The M1 Carbine was so ineffective in Korea

[Rick H.]

I read an in depth study on Korean War complaints about the carbine a number of years ago, a study that showed that as a rule, the carbine "failures" were because they were shooting at the human waves at 300 yards, and using untrained full auto fire. As far as Carbine "freezing," M1 Garands and BARs also suffered from the freezing of the oils at the same rate, and guys would pee on their weapons to thaw them.

As far as M1 Carbine being a "pistol round" The M1 Carbine has more energy at 100 yards than a 357 at the muzzle. Untold hundreds of thousands of combatants in three wars have bit the dust from the Carbine. I am not saying it is an assault rifle, but it is a PDW. Heck an HK P90 PDW in 5.7mm has a fraction of the Carbines utility, and no one thinks of bashing it!

Thank you for the extremely valid response Imarangemaster! I for one will never understand why this argument/discussion seemingly never ends. Comparing the .30 M1 carbine to the M-1 rifle is similar to comparing a service pistol to the carbine. They are not in any way, shape, manner or form in the same league. When you cut thru all the baloney and remember what role the .30 carbine was intended to fill you will come to the realization it performed very well. Answer this question: was the .30 carbine intended to be an offensive weapon? Answer: No. What role was the .30 carbine supposed to fill and why? Answer: It was primarily meant to replace handguns that were being carried by support troops who for the most part couldn't hit a barn door with a handgun. Anyone truly familiar with firearms knows that it takes much more training time to make an average marksman with a handgun than with a shoulder fired weapon. Even with lengthy training a person firing a handgun at a target more than 50 yards away will have a difficult time hitting that target under combat conditions. The .30 carbine gave the military exactly what they needed and wanted. It was an easy firearm to train people how employ and take care of and it offered much better hit probability when compared to the handguns it replaced. The .30 carbine was never meant to be employed as a front line weapon, yet for a host of reasons it was inappropriately placed in that situation. It wasn't the fault of the carbine for being placed in the wrong role, it was the fault of people placing it where it didn't belong. All things being considered, take away the carbine and many of the troops would have found themselves carrying 1911's or revolvers. What would the results have been if these troops would only have had handguns to rely on? Let's get real and remember why the .30 carbine was developed and what role it was designed to fill. By the way, don't kid yourself for a minute, many an M1 rifle froze up in the extremely cold weather of Korea. Almost nothing was immune from the cold conditions in that region.

Rick