus ammo in massive quantities) were cited by CoS MacArthur (*spit*) as reasons to not adopt the new cartridge. No money to invest in a new caliber, yet enough money to adopt a new rifle....

Though I don't disagree with the reality of our situation now. I just find it funny how this keeps happening throughout modern history.

[200RNL]

And us, when the M1 was recommended for adoption in .276 Pedersen, but the economics of the Depression (and existence of war surplus ammo in massive quantities) were cited by CoS MacArthur (*spit*) as reasons to not adopt the new cartridge. No money to invest in a new caliber, yet enough money to adopt a new rifle....

Problem was, the semi auto M1 was a quantum leap over the bolt action 03. The .276 cartridge wasn't that much different from the .30 cartridge and we had massive quantities of .30 cal. in storage as you pointed out. So, they adopted a new rifle but not a new cartridge.

That is similar to the situation today, but there is no rifle that is a quantum leap over the M16 and they are not going adopt a new rifle cartridge when the current one isn't that much different from the various, larger caliber, proposed replacements. Especially when the government is cutting defense dollars

[200RNL]

It reflects the US ordnance point of view vs the british, with comments on why steel core bullets were regarded as state of the art back then.

Note that bullet integrity was considered a desirable trait back then. No one was talking about inducing bullet fragmentation.

"The Army is firmly opposed to the adoption of any less effective smaller cartridge for use in either its present rifle, or in the new weapons being developed. Any new rifle cartridge must have the wounding power, penetration performance, and ballistics at least equal to that in use today. Battle experience has proven beyond question the effectiveness of the present rifle and ammunition, and there have been no changes in combat tactics which would justify a reduction of rifle caliber and power."

It would seem that the U.S. Army was well satisfied with the performance of it's .30 caliber rifle cartridge during the worst war in history.

[RiflemanBobcat]

Problem was, the semi auto M1 was a quantum leap over the bolt action 03. The .276 cartridge wasn't that much different from the .30 cartridge and we had massive quantities of .30 cal. in storage as you pointed out. So, they adopted a new rifle but not a new cartridge.

That is similar to the situation today, but there is no rifle that is a quantum leap over the M16 and they are not going adopt a new rifle cartridge when the current one isn't that much different from the various, larger caliber, proposed replacements. Especially when the government is cutting defense dollars

I agree about the M1 being a huge leap vs. the 1903, but I'm not sure I agree so fully about .276 vs. .30M1906/M1/M2.

I mean, .276 Pedersen was 1/2 inch shorter than .30 in the case, and launched a 130-ish grain bullet at ~2500 fps, if memory serves. Plus, the M1 in .276 held 10 rounds per en-bloc, whereas a Springfield held 5 and had to be stripper-fed, so the M1 would have been double the ammo, noticeably less recoil, and not a huge weight penalty for the dual privileges. And would have kept the M1923 Cartridge Belt holding the same number of cartridges, rather than the 20% reduction for using en-blocs. (10 pockets and 2x5rd chargers or 1x8rd en-blocs per pocket, if you keep .30)
Plus that 1/2 inch saved in case OAL would also allow the receiver on the M1 to be shorter than it needed to be for a .30 chambering, saving a little bit more weapon weight and size. Not a lot, certainly, but maybe 1/2lb or so...when going from an 8-lb weapon to a 10-lb weapon, that's not a bad thing, in my inexpert opinion.

If I remember right, the so-called "Pig Board" in the early 30s decided that .276 had greater wounding potential than .30 out to 200 or 300 yards (I forget exactly), and was basically equal to .30 from there until 800ish yards...which even then they realized was beyond the practical range of a Soldier with a rifle (and .256 did even better up close). Heck, if I remember right, the qual (Army) only went to 500 or 600yds at the time anyway.

So .276 may not have been as revolutionary as the M1 was in its field, but I think the combined advantages of M1 and .276 would have been all the more revolutionary than the M1 in .30 was. 33% more capacity than the .30 design, and 100% more than the M1903, in a round that's easier to shoot, lighter to carry, and apparently more destructive to tissue up close, to boot.

And with the periodic revival of 6mm-7mm caliber cartridges (.276 P13, .276 Pedersen, .280 British, 6mm SAW, 6.8mm SPC all spring to mind) which, as DocGKR has pointed out, are in the range that seems to offer best terminal ballistic capabilities and "shootability" (my word, not his), well, it seems like we (the US and our allies, at any rate) keep having exigencies, politics, inertia, bureaucracy, or other factors interfering with selection of a service cartridge in that bore range.


EDIT:
Not that those reasons aren't valid, especially when it's reasons like a Depression or at least Recession, or major combat ops, or similar. I don't want to be saying that "well, we should have tried to push 6.8mm SPC as the standard rifle and SAW cartridge even though we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan at the time, damn the cost and logistical issues!"
I suppose I'm most frustrated at .276 Pedersen and .280 British not doing better, because those were really the best opportunities, in my view.

As a disclaimer to all of the foregoing: I'm no expert, just some guy on the Internet who thinks he's read enough to have an opinion. Obviously DocGKR's opinion (and those of other SME's) is a lot more useful than mine.

[MistWolf]

Soldiers will always adopt tactics to best utilize the weapons they are given. While the .276 had it's advantages, the 30-06 had good penetrating power, especially with the AP round and the GIs put it to good use, shooting through walls and light vehicles. One thing the Marines loved about the M14 in Vietnam was that the 7.62x51 gave them the capability to shoot through sandbags and trees to get at the enemy behind them. When the M16 was adopted, penetration was traded for a higher rate of fire and the GIs switched tactics to use that to their advantage.

Personally, I think the 30-06 was better suited for use in WWII than the .276

[TiroFijo]

An interesting side note is that the 30-06 M2 ball bullet used in the WWII was basically a dowloaded round compared to was available at the time.

The M2 is a spitzer flat base 152 gr lead core bullet at 2.805 fps in a 24" barrel, adopted in the late '30s.

In the mid '20s the 30-06 was revamped to fire a 172 gr SBT lead core bullet at 2.640 fps, a more potent round with better BC and much greater range. It was widely known that the boat tail bullets from france, germany and the swiss were far more efficient, and the US ordnance did extensive testing. The reason for this download was apparently problems finding adecuate practice ranges for the extented range bullets.

By the end of WWII I've read that the most common round for the M1 rifle was the black tip armor piercing with a 166 gr flat base bullet and hardened steel core at about 2780 fps.

And by mid WWII nearly all 30-06 loads had a copper washed mild steel jacket, no more guilding metal jackets, probably for cost reasons.

[dpaqu]

When did the germans go to the 198gr round? I wonder what there line of thinking was.

[200RNL]

the M1 in .276 held 10 rounds per en-bloc, whereas a Springfield held 5 and had to be stripper-fed, so the M1 would have been double the ammo, noticeably less recoil, and not a huge weight penalty for the dual privileges. And would have kept the M1923 Cartridge Belt holding the same number of cartridges, rather than the 20% reduction for using en-blocs. (10 pockets and 2x5rd chargers or 1x8rd en-blocs per pocket, if you keep .30)

It is a commonly held belief that the Garand went to an 8 round clip due to the .30 cartridge. They did design a 10 shot .30 cal clip. A ten round magazine in either caliber required that the magazine bottom protrude from the bottom of the rifle as is the case with the .276 Garand prototypes.

Notice that the .30 and .276 clips are about the same length




.276 Garand Rifle. Notice the protruding magazine that is required to accomodate the 10 round clip