"Redeployed: FN M1 Garands and Carbines"

[M94/14]

Funny but out of the dozens of M1A1 carbines I have seen and or handled, I have yet to find a stock made by FN. But then not all of the carbines went to FN when the war ended. Most have been rebuilt at Augusta with a few at RIA or SA.

Standard Products had a contract to rebuild some M1 Carbines post war. I have an early spring tube Winchester that was rebuilt by them. Mine is marked with a STD Prod RWH stamp on the left side of the stock, just forward of the slingwell bevel.

[kablair]

My copy of FN Browning Pistols by Anthony Vanderlinden deals with FN's stock replacement. Clearly they had the wood.

-Kab

[firstflabn]

My copy of FN Browning Pistols by Anthony Vanderlinden deals with FN's stock replacement. Clearly they had the wood.

-Kab

Thanks for checking. Not clear what "deals with" means or how replacement relates to his claim about large scale manufacturing. Does he reference any period documents?

[kablair]

Attachment 90702 Another picture on page 62 shows more of the work but I can't seem to upload the PDF file.

-Kab

[Bruce McAskill]

I still do not believe they made stocks for M1A1 carbines or even standard carbines at that. At the end of the war the military was swimming in new replacement stock for carbines including M1A1's and as Frank pointed out they would not have had the metal work for the M1A1's. They only used new and used parts from the US military system to rebuild carbines.

[firstflabn]

Attachment 90702 Another picture on page 62 shows more of the work but I can't seem to upload the PDF file.

-Kab

Thanks for the followup. So the article's author has nothing to support his claims about manufacturing parts other than photos showing stacks of stocks. Quite a vivid fairy tale he created.

I assume nobody has looked at WBII. LR says "some small components were produced as needed...." That's a long way from mass producing parts as claimed by the author.

Ruth also uses the 2.1 million quantity, so my guess is the author found the photos, read WBII, and then wildly exaggerated what Ruth said. (Inexplicably, LR also says this FN work was on "...all the small arms...used by the U.S. Eighth Army." Uhhh, the EUSA was in the Philippines in 1945. So he has his problems too. If he somehow meant Eighth British Army, his geography would be better, but I think the Brits were a little shy of having 2.1 million U.S. small arms. At least this guy knew enough to leave out the EUSA part).

There's are more serious flaws in this effort, but that's enough for one sitting. I guess there's no such thing as an editor at American Rifleman.

[kablair]

fistflabn, to try to answer, "deals with" in the sense I used the words, simply means "has to do with".

One of the pictures is explained "1945:FN's boiserie (woodshop) workers shape new M1 Garand stocks and hand guards by hand - photo courtesy of FN Herstal." (p.61)

I am not trying to defend Anthony Vanderlinden, a recognized expert in the field of FN Browning pistols, I was trying to add some information to the discussion. I did stray from the subject of carbines, although the article quoted from the Rifleman did mention both M1 Garands and carbines.

To quote from his book, FN Browning Pistols "After Germany's surrender, FN was contracted by the U.S. government to clean, refurbish, repair and pack most of the U.S. small arms used in the European theater." p. 60

The acnoledgement page of the book lists dozens of contributors including FM Herstal & Herstal Group, the John Browning Museum and Browning Arms.

[ATTACH]Attachment 90778[/ATTACH]

[firstflabn]

I'm in your debt for taking the trouble to provide details from the Vanderlinden book. In particular, I now see that the scope of work that you quoted from the book is much more limited than what he claimed in the article (note how "most" is a different matter from "all"). The claims of manufacturing stocks remains ludicrous.

My main issue is with writers who can't be bothered to at least give a nod in the direction of sourcing. All it takes is a phrase like, "...according to a report dated..." and the narrative can rumble right along. Failing to do that poorly serves readers new to the subject who lack a factual basis to challenge the unsupported claim and others who lack the analytical ability to spot rhetorical subterfuge. Heck, people get challenged all the time in this neighborhood to back up what they say and this is a pretty informal place. Unfortunately, you can't do that with an article.

I'm on the run, but here's one clear contradiction to the author's claims: the Aug 45 inspection report lists quite a quantity of pistols at FN. So, besides the question of why someone would engage in wild speculation about pistols being excluded from FN's work, it gives a further indication he did little or no research. An educated guess is fine; with incomplete data that's almost inevitable, but proposing a hypothesis, then trying to explain it with guesswork is irresponsible. His round peg was previous knowledge of FN's licenses with American gunmakers. Unfortunately, he tried to pound that round peg into the square hole of "all" US ETO small arms. It didn't work.

Thanks again for helping me confirm my suspicions.