Standard-issue semi-automatic rifle (M1 Garand)
Fusil semiautomático reglamentario (M1 Garand)
- Date
- 1936 · confidence high
- Place
- Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
- Credited to
- John Garand
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A gas-operated semi-automatic rifle with an eight-round clip that the US adopted as its standard individual weapon in 1936, the first great power to issue a semi-automatic rifle generally. It gave US infantry a rate-of-fire advantage in the Second World War.
There were earlier semi-automatics: the Mexican Mondragón M1908 (the first in combat, in small numbers), the Russian Fedorov of 1912 and the Standard Arms Model M of 1910; the M1 was the first adopted as the general infantry weapon of a great power.
What it led to
- postwar infantry rifles (M14, FAL)
- the assault rifle
- squad fire doctrines