12-241 Garand Picture of the Day - Glider infantry

[Mark in Rochester]

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[bearrowland]

God bless those boys.....those crates wouldn't leave the ground today they were so dangerous.

[ABPOS]

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?

[browningautorifle]

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...

[ABPOS]

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.

[browningautorifle]

Agreed, but I don't think they were carelessly issued. They probably had good reason. I don't think they were short of equipment...

[ABPOS]

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.

[browningautorifle]

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...

[Snafu]

[emmagee1917]

But of course there were grenade launcher attachments for Garands too

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 .
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