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God bless those boys.....those crates wouldn't leave the ground today they were so dangerous.
I always find it so interesting when you see a squad or platoon with a bunch of Garands and then somebody has an 03. I read somewhere on a re-enacting website that the assistant squad leader typically carried an 03 with the grenade launcher so a squad had means to take out some sort of heavy weapons they might come up against. Does that sound typical? The pictures seem to reveal it sometimes, well, you see 03's in pictures in combat units around D-Day and such. But of course there were grenade launcher attachments for Garands too. I suppose it was just who got what and when.
What do you guys think?
There's an official TO and E for all units. There would be new equipment coming all the time and it does take time to filter down, but I don't think they would just hand out whatever they happened to have. Many of these pics are posed and not always as labelled...this one could have been much earlier than captioned...within reason...
Yes, but I've seen pics of 03's in theater. And sometimes what doesn't always look like rear echelon. Definitely pics from D-Day can be seen with 03's.
Agreed, but I don't think they were carelessly issued. They probably had good reason. I don't think they were short of equipment...
Yeah, that's kind of my point. It would almost seem like it was SOP for a guy in a squad or platoon to have an 03 for grenade launching capabilities. But I've never seen a true TO and E in paper. Like you have said. Plus, I wonder if it changed from Division to Division.
I belong to a 2nd ID website on yahoo and at present there are a few guys still alive that served in WWII. Although the numbers have dwindled in the last 5-10 years. But I've heard it said on there that one of the Regimental commanders, I forget which one as I don't have the details, it might've even been the 23rd IR. Anyways, they said the regimental commander was steeped in tradition and didn't allow them to use Garands. They had 03's. And they even went ashore that way in France. And then this guy was relieved very early on in the Normandy campaign. And the new regimental commander issued Garands at that time. It's just a story. Have no clue if it's true or not. But the point is, if there is any ounce of truth in it, it might have varied in different units. What they exactly issued to who. To a degree.
Well, I know there's a few here that can speak first hand about how T,O and E works...I'm hoping they will appear soon. True, there were old sweats that believed the new fangled rifles would waste ammo...
True , but the Garand rear sight was not adaptable to low angle direct fire of grenades as the '03 rear sight was . It was pretty much limited to the "high angle by using a marked sling " firing except by guesstimate .Quote:
Originally Posted by ABPOS
Things did not change till the aux. grenade launching sight became available , and while my limited experiance with this device rates it very high in high angle use , I have little luck using it in low angle ( but my body shape may have a lot to do with that ) . Never the less , I can see why the '03 was perfered for grenades.
Chris
That makes perfect sense and I never thought of that. Thank you!!!!!
Correct me if I'm wrong though, could a guy get good at launching a grenade with the garand? Heck, you even see some pics of guys using the ground. At least I think I have. Was that an acceptable practice?
Firing with the butt on the ground is " high angle " fire , like a mortar . Yes , one can get quite good . It only took a little while for me to be able to drop them all into the passenger compartment of a convertable at 100 yds on a calm day . More times than not I could pick front or rear seat . Of course , I could take my time and noone was shooting back at me. There were people with a " knack " for this that did really good , and maybe I have it too . Not enough people around me want to give it a go (well , OK , no one around here ) .
I've done a little " low angle " firing , mostly to see what it's like . I can withstand the recoil , but I can't get myself contorted to use the M15 sight . I just need to take the time to try different things . My '03 launcher is an A3 , so it's low angle sights are as bad as my Garand's . My only '03 I have now is a late Remington with a pin stock that's not good for grenades . I need to pick up a high number WW2 rebuild to use. But , yes , with practice I figure someone could learn to lob grenades say through a window from across the street distances with the Garand sight .
You would have to use Kentucky elevation , however.
You see , with an '03 and using the top of a WW2 AT grenade as your front sight , 1,875 is your 25 yd setting . With the slide set at 2,200 yds , the triangle at 2,300 ish is your 37.5 yd setting and the top of your slide is your 50 yd setting . Using the top edge of the sight leaf and switching to your front sight top is your 75 yd setting . This requires you to shoot with both eyes open to " see around " the grenade body. Head is off stock due to hight of sight picture and desire to keep head attached. No sling is used to prevent hand injury . also keep offhand away from front sling swivel.
You can now see the poorness of the Garand and the A3 for low angle .
Chris
I'll be honest with you, I don't see how you'd have time to adjust your sights when the action is within 50 yards. But I guess if you were behind cover and the others were too, you'd be best to get your dope right the first time. If you had enough time to.
That was the advantage of the '03 sight . You set it to 2,200 yds with the low peep line . At 25 , you use the 1875 line and approxamate ., shooting under the slide . At 37.5 , sight through the " tree " . At 50 , use the top of slide . At 75 , top bar of the whole leaf , switching to the rifles front sight . No adjustments , just a quick point and shoot. If you perfered , at 25 you could use the " tree" too , just aim about a foot low.
Chris
Aaaaah, I get it. I think. In other words, no messing with the round knob once you had it set, and you could use different points on the tree once you had it set that way. So all you had to do was flip up the sight. Eh?
Correct.
Did not have that option with the Garand and 'A3 peeps .
Chris
I thought of you last night because I was looking at one of my books last night and it was showing a guy using the 03A3 for a grenade launcher. And I'm like, what the heck. If the 03 was used for grenade launching because of the flip sight, why would one choose an 03A3 over a Garand. It might have been some pics for showing off the 03A3 though. Because they were not combat pics but two pics of what looked like someone demonstrating possibly. His fatigues were all pressed and all that.
One should also remember that the Marines used the 1903 and A3 for quite a while after the Army already had them.