Can you make this a series? Like do the other nations as well. I would love to hear you explain the Japanese thought process for their weapon designs lol
Japanese military - "Boy this Arisaka is a great bolt action, now we just need a good SMG to fight in all those jungles and cities our planned wars will be fought in." Japanese Procurement - "Sorry, not enough in the budget for that, also officers are going to have to buy their own service pistols and we will heavily guilt them into getting a Nambu that is likely to negligently discharge in their foot or thigh."
The Japanese small arms can be summarized as: "It must fire Arisaka cartridges, has a suicide button and must have a bayonet because that's literally what we can manufacture before our own government cuts funding.
"Although we've only been industrialized for 100 years, at foreign gunpoint, our inherent delusion of superiority over everyone else has convinced us that the Russia we beat was legit a modern first world power, and thus we can totally beat America. We have a terrible industrial base, let's make it worse by using terrible local designs. As long as we keep saying we can't lose, and ignore all evidence to the contrary, then we can't lose!" - The Japanese High Command, up to and after having 2 nukes dropped on them.
Marines in the Pacific worked out a good system with the BAR. Use riflemen to suppress, and BAR to kill (opposite of what they were taught). They treated it like a big automatic rifle instead of an LMG, and that was probably for the best.
They had one in each 4 man fire team, the others having garands. Each fire team supported the others. It was very effective, more so than a single platoon machine gun.
Was the Garand standard issue in the Pacific? My grandfather was in the 1st division at Pelilieu and Okinawa, and my dad had always told me he used a Springfield 1903 because he had bought one back in the 60's that we still have today because of it, but my grandfather died in 1978 so I can't exactly ask him.
Back then the US Marine Corps would only get their equipment orders after the US Army got all of theirs satisfied. So especially early on in the war, there just wasn’t enough Garands being produced to equip the entire Army and Marine Corps with Garands, which resulted in several Marine units having to use older weapons, such as the M1903 Springfield.
That’s hilarious my dad told me stories about my great great uncle in ww2 who always tried to “lose” his BAR due to the weight as he went across France with Patton. Every time he’d try someone would be like “HEY GRIFF YOU LEFT YOUR WEAPON!!” 😂😂
The best thing about the Thompson is that for ages it contained a heavy and VERY expensive part that did absolutely nothing because nobody ever bothered to check whether a phenomenon discovered in artillery guns could actually scale down to small arms (it couldn't).
>mfw your industrial capacity is so great you don’t even need to worry if the part you built actually does anything. This post was made by the US super production gang
@@kyleplatter8954 damn straight. In the face of talking German productivity and efficiency, people completely downplay just how powerful American efficiency and productivity was in comparison
The BAR is an interesting gun in that yes, it was designed for a faulty concept and was shoved into a role it couldn't perform especially well, but when he designed it, John Browning struck gold for a machine gun design. The modern M240/ FN Minimi and it's derivatives use basically the exact same mechanical system except upside down to allow belt feeding, and those guns are universally acclaimed. Most western light machine guns are descendants of either the BAR or the MG42 mechanically, and I think thats pretty cool.
@@hawk9mm Thing is, it's pretty simple to design a fifty cal gun better than the Browning. It's heavier than it needs to be, and it has several design flaws that were either never rectified or only got fixed in like the 2000s. For instance, it was only recently that they fixed it so that you didn't have to deal with headspacing every time you swapped the damn barrel out, which is a massive pain in the ass and could cause very dangerous malfunctions. But they built an unimaginable amount of them in WW2 because every goddamn vehicle in service had the damn things, so they have so many that they see no point shelling out for a replacement.
@@Spudtron98 Well you can make a better gun, and the US did for the m48 tank and others, but the simple matter is for the trifecta of weight, cost, and reliability you can't beat it. You can sacrifice one option to improve the others, but it's never gonna be perfect.
Just to illustrate just how absurdly expensive the Thompson was compared to every other SMG, the British estimated that they could get 100 Sten Gun Mk IVs for every Thompson. One Hundred. And I know that the Sten was about as dirt cheap as SMGs go, but the Mk IV had some fancy bits and still even then you could get 100 soldiers armed for every 1 soldier armed with a Thompson.
@@randomlycasual4941 It was just a way of saying that PPS 43 was a very simple but high quality weapon of relatively low cost. Plus, I am an Indian, and seeing that Britishers themselves were facing a shortage of SMGs in the early war, it's highly unlikely that I would've even received one in the first place.
What the US does is focus energy on improving what matters most, creating an extremely overpowered right arm, and improvising all the peripheral things so they have a much stronger, overpowered and realistically useful force multiplier. It's almost like cheating. Being able to supply every rifleman (the most common role) with a great, reliable semi automatic rifle and carbine, and the mass producible and shippable Sherman tank was that thing. The enemy always underestimates it because they misunderstand the point, in fact I almost think the U.S. ordinance department must keep this idea, not exactly secret, but on the down low and evolve it. It's a really no bullshit, practical and realistic tactic born from experience gained, that there is no such thing as fairness in war and breaking it is exactly how you win it. Just like how they taught their soldiers to fight in hand to hand combat. Dirty. America got a master class lesson in this through the Revolutionary war, the American Indian war and other case examples.
@@brucekendall9873 *LAUGHS IN ECONOMY* Seriously though, that tactic you want is only viable if you have the economy to back it up. Even with how big America's economy is now, the prices for the new equipment have skyrocketed as well and it has become quite the issue. It also didn't help that America's defense sector has literally cannibalized itself to the point that it is becoming apparently clear that America has been lacking in innovation and manufacturing power in recent years with the war in Ukraine showing this weakness clear as day. And what's even more funny about the Garand story is that technically speaking, the M1 Garand isn't American but rather a Canadian gun made by a dude who's French-Canadian.
My grandfather served in Korea and got expert with almost every single small arm -according to him. he used to call the BAR the "Big Ass Rifle" because of the weight and size
My experience with Thompson discussions: Person 1 says it was a heavy piece of crap and nobody who ever carried it liked it Person 2 says it was a beloved and indispensable trench/house clearer with true stopping power Repeat ad nauseam
@@godemperormeow8591 Having shot most WW2 subguns, I'd choose the Grease Gun over most of them. It's overly practical for what it needed to do in the war.
Just want to say something on the BAR: My grandpa made his one combat jump with it. (82nd Airborne, Operation Varsity) He basically used it in a similar way that modern troops use assault rifles: burst fire, sometimes using it for suppression, sometimes from the hip. He preferred it over what else he could have been issued. M1 Carbine couldn't punch through a wall, the Garand had a low rate of fire, and the Thompson was kinda wimpy for longer-ranged combat. And yes, my grandpa too, complained about the weight.
The BAR would've been great if they had classified it an assault rifle and ran 30 round mags. I think Ian over on Forgotten Weapons covered a Belgian BAR that was just that...
When i was 15 i visited the US, ther ei got to shoot guns for the first time, the BAR was the 2 gun i ever fired, 2 of the gun range dudes had to help me hold it down in full auto, i also couldn't get a good grip on the handguard as it was this huge square of wood that my hand was too small for.
The issue with the BAR was that Army Ordinance suffered a major case of mental retardation when it came to that particular firearm. They looked at the M1918a2 and went "We think our guys are happy with this. There is no way they want anything better." All while Colt and FN came out with versions of the BAR that were operationally, ergonomically, and doctrinally better than the M1918a2 and even offered to swap out the M1918a2's with their versions.
Assault rifles rarely have their burst or auto settings used, and are almost exclusively used in semi-auto fire. At extremely close distances, they are still sometimes used in automatic fire. See Ukraine trench footage. Hip fire is typically equated to inexperienced troops, and isn't in any way the purpose of a modern assault rifle. Even just moving beyond the cold war definition of an assault rifle, the modern use case is starkly different as countries learned what was stupid and what wasn't. In regards to the BAR, it did none of its roles very well. Even as an Infantry Automatic Rifle the role was poor, and later developments in the IAR category became far more applicable. A good military to look at full fledged IAR/sniper doctrine integration with the standard infantry would be Iraq's proliferous use of RPK's in place of RPD's AND PKM's.
German machine gunner: Recruit Difficulty Soviet machine gunner: Regular Difficulty British machine gunner: Hard Difficulty American machine gunner: Veteran Difficulty
@@azravalencia4577 yes and no. The main issue was when initially dropping the Mg34s had to be dropped separately. The FG42 was envisioned as a way of providing the same automatic firepower to paratroopers but able to be carried as they dropped in. MG34s were still used for strong points etc like you say, but my point is that the MG34 faced the same issues when used with paratroopers.
@@Kav. wait, i thought Germans doesnt do weapon drop with their personnel since that's what Crete landing problem is (other than fighting aginst guerillas).
@@azravalencia4577 I was under the impression they dropped with rifles, sub guns etc but without machine guns (due to the weight of the gun). With the machine guns dropped in containers with the main troop (the containers often getting lost and leaving the gunner with just a sidearm) I could be wrong but that was my understanding of it.
i mean the FG42 is in many ways a german version of the BAR, small 20rnd mag, capable of fully automatic fire, yet not really capable of maintaining it.
The 2 different iconic images of the Tommy gun invokes different mindset. If it has a drum and grip in front, it's the Chicago Typewriter. If it is more simple with the straight magazine, it's the definitive WW2 SMG
Never realized how heavy these guns were, especially when you many see them slugged around in movies and video games. I couldn't imagine having to carry 30-50 pounds of kit and 32 pound machine gun in the jungles of South East Asia. No wonder you see soldiers in some footage just in their white tanktops spraying this thing through the jungle
The BAR had a higher caliber compared to the M1 Carbine, so oddly enough, you actually saw many units take up more BARs as they had far better penetration.
@@RestrictedHades Spam, intelligence gathering, reforms to tactics and strategies, access to important resources and superior co-operation between multiple countries won ww2
Sorry if you’re drowning in comments, but you triggered me real good on the SVT adoption date comment. The Garand was officially adopted in 1936 before both the SVT-40 and SVT-38. I’m actually not sure if it beat out the AVS-36, but the AVS was also ditched right away. Otherwise, great video and good to see you back
The worst part about the US BAR is the fact that their were better variants of it already in service than the one the US was using the Colt Monitor, the wz.28, the Swedish m/37 and the FN Mle 30
Crucially, other versions of the BAR (at least the FN ones) could be disassembled and cleaned much easier. On the original BAR, everything came out of the bottom of the receiver, whereas in the later FN BARs you could just pull everything out the back of the receiver (like almost all other machine guns).
Thank you Potential History.. my brother just passed away waiting for you to upload and has been pronounced dead on the couch for two days. When he got the notification you uploaded, he got up and click your video.
Early war in the Pacific, Marines kinda caught the best and the worst as far as the 1st Marines being issued 1903 Springfields and better yet 1917 Enfield as well as drum-fed m1928s while their Paramarine Cousins got significantly nicer Johnson Auto-Rifles, Johnson LMGs, and M50/55 Reisings with full Frog Skin camies to boot.
The US didn't adopt the Johnson rifle because they ended up favoring the garand during the weapon result thing i forgot the name of. So Johnson just ended up selling them to the Dutch in the East Indies since the Dutch needed extra power cause they had a feeling the Japanese would invade. The Dutch were correct. The Japanese did invade. Unfortunately the shipment took too long to arrive. So Japan got control of the Dutch East Indies and you have couple or few boatloads of Johnson Rifles. Apparently some army or marine soldiers got their hands on them and ended up using them instead of their standard issue rifles (idk which ones they preferred the Johnson over though) Thats for the Johnson rifle personally. The other guns I dont know much about
Potential history be like: Upload high-quality history videos that are funny around once a month Leave for a half a year break Come back with 3 videos roughly one a month Leave for a year Come back with a single video Leave for half a year Come back with an another video Never seen again... It's been slightly over a year and a month since. We have no more high-quality history videos to watch besides the bi-annual Oversimplified video. We need you the most now, king. 😢
@@miladeskandari7 copying other people's comment? What is this, reddit? What reason would you have to do that lmao, I just wrote what came to mind I didn't even check other comments.
"Sorry, Brazil, you get the Springfield" As a Brazilian, I am in no way offended Edit: HOLY SHIT I think editing my comment made me lose the ❤️ thingy PH gave me... Oh well
We had Mausers for our civil wars already, being issued (shamelessly copied, .30 06, American made) Mausers to storm the Gothic line was just like being at home
I think it's important to keep in mind that the BAR filled a new 'class' or 'role' in the squad. A lot of people try to compare it to light machine guns which the BAR wasn't an example of. Compared to other automatic rifles (Breda 30, FG42) it was certainly up to par.
@@danelassiter6838 first of all just look it up, its not a rare phrase. Second, the fg4w was not nearly as durable. Being that it was a paratrooper weapon it was extremely lightly built and had some very odd geometry. The BAR was designed and revised based on the trenches of ww1.
My grandfather was training in Panama with Army airborne to prepare to drop into Japan for the mainland invasion (which thankfully never happened) and he positively LOVED the M1 Carbine. Said it was the easiest and most accurate rifle he ever shot, with follow up hits being rapid and surprisingly easy to make. Not to mention the thing weighed very little compared to the rest of the guns the Airborne had. I read later about the French Foreign Legion’s adoption of the M1 Carbine and they had largely the same things to say. Apparently, the Germans also liked them enough to use them when captured, much like how US forces routinely implemented Sturmgeweres when they’re capture them. Seems like it was one of those guns that everyone loved, shitty wire stock variant maybe being the exception.
My grandfather had plenty of love for the M1 Carbine too. Whilst fighting in Burma as part of the British Army he managed to talk his way into getting one and always told stories of him sitting up in trees or bushes, managing to take out Japanese soldiers whilst they rushed around trying to find him, to him it was much faster and lighter than the Lee-Enfield, being easy to rush around the jungle and climb up trees with. To him it was the easiest rifle he'd ever used, being able to quicky pick off targets and fire off shots which he always said made it perfect for fighting in Burma, being able to rapidly fire off shots at the Japanese then quickly duck back into the Jungle. Always joked about how he nearly broke down into tears when he had to part with the thing.
My Great Uncle was in the 82nd Airbourne during the second world war, and had two main stories he would always tell. These stories are funny and not combat related, which is why he felt comfortable telling them. He died some years ago, never telling anyone a thing about the combat he had seen. One of the stories came to me when you mentioned that the 1919 machine gun was not great for paratroopers. According to my uncle, who was a member of a 1919 crew, the more senior soldier would jump with the machine gun, which was heavy and hard to carry, and the younger men would jump with the ammunition. Recognizing this, my uncle would ask the younger men if they wanted to carry his machine gun until they landed. They would almost always agree excitedly, only to realize my uncle had it easier with the ammo. Thanks for remiding me of this story, I always get excited when you upload as your content is great but does not come around too often.
0:33 You could have also added the Hanyang 88 for the [N/A] country as they were in much more available numbers than the newer Type Zhongzheng rifle, but since you put a disclaimer about issues with scaling, it's give it a pass.
There is a note with the M1 Carbine is that in the Pacific it was not favored all that well. BARs, although heavy, still had a decent caliber round that could penetrate the jungles well. Similar issues occurred for the Carbine when used early on in Vietnam.
The Carbine had a vastly inferior cartridge compared to modern ammo. That being said, anyone poking out of cover is gonna end up as a Fallout 1 bloody mess corpse.
.30 Carbine is plenty powerful enough (muzzle energy is pretty similar to .357 Magnum), but if the bad guy is hopped up on drugs or maybe wearing enough layers of clothes it might come up lacking. Shooting through brush, walls, trees, etc. I would agree that .30 Carbine is lacking. That or US soldiers and Marines couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Can't exactly bring something down if you aren't hitting it. ;)
It isn’t about how much he posts, it’s about the quality and the topic of the video!! Always a joy to see potential history put out another outstanding video and giving us joy!! Thanks PH!! You’ve made my day!!
You missed the M50 Reising, which was a pretty common machine pistol that the marines used in the Pacific, which had its own issues. Also, the M1 carbine got missed as that was a fairly common gun for paratroopers and rear echelon soldiers.
"I came for a war, I ain't leavin till I been in one!" - My grandpa, seriously. Joined 1918 less than a week before armistice, stayed in interwar and through til end of Korea, made it out a colonel. Winner 2 purple hearts, conmbat infantry, bronze star, and way too many misc medals to be bothered. Miss ya, gramps, you were a mad bastard and a fucking asshole, and the best partner in crime any wayward kid coulda asked for! Wait good for me, I got ya stories to make you envy!
My grandpa carried the m2 during Korea ended up buying a m1 after the war said it was the only rifle youd ever need. Cool part about the m2 carbine is all m2 carbines are just m1s with a conversion kit that's placed around the receiver.
Actually I believe those are designated m1-1/2 when they were converted cause they also started producing m2 rifles from scratch, or atleast I have seen some designated that way.
So I own an M1 Garand (and really want a carbine) and my personal anecdotal experience with it has been very positive! I'm a small guy, 5'6", 150lbs, and yes, it is a heavy rifle, but it's very well balanced (until you put a bayonet on) and easy to hit torso sized targets from the standing, unsupported position from 75-100 yards. From a bench or prone, you can fairly reliably hit an 8" steel plate from 200 yards. Beyond that you're getting to the point where a stationary, camouflaged enemy would be difficult to spot unless they did something to give away their position. Not only that, but in comparison to something like the mosins and K98s I've shot, the M1 has noticably less recoil, especially when standing or kneeling, than it's counterparts. So not only can you avoid having to manually cycle a bolt and re-aquire your target, I've had less issue training through the flinch, can run the gun really fast at 50 yards and in, and the thing that nobody seems to mention is that in addition to it being faster to shoot than a bolt action, it's also significantly faster to reload than a bolt action! If I have an extra clip hanging on the sling, I can consistently do 2 second reloads and I've never been professionally trained and have a much lower round count through it than a WW2 soldier would have. The sights are also phenomenal! The front post is a bit chunky for precision (about 6 MOA wide and square), but for combat applications it works quite well since it's easy to pick up without having to hunt for it, it's pronounced enough that it doesn't blend in with brush, and being squared and wide, you can do some good combat and wind holds with it (such as putting the target on the left corner of the front sight post instead of centered if you have a right to left wind or if they're moving). The big downside to the WW2 Garand sights that was remedied with the Korean era Garands was that they used what's called a "lock bar sight" where there is a metal bar that screws down to keep your elevation or windage knobs from being bumped (just Google a picture of it). The problem with that is that it's time consuming to loosen it, you can lose the bar if you unscrew it too far and it falls off, and the Garand already has super positive detents for the knobs, so your clicks are very audible, tactile, and require a good deal of deliberate rotational force to adjust. Once you've made the adjustments, you tighten the bar back down and it holds the sights in place. But the US got smart by Korea and realized the lock bar was a solution to a problem that just didn't exist, so they scrapped it, redesigned the knobs to be simpler, and they worked perfectly fine without it while also having the advantage of adjusting faster. However, the WW2 ones did have a cool little engraving on them saying "Battle Range" so points for that. So yah, M1 is heavy, but it's so well balanced that you don't really notice it, easy to shoot, easy to shoot fast and reload fast, and is a great sporting and hunting rifle even today. Good gun, worth the extra weight. (also a final note, not all M1s weigh the same, they can actually fall within a wide range, usually due to the wood used, how much oil was applied to the stock, what it was exposed to over it's lifetime, and the rifles stored in cosmoline are usually the heaviest since you can never get all that crap out of the wood)
Plus I'd imagine that because the Garand is semi-auto that it's bleeding some of that energy off of the round fired, then you get the counter recoil effect of the mass of the bolt and carrier, piston, etc. back towards the shooter. The weight helps but I figure that because it's semi-auto it also helps with felt recoil., could be wrong though.
@@Emperor_Pepsi_Man plus the fact that the op rod spring is like 2 feet long uncompressed. That right there absorbs a lot of the recoil and the spring plus mass of the bolt extend the duration of the recoil by reducing the acceleration. Physics says the total recoil energy will be the same, but it's over a longer period of time and the energy is absorbed by several things other than your shoulder. Any semi auto should be softer shooting than a comparable bolt action of the same caliber with the same butt pad. Plus the fact it's a heavy gun helps
Having both a Springfield and a Enfield P14 (British Model 17) the Springfield is light and the P14 is heavy at 9 pounds, but makes recoils controllable. Having shot the 1919 and serviced it, at least on the shooting range, with its light tripod and slower rate of fire I think it is much more controllable than a MG42. (Tripod to tripod comparison the 1919 can get lower to the ground prone firing, and has a simple T&E elevation control system) Considering the MG42 swallows ammo faster than infants swallow Pennies. Anyways fun video Johnny!
"U.S. Small Arms of World War II are often viewed as the best, and I won't dance around it, we all know why." *GARAND PING!* Me: "OH YEAH! That's the stuff. I need to watch that again."
Honestly the hilarious part about the Grease Gun is that it saw usage for *way* longer than you'd think it would. And that IIRC the US still keeps quite a few in armory reserves because the design still works and works well on top of being near braindead simple to operate and service.
@@Cpt_Boony_Hat Yep and not just them, even some Special Forces still used it. Larry Vickers noted how during his time as an operator, they'd turn the aperture rear sight into a v-notched rear sight.
I hope you do similar videos for all the major countries! Also, I get what you're saying about how heavy American weapons are, but to be fair us Americans have always had a "bigger is better" mindset, even if it hurts or hinders us. There's a reason we are a chonky people.
I'm sad that there was just a short snippet about the M1 Carbine, my favorite gun, bar none. The M1 Carbine is the reason why my family line doesn't stop at my Great Grandmother, who had one in Korea and used it to scare off a home invader.
I am more disappointed he talked about the sturmgewher but not m2 carbine which kinda came out first.....but the army wanted to simplify production in 1940 so made em semi auto. Atleast until 1944.
I love this content, and would definitely like to see more of this style, maybe some axis small arms would be really neat such as Japan's excellent rifles and machine guns compared to their not-so much good pistols, or the German's with their cracked German ingenuity with the perfection of a bolt action with the Kar98k, the introduction of assault rifles, and the beasts that was the buzzsaw/MG42. Good stuff keep it up :}
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 yeah I can see that as a good competitor to the kar98k but I'd rather have the kar over the smle due to breach loading. But I respect that opinion. 👍
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 wrong say apologies, I was thinking of breach loaders 😑. What I meant to say was in my opinion the kar98 is a slightly more accurate rifle. Yes the smle carries 10 rounds but I say I feel more accurate with the kar98k, probably due to the feeling that with each shot accuracy is key, while with the smle I feel slightly more obligated to not be as more accurate considering that the smle carries 5 extra rounds
@@The-Pooky Not to shit on the Kar98k in build quality (though late-war it suffered just as much as any other gun), but WWII was the conflict where it really became apparent that most of the time the number of bullets will win the fight, rather than the accuracy of those bullets, hence Soviets dumping PPSh-41s on their troops like there is no tomorrow, not to mention the SVT-40s. US already had the Garand in that regard, and Germany came to the conclusion too late to make something that would work, the Gewehr 41 being too unreliable, the MP40 too expensive to make in droves (despite not being very expensive) and the StG 44 being too little too late. The Kar98k at that point was something they were hoping to get rid of, but there was nothing else that could even come close to supplementing it, nevermind replacing it as a main infantry rifle.
I keep coming back to this video specifically. I'm thinking it's because of the efficiency of it. I remember when I first saw it I was totally shocked to learn it was only 6 minutes.
Sorry if I'm nit picking, but I think that 0:22, it seems to me that, the rifle in question, is some kind of a "1903", because of shape of it's grip (which is visible and can be compared to the pic that you put up next to it), BTW, really great video!
Opération dragoon is an interesting topic, it’s not talked about much and is overtaken by the war in northern France, but multiple “minor” nations are involved
for context to show how much unprepared US was and how strong their industrial power was: M1 garand and subsequent guns werent mass produced before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, this is why the first batch of troops that got sent overseas, like the 1st Marines, were still equipped with the same gear as their grandfather did in WW1. It took US only half a year to replace all the old gear, crazy.
Well the Marine Corps example is Odd because the Marines didn’t trust the M1, their ethos was to issue the new rifles to rear echelon troops so that any issues with the M1 could be resolved by the time they could issue it to the front line troops. It’s convoluted but that’s fact until after the M1 proved itself in the hands of army infantry in Guadalcanal and North Africa
I have honestly never laughed so must at a history video, I loved it thank you Rewatched it for the shits and giggles...thigh highs and an M1 didn't know I needed such a thing in my life
Can you make this a series? Like do the other nations as well. I would love to hear you explain the Japanese thought process for their weapon designs lol
Japanese military - "Boy this Arisaka is a great bolt action, now we just need a good SMG to fight in all those jungles and cities our planned wars will be fought in."
Japanese Procurement - "Sorry, not enough in the budget for that, also officers are going to have to buy their own service pistols and we will heavily guilt them into getting a Nambu that is likely to negligently discharge in their foot or thigh."
No 1 Japanese small arms requirement during the war: must be able to have a shortsword attached to the underbarrel, lmao.
The Japanese small arms can be summarized as: "It must fire Arisaka cartridges, has a suicide button and must have a bayonet because that's literally what we can manufacture before our own government cuts funding.
@@mandalorian_guy "Also, here's a cheap Mall-Ninja Katana, we fully expect you to charge entrenched positions with this"
"Although we've only been industrialized for 100 years, at foreign gunpoint, our inherent delusion of superiority over everyone else has convinced us that the Russia we beat was legit a modern first world power, and thus we can totally beat America. We have a terrible industrial base, let's make it worse by using terrible local designs.
As long as we keep saying we can't lose, and ignore all evidence to the contrary, then we can't lose!" - The Japanese High Command, up to and after having 2 nukes dropped on them.
Marines in the Pacific worked out a good system with the BAR. Use riflemen to suppress, and BAR to kill (opposite of what they were taught). They treated it like a big automatic rifle instead of an LMG, and that was probably for the best.
Gee almost like the gun is called the Browning Automatic Rifle lol ;)
They had one in each 4 man fire team, the others having garands. Each fire team supported the others. It was very effective, more so than a single platoon machine gun.
Was the Garand standard issue in the Pacific? My grandfather was in the 1st division at Pelilieu and Okinawa, and my dad had always told me he used a Springfield 1903 because he had bought one back in the 60's that we still have today because of it, but my grandfather died in 1978 so I can't exactly ask him.
Back then the US Marine Corps would only get their equipment orders after the US Army got all of theirs satisfied. So especially early on in the war, there just wasn’t enough Garands being produced to equip the entire Army and Marine Corps with Garands, which resulted in several Marine units having to use older weapons, such as the M1903 Springfield.
@@jacobstormann4452dude the Marines literally rejected the M1 Garand. Their generals had to be beaten into submission by MacArthur to accept it
>comes back
>releases a short, high-quality video
>refuses to elaborate
>leaves
It's a bit heavy.
"See you, space cowboy. You're gonna carry that weight." - Potential History or something idk
Eh, he dropped that Japan vid not too long ago
It's a bit heavy.
Sam o nella too
@eishaaya3943 first rule of Sam o Nella academy, we don't talk about Sam o Nella academy
That’s hilarious my dad told me stories about my great great uncle in ww2 who always tried to “lose” his BAR due to the weight as he went across France with Patton. Every time he’d try someone would be like “HEY GRIFF YOU LEFT YOUR WEAPON!!” 😂😂
That's hilarious and super funny thank you for sharing
The best thing about the Thompson is that for ages it contained a heavy and VERY expensive part that did absolutely nothing because nobody ever bothered to check whether a phenomenon discovered in artillery guns could actually scale down to small arms (it couldn't).
Ah yes the bush lock
@@YoBoyNeptune blish* but yeah. It was kinda stupid
>mfw your industrial capacity is so great you don’t even need to worry if the part you built actually does anything.
This post was made by the US super production gang
@@kyleplatter8954 damn straight. In the face of talking German productivity and efficiency, people completely downplay just how powerful American efficiency and productivity was in comparison
explain?
The BAR is an interesting gun in that yes, it was designed for a faulty concept and was shoved into a role it couldn't perform especially well, but when he designed it, John Browning struck gold for a machine gun design. The modern M240/ FN Minimi and it's derivatives use basically the exact same mechanical system except upside down to allow belt feeding, and those guns are universally acclaimed. Most western light machine guns are descendants of either the BAR or the MG42 mechanically, and I think thats pretty cool.
Never forget the M2 .50 Cal, still in service to this day in almost every form.
@@hawk9mm The MaDuece will never die
@@hawk9mm Thing is, it's pretty simple to design a fifty cal gun better than the Browning. It's heavier than it needs to be, and it has several design flaws that were either never rectified or only got fixed in like the 2000s. For instance, it was only recently that they fixed it so that you didn't have to deal with headspacing every time you swapped the damn barrel out, which is a massive pain in the ass and could cause very dangerous malfunctions.
But they built an unimaginable amount of them in WW2 because every goddamn vehicle in service had the damn things, so they have so many that they see no point shelling out for a replacement.
Correct.
@@Spudtron98 Well you can make a better gun, and the US did for the m48 tank and others, but the simple matter is for the trifecta of weight, cost, and reliability you can't beat it. You can sacrifice one option to improve the others, but it's never gonna be perfect.
When the world needed him most he returned
Yeo
And then he left again
Cringe and unoriginal title
@do not I have been waiting for so long to tell you this: th-cam.com/video/RwC9CP_2YKE/w-d-xo.html
When my parents are getting divorced. He returned
Just to illustrate just how absurdly expensive the Thompson was compared to every other SMG, the British estimated that they could get 100 Sten Gun Mk IVs for every Thompson. One Hundred. And I know that the Sten was about as dirt cheap as SMGs go, but the Mk IV had some fancy bits and still even then you could get 100 soldiers armed for every 1 soldier armed with a Thompson.
but you get a Thomson
@@toastytoast9800 Lots of bullet is lots of bullet
I would just go for PPS 43 instead.
@@Progamermove_2003 maybe if you could actually get your hands on one
@@randomlycasual4941 It was just a way of saying that PPS 43 was a very simple but high quality weapon of relatively low cost. Plus, I am an Indian, and seeing that Britishers themselves were facing a shortage of SMGs in the early war, it's highly unlikely that I would've even received one in the first place.
When the world needed him the most, he didn't return.
But he came back a few years later
@griffy ye naw fam you were looking for this one: th-cam.com/video/RwC9CP_2YKE/w-d-xo.html
Tbf it's only been 4 months...
Pretty short for this channel
As is the American way.
Where did you go funny history man? I-I miss you...
Yeah I was wondering the same thing? What happened?
Me three. Is he done with Utube?
@@inquisitorialllama638the wheraboos got him 😔
Guess who's back. Back again.
5:35 “were US weapons universally bad?”
“No”
They were just a bit heavy.
"Say the line, Bart!"
"A couple of Germans walk into a BAR..."
@@builder396 they had a garand time
universally heavy
What the US does is focus energy on improving what matters most, creating an extremely overpowered right arm, and improvising all the peripheral things so they have a much stronger, overpowered and realistically useful force multiplier. It's almost like cheating. Being able to supply every rifleman (the most common role) with a great, reliable semi automatic rifle and carbine, and the mass producible and shippable Sherman tank was that thing. The enemy always underestimates it because they misunderstand the point, in fact I almost think the U.S. ordinance department must keep this idea, not exactly secret, but on the down low and evolve it. It's a really no bullshit, practical and realistic tactic born from experience gained, that there is no such thing as fairness in war and breaking it is exactly how you win it. Just like how they taught their soldiers to fight in hand to hand combat. Dirty. America got a master class lesson in this through the Revolutionary war, the American Indian war and other case examples.
@@brucekendall9873
*LAUGHS IN ECONOMY*
Seriously though, that tactic you want is only viable if you have the economy to back it up. Even with how big America's economy is now, the prices for the new equipment have skyrocketed as well and it has become quite the issue.
It also didn't help that America's defense sector has literally cannibalized itself to the point that it is becoming apparently clear that America has been lacking in innovation and manufacturing power in recent years with the war in Ukraine showing this weakness clear as day.
And what's even more funny about the Garand story is that technically speaking, the M1 Garand isn't American but rather a Canadian gun made by a dude who's French-Canadian.
The key to tapping the BAR's potential isn't in changing the weapon's ergonomics or features, it's in three square C-Ration meals and some pushups.
6:34 for those curious, he said the Arisoka is the best Mauser rifle
ty king
Best Mauser is 1908 Brazilian Mauser, as we still have them in service (parade service, but still functional)
M1917 Enfield best mauser action fight me
By the same logic, literally every bolt-action rifle to ever exist is a Mauser.
@@andyfriederichsen the Arisaka uses a modified and strengthened Mauser action. Cuts the parts number for the action alone to less than half
My grandfather served in Korea and got expert with almost every single small arm -according to him. he used to call the BAR the "Big Ass Rifle" because of the weight and size
It's a great day when Potential History uploads a video. Let's go!
My experience with Thompson discussions:
Person 1 says it was a heavy piece of crap and nobody who ever carried it liked it
Person 2 says it was a beloved and indispensable trench/house clearer with true stopping power
Repeat ad nauseam
I just think it looks nice :)
So the truth lies somewhere in the middle
Also, it's just really cool and iconic
Grease Gun is good gun.
@@godemperormeow8591 Having shot most WW2 subguns, I'd choose the Grease Gun over most of them. It's overly practical for what it needed to do in the war.
@@TheStig505 by most I'm assuming you mean the American, British, German and Soviet ones not say the Italian, Japanese and minor power ones
holy shit he's back
we missed you man
And he's back again!
“A bit heavy” just another reason to never skip the gym.
Just want to say something on the BAR:
My grandpa made his one combat jump with it. (82nd Airborne, Operation Varsity)
He basically used it in a similar way that modern troops use assault rifles: burst fire, sometimes using it for suppression, sometimes from the hip.
He preferred it over what else he could have been issued. M1 Carbine couldn't punch through a wall, the Garand had a low rate of fire, and the Thompson was kinda wimpy for longer-ranged combat.
And yes, my grandpa too, complained about the weight.
The BAR would've been great if they had classified it an assault rifle and ran 30 round mags. I think Ian over on Forgotten Weapons covered a Belgian BAR that was just that...
When i was 15 i visited the US, ther ei got to shoot guns for the first time, the BAR was the 2 gun i ever fired, 2 of the gun range dudes had to help me hold it down in full auto, i also couldn't get a good grip on the handguard as it was this huge square of wood that my hand was too small for.
The issue with the BAR was that Army Ordinance suffered a major case of mental retardation when it came to that particular firearm. They looked at the M1918a2 and went "We think our guys are happy with this. There is no way they want anything better." All while Colt and FN came out with versions of the BAR that were operationally, ergonomically, and doctrinally better than the M1918a2 and even offered to swap out the M1918a2's with their versions.
Assault rifles rarely have their burst or auto settings used, and are almost exclusively used in semi-auto fire. At extremely close distances, they are still sometimes used in automatic fire. See Ukraine trench footage. Hip fire is typically equated to inexperienced troops, and isn't in any way the purpose of a modern assault rifle. Even just moving beyond the cold war definition of an assault rifle, the modern use case is starkly different as countries learned what was stupid and what wasn't. In regards to the BAR, it did none of its roles very well. Even as an Infantry Automatic Rifle the role was poor, and later developments in the IAR category became far more applicable. A good military to look at full fledged IAR/sniper doctrine integration with the standard infantry would be Iraq's proliferous use of RPK's in place of RPD's AND PKM's.
@don't be surprised lol
German machine gunner: Recruit Difficulty
Soviet machine gunner: Regular Difficulty
British machine gunner: Hard Difficulty
American machine gunner: Veteran Difficulty
I don't know about the DP being better than the Bren.
@@ericamborsky3230 Going by weight and magazine capacity. They are similar performance-wise though.
@@jayowen7830 I'd still give the edge to the Bren because carrying those pancake magazines for the DP looks like a pain.
@@flyingtexan5568 That's ok. That's what the assistant gunner is for ;)
@@jayowen7830
Why have one assistant gunner when all your mates can carry spare mags as well.
1:35 the Germans also found issues with issuing these large medium machine guns to paratroopers. That's why the FG42 exists.
while actually they did use both. MG34 are primary for holding point, FG-42 issued for aggresive covering fire.
@@azravalencia4577 yes and no. The main issue was when initially dropping the Mg34s had to be dropped separately. The FG42 was envisioned as a way of providing the same automatic firepower to paratroopers but able to be carried as they dropped in.
MG34s were still used for strong points etc like you say, but my point is that the MG34 faced the same issues when used with paratroopers.
@@Kav. wait, i thought Germans doesnt do weapon drop with their personnel since that's what Crete landing problem is (other than fighting aginst guerillas).
@@azravalencia4577 I was under the impression they dropped with rifles, sub guns etc but without machine guns (due to the weight of the gun). With the machine guns dropped in containers with the main troop (the containers often getting lost and leaving the gunner with just a sidearm) I could be wrong but that was my understanding of it.
i mean the FG42 is in many ways a german version of the BAR, small 20rnd mag, capable of fully automatic fire, yet not really capable of maintaining it.
When the world needed him most, he disappeared.
And it was still kinda heavy
You’re gonna carry that weight…
And it’s heavy.
The 2 different iconic images of the Tommy gun invokes different mindset. If it has a drum and grip in front, it's the Chicago Typewriter. If it is more simple with the straight magazine, it's the definitive WW2 SMG
"But sarge it's heavy"
"That's why we fed you all that corn you millions of guys named John, now go getem"
Never realized how heavy these guns were, especially when you many see them slugged around in movies and video games. I couldn't imagine having to carry 30-50 pounds of kit and 32 pound machine gun in the jungles of South East Asia. No wonder you see soldiers in some footage just in their white tanktops spraying this thing through the jungle
The BAR had a higher caliber compared to the M1 Carbine, so oddly enough, you actually saw many units take up more BARs as they had far better penetration.
Like "Fuck it, Frank, you think there's a Jap in there, I'll give you a Jap if you'll shut up."
Good thing the US had the best food rations by far
@@generalhorse493 spam won ww2
@@RestrictedHades Spam, intelligence gathering, reforms to tactics and strategies, access to important resources and superior co-operation between multiple countries won ww2
Sorry if you’re drowning in comments, but you triggered me real good on the SVT adoption date comment. The Garand was officially adopted in 1936 before both the SVT-40 and SVT-38. I’m actually not sure if it beat out the AVS-36, but the AVS was also ditched right away. Otherwise, great video and good to see you back
The worst part about the US BAR is the fact that their were better variants of it already in service than the one the US was using the Colt Monitor, the wz.28, the Swedish m/37 and the FN Mle 30
Legit all of them had pistol grips while the American BAR still had to endure that older stock design, more simple to use but ergonomics
Also all western lmgs are either BAR derivatives or mg 42 derivatives which is to say why the hell did the US not pick a BAR derivative
Crucially, other versions of the BAR (at least the FN ones) could be disassembled and cleaned much easier. On the original BAR, everything came out of the bottom of the receiver, whereas in the later FN BARs you could just pull everything out the back of the receiver (like almost all other machine guns).
America HATES using foreign weapons even if it is clearly superior look to the m14 vs British EM-2 debacle
God I just want potential history back it hurts so bad
Thank you Potential History.. my brother just passed away waiting for you to upload and has been pronounced dead on the couch for two days. When he got the notification you uploaded, he got up and click your video.
@Not gonna lie Thank you, that was a very informative video about Italian weaponry uses during ww2
@@khoapham4670 you too
I trully can’t believe it’s been a year already since this was uploaded, I used to watch your videos constantly
Early war in the Pacific, Marines kinda caught the best and the worst as far as the 1st Marines being issued 1903 Springfields and better yet 1917 Enfield as well as drum-fed m1928s while their Paramarine Cousins got significantly nicer Johnson Auto-Rifles, Johnson LMGs, and M50/55 Reisings with full Frog Skin camies to boot.
The US didn't adopt the Johnson rifle because they ended up favoring the garand during the weapon result thing i forgot the name of. So Johnson just ended up selling them to the Dutch in the East Indies since the Dutch needed extra power cause they had a feeling the Japanese would invade.
The Dutch were correct. The Japanese did invade. Unfortunately the shipment took too long to arrive. So Japan got control of the Dutch East Indies and you have couple or few boatloads of Johnson Rifles. Apparently some army or marine soldiers got their hands on them and ended up using them instead of their standard issue rifles (idk which ones they preferred the Johnson over though)
Thats for the Johnson rifle personally. The other guns I dont know much about
@@jaredf.6532 yeah the johnsons weren't issued, they were stolen.
which to veterans about fits for a marine weapon.
@@bobmcbob49 Tactically acquired.
The Reisings were pieces of shit, and many marines would end up ditching it for a Springfield in the Guadalcanal Campaign.
Potential history be like:
Upload high-quality history videos that are funny around once a month
Leave for a half a year break
Come back with 3 videos roughly one a month
Leave for a year
Come back with a single video
Leave for half a year
Come back with an another video
Never seen again...
It's been slightly over a year and a month since. We have no more high-quality history videos to watch besides the bi-annual Oversimplified video.
We need you the most now, king. 😢
Stop copying other people's comment. Have some dignity
@@miladeskandari7 copying other people's comment? What is this, reddit? What reason would you have to do that lmao, I just wrote what came to mind I didn't even check other comments.
The big dog came back
@@santiagoperez3024 I wish, you made me check but there's only the 3 months old Indiana volunteers video 😢
@@prinzoyro6886 At least we know Big D ain’t dead
Hoping he does this for all the major powers like the tank videos
same
same
I am most excited for video on British small arms. There will be a lot of "some guys and the shed"
@@madkoala2130that's how they made Accuracy International
It’s literally a travesty we have to learn these things seemingly WITH him lol. Waiting a year between posts blows, but goddamnit is it worth it😂
"Sorry, Brazil, you get the Springfield"
As a Brazilian, I am in no way offended
Edit: HOLY SHIT
I think editing my comment made me lose the ❤️ thingy PH gave me... Oh well
I mean hey decades later you got to make a licensed Beretta clone.
Lmao, US Marines still had a bunch of bolt actions.
As an American, kinda proud.
We had Mausers for our civil wars already, being issued (shamelessly copied, .30 06, American made) Mausers to storm the Gothic line was just like being at home
I thought the Brazilian Expeditionary Force mostly received M1917 rifles.
I think it's important to keep in mind that the BAR filled a new 'class' or 'role' in the squad. A lot of people try to compare it to light machine guns which the BAR wasn't an example of. Compared to other automatic rifles (Breda 30, FG42) it was certainly up to par.
Unlike the fg42 it was bullet proof. And when used as a offensive and mobile weapon system it did very well with marines
@@casematecardinalwhat do you mean by the bar being bulletproof? I can shoot at the gun's important components and it will withstand the bullets?
@@danelassiter6838 its a turn of phrase. You're reading too much into it
@@casematecardinal I'm just gonna assume that by when you say bullet proof you mean that it was good then in that case the fg42 was just as good
@@danelassiter6838 first of all just look it up, its not a rare phrase. Second, the fg4w was not nearly as durable. Being that it was a paratrooper weapon it was extremely lightly built and had some very odd geometry. The BAR was designed and revised based on the trenches of ww1.
My grandfather was training in Panama with Army airborne to prepare to drop into Japan for the mainland invasion (which thankfully never happened) and he positively LOVED the M1 Carbine. Said it was the easiest and most accurate rifle he ever shot, with follow up hits being rapid and surprisingly easy to make. Not to mention the thing weighed very little compared to the rest of the guns the Airborne had. I read later about the French Foreign Legion’s adoption of the M1 Carbine and they had largely the same things to say. Apparently, the Germans also liked them enough to use them when captured, much like how US forces routinely implemented Sturmgeweres when they’re capture them. Seems like it was one of those guns that everyone loved, shitty wire stock variant maybe being the exception.
My grandfather had plenty of love for the M1 Carbine too. Whilst fighting in Burma as part of the British Army he managed to talk his way into getting one and always told stories of him sitting up in trees or bushes, managing to take out Japanese soldiers whilst they rushed around trying to find him, to him it was much faster and lighter than the Lee-Enfield, being easy to rush around the jungle and climb up trees with. To him it was the easiest rifle he'd ever used, being able to quicky pick off targets and fire off shots which he always said made it perfect for fighting in Burma, being able to rapidly fire off shots at the Japanese then quickly duck back into the Jungle. Always joked about how he nearly broke down into tears when he had to part with the thing.
The M1 Carbine did have one drawback, the magazines were crappy and prone to jamming failures.
@@CornCod1To be fair, every gun had that problem, especially during WW2 when that sort of technology was still in its infancy.
My Great Uncle was in the 82nd Airbourne during the second world war, and had two main stories he would always tell. These stories are funny and not combat related, which is why he felt comfortable telling them. He died some years ago, never telling anyone a thing about the combat he had seen. One of the stories came to me when you mentioned that the 1919 machine gun was not great for paratroopers. According to my uncle, who was a member of a 1919 crew, the more senior soldier would jump with the machine gun, which was heavy and hard to carry, and the younger men would jump with the ammunition. Recognizing this, my uncle would ask the younger men if they wanted to carry his machine gun until they landed. They would almost always agree excitedly, only to realize my uncle had it easier with the ammo. Thanks for remiding me of this story, I always get excited when you upload as your content is great but does not come around too often.
Wake up babe, PH uploaded
I forgot this channel for so long
How convenient when i start getting back into history content i find him again
0:33
You could have also added the Hanyang 88 for the [N/A] country as they were in much more available numbers than the newer Type Zhongzheng rifle, but since you put a disclaimer about issues with scaling, it's give it a pass.
This feels like a throwback to talking about topics (while still factual) with more emotional impact
This feels good
There is a note with the M1 Carbine is that in the Pacific it was not favored all that well. BARs, although heavy, still had a decent caliber round that could penetrate the jungles well. Similar issues occurred for the Carbine when used early on in Vietnam.
Iirc BARs with cut down barrels we're used by spec ops due to how powerful 30.06 was, which just allowed them to spray over the jungle
The Carbine had a vastly inferior cartridge compared to modern ammo. That being said, anyone poking out of cover is gonna end up as a Fallout 1 bloody mess corpse.
.30 Carbine is plenty powerful enough (muzzle energy is pretty similar to .357 Magnum), but if the bad guy is hopped up on drugs or maybe wearing enough layers of clothes it might come up lacking. Shooting through brush, walls, trees, etc. I would agree that .30 Carbine is lacking.
That or US soldiers and Marines couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. Can't exactly bring something down if you aren't hitting it. ;)
@@kylebrady969 Penetration wise, it sucked a**. Flesh wound wise, total banger.
You are totally wrong. Congratulations
It isn’t about how much he posts, it’s about the quality and the topic of the video!! Always a joy to see potential history put out another outstanding video and giving us joy!! Thanks PH!! You’ve made my day!!
You missed the M50 Reising, which was a pretty common machine pistol that the marines used in the Pacific, which had its own issues. Also, the M1 carbine got missed as that was a fairly common gun for paratroopers and rear echelon soldiers.
Also it was a bit light
I guess you can call them heavy weight champions! It’s good to have you back, and this was a great video.
3:55 It's like if your grandpa joined at the end of WW1 and was too stubborn to leave and stuck around until WW2.
"I came for a war, I ain't leavin till I been in one!"
- My grandpa, seriously. Joined 1918 less than a week before armistice, stayed in interwar and through til end of Korea, made it out a colonel. Winner 2 purple hearts, conmbat infantry, bronze star, and way too many misc medals to be bothered. Miss ya, gramps, you were a mad bastard and a fucking asshole, and the best partner in crime any wayward kid coulda asked for! Wait good for me, I got ya stories to make you envy!
Glad to see you back, hope all is well. Would love to see more vids, this has always been one of my favorite channels.
My grandpa carried the m2 during Korea ended up buying a m1 after the war said it was the only rifle youd ever need. Cool part about the m2 carbine is all m2 carbines are just m1s with a conversion kit that's placed around the receiver.
Actually I believe those are designated m1-1/2 when they were converted cause they also started producing m2 rifles from scratch, or atleast I have seen some designated that way.
My grandpa carried the M1 carbine in the Pacific theatre in WW2 and was a great marksman, (shooting Japanese snipers in treetops.)
I'm really impressed how the quality of your videos has improved. I enjoy this format as well. Good work!
So I own an M1 Garand (and really want a carbine) and my personal anecdotal experience with it has been very positive! I'm a small guy, 5'6", 150lbs, and yes, it is a heavy rifle, but it's very well balanced (until you put a bayonet on) and easy to hit torso sized targets from the standing, unsupported position from 75-100 yards. From a bench or prone, you can fairly reliably hit an 8" steel plate from 200 yards. Beyond that you're getting to the point where a stationary, camouflaged enemy would be difficult to spot unless they did something to give away their position. Not only that, but in comparison to something like the mosins and K98s I've shot, the M1 has noticably less recoil, especially when standing or kneeling, than it's counterparts. So not only can you avoid having to manually cycle a bolt and re-aquire your target, I've had less issue training through the flinch, can run the gun really fast at 50 yards and in, and the thing that nobody seems to mention is that in addition to it being faster to shoot than a bolt action, it's also significantly faster to reload than a bolt action! If I have an extra clip hanging on the sling, I can consistently do 2 second reloads and I've never been professionally trained and have a much lower round count through it than a WW2 soldier would have. The sights are also phenomenal! The front post is a bit chunky for precision (about 6 MOA wide and square), but for combat applications it works quite well since it's easy to pick up without having to hunt for it, it's pronounced enough that it doesn't blend in with brush, and being squared and wide, you can do some good combat and wind holds with it (such as putting the target on the left corner of the front sight post instead of centered if you have a right to left wind or if they're moving). The big downside to the WW2 Garand sights that was remedied with the Korean era Garands was that they used what's called a "lock bar sight" where there is a metal bar that screws down to keep your elevation or windage knobs from being bumped (just Google a picture of it). The problem with that is that it's time consuming to loosen it, you can lose the bar if you unscrew it too far and it falls off, and the Garand already has super positive detents for the knobs, so your clicks are very audible, tactile, and require a good deal of deliberate rotational force to adjust. Once you've made the adjustments, you tighten the bar back down and it holds the sights in place. But the US got smart by Korea and realized the lock bar was a solution to a problem that just didn't exist, so they scrapped it, redesigned the knobs to be simpler, and they worked perfectly fine without it while also having the advantage of adjusting faster. However, the WW2 ones did have a cool little engraving on them saying "Battle Range" so points for that.
So yah, M1 is heavy, but it's so well balanced that you don't really notice it, easy to shoot, easy to shoot fast and reload fast, and is a great sporting and hunting rifle even today. Good gun, worth the extra weight. (also a final note, not all M1s weigh the same, they can actually fall within a wide range, usually due to the wood used, how much oil was applied to the stock, what it was exposed to over it's lifetime, and the rifles stored in cosmoline are usually the heaviest since you can never get all that crap out of the wood)
It’s because its so heavy that the recoil is so buttery smooth, I’ve fired a sporterized 1903 and it kicked back significantly harder than my M1 does
Plus I'd imagine that because the Garand is semi-auto that it's bleeding some of that energy off of the round fired, then you get the counter recoil effect of the mass of the bolt and carrier, piston, etc. back towards the shooter. The weight helps but I figure that because it's semi-auto it also helps with felt recoil., could be wrong though.
@@Emperor_Pepsi_Man plus the fact that the op rod spring is like 2 feet long uncompressed. That right there absorbs a lot of the recoil and the spring plus mass of the bolt extend the duration of the recoil by reducing the acceleration. Physics says the total recoil energy will be the same, but it's over a longer period of time and the energy is absorbed by several things other than your shoulder. Any semi auto should be softer shooting than a comparable bolt action of the same caliber with the same butt pad. Plus the fact it's a heavy gun helps
The Owen gun weighed almost as much as the Thompson and it was universally loved by the troops.
So being a bit heavy doesn't mean they're worthless? I got a chance!
"Also, it was a bit heavy" Are you teasing a sequel to The Tragedy of King Tiger the Heavy?
my boy, where are u? Hope everything's aight
Guess who's back. Back again.
Having both a Springfield and a Enfield P14 (British Model 17) the Springfield is light and the P14 is heavy at 9 pounds, but makes recoils controllable. Having shot the 1919 and serviced it, at least on the shooting range, with its light tripod and slower rate of fire I think it is much more controllable than a MG42. (Tripod to tripod comparison the 1919 can get lower to the ground prone firing, and has a simple T&E elevation control system) Considering the MG42 swallows ammo faster than infants swallow Pennies. Anyways fun video Johnny!
"U.S. Small Arms of World War II are often viewed as the best, and I won't dance around it, we all know why." *GARAND PING!*
Me: "OH YEAH! That's the stuff. I need to watch that again."
Honestly the hilarious part about the Grease Gun is that it saw usage for *way* longer than you'd think it would.
And that IIRC the US still keeps quite a few in armory reserves because the design still works and works well on top of being near braindead simple to operate and service.
I heard it was kept in active service with tankers up until the Gulf War in 91
Not really any way to improve tube with a handle as far as smg’s go
@@deeznoots6241 yes you can make it cost 100k because carbon fiber
@@Cpt_Boony_Hat Yep and not just them, even some Special Forces still used it. Larry Vickers noted how during his time as an operator, they'd turn the aperture rear sight into a v-notched rear sight.
casual tube of smarties that shoots pistol rounds.
Man if you make this a series and get to Japan, boy oh boy is it gonna be a fun one.
I miss this guy
I hope you do similar videos for all the major countries! Also, I get what you're saying about how heavy American weapons are, but to be fair us Americans have always had a "bigger is better" mindset, even if it hurts or hinders us. There's a reason we are a chonky people.
Despite how much I wish you would post more, its always worth the wait
Almost time for the yearly new video soon?
Such a short video, yet I kept on pausing for the additional information. You have a great knowledge of firearms. Awesome video!
Bro always dissapears for a few months and then returns like nothing happened... I love it
I'm sad that there was just a short snippet about the M1 Carbine, my favorite gun, bar none. The M1 Carbine is the reason why my family line doesn't stop at my Great Grandmother, who had one in Korea and used it to scare off a home invader.
It woulda ruined the *heavy* joke bc that thing is like 5lbs loaded and the size of a T Ball bat. My personal favorite as well.
I am more disappointed he talked about the sturmgewher but not m2 carbine which kinda came out first.....but the army wanted to simplify production in 1940 so made em semi auto. Atleast until 1944.
Good to see you back Potential History!
Man that has gotta be one of the greatest videos I've seen this decade
Praise be, Potential History is still Alive. And he's graced us with a Video. que weeks of re-watching and listening at work and at home.
Justice for my boii , the PPS and its designer are definitely a story worth checking out
I love this content, and would definitely like to see more of this style, maybe some axis small arms would be really neat such as Japan's excellent rifles and machine guns compared to their not-so much good pistols, or the German's with their cracked German ingenuity with the perfection of a bolt action with the Kar98k, the introduction of assault rifles, and the beasts that was the buzzsaw/MG42. Good stuff keep it up :}
SMLE > Kar 98k.
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 yeah I can see that as a good competitor to the kar98k but I'd rather have the kar over the smle due to breach loading. But I respect that opinion. 👍
@@The-Pooky They are both bolt action breach loading rifles?
@@gwtpictgwtpict4214 wrong say apologies, I was thinking of breach loaders 😑. What I meant to say was in my opinion the kar98 is a slightly more accurate rifle. Yes the smle carries 10 rounds but I say I feel more accurate with the kar98k, probably due to the feeling that with each shot accuracy is key, while with the smle I feel slightly more obligated to not be as more accurate considering that the smle carries 5 extra rounds
@@The-Pooky Not to shit on the Kar98k in build quality (though late-war it suffered just as much as any other gun), but WWII was the conflict where it really became apparent that most of the time the number of bullets will win the fight, rather than the accuracy of those bullets, hence Soviets dumping PPSh-41s on their troops like there is no tomorrow, not to mention the SVT-40s. US already had the Garand in that regard, and Germany came to the conclusion too late to make something that would work, the Gewehr 41 being too unreliable, the MP40 too expensive to make in droves (despite not being very expensive) and the StG 44 being too little too late. The Kar98k at that point was something they were hoping to get rid of, but there was nothing else that could even come close to supplementing it, nevermind replacing it as a main infantry rifle.
I keep coming back to this video specifically. I'm thinking it's because of the efficiency of it. I remember when I first saw it I was totally shocked to learn it was only 6 minutes.
Please come back 😓
I'm Glad To See This Channel Still Active
2:16 That Glock Thompson is absolutely Cursed...
Dude keep this up! We missed these historical memery from you.
We miss you…..
Good to see the yearly potential history vid
2:32 I saw Combat and even more respect for you and your channel was earned.
I watch a lot of World War II and history videos. These are by far the most will produced, and overall hilarious videos I watch.
I really liked this video. Please make more
Sorry if I'm nit picking, but I think that 0:22, it seems to me that, the rifle in question, is some kind of a "1903", because of shape of it's grip (which is visible and can be compared to the pic that you put up next to it), BTW, really great video!
This could be an excellent series! Do more please!
THE KING HAS RETURNED
Thank the lord we didn’t have to wait another year
Its almost a year that means by law he will release a new viseo
The one has returned, thank gosh. This is what we needed back
It's been a year now! Where is this guy?
Omg where have you been? Good to have you back. And awesome video. Please make it a series showing the other nations small arms of WWII as well.
DUDE COME BACK FOR US ITS BEEN A YEAR
I know you’re busy and these take more time than people realize but…
Please come back. We miss you.
My brother in Christ I have 3 words for you. Girls Und Panzer?
Loving the MOH:Airborne B-roll.
Opération dragoon is an interesting topic, it’s not talked about much and is overtaken by the war in northern France, but multiple “minor” nations are involved
Bro I'm just happy you're still alive
for context to show how much unprepared US was and how strong their industrial power was:
M1 garand and subsequent guns werent mass produced before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, this is why the first batch of troops that got sent overseas, like the 1st Marines, were still equipped with the same gear as their grandfather did in WW1. It took US only half a year to replace all the old gear, crazy.
Well the Marine Corps example is Odd because the Marines didn’t trust the M1, their ethos was to issue the new rifles to rear echelon troops so that any issues with the M1 could be resolved by the time they could issue it to the front line troops. It’s convoluted but that’s fact until after the M1 proved itself in the hands of army infantry in Guadalcanal and North Africa
I have honestly never laughed so must at a history video, I loved it thank you
Rewatched it for the shits and giggles...thigh highs and an M1 didn't know I needed such a thing in my life
I miss your channel. Will you upload again?
Potential history, my beloved
0:06 yes. that’s exactly why.
Finally woke up from his hibernation