Hello, friends! This is M1: the story of the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine in America. I'm Jiang Chao, and this is a course about why the U.S. military relied on these classic weapons.
It's amazing how you've been able to create an entire channel with so much invaluable and interesting historical information out of just 1 single topic
A story from China to share here which is somewhat relevant to the topic of the video. My grandfather worked for the Communist army in the Taihang Mountain region during the Sino-Japanese War. Around 1942, things were really tough there and every bit of material was precious. Zhao, a colleague of my grandfather's was assigned as a political instructor/teacher to a youth company of high school students (well, the rough equivalent of - there wasn't much formal education system in China back then for a backward region like this, even before the war). Zhao was highly motivated at first and tried to teach those kids everything from Chinese to maths on the sidelines of skirmishes, but soon realized that these boys had a hard time staying true to military orders, much less learning anything that required significant effort. One thing they failed to adhere to was the order to preserve expended cartridges - following orders from high-ups, Zhao repeatedly told them to retrieve as many shells from the battle as humanly possible, to not much effect. Anyways, Zhao insisted on his ways but felt defeated inside and secretly regarded the students as "country bums". He was transferred to another military education institution by the end of 42. But Zhao would soon change his opinion under a tragic situation. In 1942-43, Japanese forces repeatedly conducted major anti-partisan operations in the mountains. One such campaign took place in the Spring of 1943, when Japanese forces surprise attacked a Communist HQ. The youth company Zhao was assigned to was sent to act as rearguard for the retreat, and all of them died as a result. Learning the news, Zhao went with the reinforcements to inspect the battlefield. He saw that besides every one of those kids' bodies were the spent cartridges - 5, 6, or 10 of them neatly lined up to be retrieved. Zhao thought perhaps the boys realized that they couldn't survive the battle, so they did not want to leave a mess and bad example. He cried really hard that day and felt shameful for his earlier condescension toward the students. Now, to think that the entire first generation of Communist military leadership came from these struggles and they more often than not have a background of poverty. As such, extreme frugality and material scarcity were written deeply into their minds, to a point that contemporary Soviet/US military leaders cannot even comprehend.
The USMC only thought that the BAR was unnecessary because the M1 represented a quantum leap in the firepower of the individual infantryman. Not only could you fire far faster during a "Mad Minute," you didn't lose your sight picture between shots when you had to work the bolt on earlier rifles. So long as the individual infantryman had a bolt-action rifles, the weight of fire of the BAR was necessary. The introduction of the Garand removed the necessity of compromise.
@lolwutyoumad and @kingkonut [bland expression, eerie monotone] I am grateful that the Party and the people showed me the errors in my thinking. They are tolerant and kind. I will requite the Party and the people for their lenience by working harder.
I'll back up that Jason Clower accurately presented the mainstream US military thought during the period that the PLA adopted the Type 56 Carbine. The US M-14 rifle was adopted in 1957 and most M-14 Rifle was issued with selector switch locks that prevented firing on AUTO--the general-issue M-14 rifle was locked on semiautomatic. Four or five magazines (80 to 100 shots) was the basic rifleman load, the M1 Rifle basic load was also 80 rounds. The M14 Rifle program was cut in 1964 as a budget measure! The M16A1 rifle was a temporary solution between the M-14 Rifle and a series of futuristic weapons that never were ready for prime time--universal issue of automatic weapons was a thing until the M16A2 replaced the M16A1; the M16A2 had SEMI and BURST (3-shot) capability, not full auto (capable of firing the entire magazine with one trigger pull). I'm 68 and a retired soldier. I read SLA Marshall's Men Against Fire in 1973 while still in high school and I ran away from home and joined the Marines, entering boot camp in 1975 and was trained as an avionics tech. I read the 1940 Small Wars Manual first in 1976. I wound up in US Army electronic warfare, was cross trained as a unit armorer, and was designated as my units' rifle, machine gun, pistol and grenade launcher instructor. Today I have NRA certification as a rifle and pistol instructor. I even visited the birthplace of the Browning Automatic Rifle and have several books on the BAR, and I have bookcases full of manuals, history books and just plain literature on small arms of the last 100 years. The Small Wars Manual was a supplement to standard Marine Corps Training. In 1940 a Marine Corps rifle platoon had a platoon headquarters, an automatic rifle squad (8 Marines, two BARs and six M1903 rifles), and three rifle squads (9 Marines, 8 M1903 bolt actions rifles and one M1918 BAR)--and their light machine gun at the company level was probably the Lewis light machine gun. The Marines found out the hard way that the 8-or 9-Marine rifle squad was difficult to control in close terrain (villages, jungle, forest or trench combat) and dividing the squad into teams of four or five with a designated leader in each team proved to be more effective in combat. The 1944 change was three fire teams of four Marines each, built around the BAR and the rest of the rifle squad armed with the M1 Rifle (the squad leader might replace his M1 with a submachine gun--his primary weapon was his rifle squad). The platoon had become a three-squad affair with a platoon HQ. In 1975 the Marines designated one Marine per fire team the automatic rifleman and that Marine was supposed to be the only one to fire on automatic--and even then, the stress was on single, well-aimed shots. As an avionics tech I didn't have much opportunity to fire on full auto. When the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon became the heart of the Marine Corps fire team, the Marines were not satisfied and they adopted the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle to fire primarily in the semi-automatic mode because even with helicopters and amphibious carriers, the Marines are primarily foot-soldiers. Fratricide is no joke. American police suffer from friendly fire and have evolved close quarter battle doctrine. Marine Corps formations were larger and more densely packed in 1940--today's dogma is 10-meter separation between individuals and 25 meters between fire teams and squads adjusted for terrain and for visibility conditions. This empties out the battlefield and reduces fratricide--along with damned effective body armor. Universal infantry individual radios (with radio discipline) and night vision gear help command and control--in the old days, Soldiers and Marines had to be close enough to whisper and use hand signals. Bayonets are not as emphasized today--but back in 1955 (and even in 1975) the bayonet was regarded as a credible close-quarter weapon. The US Army used to award EXPERT BAYONET badges! I've said it before--the Chinese PLA was ahead of the game because it formally organized its small combat groups of three, and in 1955 the three-three squad had three automatic weapons ON PAPER, one light machine gun in one of the teams and a submachine gun in each of the other teams. SLA Marshall wrote a lot. In his Men Against Fire, Marshall noted that the firefight began with the BAR and ended with the BAR. Marshall's Men Against Fire complained that only a small fraction of infantry in contact with the enemy fired even one shot at the enemy--still controversial today, perhaps not accurate when it was written in WW2. Marshall's comments on infantry weapons in Korea stated that rifle fire was seldom effective beyond 200 yards (during WW2 the term "close combat" was defined as 200 yards and under--today that's 50 meters and under), that crew-served light machine guns had an effective range of about 400 yards and Dr. Crower reported verbatim what Marshall said about semiautomatic fire. Marshall's remarks on automatic fire versus semiautomatic fire and his insistence on forming fire teams grouped around an automatic weapon were in line with PLA and USMC practices from WW2. From my experience, fire discipline is something installed by training. I began shooting six decades ago and today's Boy Scout rifle merit badge stresses single-shot rifles; only one cartridge at a time is loaded into the .22 rimfire rifle. I never liked a mechanical bandage substituting for proper fire discipline--it leads to failure to fire in combat. The M16A2's three shot burst is such a bandaide. Training takes time, it's synthetic experience, and it takes ammo. In 1975 the Marines were still training for war. In 2004 prior to shipping over to Operation Iraqi Freedom II with 321st Signal Company, Nevada Army National Guard for a year in Kuwait and Iraq, part of the 90-day mobilization training was in wartime rifle fire that had been neglected in peacetime.
"most M-14 Rifle was issued with selector switch locks that prevented firing on AUTO--the general-issue M-14 rifle was locked on semiautomatic" If that is the case, were there any attempts by soldiers to get rid of the lock? like allowing full auto?
@@ZastavaM70AB2 I don't know of any attempts to get around the M14 selector switch lock--it replaced the selector switch. Replacing the lock with the switch would have been the easy route if you had a punch, a small hammer, and the switch.
@alancranford3398 Pure gold! And ... expert bayonet badges?! I absolutely must find out what the test for that was like and experience it. As always, sir (but today even more than usual), THANK YOU for sharing!
After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese assessment of the SKS was that it was game changer. Not so much for being semiautomatic but that the soldiers could carry twice the ammo compared to the Type 53, due to the lower weight of ammunition and rifle. The war was fought over the Himalayas and there was not a lot of trucks moving supplies. They still used mules. On multiple occasions, infantry companies ordered to carry out reconnaissance by force ended up overrunning dug in Indian positions held by a battalion. 10 years earlier during the Korean War this would have been impossible. Even if the defender panicked and broke, the attacking company would run out of ammo and have to withdraw. The milled AK was heavier than the SKS. The magazines it carried were also heavy. Inevitably a soldier with an SKS can carry more ammo than one with an AK. Maybe if the PLA had tried the lightweight Czechoslovakian Vz.58 with it's aluminum magazines they might change their minds.
It also did help that the Indians at the time were armed with the Lee-Enfield. A fine military rifle for its time, but that time was not 1962, and the results showed. After that, they got FALs, which is a much better match for the SKS. Still a bit a heavy weapon and ammo, but you have twice the capacity from detachable box magazines and its semi-auto.
@classifiedad1 No doubt the soldiers appreciated the self loaders. However it was likely not deemed noteworthy by the commanders. The after action report was just people gushing with excitement about the new tactical application of having twice the ammo. I was expecting some commentary on the advantages of self loading rifle over bolt action, but found none. I get the feeling if they had to chose between bolt action carbine in intermediate cartridge or the FAL, they would opt for the former.
@ My guess on that is that having “twice the ammo” as a rifleman is far more novel than having a self-loader, which they had already encountered as even before WWII if you count submachine guns. Though it does seem the Indians were and to an extent still are of the mind that the issue with the Enfield was that it was a bolt-action, not the power and bulk of the ammunition. Namely, they replaced the Enfield with the FAL, whose main distinction is that it’s a self-loader but doesn’t cut much down on the bulk of ammo. While they have officially replaced it with the 5.56mm INSAS, that rifle has since been replaced by a combination of 5.56mm NATO, 7.62mm Soviet, and 7.62mm NATO rifles, being the Tavor, AK-203, and SIG Sauer 716i respectively. It is notable the SIG rifles are going to units in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, basically the front line. Of course, the PLA is still a big fan of “more ammo” concept because they developed and then doubled down on the 5.8mm round and really tried to make it do everything.
The circumstances around the Assault Rifle also mirror the introduction of the magazine fed rifles at the end of the 19th century. Many generals wanted to stay with the single shot models, because otherwise "the soldiers would just waste ammunition". Of course, there was also a great focus on the bayonet charge was the most intimidating and decisive form of infantry attack.
The saving in cost to the Chinese was in the magazines. The Kalashnikov used complex pressed steel multi part box magazines whilst the SKS used cheap simple strip chargers. The material poverty of the PLA also meant that the soldiers would have to ensure that the empty magazine was carefully put away in its pouch before removing a new full one to reload. The SKS strip chargers are cheap enough to be discarded so the putting away step is eliminated.
The thing about the AK is that it's still a very effective semi-auto rifle, many youtubers have tried to use the Type 56 AK precisely at long range and found it to work very well in that role.
The thing that's holding it back is the bullet's ballistics. It would be curious to see what would happen if you rechambered an SKS and an AK for 6mm ARC, a distant descendant of the Soviet cartridge. 6mm ARC is spooky accurate and long-ranged for its size. On the other hand, the AK is a legend for durability because it was designed with loose tolerances so that dirt just falls thru the gaps instead of jamming it. This is not ideal for accuracy, though. My prediction: the SKS rechambered for 6mm would beat the AK in accuracy and (due to longer barrel) penetration, but both would be far ahead of 7.62X39.
true, but when you have same caliber with ~4 more inches of barrel length (not as necessary for 7.62x39 as say 5.56 but the point stands) plus the ability to get fully prone, you can see where the PLA leadership gets their ideas about increased accuracy
@@rasputin2750 Yes the extra barrel length makes a slight difference but only at such a great distance that it is completely impractical in a squad of riflemen. You see in people using service rifles like AK/SKS at such range they need a spotter with high magnification scope to watch the fall of the shot to tell the shooter how to adjust their aim. You'll also see the occasions where the fall of the shot isn't visible to the spotter then the shots just land consistently off-target. It's impractical for each rifleman in a squad to have a spotter. Even if they did the shots of other riflemen would confuse the spotters, unsure which bullet came from which rifle. AK's long mag is a little harder going prone but definitely the benefit of 30 uninterrupted shots is far more valuable. Having to break your hold after only 10 shots to reload an SKS is just ruining the equilibrium you are able to find after a few shots. It's almost always better just to get your riflemen much closer especially if you're planning to capture their position. Look at it this way: even if you could aim accurately from 1km away, so what? You can't capture trenches from 1km away and if the fire is effective they'll duck into foxholes or behind cover. But now you have to advance 1km towards the enemy position while they're blasting the open ground with mortars, artillery and automatic grenade launchers and they know you're coming because you shot at them from 1km away. It's always better to use cover, concealment and camouflage to get as close as possible before using small arms. Riflemen are NOT long range assets, where they excel is concealment and able to defeat obstacles. If you really need to shoot at very long range it's probably better to just have a designated marksman for 2 reasons: - it's hard to mass produce very accurate rifles but generally you can find one rifle out of a set that is unusually accurate just by chance. - Long range accurate marksmanship is a unique talent, most people can never be that good a shot and even then so much training is needed it's too costly to train everyone up to that standard.
Ever since firearms were developed there's always been this fear that troops would expend ammunition too quickly if given the opportunity. IIRC one of the specific reasons that some militaries did not adopt the Dreyfus-Needle-Rifle, one of the early bolt-action rifles, was that it's increased rate of fire would lead to increased ammunition consumption that the military simply could not provide for. Heck, doesn't the Lee-Enfield have a magazine cut-off for this exact reason?
The US rifles of 1892 (Krag) and 1903 {Springfield) had magazine cut-offs. The Springfield M1903 could be reloaded with five-shot magazine chargers ( stripper clips) but the US Army thought it important to be able to re-cock the rifle (cocking knob) and to keep a loaded magazine in reserve, feeding one cartridge at a time into the rifle. Going back farther in time, the Spencer repeating carbine was replaced by the Model of 1873 single-shot carbine for logistical reasons. When the M14 Rifle was adopted, most were issued with a selector switch lock that restricted the rifle to semiautomatic fire only. The M16A1 was selective SEMI and AUTO fire and for riot control duty a lock plate could be installed to restrict the M16 to semiautomatic fire only. I encountered National Guard M16A2 rifles with those lock plates installed. The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon was automatic fire only--the Marines adopted a select-fire M27 IAR and intend to fire most IAR shots semiautomatic.
@@brosefmalkovitch3121 The Enfield pattern rifles did indeed have mag cut offs as an early feature, once wartime production started however you see them drop it very quickly as a useless expense.
It wasn't really a fear. Even during WW2, the Germans were having a very hard time feeding the stg44 with enough ammo. They were able to produce rifles fast enough, but the things just used so many cartridges that the supply lines couldn't fill their appetite.
@@doctordoggo8604 It’s funny to think that the army which had one of the biggest logistical hurdles in Europe would then field a general-purpose machine gun with the highest rate of fire.
I know its discussed in American Civil War circles that the "slow firing" muskets could eat away 40 rounds of ammo (the soldier's load) in 20 minutes. 20 minutes and suddently you need to march all the way back to your supply wagons. That isn't an option when you're fighting an hours or days long war. Its no wonder why the idea of expending too much ammunition was so ingrained. It's almost inherent to warfare with firearms.
The Soviets also started out planning to use the SKS as the primary infantry rifle, and the AK as a specialist weapon more akin to a SMG. It was only after they actually started fielding the SKS/AK/RPD family of weapons, and they realized the AK was perfectly adequately accurate for the Soviet rifleman's needs, any engagement the Soviet Army would be fighting would be using *interior* lines of communication for resupply, and they expected ammunition production and shipping to keep up with use expectations. That means the Russians were *also* looking at a fielding mix and use case similar to the PLA's 1955/1956 plan, at least as late as when the PLA made their decisions - they only shut down Russian domestic production of the SKS for Russian use in 1958. Really, the Soviet Army only *really* jumped 100% on board with the AK as the standard rifle for *everyone* with the introduction of the AKM in 1959 (which was lighter and far cheaper to produce than either the milled receiver AK or the SKS).
Going back to the advent of the repeating bolt-action rifles there were magazine cutoffs and refusals to adopt them early on for fear that the troops would burn too much ammunition. Time is a flat circle
PLA is like American Marines in emphasis on the individual semiautomatic rifleman making every shot count! What's next? Are you going to tell me the AK-47 is modeled more on the M-1 Garand than the German Stg 44?
Do we need a SKS bayonet montage? I have sks and an attached flip up spike bayonet but what about everyone in the class has never shoved a knife on a gun through a cinder block or old car door?
Not to mention their doctrine was originally geared towards guerrilla warfare and to compensate for the lack of logistics. This means accuracy was more important as they needed to make every shot count. Of course eventually they learned that the AK in practice is only marginally less accurate than the SKS and that the other advantages it has was more than making up for the slightly less accuracy.
@@dontwalkdontrun Oh boy, you just had to put that idea [of the bayonet montage] in my head, didn't you? 😁 It's like waving red at a bull, or telling a teenage boy, "I bet you can't eat 30 hot dogs..."
From the descriptions of the difficulties encountered in the PLA logistics train in Korea I’m not surprised that the leadership was afraid they couldn’t supply an infantry using a fully automatic assault rifle as its primary weapon. Regarding production costs, the SKS is made with a milled steel receiver which is more expensive than the stamped receivers the AK would eventually utilize. It’s true the first Soviet efforts at stamped receivers were unsuccessful but they did figure it out. Regarding SLA Marshall’s opinion on fully automatic weapons, the US Army & Marine Corps are about to make several mistakes in adopting a new infantry rifle. They’re going to reject the British .280 closer to intermediate cartridge and insist on a full rifle power .30 calibre round the 7.62X51. Secondly the US is going to attempt replace the M3 submachine gun, the M1 carbine, the M1 Garand, the M1918 BAR with a single weapon, the M14 rifle. It was a worse decision than adopting the SKS. I understand you want to illustrate the the Chinese were not alone in there thinking about marksmanship and conserving ammunition but at the time the thinking of the US leadership was further behind the times than the Chinese.
Both SKS and AKs had milled receivers. Starting in about 1960 the Soviets introduced the AKM, with a stamped receicer. But they never gave this to China and they developed their own stamped Ak in the late 60s. However China also developed a stamped version of their SKS and Type 63 rifle.
@@johnyricco1220The SKS-46 were made with milled receivers because the tech for that did not exist. The AK-47 actually was first made with stamped receivers but were pulled out due to cracking by 1953. Subsequent AK-47's are made with milled receivers as a provisional measure. It was in 1959 did the true "AK-47" was made in the form of the AKM...
@@johnyricco1220 China tried to develop SKS with a stamped receiver, but gave up in the end. Although the weight of stamped SKS is slightly lighter than that of milled SKS, riveting and welding techniques are required during assembly, resulting in the production cost being almost the same as that of milled, making it not worth adding some new production line.
With the discussion of the worries of logistics of issuing squads entirely automatic weapons, I can't help but think back to small arms development and procurement in the lead up to WW1 where officers had similar objections to rifles with box magazines leading to magazine cutoffs. "Give a soldier access to ten whole shots of repeating fire at his own discretion? Preposterous!" The more things change the more they stay the same indeed.
One thing you haven't comented on is what everyone else was equipped with. The French in Vietnam had MAS 49 and MAS 49/56 the US wouldn't adopt the M14 until 1957 and was still equipped with the M1 Grand. The SKS is completely near peer to eight shot M1 Grand and ten shot MAS 49/56. Viewed threw this lense, an SKS that is semi auto and has double the magazine capacity of the previous bolt rifles and is on par with the Colonial French and American rifles.
The adage "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics" immediately comes to mind when you talk about the lack of trucks. Reducing the need for ammunition so that you don't overload the supply lines is quite the thought process.
I have been a long-time student of this topic across history and many armies. Prof. Clower's treatment of the topic is outstanding and completely correct. This channel is truly excellent. Thank you!
I do find the comparison with the USMC in this context to be quite apt, given that the concept for USMC squads and fireteams were partially inspired by the experiences of the early PLA and their 9-man squads.
A critical factor in AK-47 adoption has been omitted. The AKM (ie Ak-47) requires steel stamping technology. The Germans had developed steel stamping for the STG-44. The Soviet Union was not able to perfect mass production steel stamping until the release of the AKM with the 1959 production. The Original AK-47 was from milled steel and was heavy The Soviet Union was still trying to perfect steel stamping and that may have generated their reluctance to share the design (becuase the milled receiver would be quicky superseded.).
That wasn't really a limitation considering China was exporting AK's to places like Africa by the millions but still keeping the SKS for themselves until they finally replaced it in 81 Consider that they did 2 bombs, one satellite before getting off the SKS
The AK-47 (type 1) was stamped. The USSR had issues in production, fell back and punted with (type 2 & 3) milled and then circled back to stamping when they got the technological issues sorted out with the AKM
Heard a story about a PLA border patrol at Xingjiang around 1970s. Two locals jumped the patrol and tried to seize the rifles from the two soldiers in the patrol lead. The third guy with a type 56 AK, welp... So all 4 people in hand-to-hand combat were all gone.
Paused at the 31 minute mark. The USMC evolved from an 8 or 9 man squad in the interwar period, to a 12 man squad with M1s and a pair of BARs, to-by 1944-a 13 man squad with M1s, three BARs, and enough rifle grenade launchers to make a mortar man weep. By the same stroke, Army units were pilfering enough BARs to supply two to every squad after D-Day, and it became official to do so by July, as well as six SMGs for distribution by company HQs. Even in Korea, the Marines retained their 13 man squad with 3 BARs, with the Army adopting a 9 man squad with 2. The inclusion of automatic firepower was not moved away from, it was moved towards. The perspective of the bean counters and theorists may well have stood at odds with the realities, or at least the perceptions, of the men at the muzzle end of enemy weapons.
The official Army issue of BARs didn't change during WW2--unofficially in the ETO a second BAR was optional, and many rifle squads picked up that option. Three 12-man rifle squads and a platoon HQ--and an unassigned bazooka was dumped on one of the squads. For Korea the official Army rifle squad was 9 men with one BAR and eight M1 Rifles, and there were three rifle squads and a platoon weapons squad with an M1919A6 light machine gun and an M9A1 rocket launcher (bazooka). After Korea the US Army went to 11-man squads with just one automatic rifle (either a BAR or after 1957 and only on paper after 1962 an M14 rifle with bipod and selector switch) and a platoon HQ and a platoon weapons squad. US Army squads kept changing, there were regular infantry squads, armored infantry squads, mechanized infantry squads, parachute infantry squads, Ranger squads, mountain squads...
@@alancranford3398 Alright, I concede defeat, I've been out-nerded. That'll learn me for opening my mouth about Korean War OOBs; I could have sworn most squads chose to retain two BARs for the added firepower. I was aware of the different types of infantry units and organizations in a WWII context, but chose to stick with regular Army and regular Marine squads to avoid ballooning the length of my post. EDIT: My point in making that post was that while the doctrine and theory espoused the wonders of accurate rifle fire, the reality of combat dictated that rate of fire DID matter, and ended up mattering much more than accuracy. And, to illustrate that point in a WWII context, that the Army and especially the Marines continuously adopted more and more automatic firepower. Humans under stress are notoriously in-accurate, and the impetus behind projects like SPIW was to try and in-build some inaccuracy into a weapons system while tossing as many projectiles down range as humanly possible.
@@ericbouchard7547 You can get revenge easily enough. Seldom were rifle squads at greater than 70% strength--and it was always possible in garrison for the entire company to be parceled out on details when they needed to be training. I've been studying rifle squad TO&E since 1973 and I'm weaker on platoon and company OOB. Worse was after Vietnam, the same time that I got on active duty, company HQ's were streamlined and most company admin functions were technically transferred to battalion level. There was still a lot of paperwork and platoon sergeants really did need a platoon clerk to take care of that. The US Army doesn't need an enemy because it can immobilize itself with paperwork.
@@alancranford3398 Funny you should mention the paperwork load; I'm chipping away on a novel that (in part) follows a Marine going from Corporal to Captain over the course of an alternative war spanning from 1938 to 1945; at one point he's (functionally) running his platoon in lieu of his laissez faire platoon commander. As a professional civilian I'm out of the loop on just how far a lazy officer could plausibly push things depending on how much the officers at platoon and company level were willing to look the other way. Would you happen to have any insight about that/a way to contact you outside of this comment section to avoid clogging it up (unless Type 56 doesn't mind)?
@@ericbouchard7547 In 1938 to 1945, especially in wartime, failure to get platoon paperwork in on time might be overlooked. I retired in 2010 and was never promoted beyond SSG/E-6 in the Army and was a very junior Marine until 1980. For some reason a massive amount of platoon paperwork was dumped when the company clerks were relocated to battalion in an effort to improve the tooth to tail ratio. I did graduate from BNCOC and did the Marine correspondence course for the Marine NCO academy. For a lazy officer, the platoon NCO could take care of business. I lost track of how often a clerk would sign for the commander--sometimes it was actually authorized. What do you recommend for outside contact? I do e-mail.
Like saying that you are great driver cause every time your tank is low someone with can will come out of woodwork with gas canister to fill it up again.
In real life, most infantry fires in combat are suppressive, meant to enable maneuver. Point targets/personnel are hard to locate, often hard to see and harder still to actually hit. In real life, enemy personnel don't just stand nice and still, dressed to give you high contrast for you to hit them center mass with a precise shot lol. There's a reason why the Soviets entered WW2 with the 3 line cartridge, and ended it with 7.62 Tokarev. Suppressive fires enable maneuver, maneuver enables CQB/MOUT where you finish jerry up close with subguns and grenades.
Another massive plot hole in the story of Zhao Erlu visiting the Izhevsk plant in 1956 and seeing an SKS production line is that Izhevsk only made the SKS in 1953-1954. Zhao visiting the Tula factory would make more sense for that story. If he was given a tour of a small arms factory while on a trip to Moscow, Tula was still manufacturing the SKS in 1956 and the factory is only about 100 miles from Moscow. Izhevsk is much further away.
@@mattshriner4897 You also need to be able to replace magazines as they wear out or get damaged which just increases the cost more, in the long run it's a better choice to just eat the cost but for a PLA that was cutting rations due to budget...
US military doctrine has always been well aimed fire. In the Cold War era this was true, even though the M16 could go full auto or 3 rnd burst in later models, it was rare that the use of FA in any training. However, during the GWOT and use of M855 62grn 5.56MM ammo, we started getting trained on double taps or controlled pairs. Also, the use optics, like holographic or "Red Dot", especially in urban and CQB scenarios. Also in doctrine, the use of FA was not so much to eliminate the enemy as much keeping their heads down then a flanking maneuver by riflemen. Thats the simplest representation, in action it gets a bit more complicated.
Once the PLA moved to stamped AK production the unit cost was reduced even further than the SKS. Unit cost for soviet sks vs soviet akm would be a good comparison.
Funny thing: faster shooting has been opposed by pretty much every military ever at all times. The U.S. Army fought first against repeating rifles in the days of the Springfield Trap-Door rifle, they requested that the M1 Garand only have an eight shot end-block clip rather than the 20 round box magazine it was designed with, and they fought against the assault rifle concept throughout the 50's (and dragged NATO with them) with the M14 and FAL. The Wehrmacht and it's arms manufacturers had to go behind Adolf Hitler's back to even create the Sturmgewehr series rifles. Even now after select fire rifles are the norm, Russia, the United States, and Germany have all made attempts to limit automatic fire; the Americans with the M16A2 3 round burst, the Germans with the G11's 3 round burst (and burst selectors on other HK weapons) and the Russians with the two round burst on the AN-94. I imagine if the PLA was to have a main gripe about the small arms schematics supplied to them by the Soviets with the Type-56 series rifles it was the anemic (compared to full size rifle cartridges) 7.62x39 cartridge, and frankly I'm somewhat surprised they did not ask for schematics for the SVT-40 instead.
People are not widgets. I believe Professor Clower has mentioned the difference in body types between the 5' 10" 170 pound Soviet trooper and the 5' 5" 130 pound PLA trooper. (All measures are approximate and based on scientific wild ass guesses.) The 7.62x54Rmm is a solid, solid cartridge . . . but it's a thumper.
@@christophernewton8474 Its true that many militaries have looked for ways to limit ammo usage by the troops using doctrine or devices like magazine cut offs. I would note however that was not necessarily the driving force behind 3 round burst or the AN94s 2 round burst, the main reason for those features was to increase hit probability with a single trigger pull but retain a certain controllability that most can't produce with full auto. Basically the idea was that when a target presents itself, it will likely be moving and also snap exposure so that one trigger pull that sends 3 rounds down range now increases your chance by X% of getting a hit. The Americans also tried something similar with duplex and triplex ammunition, where a cartridge was actually loaded with multiple bullets that would spread after firing.
The Sturmgewehr makes sense when you zoom out as to what year it was adopted: 1944. Do you know what happened in 1944 and before? Moscow, Stalingrad, the Caucasus, Monte Cassino, even Warsaw. Those battles and the wars those battles are a part of require a constant supply of ammo for the Germans to fight. In that situation, why would changing weapons and ammo when the demand for both the current standard guns and the current standard ammo are at a wartime high?
I totally get where AH was coming from with his early opposition to the Sturmgewehr, but ultimately it's just another example of logistics over everything else. @blujthewombat Increased hit probably saves ammo though, and it is my understanding that there was a time that M16A2s were being issued with no full auto option, only semi and burst.
For the US, this is not exactly true. The M1 had an 8 round en bloc because that was far cheaper and actually fieldable. Look at the Soviet Tokarev semiautomatic and select fire rifles. Their greatest drawbacks were generally lack of magazines, or damaged/poorly fitted magazines preventing reliable operation. En blocs were so cheap they were genuinely disposable, and the magazine was inside the rifle. During WW2, and after, the US did not in fact fight the assault rifle concept. They became completely obsessed and distracted by the FG42 years before the end of WW2, impressed by the weapon. This created the Light Rifle program that would morph several times. It created, among other things, Rifle T20, which was a select fire M1 Garand variant with 20 round detachable box magazines, with an order for 100,000 such rifles for the invasion of Japan made in 1945. This was not fielded because we luckily found a cheat code in physics that lets you vaporize cities. Afterwards, there was no money for a new rifle for many years. The few things getting money were the genuinely new technologies postwar: jet aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, radar, helicopters, etc. Cartridge .30 cal T65 was developed in this time, which took years. Once it was finally technically mature, with the creation of NATO, a new standard cartridge needed to be adopted for the entire organization. Let's be clear: this was NOT the right time for an intermediate cartridge to be fielded. Europe was dirt poor, had a ton of leftover full power rifles and other weapons, and the most important infantry small arms in their militaries were their machineguns. In other words, the new cartridge NEEDED to be a machinegun cartridge, and all other considerations had to be secondary. T65 (which became 7.62 NATO) was excellent for this set of circumstances and mission.
The key is the "M" for modernized. The AK type 1 (stamped) was pulled after 2 years. Unacceptable scrap and problems. The Russians went to type 2 & 3 milled. Then went to the AKM when they got the stamping technology sorted out.
In terms of cost per unit of type 56 ak vs type 56 sks, which AK is pretty important. The "1st generation" Type 56 AKs used milled receivers, which are fantastic except they are pretty heavy and are more expensive both in terms of steel and labor. The "2nd generation" Type 56 AKs used stamped receivers which are cheaper and quicker to make. But if wood was really that precious i can definitely see how the SKS would nose out.
I think its worth noting that even today with the prevalence of assault rifles, most soldiers will shoot entirely in semi automatic and only use automatic in emergencies.
So Im very curious if you know the details on the story of all the branches of the SKS family? Ive owned a 59 Yugo for like a decade now, basically the gun Ive shot the most other than the Nagants I used to own. But I know next to nothing about the rifle's story or the theory of arms it was meant for. Any insights?
Sadly, I know NOTHING about the other SKS, and in fact, one of the things that launched this project was seeing all these nice Yugos on the market and wondering what *they* wanted so many of them for.
@alancranford3398 Thanks for the tip, I was hoping for something as detailed as this course. But I do know those guys and like both channels so ill check it out!
Maybe the chinese general somehow heard about the illusive early prototype of the ZKZ transactional rifle? Soviets wouldn't share the only thing that cuts through any protection that wealth and power can provide.
I have been watching British RN propaganda films of exercises from the 1960 to 1964 time period . I have noticed the RM are carrying primarily Enfield No 4, Sterling and Bren in the 1960 film with a few FAL visible in the background Bayonets fixed in many scenes the Films from 1964 Borneo seems to match the USMC small Wars philosophy. Small units walking into the jungle for days or weeks at a time. Replenished by mules or helicopters. FAL being slowly fired with carefully aimed shots. The odd newborn select fire AR 15 being used in place of the sub machine gun. The leadership in the PLA must have been able to say look here. The British are following our example. The People’s Liberation Army’s methods are World class. Our beloved SKS is it easier to carry and maintain than the big long Western rifles. Plus we don’t have to carry big cumbersome box magazines . You see how my eyes have been opened to the People’s Liberation Army’s Doctrine! Yes now I am awake and value my Albanian SKS all the more❤
in the 50s, nobody even the USSR was that think ahead, assault rilfe wasn't a thing since nazi german was gone, funny it was the SKS designer Simonov first realised the new role AK-47 would be, so he told the USSR leadership to stop making more SKS, beacuse the furture would belong to AK. US and China also failed to realised the new furture, still stucked in WW2 mindset, I mean it was understandable for China, because it was just a 3rd world backward country in the 50s, but the US really shouldn't be that short sighted
The whole world at the time was still stuck in that 19th century mindset where massed infantry units would be laying down suppressive fire against artillery. Even western Europe had the same mentality with the FAL and G3 rifles
I wouldn’t say the U.S. was necessarily as short-sighted as much as different parts doing different things because the U.S. military’s focus at that time was on Strategic Air Command and their doomsday weapons. At the same time the U.S. Army Ordnance Department was struggling to field the M14, they were also trying to develop the Special Purpose Infantry Weapon, which was arguably a more radical departure than even the M16. Of course the M14 was kind of a dud and SPIW and its successors went pretty much nowhere because it was compared to the M16 and later M4 and decided “M16/M4 is good enough.” And then you had US Army Continental Army Command (CONARC) seeing the future for what it was and issued a specification for a lightweight select fire rifle firing small-caliber high-velocity ammunition, resulting in the Armalite AR-15. This got backing from ARPA, the USAF, and the DOD to become the M16 whose adoption propelled the Army from a warmed-over WWII rifle to the gold standard of military rifles worldwide.
In my experience from late 80's to 2010's the American Infantry has went from M16A1 to the XM7. In the GWOT the bad guys could pick out Americans by the accurate single shots. Full auto was for suppressing the enemy, interesting channel though!
Then why did marine units come ww2 grap every Bar the could get there hands on sometimes tripling it in there t.o.e. as seen in interviews and articles
The next level will be flash light fighting.... When you can blind you enemy with 1,000,000 candlelight power flashlights you are actually on your way to not using any bullets. What are your thoughts Type 56?
Learning about response to contact drills made me sober up about volume of fire quick: 1 shot per second "rapid fire" as drilled is SLOW compared to what uncontrolled semi auto fire can do, not to mention what auto fire can do (60x slower, at least)... and yet it will burn through a buffed up combat load of 10x 30round magazines worth of ammo in 5 to 10 mins of contact. That is not a lot of time in the fight, even with a combat load with a ridiculously high round count when compared to the age of the SKS and M-14.
the union army in the 1860s, and later the US cavalry during the indian wars categorically rejected repeating arms for widescale issue, even such as the Spencer Carbine, out of officers and logistics concerns that troopers would use up all their ammunition. Globally, when most nations converted to bolt actions from breech loaders, giving them their first rapid fire small arms, a vast majority incorporated either a mechanical single loading/magazine cutoff or a training/tactics practice of only single loading cartridges for the same reason. Chinese weren't off at all in the 1950s
Speaking of the small wars manual, I recommend people pick up a book called “gangsters of capitalism” an excellent biography of smedly butler who is the most decorated marine officer in the history of the Corps, and his experiences in the small wars throughout the first half of the 20th century. He participated in several invasions of China as well and his experiences led him to become a pacifist and anti militarist who spent the rest of his life speaking out against war. An extremely fascinating read for people wanting to see what a UCMC bayonet change in Haiti looked like in practice!
Wood being more expensive than iron seems insane . I understand that there was much less trees in the past but people need wood to stay warm in winter . Surely people in China didn’t heat their homes with coal . Were homes built with iron (obviously not bricks exist)
Owning both I’d say sks costs more to produce. I think the key is the bandolier system no one considers this sks bandolier 200 rds lighter than ak bandolier 120 rds and heavy. So they can stay out longer with their supplies. Makes since to me. And today ppl ruin sks trying to make em a ak
This kinda begs the question: why then did the soviets go for the fully automatic AK-47? Or did they, considering that both AK-47 and SKS were adopted at rhoughly the same time (as sub-machinegun and rifle respectively)? If the US, with the largest truck fleet in the world, wasn't willing to give a full-auto to all soldiers, why were the soviets?
I think it's just that, even if the Soviet Army didn't have the world's greatest logistics, they were still living on almost a different *planet* from the PLA, where in their manufacturing and transport capabilities.
1:35 here is how to cut the cord of technology transfers: invent your own. promote widespread scientific education and research. wouldn't need to steal technology, spy, borrow, license technology, beg technology.
Just a couple of questions about the Type 56 era of the PLA. Don't worry if you don't have time to answer. 1. You mentioned here that the story you previously told about that unit receiving their 56 weapons didn't happen until the 1960s. How long was it until the mass adoption of these weapons? Also, what was the main service weapon of the PLA before this the Mosin-Nagant, the PPSh-41, or the PPS-43, or was there no real standardisation at that point? 2. After this wide spread adoption of the Type 56, was its use intended to be universal or did more specialized troops such as vehicle and artillery crews use other weapons. 3. You have mentioned how the PLA liked to think of themselves as precise markmans, but were dedicated long range snipers a big thing in the PLA and if so, what weapons did they use.
@samuelgrant1549 Welcome! First, let me do my best to give the short, quick-and-dirty answers: (1) "Yes!" There was no standardization, then an *attempt* to standardize on the Mosin M44, PPSh, PPS, and DP, then a *relapse* to "no real standard." (That part of the story is in th-cam.com/video/nOQ7AcKTD3w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=aqQFOCcDEcuD7FVL and th-cam.com/video/3k5XzyjmLJ0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=veGKWkgwiE4pwPpP). (2) They wanted the Type 56 to be universal, though (again) it took them yeeears to manufacture enough. (3) AFAIK, there wasn't any official sniper or designated marksman role, or a special sniper MOS, or a special DMR. (And I think it's open to question how good their *actual* marksmanship was too. More on that when we get to the Sino-Vietnam War.) Once again, welcome!
I'm in the Army and while my experience doesn't mean jack I can say that with the M4A1 you are never expected to go full auto except in emergencies. Maybe more advanced units practice with it and do it (I'm in a non-infantry unit and we get the barest training for firearms). But the M4 for us is a semi-auto carbine, you can go full auto but in reality you probably won't.
First let me say how much I love your teaching style. You put to shame 95 percent of historians that I've seen. I wonder if you have been formed abroad? Second, I have a question. What about machine guns? Do you know what the thinking was behind the switch to assault rifles in the German Army? I think that you missed something other than hindsight.
Thank you, you're very kind! My formal education was all in the US. On that question about the German forces and the StG, I can only speculate, and really ineptly. But I'll take a stab and say, wartime Germany possibly (I really don't know) had fewer *geographical* worries about ammo distribution (especially to a contracting front?). China isn't just a country, it's a whole subcontinent, and it's full of mountains, crisscrossed by rivers (which tend to run in the "wrong" directions, for purposes of military transport), and had pitifully few rail lines.
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Short version: I think you are wrong to compare Chinese tactical thinking to the American one. I think that you don't take into consideration the support arms and this misleads you into thinking that they are similar. I also think that German and Soviet thinking are more alike Chinese than you think in their needs and they are going assault rifles. Not an accusations, just an useful observation, I hope.
I mean, unlike the west and Russia, they never faced an StG-44, they haven't faced yet Soviet with AKs, and they didn't had in hand the AVT/SVT, the .280 cal EM2-FAL, and so on It's hard to know the benefit of something you never seen and no one talked you about So, if you don't know AND you lack money, yeah, it's arguably a good choice IN THEIR PERSPECTIVE AT THE TIME
The PLA's night attack against the Marines at Korea almost 100% failed, for the Marines by that time got night visioned M1 carbine. And very soon after the first contact PLA get their hand on one of the supply depo of the US army and one may presume they soon understood U.S. have night vision. So by the time of SKS/AK choice, it is unreasonable to assume they still want to conduct night raid without night vision for the infantryman.
I'd be curious to see your take on why the Chinese seem to prefer the PF-98 "Queen Bee" 120mm rocket launcher over guided missiles, initially issuing them at the company and battalion level, then expanding them to the platoon and squad level. Obviously it's less expensive and can be used as an infantry support gun, not just for bunker busting or engaging tanks, but they genuinely seem to prefer it over guided missiles. And then there's their obsession with automatic grenade launchers and "sniper" grenade launchers, to the point they sometimes replace the SAW and platoon machine gun entirely. It seems they have a lot of focus on lobbing explosives at the enemy rather than bullets.
I wonder what the rifle qualifications were for PLA soldiers of the 50's? There is all this talk about accurate fire but what were the commanders were actually expending. Was it minute of man at 300 or did they expect soldiers to be making shots in excess of that?
Good question. I can tell you what the US Army and US Marines were doing in the Fifties from my research, but foreign armies seem to have limited live fire to 100 meters for a number of reasons. The Swiss still take extreme measures to practice 300-meter marksmanship. Often, soldiers the world over practice on miniature target arrays at 25 meters, with the targets scaled to appear as if 300 meters off. The Marines still train at 500 yards because they're Marines. What's even funnier is that when the M14 Rifle was adopted in 1957 the rifle had to group within 6 inches at 100 yards when test-fired for accuracy--the M1 Rifle was something like 5 inches at the same distance. Ignoring shooter errors, at 500 yards (460 meters) the M14 Rifle would have a 30-inch pattern. "Military Grade Accuracy" is putting half of the bullets fired from a rifle on a man-sized target--call it a 19-inch wide by 39-inch silhouette for academic purposes. The M1 Rifle, the M14 Rifle and the M16A1 Rifle all had textbook 460-meter effective range, after which rifle fire was "area fire" used primarily for suppressive fire. The M1 sights were graduated to 1200 yards and the M14 sights to 1200 meters, the M16A1 had flip-up 0-300 meter and 500-meter sights, the M16A2 has a 200-meter large aperture and a small aperture sight that can be field adjusted from 300 meters to 800 meters. The M16A2 has a point target effective range of 550 meters and an area target effective range of 800 meters--at 500 yards, rack-grade M16A2 rifles with regular M855 ball ammo can achieve 100% hits on the 500-yard target from a sling-supported prone firing position. Match-grade rifles with match-grade ammunition fired under match conditions by expert riflemen can do more. Neither rack-grade SKS nor rack-grade M14 using regular ball ammo under battlefield conditions and fired by semi-trained soldiers will measure up in accuracy--but the match rifles have to be babied, or they'll lose that accuracy edge.
@@alancranford3398 the idea of a 6 inch group being acceptable boggles the modern mind. Enfields even during war time were held to a 4 inch group standard. Here in Australia miniature targets were also used but there was some practical 300m shooting done in the prone for the military in the past. The main way long range shooting skills were encouraging or developed was in 300m civilian competition using standard military pattern rifles, you will find a lot of earlier pattern Enfields or Lee speed rifles even today that were modified to the "range pattern", one big benefit for Aussie target shooters was that Lithgow produced the heavy version of the Enfield barrel which was much more suited to that use.
@@blujthewombat SA80A2 factory acceptance standard is about 5.6 MOA from a lead sled (the Lees and M14s sound like they were being fired by riflemen without a lead sled)
@@blujthewombat The early M14 Rifle had bugs in the manufacturing process and the early M59 ball from a test barrel had only 3.5 MOA accuracy. All this makes the M1 Carbine more amazing; the M1 Rifle was too bulky and too heavy and too expensive to issue to every soldier (determined during 1938 troop trials) and in late 1940 after the Battle of France it was determined that a bolt action rifle didn't have the firepower needed for modern battle where the enemy could pop up any time and any place. Pistols were ineffective beyond about 10 yards in semi-trained hands. Submachine guns cost $200 (pistols were $50) and their pistol bullets were not really effective at 100 yards--plus the open-bolt system of the Thompson made it hard to shoot well beyond 50 yards. The M1 Carbine was designed to be effective to 300 yards (on paper) and 8 MOA was the maximum dispersion acceptable. In under two years the M1 Carbine was in the hands of the troops and in combat. From 1942 to 1945 six million M1 Carbines were made and issued. The M14, by contrast, had been in development since 1944 and the first flawed production M14 Rifles were issued in 1959, with only one division re-equipped with the new rifle by 1961. The M1 Carbine was a "replacement" for the pistol and submachine gun--mostly did, but not fully. Some three million pistols and revolvers were acquired for the US Army, Navy and Marines in WW2, and about the same number of submachine guns.
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 not sure about the Americans, I know that the Enfield was shot from a mechanical rest, there was one on display some years ago at the Lithgow firearms museum (Lithgow was the producer of enfields in Australia for the military)
So the Soviets shared the technical package with the Chinese but I doubt they shared the full knowledge of how to seriously produce them at massive massive scale I can definitely see the general being very jealous of the assembly line and the incredible warehouse and the huge industry behind The SKS rifles being made and being insanely jealous of that and feeling shorted!
@BrettBaker-uk4te Thank you for your exemplary leadership qualities, comrade :) You're someone when can trust not to hose us in the back during a general melee 🤣
You know I have to ask the Chinese over there, would to they give me or someone else the absolute best things they have along with the ability to build them? Really something they cry when someone holds something back but are fine doing themselves... On subject now the PLA adopted the old original doctrine from the Soviets that invisioned the ak as a smg, next as with the US they have this idea that a soilder with full auto will first not be accurate tho really the kind of battle the PLA was using absolutely does not care about that, second they will use more ammo and they have waste more money making and moving that.
Bear in mind that at this time - the mid 1950s - the US Army had 17 divisions and was cutting that force constantly. Invading China, of all places, was the LAST thing on their mind.
Obviously only in cases of actual assonance ;) Roughly speaking, I think that, it any given instant, you can either *show* a person something or *tell* them something, but not both. If you try, you'll split their attention: for that instant, they'll take in either what they see or what you say, but not both. And you (the teacher) won't know which. So ideally, if I'm going to *show* something, I should shut up and let people look before I open my yap again. And I've found that goes for "text walls" too (probably because written English and spoken English are pretty different things). I think that's part of why "death by Powerpoint" presentations are so dreary and draining. On some micro-level, they hack apart the audience's attention--as if you're trying to teach them surfing *and* algebra at the same time.
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept this stuck with me longer than I thought it would. I find myself thinking about this whenever I'm making presentations at work. Thanks for following through on what I thought was a throwaway joke
Wow, for once, an American is using in a right way a French expression, and with a nice prononciation, congrats 😄 So, I suppose you've serve in the US military? (best US French speaker/cultured, change my mind)
You really are too kind :) Catch me unprepared in a French conversation, and the illusion will melt before your eyes. But at least I can pronounce a set phrase. [vigorous self-back-patting]
Hello, friends! This is M1: the story of the M1 Garand and M1 Carbine in America. I'm Jiang Chao, and this is a course about why the U.S. military relied on these classic weapons.
You could have picked on the M14.
So true m14 not good is this dude a communist?🤔@alancranford3398
@@alancranford3398 The US didn't rely on it. Half of servicemen went directly from the M1 to the M16.
@@alancranford3398 I think the Navy actually rechambered all their Garands to 7.62 NATO and just skipped the M14 entirely
Imagine how many centuries it would take to go into this level of depth for every American M1
It's amazing how you've been able to create an entire channel with so much invaluable and interesting historical information out of just 1 single topic
Thank you! I'll do everything I can to keep being worth your time.
A story from China to share here which is somewhat relevant to the topic of the video. My grandfather worked for the Communist army in the Taihang Mountain region during the Sino-Japanese War. Around 1942, things were really tough there and every bit of material was precious. Zhao, a colleague of my grandfather's was assigned as a political instructor/teacher to a youth company of high school students (well, the rough equivalent of - there wasn't much formal education system in China back then for a backward region like this, even before the war). Zhao was highly motivated at first and tried to teach those kids everything from Chinese to maths on the sidelines of skirmishes, but soon realized that these boys had a hard time staying true to military orders, much less learning anything that required significant effort. One thing they failed to adhere to was the order to preserve expended cartridges - following orders from high-ups, Zhao repeatedly told them to retrieve as many shells from the battle as humanly possible, to not much effect. Anyways, Zhao insisted on his ways but felt defeated inside and secretly regarded the students as "country bums". He was transferred to another military education institution by the end of 42.
But Zhao would soon change his opinion under a tragic situation. In 1942-43, Japanese forces repeatedly conducted major anti-partisan operations in the mountains. One such campaign took place in the Spring of 1943, when Japanese forces surprise attacked a Communist HQ. The youth company Zhao was assigned to was sent to act as rearguard for the retreat, and all of them died as a result. Learning the news, Zhao went with the reinforcements to inspect the battlefield. He saw that besides every one of those kids' bodies were the spent cartridges - 5, 6, or 10 of them neatly lined up to be retrieved. Zhao thought perhaps the boys realized that they couldn't survive the battle, so they did not want to leave a mess and bad example. He cried really hard that day and felt shameful for his earlier condescension toward the students.
Now, to think that the entire first generation of Communist military leadership came from these struggles and they more often than not have a background of poverty. As such, extreme frugality and material scarcity were written deeply into their minds, to a point that contemporary Soviet/US military leaders cannot even comprehend.
@@EPsuperFan Amazing stuff. Thank you for sharing this.
The USMC only thought that the BAR was unnecessary because the M1 represented a quantum leap in the firepower of the individual infantryman. Not only could you fire far faster during a "Mad Minute," you didn't lose your sight picture between shots when you had to work the bolt on earlier rifles. So long as the individual infantryman had a bolt-action rifles, the weight of fire of the BAR was necessary. The introduction of the Garand removed the necessity of compromise.
@@ethanmckinney203 so exactly the same reasoning for the quantum leap from the Mosin to the SKS deeming the AK unnecessary
Seems like Jason managed to survive his reeducation and self criticism
Genuinely legendary revolutionary run
of course he was only improved by it
@@kingkonut 😂😂😂
@lolwutyoumad and @kingkonut [bland expression, eerie monotone] I am grateful that the Party and the people showed me the errors in my thinking. They are tolerant and kind. I will requite the Party and the people for their lenience by working harder.
struggle session on MS Teams at 3 p.m.
I'll back up that Jason Clower accurately presented the mainstream US military thought during the period that the PLA adopted the Type 56 Carbine.
The US M-14 rifle was adopted in 1957 and most M-14 Rifle was issued with selector switch locks that prevented firing on AUTO--the general-issue M-14 rifle was locked on semiautomatic. Four or five magazines (80 to 100 shots) was the basic rifleman load, the M1 Rifle basic load was also 80 rounds. The M14 Rifle program was cut in 1964 as a budget measure!
The M16A1 rifle was a temporary solution between the M-14 Rifle and a series of futuristic weapons that never were ready for prime time--universal issue of automatic weapons was a thing until the M16A2 replaced the M16A1; the M16A2 had SEMI and BURST (3-shot) capability, not full auto (capable of firing the entire magazine with one trigger pull).
I'm 68 and a retired soldier. I read SLA Marshall's Men Against Fire in 1973 while still in high school and I ran away from home and joined the Marines, entering boot camp in 1975 and was trained as an avionics tech. I read the 1940 Small Wars Manual first in 1976. I wound up in US Army electronic warfare, was cross trained as a unit armorer, and was designated as my units' rifle, machine gun, pistol and grenade launcher instructor. Today I have NRA certification as a rifle and pistol instructor. I even visited the birthplace of the Browning Automatic Rifle and have several books on the BAR, and I have bookcases full of manuals, history books and just plain literature on small arms of the last 100 years.
The Small Wars Manual was a supplement to standard Marine Corps Training. In 1940 a Marine Corps rifle platoon had a platoon headquarters, an automatic rifle squad (8 Marines, two BARs and six M1903 rifles), and three rifle squads (9 Marines, 8 M1903 bolt actions rifles and one M1918 BAR)--and their light machine gun at the company level was probably the Lewis light machine gun. The Marines found out the hard way that the 8-or 9-Marine rifle squad was difficult to control in close terrain (villages, jungle, forest or trench combat) and dividing the squad into teams of four or five with a designated leader in each team proved to be more effective in combat. The 1944 change was three fire teams of four Marines each, built around the BAR and the rest of the rifle squad armed with the M1 Rifle (the squad leader might replace his M1 with a submachine gun--his primary weapon was his rifle squad). The platoon had become a three-squad affair with a platoon HQ. In 1975 the Marines designated one Marine per fire team the automatic rifleman and that Marine was supposed to be the only one to fire on automatic--and even then, the stress was on single, well-aimed shots. As an avionics tech I didn't have much opportunity to fire on full auto. When the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon became the heart of the Marine Corps fire team, the Marines were not satisfied and they adopted the M27 Infantry Automatic Rifle to fire primarily in the semi-automatic mode because even with helicopters and amphibious carriers, the Marines are primarily foot-soldiers.
Fratricide is no joke. American police suffer from friendly fire and have evolved close quarter battle doctrine. Marine Corps formations were larger and more densely packed in 1940--today's dogma is 10-meter separation between individuals and 25 meters between fire teams and squads adjusted for terrain and for visibility conditions. This empties out the battlefield and reduces fratricide--along with damned effective body armor. Universal infantry individual radios (with radio discipline) and night vision gear help command and control--in the old days, Soldiers and Marines had to be close enough to whisper and use hand signals. Bayonets are not as emphasized today--but back in 1955 (and even in 1975) the bayonet was regarded as a credible close-quarter weapon. The US Army used to award EXPERT BAYONET badges!
I've said it before--the Chinese PLA was ahead of the game because it formally organized its small combat groups of three, and in 1955 the three-three squad had three automatic weapons ON PAPER, one light machine gun in one of the teams and a submachine gun in each of the other teams.
SLA Marshall wrote a lot. In his Men Against Fire, Marshall noted that the firefight began with the BAR and ended with the BAR. Marshall's Men Against Fire complained that only a small fraction of infantry in contact with the enemy fired even one shot at the enemy--still controversial today, perhaps not accurate when it was written in WW2. Marshall's comments on infantry weapons in Korea stated that rifle fire was seldom effective beyond 200 yards (during WW2 the term "close combat" was defined as 200 yards and under--today that's 50 meters and under), that crew-served light machine guns had an effective range of about 400 yards and Dr. Crower reported verbatim what Marshall said about semiautomatic fire. Marshall's remarks on automatic fire versus semiautomatic fire and his insistence on forming fire teams grouped around an automatic weapon were in line with PLA and USMC practices from WW2.
From my experience, fire discipline is something installed by training. I began shooting six decades ago and today's Boy Scout rifle merit badge stresses single-shot rifles; only one cartridge at a time is loaded into the .22 rimfire rifle. I never liked a mechanical bandage substituting for proper fire discipline--it leads to failure to fire in combat. The M16A2's three shot burst is such a bandaide. Training takes time, it's synthetic experience, and it takes ammo. In 1975 the Marines were still training for war. In 2004 prior to shipping over to Operation Iraqi Freedom II with 321st Signal Company, Nevada Army National Guard for a year in Kuwait and Iraq, part of the 90-day mobilization training was in wartime rifle fire that had been neglected in peacetime.
"most M-14 Rifle was issued with selector switch locks that prevented firing on AUTO--the general-issue M-14 rifle was locked on semiautomatic"
If that is the case, were there any attempts by soldiers to get rid of the lock? like allowing full auto?
@@ZastavaM70AB2 I don't know of any attempts to get around the M14 selector switch lock--it replaced the selector switch. Replacing the lock with the switch would have been the easy route if you had a punch, a small hammer, and the switch.
Semper fucking Fidelis, sir
@@alancranford3398And a reckless disregard for the weekend libertey of your squadmates
@alancranford3398 Pure gold! And ... expert bayonet badges?! I absolutely must find out what the test for that was like and experience it. As always, sir (but today even more than usual), THANK YOU for sharing!
After the 1962 Sino-Indian War, the Chinese assessment of the SKS was that it was game changer. Not so much for being semiautomatic but that the soldiers could carry twice the ammo compared to the Type 53, due to the lower weight of ammunition and rifle. The war was fought over the Himalayas and there was not a lot of trucks moving supplies. They still used mules.
On multiple occasions, infantry companies ordered to carry out reconnaissance by force ended up overrunning dug in Indian positions held by a battalion. 10 years earlier during the Korean War this would have been impossible. Even if the defender panicked and broke, the attacking company would run out of ammo and have to withdraw.
The milled AK was heavier than the SKS. The magazines it carried were also heavy. Inevitably a soldier with an SKS can carry more ammo than one with an AK. Maybe if the PLA had tried the lightweight Czechoslovakian Vz.58 with it's aluminum magazines they might change their minds.
It also did help that the Indians at the time were armed with the Lee-Enfield. A fine military rifle for its time, but that time was not 1962, and the results showed.
After that, they got FALs, which is a much better match for the SKS. Still a bit a heavy weapon and ammo, but you have twice the capacity from detachable box magazines and its semi-auto.
@classifiedad1 No doubt the soldiers appreciated the self loaders. However it was likely not deemed noteworthy by the commanders. The after action report was just people gushing with excitement about the new tactical application of having twice the ammo. I was expecting some commentary on the advantages of self loading rifle over bolt action, but found none. I get the feeling if they had to chose between bolt action carbine in intermediate cartridge or the FAL, they would opt for the former.
@ My guess on that is that having “twice the ammo” as a rifleman is far more novel than having a self-loader, which they had already encountered as even before WWII if you count submachine guns.
Though it does seem the Indians were and to an extent still are of the mind that the issue with the Enfield was that it was a bolt-action, not the power and bulk of the ammunition. Namely, they replaced the Enfield with the FAL, whose main distinction is that it’s a self-loader but doesn’t cut much down on the bulk of ammo. While they have officially replaced it with the 5.56mm INSAS, that rifle has since been replaced by a combination of 5.56mm NATO, 7.62mm Soviet, and 7.62mm NATO rifles, being the Tavor, AK-203, and SIG Sauer 716i respectively. It is notable the SIG rifles are going to units in Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh, basically the front line.
Of course, the PLA is still a big fan of “more ammo” concept because they developed and then doubled down on the 5.8mm round and really tried to make it do everything.
The circumstances around the Assault Rifle also mirror the introduction of the magazine fed rifles at the end of the 19th century.
Many generals wanted to stay with the single shot models, because otherwise "the soldiers would just waste ammunition".
Of course, there was also a great focus on the bayonet charge was the most intimidating and decisive form of infantry attack.
The saving in cost to the Chinese was in the magazines. The Kalashnikov used complex pressed steel multi part box magazines whilst the SKS used cheap simple strip chargers. The material poverty of the PLA also meant that the soldiers would have to ensure that the empty magazine was carefully put away in its pouch before removing a new full one to reload. The SKS strip chargers are cheap enough to be discarded so the putting away step is eliminated.
The thing about the AK is that it's still a very effective semi-auto rifle, many youtubers have tried to use the Type 56 AK precisely at long range and found it to work very well in that role.
The thing that's holding it back is the bullet's ballistics. It would be curious to see what would happen if you rechambered an SKS and an AK for 6mm ARC, a distant descendant of the Soviet cartridge. 6mm ARC is spooky accurate and long-ranged for its size.
On the other hand, the AK is a legend for durability because it was designed with loose tolerances so that dirt just falls thru the gaps instead of jamming it. This is not ideal for accuracy, though. My prediction: the SKS rechambered for 6mm would beat the AK in accuracy and (due to longer barrel) penetration, but both would be far ahead of 7.62X39.
true, but when you have same caliber with ~4 more inches of barrel length (not as necessary for 7.62x39 as say 5.56 but the point stands) plus the ability to get fully prone, you can see where the PLA leadership gets their ideas about increased accuracy
@@rasputin2750 Yes the extra barrel length makes a slight difference but only at such a great distance that it is completely impractical in a squad of riflemen.
You see in people using service rifles like AK/SKS at such range they need a spotter with high magnification scope to watch the fall of the shot to tell the shooter how to adjust their aim. You'll also see the occasions where the fall of the shot isn't visible to the spotter then the shots just land consistently off-target. It's impractical for each rifleman in a squad to have a spotter. Even if they did the shots of other riflemen would confuse the spotters, unsure which bullet came from which rifle.
AK's long mag is a little harder going prone but definitely the benefit of 30 uninterrupted shots is far more valuable. Having to break your hold after only 10 shots to reload an SKS is just ruining the equilibrium you are able to find after a few shots.
It's almost always better just to get your riflemen much closer especially if you're planning to capture their position.
Look at it this way: even if you could aim accurately from 1km away, so what? You can't capture trenches from 1km away and if the fire is effective they'll duck into foxholes or behind cover. But now you have to advance 1km towards the enemy position while they're blasting the open ground with mortars, artillery and automatic grenade launchers and they know you're coming because you shot at them from 1km away.
It's always better to use cover, concealment and camouflage to get as close as possible before using small arms. Riflemen are NOT long range assets, where they excel is concealment and able to defeat obstacles.
If you really need to shoot at very long range it's probably better to just have a designated marksman for 2 reasons:
- it's hard to mass produce very accurate rifles but generally you can find one rifle out of a set that is unusually accurate just by chance.
- Long range accurate marksmanship is a unique talent, most people can never be that good a shot and even then so much training is needed it's too costly to train everyone up to that standard.
@rasputin2750
Every AK tested seems more precise then every SKS tested by nine hole reviews.
Nice to hear Gringo can pronounce Mandarin fairly well, subscribed!
As a USMC veteran I love how often we get mention :)
That’s exactly how they got u to sign up😂
This is a history gem
Ever since firearms were developed there's always been this fear that troops would expend ammunition too quickly if given the opportunity. IIRC one of the specific reasons that some militaries did not adopt the Dreyfus-Needle-Rifle, one of the early bolt-action rifles, was that it's increased rate of fire would lead to increased ammunition consumption that the military simply could not provide for.
Heck, doesn't the Lee-Enfield have a magazine cut-off for this exact reason?
The US rifles of 1892 (Krag) and 1903 {Springfield) had magazine cut-offs. The Springfield M1903 could be reloaded with five-shot magazine chargers ( stripper clips) but the US Army thought it important to be able to re-cock the rifle (cocking knob) and to keep a loaded magazine in reserve, feeding one cartridge at a time into the rifle.
Going back farther in time, the Spencer repeating carbine was replaced by the Model of 1873 single-shot carbine for logistical reasons.
When the M14 Rifle was adopted, most were issued with a selector switch lock that restricted the rifle to semiautomatic fire only.
The M16A1 was selective SEMI and AUTO fire and for riot control duty a lock plate could be installed to restrict the M16 to semiautomatic fire only. I encountered National Guard M16A2 rifles with those lock plates installed.
The M249 Squad Automatic Weapon was automatic fire only--the Marines adopted a select-fire M27 IAR and intend to fire most IAR shots semiautomatic.
@@brosefmalkovitch3121 The Enfield pattern rifles did indeed have mag cut offs as an early feature, once wartime production started however you see them drop it very quickly as a useless expense.
It wasn't really a fear. Even during WW2, the Germans were having a very hard time feeding the stg44 with enough ammo. They were able to produce rifles fast enough, but the things just used so many cartridges that the supply lines couldn't fill their appetite.
@@doctordoggo8604 It’s funny to think that the army which had one of the biggest logistical hurdles in Europe would then field a general-purpose machine gun with the highest rate of fire.
I know its discussed in American Civil War circles that the "slow firing" muskets could eat away 40 rounds of ammo (the soldier's load) in 20 minutes. 20 minutes and suddently you need to march all the way back to your supply wagons. That isn't an option when you're fighting an hours or days long war. Its no wonder why the idea of expending too much ammunition was so ingrained. It's almost inherent to warfare with firearms.
The Soviets also started out planning to use the SKS as the primary infantry rifle, and the AK as a specialist weapon more akin to a SMG.
It was only after they actually started fielding the SKS/AK/RPD family of weapons, and they realized the AK was perfectly adequately accurate for the Soviet rifleman's needs, any engagement the Soviet Army would be fighting would be using *interior* lines of communication for resupply, and they expected ammunition production and shipping to keep up with use expectations.
That means the Russians were *also* looking at a fielding mix and use case similar to the PLA's 1955/1956 plan, at least as late as when the PLA made their decisions - they only shut down Russian domestic production of the SKS for Russian use in 1958.
Really, the Soviet Army only *really* jumped 100% on board with the AK as the standard rifle for *everyone* with the introduction of the AKM in 1959 (which was lighter and far cheaper to produce than either the milled receiver AK or the SKS).
in other words, the M27 is the AK, and the AK is the M27
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 No, the M27 is the RPK, vice the m249 being the RPD.
Going back to the advent of the repeating bolt-action rifles there were magazine cutoffs and refusals to adopt them early on for fear that the troops would burn too much ammunition. Time is a flat circle
I was a Marine as of 2011 I never fired the m16 on burst the 20inch 4x optic rifle was made for marksmanship
PLA is like American Marines in emphasis on the individual semiautomatic rifleman making every shot count! What's next? Are you going to tell me the AK-47 is modeled more on the M-1 Garand than the German Stg 44?
Ak-47 and Garand are both long stroke piston. Stg44/ar-18/g36 are short stroke piston
Do we need a SKS bayonet montage? I have sks and an attached flip up spike bayonet but what about everyone in the class has never shoved a knife on a gun through a cinder block or old car door?
Not to mention their doctrine was originally geared towards guerrilla warfare and to compensate for the lack of logistics. This means accuracy was more important as they needed to make every shot count. Of course eventually they learned that the AK in practice is only marginally less accurate than the SKS and that the other advantages it has was more than making up for the slightly less accuracy.
@JinKee what's your point?
@@dontwalkdontrun Oh boy, you just had to put that idea [of the bayonet montage] in my head, didn't you? 😁 It's like waving red at a bull, or telling a teenage boy, "I bet you can't eat 30 hot dogs..."
From the descriptions of the difficulties encountered in the PLA logistics train in Korea I’m not surprised that the leadership was afraid they couldn’t supply an infantry using a fully automatic assault rifle as its primary weapon. Regarding production costs, the SKS is made with a milled steel receiver which is more expensive than the stamped receivers the AK would eventually utilize. It’s true the first Soviet efforts at stamped receivers were unsuccessful but they did figure it out.
Regarding SLA Marshall’s opinion on fully automatic weapons, the US Army & Marine Corps are about to make several mistakes in adopting a new infantry rifle. They’re going to reject the British .280 closer to intermediate cartridge and insist on a full rifle power .30 calibre round the 7.62X51. Secondly the US is going to attempt replace the M3 submachine gun, the M1 carbine, the M1 Garand, the M1918 BAR with a single weapon, the M14 rifle. It was a worse decision than adopting the SKS. I understand you want to illustrate the the Chinese were not alone in there thinking about marksmanship and conserving ammunition but at the time the thinking of the US leadership was further behind the times than the Chinese.
Both SKS and AKs had milled receivers. Starting in about 1960 the Soviets introduced the AKM, with a stamped receicer. But they never gave this to China and they developed their own stamped Ak in the late 60s. However China also developed a stamped version of their SKS and Type 63 rifle.
@@johnyricco1220The SKS-46 were made with milled receivers because the tech for that did not exist. The AK-47 actually was first made with stamped receivers but were pulled out due to cracking by 1953. Subsequent AK-47's are made with milled receivers as a provisional measure. It was in 1959 did the true "AK-47" was made in the form of the AKM...
@@johnyricco1220 China tried to develop SKS with a stamped receiver, but gave up in the end. Although the weight of stamped SKS is slightly lighter than that of milled SKS, riveting and welding techniques are required during assembly, resulting in the production cost being almost the same as that of milled, making it not worth adding some new production line.
With the discussion of the worries of logistics of issuing squads entirely automatic weapons, I can't help but think back to small arms development and procurement in the lead up to WW1 where officers had similar objections to rifles with box magazines leading to magazine cutoffs. "Give a soldier access to ten whole shots of repeating fire at his own discretion? Preposterous!" The more things change the more they stay the same indeed.
One thing you haven't comented on is what everyone else was equipped with.
The French in Vietnam had MAS 49 and MAS 49/56 the US wouldn't adopt the M14 until 1957 and was still equipped with the M1 Grand. The SKS is completely near peer to eight shot M1 Grand and ten shot MAS 49/56.
Viewed threw this lense, an SKS that is semi auto and has double the magazine capacity of the previous bolt rifles and is on par with the Colonial French and American rifles.
This is a great point.
The adage "amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics" immediately comes to mind when you talk about the lack of trucks. Reducing the need for ammunition so that you don't overload the supply lines is quite the thought process.
I really love your work Jason! Excellent content, well presented! Thanks! 🫡🎯💯✌️🤝👍👍
I have been a long-time student of this topic across history and many armies. Prof. Clower's treatment of the topic is outstanding and completely correct. This channel is truly excellent. Thank you!
Excellent in research and presentation from a new subscriber. Thanks!
@brucemarino It's wonderful to have you aboard! I hope I keep earning your continued interest.
I do find the comparison with the USMC in this context to be quite apt, given that the concept for USMC squads and fireteams were partially inspired by the experiences of the early PLA and their 9-man squads.
A critical factor in AK-47 adoption has been omitted. The AKM (ie Ak-47) requires steel stamping technology. The Germans had developed steel stamping for the STG-44. The Soviet Union was not able to perfect mass production steel stamping until the release of the AKM with the 1959 production. The Original AK-47 was from milled steel and was heavy The Soviet Union was still trying to perfect steel stamping and that may have generated their reluctance to share the design (becuase the milled receiver would be quicky superseded.).
That wasn't really a limitation considering China was exporting AK's to places like Africa by the millions but still keeping the SKS for themselves until they finally replaced it in 81
Consider that they did 2 bombs, one satellite before getting off the SKS
The AK-47 (type 1) was stamped. The USSR had issues in production, fell back and punted with (type 2 & 3) milled and then circled back to stamping when they got the technological issues sorted out with the AKM
Heard a story about a PLA border patrol at Xingjiang around 1970s. Two locals jumped the patrol and tried to seize the rifles from the two soldiers in the patrol lead. The third guy with a type 56 AK, welp... So all 4 people in hand-to-hand combat were all gone.
Paused at the 31 minute mark.
The USMC evolved from an 8 or 9 man squad in the interwar period, to a 12 man squad with M1s and a pair of BARs, to-by 1944-a 13 man squad with M1s, three BARs, and enough rifle grenade launchers to make a mortar man weep.
By the same stroke, Army units were pilfering enough BARs to supply two to every squad after D-Day, and it became official to do so by July, as well as six SMGs for distribution by company HQs.
Even in Korea, the Marines retained their 13 man squad with 3 BARs, with the Army adopting a 9 man squad with 2. The inclusion of automatic firepower was not moved away from, it was moved towards.
The perspective of the bean counters and theorists may well have stood at odds with the realities, or at least the perceptions, of the men at the muzzle end of enemy weapons.
The official Army issue of BARs didn't change during WW2--unofficially in the ETO a second BAR was optional, and many rifle squads picked up that option. Three 12-man rifle squads and a platoon HQ--and an unassigned bazooka was dumped on one of the squads.
For Korea the official Army rifle squad was 9 men with one BAR and eight M1 Rifles, and there were three rifle squads and a platoon weapons squad with an M1919A6 light machine gun and an M9A1 rocket launcher (bazooka).
After Korea the US Army went to 11-man squads with just one automatic rifle (either a BAR or after 1957 and only on paper after 1962 an M14 rifle with bipod and selector switch) and a platoon HQ and a platoon weapons squad.
US Army squads kept changing, there were regular infantry squads, armored infantry squads, mechanized infantry squads, parachute infantry squads, Ranger squads, mountain squads...
@@alancranford3398 Alright, I concede defeat, I've been out-nerded. That'll learn me for opening my mouth about Korean War OOBs; I could have sworn most squads chose to retain two BARs for the added firepower. I was aware of the different types of infantry units and organizations in a WWII context, but chose to stick with regular Army and regular Marine squads to avoid ballooning the length of my post.
EDIT: My point in making that post was that while the doctrine and theory espoused the wonders of accurate rifle fire, the reality of combat dictated that rate of fire DID matter, and ended up mattering much more than accuracy. And, to illustrate that point in a WWII context, that the Army and especially the Marines continuously adopted more and more automatic firepower.
Humans under stress are notoriously in-accurate, and the impetus behind projects like SPIW was to try and in-build some inaccuracy into a weapons system while tossing as many projectiles down range as humanly possible.
@@ericbouchard7547 You can get revenge easily enough. Seldom were rifle squads at greater than 70% strength--and it was always possible in garrison for the entire company to be parceled out on details when they needed to be training.
I've been studying rifle squad TO&E since 1973 and I'm weaker on platoon and company OOB. Worse was after Vietnam, the same time that I got on active duty, company HQ's were streamlined and most company admin functions were technically transferred to battalion level. There was still a lot of paperwork and platoon sergeants really did need a platoon clerk to take care of that. The US Army doesn't need an enemy because it can immobilize itself with paperwork.
@@alancranford3398 Funny you should mention the paperwork load; I'm chipping away on a novel that (in part) follows a Marine going from Corporal to Captain over the course of an alternative war spanning from 1938 to 1945; at one point he's (functionally) running his platoon in lieu of his laissez faire platoon commander. As a professional civilian I'm out of the loop on just how far a lazy officer could plausibly push things depending on how much the officers at platoon and company level were willing to look the other way. Would you happen to have any insight about that/a way to contact you outside of this comment section to avoid clogging it up (unless Type 56 doesn't mind)?
@@ericbouchard7547 In 1938 to 1945, especially in wartime, failure to get platoon paperwork in on time might be overlooked. I retired in 2010 and was never promoted beyond SSG/E-6 in the Army and was a very junior Marine until 1980. For some reason a massive amount of platoon paperwork was dumped when the company clerks were relocated to battalion in an effort to improve the tooth to tail ratio. I did graduate from BNCOC and did the Marine correspondence course for the Marine NCO academy.
For a lazy officer, the platoon NCO could take care of business. I lost track of how often a clerk would sign for the commander--sometimes it was actually authorized.
What do you recommend for outside contact? I do e-mail.
China had licensed both SKS and the AK, and made them for their military. So they did NOT take a pass on AK lol
Logistics wins wars
Like saying that you are great driver cause every time your tank is low someone with can will come out of woodwork with gas canister to fill it up again.
Another great lecture. Thanks!
This channel is really interesting, I love how you try to get us in the head space of the time, im learning things!
In real life, most infantry fires in combat are suppressive, meant to enable maneuver. Point targets/personnel are hard to locate, often hard to see and harder still to actually hit. In real life, enemy personnel don't just stand nice and still, dressed to give you high contrast for you to hit them center mass with a precise shot lol.
There's a reason why the Soviets entered WW2 with the 3 line cartridge, and ended it with 7.62 Tokarev. Suppressive fires enable maneuver, maneuver enables CQB/MOUT where you finish jerry up close with subguns and grenades.
Another massive plot hole in the story of Zhao Erlu visiting the Izhevsk plant in 1956 and seeing an SKS production line is that Izhevsk only made the SKS in 1953-1954.
Zhao visiting the Tula factory would make more sense for that story. If he was given a tour of a small arms factory while on a trip to Moscow, Tula was still manufacturing the SKS in 1956 and the factory is only about 100 miles from Moscow. Izhevsk is much further away.
Gold, @fmjackalope4014! Thank you!!!
AK magazines are also more expensive than SKS stripper clips
@@mattshriner4897
You also need to be able to replace magazines as they wear out or get damaged which just increases the cost more, in the long run it's a better choice to just eat the cost but for a PLA that was cutting rations due to budget...
Another great video!
Excellent presentation!
The Type 56 saved my ducks from Godzilla the snapping turtle June 1994.
US military doctrine has always been well aimed fire. In the Cold War era this was true, even though the M16 could go full auto or 3 rnd burst in later models, it was rare that the use of FA in any training.
However, during the GWOT and use of M855 62grn 5.56MM ammo, we started getting trained on double taps or controlled pairs. Also, the use optics, like holographic or "Red Dot", especially in urban and CQB scenarios.
Also in doctrine, the use of FA was not so much to eliminate the enemy as much keeping their heads down then a flanking maneuver by riflemen. Thats the simplest representation, in action it gets a bit more complicated.
Once the PLA moved to stamped AK production the unit cost was reduced even further than the SKS. Unit cost for soviet sks vs soviet akm would be a good comparison.
you are my new favorite channel on this platform by the way, your content is incredible
Thank you so much! I hope I can hold up the standards all the way through. Thanks so much for your encouragement.
The SKS was no secret; it was in all the parades.
Humans always been like this, when you lack of resource, that when the human brains will try to invent what resource you lack.
7:00 time traveling arms merchants? Like in a Harry Turtledove book?
Funny thing: faster shooting has been opposed by pretty much every military ever at all times. The U.S. Army fought first against repeating rifles in the days of the Springfield Trap-Door rifle, they requested that the M1 Garand only have an eight shot end-block clip rather than the 20 round box magazine it was designed with, and they fought against the assault rifle concept throughout the 50's (and dragged NATO with them) with the M14 and FAL. The Wehrmacht and it's arms manufacturers had to go behind Adolf Hitler's back to even create the Sturmgewehr series rifles.
Even now after select fire rifles are the norm, Russia, the United States, and Germany have all made attempts to limit automatic fire; the Americans with the M16A2 3 round burst, the Germans with the G11's 3 round burst (and burst selectors on other HK weapons) and the Russians with the two round burst on the AN-94.
I imagine if the PLA was to have a main gripe about the small arms schematics supplied to them by the Soviets with the Type-56 series rifles it was the anemic (compared to full size rifle cartridges) 7.62x39 cartridge, and frankly I'm somewhat surprised they did not ask for schematics for the SVT-40 instead.
People are not widgets. I believe Professor Clower has mentioned the difference in body types between the 5' 10" 170 pound Soviet trooper and the 5' 5" 130 pound PLA trooper. (All measures are approximate and based on scientific wild ass guesses.)
The 7.62x54Rmm is a solid, solid cartridge . . . but it's a thumper.
@@christophernewton8474 Its true that many militaries have looked for ways to limit ammo usage by the troops using doctrine or devices like magazine cut offs.
I would note however that was not necessarily the driving force behind 3 round burst or the AN94s 2 round burst, the main reason for those features was to increase hit probability with a single trigger pull but retain a certain controllability that most can't produce with full auto.
Basically the idea was that when a target presents itself, it will likely be moving and also snap exposure so that one trigger pull that sends 3 rounds down range now increases your chance by X% of getting a hit.
The Americans also tried something similar with duplex and triplex ammunition, where a cartridge was actually loaded with multiple bullets that would spread after firing.
The Sturmgewehr makes sense when you zoom out as to what year it was adopted: 1944. Do you know what happened in 1944 and before? Moscow, Stalingrad, the Caucasus, Monte Cassino, even Warsaw. Those battles and the wars those battles are a part of require a constant supply of ammo for the Germans to fight. In that situation, why would changing weapons and ammo when the demand for both the current standard guns and the current standard ammo are at a wartime high?
I totally get where AH was coming from with his early opposition to the Sturmgewehr, but ultimately it's just another example of logistics over everything else.
@blujthewombat Increased hit probably saves ammo though, and it is my understanding that there was a time that M16A2s were being issued with no full auto option, only semi and burst.
For the US, this is not exactly true. The M1 had an 8 round en bloc because that was far cheaper and actually fieldable. Look at the Soviet Tokarev semiautomatic and select fire rifles. Their greatest drawbacks were generally lack of magazines, or damaged/poorly fitted magazines preventing reliable operation. En blocs were so cheap they were genuinely disposable, and the magazine was inside the rifle. During WW2, and after, the US did not in fact fight the assault rifle concept. They became completely obsessed and distracted by the FG42 years before the end of WW2, impressed by the weapon. This created the Light Rifle program that would morph several times.
It created, among other things, Rifle T20, which was a select fire M1 Garand variant with 20 round detachable box magazines, with an order for 100,000 such rifles for the invasion of Japan made in 1945. This was not fielded because we luckily found a cheat code in physics that lets you vaporize cities.
Afterwards, there was no money for a new rifle for many years. The few things getting money were the genuinely new technologies postwar: jet aircraft, missiles, nuclear weapons, radar, helicopters, etc. Cartridge .30 cal T65 was developed in this time, which took years. Once it was finally technically mature, with the creation of NATO, a new standard cartridge needed to be adopted for the entire organization.
Let's be clear: this was NOT the right time for an intermediate cartridge to be fielded. Europe was dirt poor, had a ton of leftover full power rifles and other weapons, and the most important infantry small arms in their militaries were their machineguns. In other words, the new cartridge NEEDED to be a machinegun cartridge, and all other considerations had to be secondary. T65 (which became 7.62 NATO) was excellent for this set of circumstances and mission.
Quite the “lid” (hat) there.
The SKS isn’t a bad rifle. Had one years ago.
The SKS is milled, an AKM is stamped. The SKS was always a more intensive production.
The key is the "M" for modernized. The AK type 1 (stamped) was pulled after 2 years. Unacceptable scrap and problems. The Russians went to type 2 & 3 milled. Then went to the AKM when they got the stamping technology sorted out.
Just signed up to the Patreon, the content is exceptional value for a few dollars a month.
Just waiting on you to release some merch now haha
Thank you so much!
In terms of cost per unit of type 56 ak vs type 56 sks, which AK is pretty important. The "1st generation" Type 56 AKs used milled receivers, which are fantastic except they are pretty heavy and are more expensive both in terms of steel and labor. The "2nd generation" Type 56 AKs used stamped receivers which are cheaper and quicker to make.
But if wood was really that precious i can definitely see how the SKS would nose out.
I am an entire video behind! I need to work on that
The Party accepts your sincere self-criticism, comrade.
I think its worth noting that even today with the prevalence of assault rifles, most soldiers will shoot entirely in semi automatic and only use automatic in emergencies.
So Im very curious if you know the details on the story of all the branches of the SKS family?
Ive owned a 59 Yugo for like a decade now, basically the gun Ive shot the most other than the Nagants I used to own. But I know next to nothing about the rifle's story or the theory of arms it was meant for.
Any insights?
Check with Forgotten Weapons and C&Rsenal put out a long video titled "HISTORY PRIMER 192: RUSSIAN SKS DOCUMENTARY" 18 months ago.
Sadly, I know NOTHING about the other SKS, and in fact, one of the things that launched this project was seeing all these nice Yugos on the market and wondering what *they* wanted so many of them for.
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept The mystery of the yugo conspiracy deepens XD
@alancranford3398 Thanks for the tip, I was hoping for something as detailed as this course. But I do know those guys and like both channels so ill check it out!
Maybe the chinese general somehow heard about the illusive early prototype of the ZKZ transactional rifle?
Soviets wouldn't share the only thing that cuts through any protection that wealth and power can provide.
this dude is the ultimate tankie
Lib
I have been watching British RN propaganda films of exercises from the 1960 to 1964 time period . I have noticed the RM are carrying primarily Enfield No 4, Sterling and Bren in the 1960 film with a few FAL visible in the background Bayonets fixed in many scenes the Films from 1964 Borneo seems to match the USMC small Wars philosophy. Small units walking into the jungle for days or weeks at a time. Replenished by mules or helicopters. FAL being slowly fired with carefully aimed shots. The odd newborn select fire AR 15 being used in place of the sub machine gun. The leadership in the PLA must have been able to say look here. The British are following our example. The People’s Liberation Army’s methods are World class. Our beloved SKS is it easier to carry and maintain than the big long Western rifles. Plus we don’t have to carry big cumbersome box magazines . You see how my eyes have been opened to the People’s Liberation Army’s Doctrine! Yes now I am awake and value my Albanian SKS all the more❤
in the 50s, nobody even the USSR was that think ahead, assault rilfe wasn't a thing since nazi german was gone, funny it was the SKS designer Simonov first realised the new role AK-47 would be, so he told the USSR leadership to stop making more SKS, beacuse the furture would belong to AK.
US and China also failed to realised the new furture, still stucked in WW2 mindset, I mean it was understandable for China, because it was just a 3rd world backward country in the 50s, but the US really shouldn't be that short sighted
The whole world at the time was still stuck in that 19th century mindset where massed infantry units would be laying down suppressive fire against artillery. Even western Europe had the same mentality with the FAL and G3 rifles
Where can I learn more about Simonov's letter? Couldn't find any source for the claim
I wouldn’t say the U.S. was necessarily as short-sighted as much as different parts doing different things because the U.S. military’s focus at that time was on Strategic Air Command and their doomsday weapons.
At the same time the U.S. Army Ordnance Department was struggling to field the M14, they were also trying to develop the Special Purpose Infantry Weapon, which was arguably a more radical departure than even the M16. Of course the M14 was kind of a dud and SPIW and its successors went pretty much nowhere because it was compared to the M16 and later M4 and decided “M16/M4 is good enough.”
And then you had US Army Continental Army Command (CONARC) seeing the future for what it was and issued a specification for a lightweight select fire rifle firing small-caliber high-velocity ammunition, resulting in the Armalite AR-15. This got backing from ARPA, the USAF, and the DOD to become the M16 whose adoption propelled the Army from a warmed-over WWII rifle to the gold standard of military rifles worldwide.
and germany be like "das machinengewehr geht brrrrrrrrrrrr"
In my experience from late 80's to 2010's the American Infantry has went from M16A1 to the XM7. In the GWOT the bad guys could pick out Americans by the accurate single shots. Full auto was for suppressing the enemy, interesting channel though!
Then why did marine units come ww2 grap every Bar the could get there hands on sometimes tripling it in there t.o.e. as seen in interviews and articles
The next level will be flash light fighting.... When you can blind you enemy with 1,000,000 candlelight power flashlights you are actually on your way to not using any bullets.
What are your thoughts Type 56?
I had a "Cowboy Carbine " SKS . Was that ever an issue item?
Learning about response to contact drills made me sober up about volume of fire quick:
1 shot per second "rapid fire" as drilled is SLOW compared to what uncontrolled semi auto fire can do, not to mention what auto fire can do (60x slower, at least)... and yet it will burn through a buffed up combat load of 10x 30round magazines worth of ammo in 5 to 10 mins of contact.
That is not a lot of time in the fight, even with a combat load with a ridiculously high round count when compared to the age of the SKS and M-14.
the union army in the 1860s, and later the US cavalry during the indian wars categorically rejected repeating arms for widescale issue, even such as the Spencer Carbine, out of officers and logistics concerns that troopers would use up all their ammunition. Globally, when most nations converted to bolt actions from breech loaders, giving them their first rapid fire small arms, a vast majority incorporated either a mechanical single loading/magazine cutoff or a training/tactics practice of only single loading cartridges for the same reason. Chinese weren't off at all in the 1950s
The AK should be quite a bit cheaper to make over the SKS. The AK has a lot of stamp parts and the SKS is still machine blocks.
Speaking of the small wars manual, I recommend people pick up a book called “gangsters of capitalism” an excellent biography of smedly butler who is the most decorated marine officer in the history of the Corps, and his experiences in the small wars throughout the first half of the 20th century. He participated in several invasions of China as well and his experiences led him to become a pacifist and anti militarist who spent the rest of his life speaking out against war. An extremely fascinating read for people wanting to see what a UCMC bayonet change in Haiti looked like in practice!
Thank you!! Grabbing it on my way out of the library this morning!
Zhao was in the same JinchaJi military district of Shanxi Province as my grandfather.
WHOA!!!
one hell of an intro
I’m impressed.
Wood being more expensive than iron seems insane . I understand that there was much less trees in the past but people need wood to stay warm in winter . Surely people in China didn’t heat their homes with coal . Were homes built with iron (obviously not bricks exist)
Owning both I’d say sks costs more to produce. I think the key is the bandolier system no one considers this sks bandolier 200 rds lighter than ak bandolier 120 rds and heavy. So they can stay out longer with their supplies. Makes since to me. And today ppl ruin sks trying to make em a ak
This kinda begs the question: why then did the soviets go for the fully automatic AK-47? Or did they, considering that both AK-47 and SKS were adopted at rhoughly the same time (as sub-machinegun and rifle respectively)? If the US, with the largest truck fleet in the world, wasn't willing to give a full-auto to all soldiers, why were the soviets?
I think it's just that, even if the Soviet Army didn't have the world's greatest logistics, they were still living on almost a different *planet* from the PLA, where in their manufacturing and transport capabilities.
1:35 here is how to cut the cord of technology transfers: invent your own. promote widespread scientific education and research.
wouldn't need to steal technology, spy, borrow, license technology, beg technology.
I must say im disapointed Jason, i was expecting a m1 steel pot or something when you where talking about the marine core manual :P.
[Jason rushes to show this comment to Political Officer and explain purchase of more hats]
Just a couple of questions about the Type 56 era of the PLA. Don't worry if you don't have time to answer.
1. You mentioned here that the story you previously told about that unit receiving their 56 weapons didn't happen until the 1960s. How long was it until the mass adoption of these weapons? Also, what was the main service weapon of the PLA before this the Mosin-Nagant, the PPSh-41, or the PPS-43, or was there no real standardisation at that point?
2. After this wide spread adoption of the Type 56, was its use intended to be universal or did more specialized troops such as vehicle and artillery crews use other weapons.
3. You have mentioned how the PLA liked to think of themselves as precise markmans, but were dedicated long range snipers a big thing in the PLA and if so, what weapons did they use.
@samuelgrant1549 Welcome! First, let me do my best to give the short, quick-and-dirty answers:
(1) "Yes!" There was no standardization, then an *attempt* to standardize on the Mosin M44, PPSh, PPS, and DP, then a *relapse* to "no real standard." (That part of the story is in th-cam.com/video/nOQ7AcKTD3w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=aqQFOCcDEcuD7FVL and th-cam.com/video/3k5XzyjmLJ0/w-d-xo.htmlsi=veGKWkgwiE4pwPpP).
(2) They wanted the Type 56 to be universal, though (again) it took them yeeears to manufacture enough.
(3) AFAIK, there wasn't any official sniper or designated marksman role, or a special sniper MOS, or a special DMR. (And I think it's open to question how good their *actual* marksmanship was too. More on that when we get to the Sino-Vietnam War.)
Once again, welcome!
@@Type56_Ordnance_DeptThank you very much.
I'm in the Army and while my experience doesn't mean jack I can say that with the M4A1 you are never expected to go full auto except in emergencies. Maybe more advanced units practice with it and do it (I'm in a non-infantry unit and we get the barest training for firearms). But the M4 for us is a semi-auto carbine, you can go full auto but in reality you probably won't.
First let me say how much I love your teaching style. You put to shame 95 percent of historians that I've seen. I wonder if you have been formed abroad?
Second, I have a question. What about machine guns? Do you know what the thinking was behind the switch to assault rifles in the German Army? I think that you missed something other than hindsight.
Thank you, you're very kind! My formal education was all in the US. On that question about the German forces and the StG, I can only speculate, and really ineptly. But I'll take a stab and say, wartime Germany possibly (I really don't know) had fewer *geographical* worries about ammo distribution (especially to a contracting front?). China isn't just a country, it's a whole subcontinent, and it's full of mountains, crisscrossed by rivers (which tend to run in the "wrong" directions, for purposes of military transport), and had pitifully few rail lines.
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Short version: I think you are wrong to compare Chinese tactical thinking to the American one. I think that you don't take into consideration the support arms and this misleads you into thinking that they are similar.
I also think that German and Soviet thinking are more alike Chinese than you think in their needs and they are going assault rifles.
Not an accusations, just an useful observation, I hope.
I mean, unlike the west and Russia, they never faced an StG-44, they haven't faced yet Soviet with AKs, and they didn't had in hand the AVT/SVT, the .280 cal EM2-FAL, and so on
It's hard to know the benefit of something you never seen and no one talked you about
So, if you don't know AND you lack money, yeah, it's arguably a good choice IN THEIR PERSPECTIVE AT THE TIME
The PLA's night attack against the Marines at Korea almost 100% failed, for the Marines by that time got night visioned M1 carbine.
And very soon after the first contact PLA get their hand on one of the supply depo of the US army and one may presume they soon understood U.S. have night vision.
So by the time of SKS/AK choice, it is unreasonable to assume they still want to conduct night raid without night vision for the infantryman.
Did the PLA retreated for the US Marines, or did the US Marines retreated for the PLA?
Can you fix the emblem on your hat? It is mounted/fixed off center and now that ive seen it, i cant unsee it.
I'd be curious to see your take on why the Chinese seem to prefer the PF-98 "Queen Bee" 120mm rocket launcher over guided missiles, initially issuing them at the company and battalion level, then expanding them to the platoon and squad level. Obviously it's less expensive and can be used as an infantry support gun, not just for bunker busting or engaging tanks, but they genuinely seem to prefer it over guided missiles. And then there's their obsession with automatic grenade launchers and "sniper" grenade launchers, to the point they sometimes replace the SAW and platoon machine gun entirely. It seems they have a lot of focus on lobbing explosives at the enemy rather than bullets.
I wonder what the rifle qualifications were for PLA soldiers of the 50's?
There is all this talk about accurate fire but what were the commanders were actually expending. Was it minute of man at 300 or did they expect soldiers to be making shots in excess of that?
Good question. I can tell you what the US Army and US Marines were doing in the Fifties from my research, but foreign armies seem to have limited live fire to 100 meters for a number of reasons. The Swiss still take extreme measures to practice 300-meter marksmanship. Often, soldiers the world over practice on miniature target arrays at 25 meters, with the targets scaled to appear as if 300 meters off. The Marines still train at 500 yards because they're Marines.
What's even funnier is that when the M14 Rifle was adopted in 1957 the rifle had to group within 6 inches at 100 yards when test-fired for accuracy--the M1 Rifle was something like 5 inches at the same distance. Ignoring shooter errors, at 500 yards (460 meters) the M14 Rifle would have a 30-inch pattern. "Military Grade Accuracy" is putting half of the bullets fired from a rifle on a man-sized target--call it a 19-inch wide by 39-inch silhouette for academic purposes. The M1 Rifle, the M14 Rifle and the M16A1 Rifle all had textbook 460-meter effective range, after which rifle fire was "area fire" used primarily for suppressive fire. The M1 sights were graduated to 1200 yards and the M14 sights to 1200 meters, the M16A1 had flip-up 0-300 meter and 500-meter sights, the M16A2 has a 200-meter large aperture and a small aperture sight that can be field adjusted from 300 meters to 800 meters. The M16A2 has a point target effective range of 550 meters and an area target effective range of 800 meters--at 500 yards, rack-grade M16A2 rifles with regular M855 ball ammo can achieve 100% hits on the 500-yard target from a sling-supported prone firing position.
Match-grade rifles with match-grade ammunition fired under match conditions by expert riflemen can do more. Neither rack-grade SKS nor rack-grade M14 using regular ball ammo under battlefield conditions and fired by semi-trained soldiers will measure up in accuracy--but the match rifles have to be babied, or they'll lose that accuracy edge.
@@alancranford3398 the idea of a 6 inch group being acceptable boggles the modern mind.
Enfields even during war time were held to a 4 inch group standard.
Here in Australia miniature targets were also used but there was some practical 300m shooting done in the prone for the military in the past.
The main way long range shooting skills were encouraging or developed was in 300m civilian competition using standard military pattern rifles, you will find a lot of earlier pattern Enfields or Lee speed rifles even today that were modified to the "range pattern", one big benefit for Aussie target shooters was that Lithgow produced the heavy version of the Enfield barrel which was much more suited to that use.
@@blujthewombat SA80A2 factory acceptance standard is about 5.6 MOA from a lead sled (the Lees and M14s sound like they were being fired by riflemen without a lead sled)
@@blujthewombat The early M14 Rifle had bugs in the manufacturing process and the early M59 ball from a test barrel had only 3.5 MOA accuracy. All this makes the M1 Carbine more amazing; the M1 Rifle was too bulky and too heavy and too expensive to issue to every soldier (determined during 1938 troop trials) and in late 1940 after the Battle of France it was determined that a bolt action rifle didn't have the firepower needed for modern battle where the enemy could pop up any time and any place. Pistols were ineffective beyond about 10 yards in semi-trained hands. Submachine guns cost $200 (pistols were $50) and their pistol bullets were not really effective at 100 yards--plus the open-bolt system of the Thompson made it hard to shoot well beyond 50 yards. The M1 Carbine was designed to be effective to 300 yards (on paper) and 8 MOA was the maximum dispersion acceptable. In under two years the M1 Carbine was in the hands of the troops and in combat. From 1942 to 1945 six million M1 Carbines were made and issued. The M14, by contrast, had been in development since 1944 and the first flawed production M14 Rifles were issued in 1959, with only one division re-equipped with the new rifle by 1961. The M1 Carbine was a "replacement" for the pistol and submachine gun--mostly did, but not fully. Some three million pistols and revolvers were acquired for the US Army, Navy and Marines in WW2, and about the same number of submachine guns.
@@superfamilyallosauridae6505 not sure about the Americans, I know that the Enfield was shot from a mechanical rest, there was one on display some years ago at the Lithgow firearms museum (Lithgow was the producer of enfields in Australia for the military)
So the Soviets shared the technical package with the Chinese but I doubt they shared the full knowledge of how to seriously produce them at massive massive scale I can definitely see the general being very jealous of the assembly line and the incredible warehouse and the huge industry behind The SKS rifles being made and being insanely jealous of that and feeling shorted!
@cascadianrangers728 has looked into his ball and glimpsed our next episode!
Yeah, well, I am glad my Patreon donations allow me to carry a 56 SMG instead.😊
@BrettBaker-uk4te Thank you for your exemplary leadership qualities, comrade :) You're someone when can trust not to hose us in the back during a general melee 🤣
Why did the Soviets and Europeans go for select-fire rifles for every soldier unlike the UK, US & PLA?
You really want US and UK to adopt Soviet meat wave doctrine?
You know I have to ask the Chinese over there, would to they give me or someone else the absolute best things they have along with the ability to build them? Really something they cry when someone holds something back but are fine doing themselves...
On subject now the PLA adopted the old original doctrine from the Soviets that invisioned the ak as a smg, next as with the US they have this idea that a soilder with full auto will first not be accurate tho really the kind of battle the PLA was using absolutely does not care about that, second they will use more ammo and they have waste more money making and moving that.
Bear in mind that at this time - the mid 1950s - the US Army had 17 divisions and was cutting that force constantly. Invading China, of all places, was the LAST thing on their mind.
So youre saying in matters vegetable animal and mineral the Chinese officer has to be the very model of a modern major general.
(choir repeats back)
orz
Are you familiar the works of Dr Cho Khan-ma? He might be worthwhile, though tangential to this subject.
No, who is he? Tangential is practically my middle name.
@Type56_Ordnance_Dept Cho Khan-ma nuts.
(I hope you appreciated this joke)
Please tell us more about your peculiar pedagogical philosophy and does that include actively articulating alliterations?
Obviously only in cases of actual assonance ;) Roughly speaking, I think that, it any given instant, you can either *show* a person something or *tell* them something, but not both. If you try, you'll split their attention: for that instant, they'll take in either what they see or what you say, but not both. And you (the teacher) won't know which. So ideally, if I'm going to *show* something, I should shut up and let people look before I open my yap again. And I've found that goes for "text walls" too (probably because written English and spoken English are pretty different things). I think that's part of why "death by Powerpoint" presentations are so dreary and draining. On some micro-level, they hack apart the audience's attention--as if you're trying to teach them surfing *and* algebra at the same time.
@@Type56_Ordnance_Dept this stuck with me longer than I thought it would. I find myself thinking about this whenever I'm making presentations at work. Thanks for following through on what I thought was a throwaway joke
@@joaoie This makes my day! If there's anything that I'm a pedagogical "crusader" about, it's this and demystifying the teaching of writing.
How long did PLA combat forces remain in the DPRK? Ignoring advisors, trainers, etc.
Turns out, they stayed til 1958!
How about students of the world, free for them ?
Wow, for once, an American is using in a right way a French expression, and with a nice prononciation, congrats 😄
So, I suppose you've serve in the US military?
(best US French speaker/cultured, change my mind)
You really are too kind :) Catch me unprepared in a French conversation, and the illusion will melt before your eyes. But at least I can pronounce a set phrase. [vigorous self-back-patting]
There is something deeply offensive about the way you dress up
how?
4th
@Ivan-vn1pd Welcome back!
Do you know Jesus? Praying for you! Jesus saves!