Why did the USA go semi-auto when others did not?

[arado]

My 1941 Johnson is worth six times as much as any of my garands. But I prefer my Chinese SKS. The best military semi auto long arm and still issued. Every shot aimed fire. gary

[JGaynor]

US testing and experimentation with semiauto designs began about 1900. At every step along the way any new design was always measured against the existing service rifle (M1903) .
Springfield Armory 1892-1945

Regards,
Jim

[Amsdorf]

The American Mauser, still an awesome rifle to this very day.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Amen to that Paul. That's one of the reasons they continued building the 1903A3 at the same time they were mass producing garands -

The military was afraid of committing to the 'newfangled' semi-auto M1 because they thought it might not be dependable enough for combat.

[Bob Seijas]

Right, Harlan. Some of the thinking from that period seems rather short-sighted... for example, one stated reason they specified an internal magazine instead of a box: a box would interfere with performing the manual of arms. Geez.

On the other hand, they had a point about reliability of the early auto-loaders, and even the M1 had some pretty bad teething problems. Adopting it was a leap of faith that some of the old timers just could not make.

[Harlan (Deceased)]

Thanks Bob. I didn't know that about the internal magazine.

Their idea about the magazine cut-off that made it into a single shot was pretty far sighted too.

The officers didn't want their men wasting ammo by 'spraying and praying' with the bolt action!

[jmoore]

The emphasis on ammo conservation may have been influenced by the experiences of the Army in the Western US. Outposts were often very remote, and quick resupply was out of the question. Even horseback patrols that were days out from better established forts could be cut off from resupply for a long time if things went badly.

Mechanizewd resupply in short order was one of the developments between the World Wars that allowed the Garand to be successfully fielded everywhere. No C47s in WWI!

[Bob Seijas]

That's a very common failing: something very promising causes a problem and is not pursued. The problem, however, is a separate issue -- deal with that directly, don't scrap the good idea. In this case, the real problem was ammo resupply, not that troops would waste it. The focus then should have been, "OK, after we adopt the autoloader, how do we keep the troops resupplied." Many people failed to deal with the real issues in countries that had a semi in development but dithered too long on side issues. France was still investigating the benefits of an autoloader vs. a bolt when the Germans marched in, despite having one almost ready to go (the MAS 1940).

[Amsdorf]

Thank you, gentlemen, for a very informative conversation. I have learned a lot.

[yoyo2123]

other countries just didn't have the ability to reaquip an entire army with semi autos even germany. many countries had them but none were as robust or as easy to mass produce as the garand