What if in '60 the US had adopted a scaled-up M2 Carbine in 300 Savage?

steelgray

steelgray

Regular
Rating - 100%
37   0   0
Location
Ottawa Valley - Ontario
What if, in 1960, the US had decided to just scale the M2 carbine to handle 300 Savage, or maybe just a 30 cal. equivalent to 7.62x39? What if that gun had been upgraded with synthetic furniture and better provision for optics? How would that have changed things in the early part of the Vietnam conflict - when the M14 kinda washed out?

300 Savage M2 Carbine.jpg


Would that have meant that there was no real reason to adopt that Mattel gun AR-15 thing?
 
Last edited:
The .224 Winchester E2 in the Lightweight Military Rifle lost out in the trials to the AR15, so presumably there was a conscious decision not to adopt the Winchester variants.
 
It would still be 1940's technology. Winchester offered up basically the same rifle as you have pictured to the Army for adoption using the Win. 224 cartridge. It was not selected. They were looking to move forward, well most everyone except those dinosaurs like Rene Studler and Springfield Armory...
 
Mind you, if they had adopted a souped up M2, would that have replaced the Carbine or the Garand? If it replaced the Garand, or if a .270 replaced the Garand in 1960 then the AR15 might well not have been needed by the USAF. So if the new rifle was as good as the AK, then the changing horses midwar would have been avoided.
Of course the souped up M2 might have been junk that needed to be replaced too.
 
I still think the Brits had it right with the EM2 rifle, more specifically its cartridge.

That mattel toy makes a excellent battle rifle though. Easy to maintain, accurate, easy to use, reliable. Basically everything you want in a service rifle. There is a reason it is still the standard everything else is based off of 60 years later.
 
It wouldn't have gone very far. Even by the end of WWII, most of the major powers were starting to look more closely at "optics for everything" on their rifles. The optics tech wasn't cheap and reliable enough to make it happen, but they all knew it was only a matter of time.

Even though it would be decades before optics became the norm, everyone was moving towards platforms that had the potential to use optics, even if only for specialty troops.

The M1/M2 Carbine was, is, and always will be, poorly suited for optics mounting. This is by virtue of the top eject operating system, which makes everything optics related more complicated. If you look at the semi-auto rifles coming into service during this period, they were all side-eject operating systems. This was in no small part due to the fact that the military R&D types knew that this would make optics, at some future point, easier to mount. Even there, a lot of these systems turned out to be poorly suited for optics, but they were still better than the top-eject semi-autos, that were almost universally being phased out of service.
 
steelgray said:
What if, in 1960, the US had decided to just scale the M2 carbine to handle 300 Savage...?
Click to expand...

What do you think the M14 was?
Garand-style rotating bolt, like the M2 carbine.
Select-fire, box magazine fed, like the M2 carbine.
Chambered in 7.62x51mm, a cartridge derived directly from the .300 savage and with very similar ballistics.

In other words, they did exactly what you are suggesting, but they did it 3 years earlier.

And guess what? It was a flop. Enter the Mattel rifle thing.
 
I don't think a difference in whatever small arms thay had would have made a difference early or late in the war.

M16 or M14 or M2 on 300 Savage was not why they failed miserably.
 
BattleRife said:
What do you think the M14 was?
Garand-style rotating bolt, like the M2 carbine.
Select-fire, box magazine fed, like the M2 carbine.
Chambered in 7.62x51mm, a cartridge derived directly from the .300 savage and with very similar ballistics.

In other words, they did exactly what you are suggesting, but they did it 3 years earlier.

And guess what? It was a flop. Enter the Mattel rifle thing.
Click to expand...

This. Simply put 300 Savage would have had the same downsides as 308win, mainly having too much recoil to be controllable in full auto and the ammo being relatively heavy.

The simple fact is most soldiers shoot 556 better than they do 308, so unless you actually need the range or power of 308 it makes sense to equip everyone with a gun that they can shoot better, especially when it also allows them to carry more ammo.
 
the British trials of the 260 and 270 had a lot of promise however once the americans insisted on the new round having similar power to the 30-06 things just went down hill

the 260 was abandoned and the 270 was lengthened and increased in power

and NATO standardization was supposed to be on the FN, but again the americans at the last minute decided that they were going with the M14

the whole exercise in developing an intermediate round was hi-jacked by the americans wanting a new rifle just like the M1 Garand but better but not different
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom