M1 Garand Rifle (pronounced "Gair-und") is an American semi automatic rifle used in WW2. It is one of the weapons frequently used in Brothers in Arms series and the main weapon for Sgt. Baker and the Fire Team.
History[]
The U.S. M-1 Garand Rifle was the standard issue service rifle for the United States during World War II, Korea, and limited service in Vietnam. The M-1 Garand is the world's first successful semi-auto rifle being used and mass-produced. The M-1 is semi-automatic, it's a gas-operated clip fed shoulder fired weapon, The M-1 Garand was first conceived in 1923, by John Garand (Gair-und) an employee at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, who had hit upon a workable semi-automatic rifle design that caught the attention of the military, Garand's original design was a disappointment, plagued with malfunctions, feed and reliability problems. Springfield had hope, and assigned a team of engineers to assist Dr. Garand in the project, the design was not perfected until 1932. In 1936, the finalized rifle designated "US Rifle Cal. 30 M1" was assessed by the US military, and officially adopted that year as the official replacement for the aging M1903 rifles. The rifle entered mass production and was first fielded in 1941, and was retired in 1957 by the M14 rifles, (which was effectively a selective fire, fully automatic version of the M-1 with a detachable 20 round box magazine, and re-chambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge), despite this, M1 was still being used in early Vietnam War. The M1 is effective up to a maximum range of 1,200 yards with the addition of a telescope (seen on M1s in late WWII/Korea, designated M1C and M1D). The Semi-Auto design allowed American soldiers to lay down powerful, speedy, and accurate, long range firepower and gave the American soldier a tremendous advantage over his foes whom still used slower Bolt-Action rifles. The Japanese produced a copy of the M1 Garand design during WW2, chambered for their own 7.7x58mm Arisaka round (which was ballistically similar to the British .303 (7.7x56mmR) cartridge) and had a magazine that held 10 rounds (fed with two five-round stripper clips instead of the 8-round en-bloc clips of the U.S. M1). It was designated the Type 4, but the rifle was only a prototype and never reached the front lines; it was produced in very small quantities.
The M-1 had a unique clip style as well, the clips were known as the "En-Bloc" clips, which at the time were common in some boltaction rifles, mainly mannlicher designs, the M-1s en bloc design, which were made of thin tin metal which housed eight .30-06 Springfield (7.62x63mm) rifle cartridges, which were staggered in two rows,(four rounds on each side, some post war variants of En-Bloc clips have a capacity of 5 and 3 rounds.) This gave the M-1 three rounds more than the German Mauser Kar98k rifle which only housed five rounds in the magazine, or the Japanese Type 38/94/99 Arisaka rifles, which also only had five round stripper clips as well. The only "downside" (if you can even call it that) to the M-1's En-Bloc clips, were that, after all eight rounds were fired, the now-empty clip, ejects from the magazine, and the clips being made of tin metal, it gave off a distinctive "pinging" sound, which led to soldiers becoming concerned about nearby enemies hearing the sound and knowing they were out of ammo, and would zero in on their position, it even went so far as the Government experimenting with various types of plastic clips at the Aberdeen Proving grounds, however, no viable alternate material was found to be a suitable replacement to the tin-metal clips, the En-Bloc clips remained the same tin-metal, after some time, soldiers in the field reported that the "ping" wasn't nearly as audible as had been originally thought, in fact at 20 feet distance, the ping was practically impossible to hear (unless it were dropped on concrete etc.), let alone the enemy at 150 yards away, amongst the immense sounds of combat, it was impossible to hear. though it was still a very small element of risk at close range, but even then, (based on German veteran's testimonies, and first hand accounts) in the chaos of battle, the enemy didn't really have time to care about what might have been a ping sound or not, there's just too much going in the heat of battle even to care or pay attention, and even if they did hear the sound, it only meant a single soldier is out, not the rest of his teammates, so getting up and attacking where the sound came from would still be suicidal. The clip ejecting only really benefited the American soldier, letting him know he's out and there's no point in lining up another shot. The loading of the clips were simple, it was inserting the clip into the rifle's magazine, and closing the charging rod thus closing the receiver, and chambering a round. The rifle could be topped-off with single rounds like in all the other rifles of the era, however the En-Bloc clips were shaped differently than other clips of the period, the unique design of the En-Bloc made it somewhat cumbersome to add single rounds to a partially fired clip while it was inserted in the magazine, especially in a combat scenario, however the En-Bloc clip could be easily manually ejected from the rifle by pressing the "clip release latch", located on the left side of the receiver, first the shooter would pull back the charging rod and hold it there (if you don't do that, you will likely end up getting the infamous "M1 thumb", which can hurt yourself badly), then press the clip release latch, the full or partially fired clip will then eject out of the magazine, clearing the weapon of all ammo, as well as locking the charging rod in place, thus allowing the shooter to insert a fresh clip, and quickly resume shooting, this process took about 3–4 seconds in the hands of a trained shooter, this was how the M-1 Garand was reloaded without firing all the rounds, it was much preferred over firing the rifle until empty,(which was recommended by field manuals), reloading mid-clip benefited the soldier by saving partial clips for shooting later, it avoided the somewhat risky "ping" sound, and decreased the chances of a malfunction. In Hell's Highway, it's interesting to see British soldiers armed with M1 Garand and M1 Carbine, in real life they preferred bolt-action Lee-Enfield rifles and in Operation Market Garden, Sten and Bren guns. Also in Hell's Highway, The M1 has a M82 Scope,making it the "M1C Garand".
Gameplay[]
In Brothers in Arms, the M1 rifle provides you and your squad with accurate, powerful, and long range firepower. The M1 Garand is a powerful and reliable firearm that is the most common weapon you and your men are issued with, with this weapon, you and your squad will have access to a fast, accurate and dependable rifle to accomplish your missions. Though the M1 Carbine is definitely the easier of the two weapons to use, the Garand (along with the Thompson) will be your standard weapons throughout most of the games. Along with M1A1 Carbine, the M1 Garand can be used to suppress your foes due to its semi-auto capability, but if you want to aim, don't fire too quickly, the recoil will hamper your accuracy. Like the other rifles in the game, the players will have to take some time to steady their rifle before firing at mid-to-long range.
The Garand's iron sights are one of the easiest sights in the games to use, being a three-pronged front sight along with an arch over it. This weapon is extremely useful at far distances, though not too far and also quite good at flanking at a distance. (Despite the M1903 Springfield is the best choice, but this weapon is not common) Don't spontaneously fire it though, as the clip only holds eight rounds. Its recoil is also fairly average, but hinders the firing process slightly. The Garand has 2 hit kill ability on the enemy soldier, 1 shot kill can be achieved providing the player scores the headshot.
The M1 is an excellent weapon of choice in Hell's Highway, it is accurate at medium and long ranges and can score headshots easier than M1 Carbine at long range (or at least as easy as M1A1 Carbine), it is a semi-auto weapon, which means you can take out a small group of Germans quickly, its possible to use the M1 as a sniper rifle. Unlike the K43 (or Gewehr 43), the Garand is also effective at close range, especially if your opponents are armed with the Mauser K98. But its close range performance is still poor. When versus enemies armed with StG 44 or FG 42 in older games, use the SMG or automatic rifle instead.
In Brothers in Arms DS, Hell's Highway Multiplayer and Global Front, the M1 Garand is available with a scope (and holding only 5 shots in DS) and after beating every level in DS/From the store in Global Front a M1 Garand with Grenade Launcher can be obtained.
Appearances[]
- Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
- Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood
- Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway
Gallery[]
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See also[]