I love that Ian chose this question and explained it well when he actually has videos on some of the rifles in question. Others might have ignored it or, worse, ridiculed the submitter for not watching the entire library of videos. Thank you, Ian, for not being a jerk.
During WW2 the numbering system got a little confusing ie you had a M1 rifle, carbine and SMG. You also had an M3 light tank and a M3 medium tank. So the Army for a short time made an adjustment. There is no M4 light tank. The successor to the M3 Stuart was the M5 to avoid confusion with the M4 medium. So it is possible that the M3 designation for rifles was skipped to avoid confusion with the M3 Grease Gun.
In 1977 everything was "A1" (M16A1, M113A1). My buddy regaled us during a break in training on the M1A1 toilet paper that came in the boxes of C-rations.
I tried climbing into my M1 while carrying an M1 but couldn't get it past the hatch, so I swapped it out for an M1 and it fit just fine but that thing is way too heavy. I went back to the armory a third time I grabbed an M1 and a few mags for it, and that finally worked. On my way back to the M1, I caught a ride on the trailer of a guy driving an M1 to service my buddy's M1.
(3:07 M-5?) 1986, a .22 subcaliber training device (rifle) placed in the breech of 105mm M68 main gun; at Fort Knox there was a short 'outdoor' range with a long garage on the firing line. It was just on the edge of Main Post, so no lengthy drive away. The garage had at least a dozen garage doors. Behind each door was an actual M60A1 tank turret (minus most of the gun tube) mounted on a stand with external power & hydraulic lines running to a central source. Downrange were blocks of wood, some being slowly towed by wires about 20 feet away. Three guys could be in each turret for hours, swapping positions, and shoot tank main gun engagements all day for a few dollars of .22 ammo. Thousands of tank crewmen trained on this range for at least 20 years, rain or snow.
A buddy of mine served in the USMC during Viet Nam - Andy trained on the M-14 and was issued an M-16 in country. He said he preferred the M-14 - because it had a "bigger punch" than the M-16 which he described as "a bush gun." He survived Khe Sanh but sadly overdid it at a reunion and died of a heart attack. I really miss him.
I earned my rifle ribbon in 1988 with an M14 while on the US Navy. Little known fact is that practically every ship in the US Navy to this day is issued a couple of M14s. One of the things that the US Navy does VERY well is Underway Replenishment (UnRep)...transferring fuel, supplies, ammo,etc. at sea while underway at 15-20 knots about 200 feet apart. In a nutshell, you fire a weighted lines across from one ship to the other, use those lines to pull heavier line across, then use those lines to pull steel cables across. The steel cables are automatically tensioned, and can be used to send across hoses suspended on trollies, palleted goods, etc. Where the M14 comes into play is getting that weighted line across 200 feet of water. A special adapter and a blank cartridge is used. The 5.56 NATO just doesn't have what it takes to send the line across, where the 7.62 NATO round does. With the adapter removed, the weapon is fully functional with standard ball ammo. While most ships use the M4 or M16 for shipboard security forces, A Replenishment Ship is considered an "Auxiliary" ship, and will always be at the bottom of the list for the "latest and greatest". That coupled with the fact that the M14s were used multiple times daily resulted in an armory full of them. The "bottom of the list" thing also applied to handguns. I also earned my pistol ribbon in 1988...with a 1911.
I'd like to see one for aircraft. There are a lot of unused numbers there. I know about the YF-17 that filled the gap between the F-16 and the F/A-18 (and basically was the latter), but there are a ton I don't know about.
I was an Armorer in the Marines & my first Duty Station (1966) was 2nd Anti-tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division Camp Lejeune. We had the M50 Ontos with 6 106 RR & 4 M8 50 cal Spotting Rifles mounted on the top 4 106's. The M9 sub caliber training rifles had a couple of uses that I had experience with field units. One use should be obvious, orientation of new gunners. A more fun one was in acting as an aggressor force with Tank Forces. We installed the 30-06 M9's in the 106 breach & went "Tank Hunting". The Tankers were buttoned up & couldn't be hurt, except maybe their pride. Went to an Army training exercise somewhere in Kentucky at an Army Armor training base. I was told the sound was quite loud when a 30-60 round hit the hull.
Reminds me of a similar situation but in aviation. When Lockheed-Martin X-35 was announced the winner of the JSF program, press asked Edward Aldridge about the official designation of the aircraft. In his ignorance of how the Tri-Service aircraft designation system works, he announced on the spot that the new aircraft would be named F-35 - much to the displeasure of the AFNO who is supposed to be the one in charge of that, because the F/YF and X designations are two different lines that doesn't simply convert like that. The last F/YF designation was the YF-23, so the JSF should have been named F-24 as the newest fighter in service if everything went according to the guideline. In the end, the airforce decided to stick to the F-35 designation anyway since the genie is already out of the bottle...
The Super Hornet should have been F/A-24. It's a completely new aircraft, not an upgrade to the -18. Shenanigans to avoid political scrutiny I suspect.
@@alun7006 That's *exactly* what it was; McDonnel Douglas knew the aircraft visually resembled the F/A-18 because they had a common design lineage (if you look at the F-5E, you can see the start of the design line), and knew that they would be more likely to get contracts if Congress believed that parts and procedures commonality would make the Super Hornet cheaper to operate and maintain, and that there would be no need to retrain crews for the new aircraft. So MD heavily implied they had extensive parts commonality.
The real question is: why were they ever assigned "X" series numbers in the first place? They weren't experimental aircraft for scientific research, they were early-model prototypes for a production aircraft. Exactly like the YF-22 and YF-23 were. They should have been YF-24 and YF-25 from the very beginning.
@@FirstDagger I mean, it's conceivable that there have been some secret prototypes that have not been publicly announced, but there's no way there are 18 of them...
I think the reason for making a recoilless rifle a lot lower caliber is not only for the range, but the concussion it makes limits how much you can actually fire one. It's kinda bad to have an explosion next to you too much.
I don't think they were really concerned with the concussion of firing a large artillery piece. We're talking about the days when the Army would march troops through a nuclear bomb explosion plus the knowledge of medicine wasn't what it is today. They didn't have terms like TBI pr the understanding of trauma and head injuries we do today. I'm sure it's a benefit, but one the people of that time were unaware of, or even if they were, it wasn't much concern.
Money was almost certainly an issue too. Firing small arms ammo for regular training would have been far cheaper than firing an actual full sized live round.
Thank god for patreon supporters. This was actually something i was curious about a month or so ago after connecting the dots about the m1-4 carbines and similar smgs with the new "M5" carbine, but couldn't find much online about the rifles. A wonderfully informative video 👏
Wow Ian. This is informative! Google does not really provide much information about these. Thank you for your work and sharing your knowledge with us. Keep it up
You have to also remember these designations go back to the days of card catalogs and paper files. IE the proper name of the M1 carbine is "carbine, caliber. 30, m1"
Thank you, I realy like these vids. I was on a M109, 155 mm selfpropelled howitcer, and we had a .22 insert we used for dirrect fire practice on small toy tanks, with tracer munition, and a 14.5 mm insert for use on a scale firing range, indirrect fire.
Great explanation! I never thought of the 106mm RR spotting round as a rifle, complete with its own designation. In 1976 we were still using the RR on a jeep. The .50-cal had tracer burn-out at 1,600m to match the effective range of the 106mm. "If you can hit it with the tracer, you can hit it with the shell." No one ever brought up the subject of how the enemy might react to an incoming tracer round. In 1978 we started getting Dragon anti-tank missiles. The simulator fired a 7.62mm blank round to recreate the sound and forward movement of the tube as the rocket started up and went down-range.
I'm reminded of a training device we used in the U.S. Army artillery in the '80's. I'm not sure of its nomenclature, but we called it simply the "14.5", which, I believe, was the size of the projectile it fired. It could be fired from a tripod, or mounted inside the breach of an actual artillery piece. It was used to train both forward Observers, on a scaled down target range, and gunners.
My dad actually had an M4 survival rifle until about 1985 or so. He traded it to a friend for an old Triumph Tiger part bike. He does still have an extra bolt and mag for an M4 though.
Maybe the missing designations were for top-secret guns like radioactive ray rifles they didn't want Soviets to learn about, and they never came to be. Or did they? We'll never know...
The .22 lr training guns are one of the coolest and most forgotten guns out there, Józef Maroszek started designing .22 conversions for wz. 28 and wz. 30 machine guns just before WW2
I remember using the .22 conversion kits for the SA80 back in the day. They were great for plinking on the smaller indoor ranges and were generally a good laugh for the lads and lasses to use in training.
Sub Caliber uses don’t just apply to Artillery. We use a Sub Cal 7.62 adapter for the Carl G and a 9mm Sub Cal adapter for the AT-4, both use tracers and apparently match the trajectory of the system it’s being fired from.
Great video ! I always just thought the missing numbers were the models that failed to be accepted for production for whatever reason, though upon giving it serious thought that doesn't make any sense. I never paid the subject any attention before this. Very interesting.
M11 is P228. P226 might have been adopted as M10 at first when Seals got first small batches of them, but i don't have any solid evidense to back that up, just a few comments in diffrent sites. That officers model 1911 from 70s was adopted as M15 pistol for some reason.
I have a US Army field manual for an M2 (Carbine) and others. A friend of mine who was a WWII vet, worked for the Ordinance Dept. after he retired from the Navy in 1959. He has since passed, but he gave me a bunch of cool stuff. I have a ammo can of .30 cal from Des Moines Iowa, several boxes of .380 Webley, a Remington 03A3 that he had intended to "sporterize" but never got around to, an Argentine Mauser, a FN Browning A5 that was purchased in Naples Italy. Melvin was a really neat guy. Joined the Navy in 1939 and was an Aviation Ordinance Chief by 1942. He was aboard the Lexington at Coral Sea and the Enterprise at Midway. He and two of his brothers were in the same squadron on the Lexington when it was sunk (pre Sullivans). All three survived.
I’ve actually wondered the same question myself. I’ve viewed the video and got a lot more info than I bargained for…my head is spinning 😵💫 lots of interesting variants here
@@tenofprime those other batteries work, just not in use or you wouldn't have anything for them today anyway. The A battery is just a bigger AA, B I believe was a taller more square version of the D size, and F I forgot but I thought it was the large square size or something similar
I was asking myself a similar question to this just a few days ago. Very fascinating! I'd love to see you go through the "forgotten" designations for the other weapon types as well. For instance, I wonder what an "M1" or "M4" pistol was supposed to be...
Great video! The subcaliber training situation points to the impact zone safety issue. As a forestry contractor on an active National Guard base, we could not enter any of the 8000-or so acres on days whenever M2 firing was in progress. When I see 50s on public ranges, I marvel how lucky everyone down range must be.
In 1968, the jeep mounted 106 recoilless rifle had a sighting round firing 30-06 rifle attached to the 106 tube sighted to the same point of impact. The rational being that the recoilless round had so much back blast it was so easy to spot that you dare not miss. So you fired the 30-06 rifle first with a tracer roundly. If it bounced off the tank, you quickly fired the 106 round and quickly backed the h-ll up and over the hill before the tank returned fire and absolutely ruined your day. The 105 Howitzer had a rifle barrel that was fitted into the open breach of the 105 tube to practice point blank shooting at targets, saving the more expensive 105 shells. My, oh my, was it loud when fired in the 105 mm echo chamber.
Some numbers were not used to avoid confusion with other weapons or equipment which already were using that number. This was mostly done to avoid confusion in combat between ammunition orders.
I'd be interested to know how the XM5 (I assume will become the M5) was named as such as it isn't really a carbine to follow on from the M4? Also how many machine guns have there been to end up with the M60, M240, and M249 etc.
It really depends how pedantic you want to get the Spear is 5 inches shorter than the M16, so I can certainly see the argument that it’s not a rifle from an ergonomics standpoint.
@@thomasstevenhebert That is a good point, as a carbine isn't defined by its calibre, of course! The K98k and No.5 MK1 'Jungle Carbine' come to immediate mind for examples of full power rifle cartridge carbines. The short barrel variants of the FAL could be argued as being carbines as well, although I don't think I've ever heard them officially referred to as that. But perhaps the next musing would be, can a carbine be a carbine if there's no 'full sized' variant already in existence? Perhaps the M1 carbine would answer that question, but is that the exception to the rule due to the requirement at the time to differentiate it with the M1 Garand for logistic purposes? No other examples spring to my mind. Maybe the AKS74U- but is that similar enough in principle to the AK74 to see the clear heritage...
I knew about the .50 caliber M8C spotting rifle for the M40 106mm recoilless rifle, but didn't know you made a video (or two) about it. We had an old technical manual for them in the small arms repair shop when I was in the army, but it was after they quit using the things. The army Rangers were still using the M67 90mm recoilless rifle back then, in the '80s. They finally replaced it with the Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle sometime in the '90s. The M67 had a sub-caliber training device too.
Partly into WWII sometimes Army ordnance would skip over certain numerical designations across different equipment lines so as to be less confusing. The Chieftan touches on this in, I think, part 2 of his U.S. Armored Warfare Doctrine series.
You should check out a book called Compliant Mechanisms. Its engineering textbook but i cant help but see potential for its use in firearms design. It's about using flexibility in machine parts which is untraditional.
the gun shop my dad works at built a sub caliber device for a recoilless rifle. Once the demilled tube was welded and kept in a demilled state, we made supports so that a 50 BMG M2 barrel would be inserted and could be fired from the rear. it was a hoot to shoot!
Somehow I'd gotten the impression that the M7 was the Armalite survival rifle which was chambered for .22 LR and could be rapidly disassembled and stored in the hollow stock and could float either stored in the stock or assembled.
You are thinking of the ArmaLite AR-7 Explorer. Remember AR != M, thus the AR-15 resulted in the Rifle M16 and Carbine M4 for the Army. The USAF has a whole other mess of designations.
The AR-7 was never issued to any US military branch. Its predecessor, the AR-5, technically was a limited issue rfle. The Air Force purchased a total of twelve AR-5s, designated the MA-1, with the intention of replacing the M4 and M6 survival rifles. When the Procurement Board discovered that they had thousands of M4 and M6 rifles in inventory that had never been issued, they cancelled their order for 3000 AR-5s. Armalite then refined the design and sold it on the civilian market as the AR-7. Had the AR-7 been adopted by the Air Force, it would have continued the numbering of its predecessor and been designated the MA-2. It would not have been the M7.
Future video: "Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forgotten Weapons, and I am Ian McCollum here at Area 51 near Roswell, New Mexico with the M3, M10, and M11 rifles..."
Oh, I think that one is far simpler. The M9 was probably called that because it was chambered for 9×19mm Parabellum, in the same way that the M45 was chambered for .45 ACP. the M17 was adopted in 2017 (and the M18 came with that, so it just got the number after). I can tell you that the M11 pistol is the SIG-Sauer P228, if that helps?
The ones I know about between that haven't been mentioned: He's already done a vid on the S&W XM10 - the XM10 project was late 80s to replace the Beretta M9 but the M9 control outperformed the contenders. There was the XM13 which was a SIG SP2022.
I've trained with and used "subcaliber insert guns" on the 84mm Carl Gustaf - we could in fact use either a 7.62 FMJ-cartridge with a reduced loading or a cartridge and bullet made of plastic (the latter having a much reduced mass and thus a much shorter range). The FMJ would indeed act very similar to a full-sized rocket-grenade in terms of trajectory and flight time - the only difference (for the purpose of training) was that the FMJ would behave like any bullet and go downwind if there was any wind - the real rockets would go upwind (the wind affecting the tail more than the warhead). The blue plastic rounds made it possible to shoot at what we callled the "mini range" - a sandbox with some wires overhead that could pull miniature tanks across the sand - great fun to score a direct hit as it would send the miniature flying. When using FMJ-rounds, a "back-blast-box" could be added - some sort of gunpowder in a plastic box that would ignite and simulate the considerable backblast of the rocket - those were sometimes also used on manoeuvers to make the other guys in the squads both conscious of and used to the blast. Come to think of it, we also had a 20mm subcaliber "rocket" - more like a blunt dart that would be fired from the rocket launcher and act in a similar manner to the real deal. Not sure if any of this stuff is being used anymore - last I heard, the remaining 'real' rockets have been given to Ukraine but I do not know if we kept the launchers or sent those as well. If so, I would assume all the training kits were sent too. Not that it requires a lot of training to shoot one of these launchers - but you WILL* get a surprise when you fire the first full-size round so it is perhaps a good idea to work up to that in a few training steps. It may also improve the chances of hitting something - which is quite another matter than just launching the rocket. *Remember, the 84mm is shoulder-fired but has almost as much backblast as the 105 shown in the video - imagine that boom and blast right next to you!
My Uncle Art was an Ordnance Capt in WW2 in France. He dispersed M1, M1A1 Carbines, M2 carbines (auto carbine) and M3 scope carbine to very view...like the sniper today. I have his M1A1 carbine today that he had in WW2, Korea and in Vietnam
Very interesting topic. As an Army Grunt we used several types of Subscribe devices. The M-72a2 LAW, M203/ M-79. Observered .106 Recoilers rifles use their spotting rifle man the accessory was sopt on. Where the .50 round hit is where the main round hit.
I was going to ask about the M2 select tire M1 Carbine and M3 with the NV scope, but I see the other comments where you explain that rifles, carbines, and submachineguns all got separate designations. You mentioned the pistols in the video, and honestlyid watch the followup. It seems like the carbines are pretty obvious, and idk if we ever had an M4 sub-gun, so it may be mostly just pistols, but I'd watch it regardless
I saw the “Brown water Navy” using a mortar with a barrel about 6 feet long BUT with a 50 cal bolted onto it for spotting, it was mounted on a plastic patrol boat in the Delta
Meanwhile, in the navy, everything with a rifled barrel is referred to as a rifle, so you hear about guns referred to as things like "sixteen inch rifles"
AS a Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps on Camp Pendleton in 1968 and 1969, I spent a lot of time on the firing ranges. My favorite was the 106 range. The 106's had a bolt action 50 cal mounted to the side, not the top. It was said that Carlos Hathcock took one of those spotting rifles, put a stock on it and used it for sniping. I don't know if that was true.
Ian talking about something really obscure but designated in a familiar system? YES PLEASE! (I am the sort of person that deliberately looks up what the P-52 or P-48 was.)
The M8 was modified during Vietnam and utilized as a ad-hoc sniper rifle by using a modified barrel (re-chambered in .50 Bmg) mounting a stock made locally (don't know what the stock was made of) and then they mounted a scope rail ( machined locally), my dad was a weapons tech that made some (no he didn't invent it) while stationed in Vietnam
2:15 During WW2 the US Army had the M10 tank destroyer and since 1989 an M11 aka SIG Sauer P228. The M10 used a M7 three inch gun in an M5 mount. One would think that using different letters besides M for such diverse pieces of equipment might be a good idea. Reduced opportunities for confusion.
The Air Force as an independent branch was founded in 1947, only 2 years after the war. Were they still just adopting what the Army adopted for awhile longer after that?
I would guess that most of these were concurrent in use. so there may not be that much time involved between them, other than the time we know between the adoption of the M1 Garand and the M14.
@@Ashcrash82 Yes of course, I was just confused because he referred to the army air corp's adoption of army weapons as "awhile after ww2". For example the M4 survival rifle was adopted in 1949, so were there M1 thru M3 AF weapons? or did they use the M4 designation just as a continuation of their previous affiliation with the army?
@@gavinheimerman6320 The Air Force was formally an independent branch of the military by 1947, but _functionally_ the separation took a number of years to complete.
The M61 Vulcan was one of the last holdovers in that nomenclature system and is still in use to this day. USAF nomenclatures are a mess in itself, but are easier to research. Every aircraft gun after the 1963 (common nomenclature for the aircraft of all services) is basically a GAU (i.e. Gun Aircraft Unit). Which made the self-powered gunpod version of the M61 Vulcan the GAU-4/A.
The AT4 has a 9mm sub caliber conversion that we used in basic for training with firing procedures. Supposedly 9mm has a very similar trajectory and velocity to HE AT4 shells. There are also loads of massive caliber “guns” as you put it without even getting into artillery pieces. Was 11C so I regularly shot 60mm/81mm/120mm mortars (fun fact: the US is one of the only countries to use 81mm mortars while most others use 80mm. This is intentional so that we can use 80mm shells in our cannons, but they cannot use our 81mm shells in theirs). I also got to shoot a 115mm recoilless rifle (more like a cannon at that size) which was insane.
Note how they casually granted a new designation for non-combat rifles that share the same design and purpose (M7 and M9), but absolutely refused to give a new designation to a radically improved combat rifle and kept adding suffices instead (M16 and M16A4).
It was improved, but it was fundamentally the same base platform. The A# iteration had been going since WWII, and it seems like they reserved changing the model number until the role of the weapon was changed drastically. The M1 Thompson and M1A1 were pretty different, but they both served the same purpose. Something like the M1 vs. M2 carbine is a better example of the gun being modified in such a way that its employment reflects it.
IIRC, there was a full-auto version of the M1 Carbine that was designated "M2". It even fed from a 30-round curved box magazine instead of the straight 10-round mag used in the M1, though still chambered the same .30 Carbine round.
Gotta love US military designations. So a U.S. platoon loaded up a convoy with m1s, m1s, m2's and a couple of m4s. The men then prepared their m1s, m1s, m1s, m2s, and a couple m3s for personal defence. Do you understand?
Could be as simple as wanting to avoid confusion, like why M4 was skipped in the light tank series (the improved Stuart was, IIRC, briefly the "Light tank, M4" but was quickly redesignated "Light tank, M5" to avoid confusion with the M4 Sherman ("Medium tank, M4") in the medium tank series.
Sub-caliber rounds were still used at least as of the 90s. I remember doing USMC training with AT-4's that used a subcaliber round, a .223 if I remember correctly.
@John Smith wait you seen one of them too? I seen one on a table at a gun show in I think in Allentown PA in 2008 or 2011 guy said he got from a gunsmith and didn’t know anything about it
@John Smith it’s one of those weird things you find at gun show you don’t forget but don’t know enough about to pick up, kind of like those ww2 German .22s
When you're a grunt in the back of a M3 halftrack cleaning your M3 grease gun while the grunt next to you sharpens his M3 knife while you're in a convoy behind a M3 medium tank, a M3 light tank, and a M3 scout car towing a 37mm M3 gun and the guy across from you talks about how much he loves the M1 and you can't figure out if he means the carbine, the Garand, the flamethrower, the Thompson, or the helmet.
So in summary, rifles between M2 and M13 were either obscure rifles made for branches of US army that were used for small caliber survival rifles or as training rifles/inserts to artillery guns with 3 designations never officially used, probably as they were reserved for projects that never reached fruition.
This just video just connected some dots for me, the reason they went from M16 to M4, was because the M4 was a carbine, and carbines M1-M3 were already a thing in WW2.
@@maou5025 ; Probably a good marketing designation as the XM8 should have been so modular as to replace alot of weapons. 8 = infinity and such. Or they dropped the 1 from M18.
@@maou5025 X is an Army designation for a porotype or experimental design. The XM8 was never adopted so it never got a M8 or other designation. Another example is the current XM5 (SIG Spear) carbine that will be called the M5 once it is officially adopted, and the XM250 turning into the M250. The Airforce also uses a similar system, for example, the YF-22 and YF-23 were porotype planes competing for what would become the F-22
The M-2 & the M-3 were the only variants I found info on so this was a much watch! Oh I am pretty sure all I know about the M-2 came from Ian's video and then looking it up.
The M1 Carbine later had a M2 version that was select fire. M3 was the Grease gun SMG, and the M10/M11 were a Sig P226 that was used by certain police units and CID.
@@NUCL3ARTAC0S ; They did skip an Light Tank M4 in favor of the Light Tank M5 designation though so there is no confusion with the Medium Tank M4 Sherman.
Putting the training and survival guns in the same numbering series as the infantry rifles is one thing, but including subcaliber adapters is just unconscionable.
Could you stick a sub-caliber rifle into a sub-caliber gun into a larger artillery piece? I assume it wouldn't work, but just the thought made me laugh.
I can't think of any specific examples that would work, because the chamber dimensions for the subcaliber insert would not match the external dimensions of the subcaliber rifle. I know there are 22mm subcaliber inserts for some guns (81mm mortar tubes), and possibly other "large" subcaliber insert sizes, but I cannot think of any subcaliber inserts designed in a chamber dimension that would accommodate one of the subcaliber rifles. It just wouldn't make sense to make subcaliber training devices that still fired a large, full-range projectile (IE a 37mm adapter for a 75mm gun), when the purpose is to enable large guns to be fired on less expansive practice ranges. All the insert needs to do is match the ballistics, or even just match the ballistics at a reduced ratio (IE, it drops as many minutes of angle at 100 meters as the real thing does at 1000 meters) so the gunner can practice their sight picture and firing procedure. That can generally be accomplished with relatively cheap rifle-caliber bullets, so no need for medium-caliber inserts.
@@bronco5334 there are sub-caliber inserts of mid-calibers i.e. 37 mm etc. that were use with large caliber coastal artillery ; so you could have a .22 insert in a 37mm insert in a 12in coastal gun
@@jamesberry3230 Interesting. Curious what exact chambering was used. Could you point me to some sources? Edit: ah, found some. Minor problem, it's not 37mm ATG ammunition. It is 1-pounder naval ammunition (AKA 37mm Hotchkiss). This means the dimensions of the insert are not going to fit. Any inserts for the 37mm ATG will be designed to fit the 37x223mm rimmed ATG cartridge; but the ammunition designed to go into the coastal artillery insert is 37x137mm; a short, stubby, straight-walled design, NOT the long, bottlenecked ATG cartridge. It simply won't fit, despite both being 37mm bore diameter. The subcaliber device for the 37mm will be too wide at the base to fit the chamber of the subcaliber device for the coastal gun.
@@bronco5334 The American Arsenal intro by Ian Hogg; I could be wrong, no dimensions given; sub-cal. rifle M-2 in sub-cal. mount M-6, in 37mm sub-cal. gun in 10"/14" coastal gun, other combo's may be possible
I'm going, for the sake of discussion, assume this question is legitimate, but no the M3 Grease Gun wasn't part of this list. All categories of materiel had different number lists. There was a very rare M2 submachine gun before the Grease Gun got the M3 designation. Rifles had their own category, and so did carbines, and so on.
I love that Ian chose this question and explained it well when he actually has videos on some of the rifles in question. Others might have ignored it or, worse, ridiculed the submitter for not watching the entire library of videos. Thank you, Ian, for not being a jerk.
If you were to ask anyone in Central Florida right now, they would likely say (at the very least) that Ian was a jerk...
@@seanseoltoir why is that?
@@Stackoverkill -- "Ian" is the name of the latest hurricane to hit Florida and has caused a LOT of damage...
@@seanseoltoir oh of course! Was worried for a moment thinking ian had gotten himself into some sort of drama
@@Stackoverkill -- as it went over your head... LOL...
During WW2 the numbering system got a little confusing ie you had a M1 rifle, carbine and SMG. You also had an M3 light tank and a M3 medium tank. So the Army for a short time made an adjustment. There is no M4 light tank. The successor to the M3 Stuart was the M5 to avoid confusion with the M4 medium. So it is possible that the M3 designation for rifles was skipped to avoid confusion with the M3 Grease Gun.
Not to forget M26 Pershing tank.
The M2 Medium is the most USAmerican. It got guns and more guns.
And the P38 can opener. Does that mean there were 37 can opener models leading up to that? Then there's, of course, WD-40.
In 1977 everything was "A1" (M16A1, M113A1). My buddy regaled us during a break in training on the M1A1 toilet paper that came in the boxes of C-rations.
I tried climbing into my M1 while carrying an M1 but couldn't get it past the hatch, so I swapped it out for an M1 and it fit just fine but that thing is way too heavy. I went back to the armory a third time I grabbed an M1 and a few mags for it, and that finally worked. On my way back to the M1, I caught a ride on the trailer of a guy driving an M1 to service my buddy's M1.
(3:07 M-5?) 1986, a .22 subcaliber training device (rifle) placed in the breech of 105mm M68 main gun; at Fort Knox there was a short 'outdoor' range with a long garage on the firing line. It was just on the edge of Main Post, so no lengthy drive away. The garage had at least a dozen garage doors. Behind each door was an actual M60A1 tank turret (minus most of the gun tube) mounted on a stand with external power & hydraulic lines running to a central source. Downrange were blocks of wood, some being slowly towed by wires about 20 feet away. Three guys could be in each turret for hours, swapping positions, and shoot tank main gun engagements all day for a few dollars of .22 ammo. Thousands of tank crewmen trained on this range for at least 20 years, rain or snow.
I’m looking forward to Ian’s magisterial 30 hour special on the 1,915 models of machine guns between the M2 and the M1917.
A buddy of mine served in the USMC during Viet Nam - Andy trained on the M-14 and was issued an M-16 in country. He said he preferred the M-14 - because it had a "bigger punch" than the M-16 which he described as "a bush gun." He survived Khe Sanh but sadly overdid it at a reunion and died of a heart attack. I really miss him.
Sorry for the loss of your brother.
At least the man went out on his own terms.
In 67 in AIT..I was lucky to have been issued the M14 on a bipod during field training. What a weapon
I earned my rifle ribbon in 1988 with an M14 while on the US Navy. Little known fact is that practically every ship in the US Navy to this day is issued a couple of M14s.
One of the things that the US Navy does VERY well is Underway Replenishment (UnRep)...transferring fuel, supplies, ammo,etc. at sea while underway at 15-20 knots about 200 feet apart. In a nutshell, you fire a weighted lines across from one ship to the other, use those lines to pull heavier line across, then use those lines to pull steel cables across. The steel cables are automatically tensioned, and can be used to send across hoses suspended on trollies, palleted goods, etc.
Where the M14 comes into play is getting that weighted line across 200 feet of water. A special adapter and a blank cartridge is used. The 5.56 NATO just doesn't have what it takes to send the line across, where the 7.62 NATO round does. With the adapter removed, the weapon is fully functional with standard ball ammo.
While most ships use the M4 or M16 for shipboard security forces, A Replenishment Ship is considered an "Auxiliary" ship, and will always be at the bottom of the list for the "latest and greatest". That coupled with the fact that the M14s were used multiple times daily resulted in an armory full of them.
The "bottom of the list" thing also applied to handguns. I also earned my pistol ribbon in 1988...with a 1911.
I think the last issued m1 rifles were used to fire the lines in navy service.
This would be a great short series of videos going through army designations in the different categories (pistols, carbines, sun machine guns etc)
SUN machine guns? the power of the sun, in the palm of my hand...
I think it would be longer then you think. after all you got a lot of categoires and then in some numbers you got more then one version.
I'd like to see one for aircraft. There are a lot of unused numbers there. I know about the YF-17 that filled the gap between the F-16 and the F/A-18 (and basically was the latter), but there are a ton I don't know about.
@@reliantncc1864 Probably the wrong channel.
The pistols especially, carbines are easy. It's just variants of the M1 carbine until the M4 that everyone knows (and now, the M5 NGSW).
You know it's a doozy, when Ian needs notes
I was an Armorer in the Marines & my first Duty Station (1966) was 2nd Anti-tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division Camp Lejeune. We had the M50 Ontos with 6 106 RR & 4 M8 50 cal Spotting Rifles mounted on the top 4 106's. The M9 sub caliber training rifles had a couple of uses that I had experience with field units. One use should be obvious, orientation of new gunners. A more fun one was in acting as an aggressor force with Tank Forces. We installed the 30-06 M9's in the 106 breach & went "Tank Hunting". The Tankers were buttoned up & couldn't be hurt, except maybe their pride. Went to an Army training exercise somewhere in Kentucky at an Army Armor training base. I was told the sound was quite loud when a 30-60 round hit the hull.
Reminds me of a similar situation but in aviation. When Lockheed-Martin X-35 was announced the winner of the JSF program, press asked Edward Aldridge about the official designation of the aircraft. In his ignorance of how the Tri-Service aircraft designation system works, he announced on the spot that the new aircraft would be named F-35 - much to the displeasure of the AFNO who is supposed to be the one in charge of that, because the F/YF and X designations are two different lines that doesn't simply convert like that. The last F/YF designation was the YF-23, so the JSF should have been named F-24 as the newest fighter in service if everything went according to the guideline. In the end, the airforce decided to stick to the F-35 designation anyway since the genie is already out of the bottle...
The Super Hornet should have been F/A-24. It's a completely new aircraft, not an upgrade to the -18. Shenanigans to avoid political scrutiny I suspect.
@@alun7006 That's *exactly* what it was; McDonnel Douglas knew the aircraft visually resembled the F/A-18 because they had a common design lineage (if you look at the F-5E, you can see the start of the design line), and knew that they would be more likely to get contracts if Congress believed that parts and procedures commonality would make the Super Hornet cheaper to operate and maintain, and that there would be no need to retrain crews for the new aircraft. So MD heavily implied they had extensive parts commonality.
The real question is: why were they ever assigned "X" series numbers in the first place? They weren't experimental aircraft for scientific research, they were early-model prototypes for a production aircraft. Exactly like the YF-22 and YF-23 were. They should have been YF-24 and YF-25 from the very beginning.
@@alun7006 ; And then we have the soon to be unveiled B-21 Raider nomenclature mess which should have been B-3 Raider.
@@FirstDagger I mean, it's conceivable that there have been some secret prototypes that have not been publicly announced, but there's no way there are 18 of them...
I think the reason for making a recoilless rifle a lot lower caliber is not only for the range, but the concussion it makes limits how much you can actually fire one. It's kinda bad to have an explosion next to you too much.
I don't think they were really concerned with the concussion of firing a large artillery piece. We're talking about the days when the Army would march troops through a nuclear bomb explosion plus the knowledge of medicine wasn't what it is today. They didn't have terms like TBI pr the understanding of trauma and head injuries we do today. I'm sure it's a benefit, but one the people of that time were unaware of, or even if they were, it wasn't much concern.
Money was almost certainly an issue too. Firing small arms ammo for regular training would have been far cheaper than firing an actual full sized live round.
Thank god for patreon supporters. This was actually something i was curious about a month or so ago after connecting the dots about the m1-4 carbines and similar smgs with the new "M5" carbine, but couldn't find much online about the rifles. A wonderfully informative video 👏
Wow Ian. This is informative! Google does not really provide much information about these. Thank you for your work and sharing your knowledge with us. Keep it up
Almost Ian, almost as mind boggling as the Lee Enfield numbering saga. I think you deserve a malt after that!
Ah, so the M4 carbine is just the fourth carbine adopted by the US Army?
Yes, after the designations started at 1. There were carbine models of the Trapdoor Springfield and Krag.
yes, after the M1, the M2 (the select-fire M1), and the M3 (the M1 with a foregrip and chunky night vision scope).
quite a leap, lol.
@@capt.raptor4650 and now we have the m5 spear
You have to also remember these designations go back to the days of card catalogs and paper files. IE the proper name of the M1 carbine is "carbine, caliber. 30, m1"
@@tenofprime good point.
Thank you, I realy like these vids. I was on a M109, 155 mm selfpropelled howitcer, and we had a .22 insert we used for dirrect fire practice on small toy tanks, with tracer munition, and a 14.5 mm insert for use on a scale firing range, indirrect fire.
Did you have to yell "boom" really loud when you fired the .22 to make it more realistic?
"FIRING!"
*doink*
"RELOAD RELOAD RELOAD!"
Great explanation! I never thought of the 106mm RR spotting round as a rifle, complete with its own designation. In 1976 we were still using the RR on a jeep. The .50-cal had tracer burn-out at 1,600m to match the effective range of the 106mm. "If you can hit it with the tracer, you can hit it with the shell." No one ever brought up the subject of how the enemy might react to an incoming tracer round. In 1978 we started getting Dragon anti-tank missiles. The simulator fired a 7.62mm blank round to recreate the sound and forward movement of the tube as the rocket started up and went down-range.
I'm reminded of a training device we used in the U.S. Army artillery in the '80's. I'm not sure of its nomenclature, but we called it simply the "14.5", which, I believe, was the size of the projectile it fired. It could be fired from a tripod, or mounted inside the breach of an actual artillery piece. It was used to train both forward Observers, on a scaled down target range, and gunners.
My dad actually had an M4 survival rifle until about 1985 or so. He traded it to a friend for an old Triumph Tiger part bike. He does still have an extra bolt and mag for an M4 though.
He was a fool for that trade
The M10 & M11's were redesignated as M&M10 and M&M11. They were fully automatic candy dispensing conversion kits for the Survival Rifles.
Melts in your mouth, not in the barrel
Great, now i have to make a gun that shoots candy...
Was that chambered in 9mm
Didn't Kentucky Balistics had shotguns that fired 🍬?
Maybe the missing designations were for top-secret guns like radioactive ray rifles they didn't want Soviets to learn about, and they never came to be. Or did they? We'll never know...
For sub caliber for artillery/recoiless also saves barrel life which is not an insignificant expense.
The .22 lr training guns are one of the coolest and most forgotten guns out there, Józef Maroszek started designing .22 conversions for wz. 28 and wz. 30 machine guns just before WW2
I remember using the .22 conversion kits for the SA80 back in the day.
They were great for plinking on the smaller indoor ranges and were generally a good laugh for the lads and lasses to use in training.
There are tons of .22 trainers and conversions that militaries all over the world have used. A series on them by Ian would be really cool.
Great info. I always thought the only M2 was the select-fire version of the M1 Carbine.
The M3 was a M2 carbine with night vision.
Honestly I have never even thought about this question but I’m glad you covered it because I never even knew
Sub Caliber uses don’t just apply to Artillery. We use a Sub Cal 7.62 adapter for the Carl G and a 9mm Sub Cal adapter for the AT-4, both use tracers and apparently match the trajectory of the system it’s being fired from.
Ian, you should do this video, but about the pistols like you mentioned in the beginning. M1911 to M9 to M17
The 17 stands for year 2017? Then what's 9 in M9?
I wasn't expecting this to have a real answer. That was interesting. Thanks for diving into it.
Great video ! I always just thought the missing numbers were the models that failed to be accepted for production for whatever reason, though upon giving it serious thought that doesn't make any sense. I never paid the subject any attention before this. Very interesting.
The M3, M10 and M11 were ghost guns
My son says the real answer is the army can't count
My son says the real answer is the army can't count
Spooky
@@ret7army
that would be correct, yes. we, in fact, cannot count.
😅
Well now that you bring it up I do actually have the same question for pistols. I know the M11 is the P226, but the rest are a mystery to me
M11 is P228. P226 might have been adopted as M10 at first when Seals got first small batches of them, but i don't have any solid evidense to back that up, just a few comments in diffrent sites. That officers model 1911 from 70s was adopted as M15 pistol for some reason.
The P226 is the Mark 10 because it is a Navy weapon.
I have a US Army field manual for an M2 (Carbine) and others. A friend of mine who was a WWII vet, worked for the Ordinance Dept. after he retired from the Navy in 1959. He has since passed, but he gave me a bunch of cool stuff. I have a ammo can of .30 cal from Des Moines Iowa, several boxes of .380 Webley, a Remington 03A3 that he had intended to "sporterize" but never got around to, an Argentine Mauser, a FN Browning A5 that was purchased in Naples Italy. Melvin was a really neat guy. Joined the Navy in 1939 and was an Aviation Ordinance Chief by 1942. He was aboard the Lexington at Coral Sea and the Enterprise at Midway. He and two of his brothers were in the same squadron on the Lexington when it was sunk (pre Sullivans). All three survived.
I’ve actually wondered the same question myself. I’ve viewed the video and got a lot more info than I bargained for…my head is spinning 😵💫 lots of interesting variants here
It is like the battery sizes. AAA, AA, C, D we are obviously missing a few obvious ones there, I suspect for similar reasons.
@@tenofprime those other batteries work, just not in use or you wouldn't have anything for them today anyway. The A battery is just a bigger AA, B I believe was a taller more square version of the D size, and F I forgot but I thought it was the large square size or something similar
This has been a question of mine as well, thank you Ian for this, as always, very informative video.
For those interested there is a company which still makes the M6 and it comes in a variety of calibers.
I can’t even begin to tell you how long I’ve wondered this exact same thing. As always, thanks for all the awesome content!
I was asking myself a similar question to this just a few days ago. Very fascinating!
I'd love to see you go through the "forgotten" designations for the other weapon types as well. For instance, I wonder what an "M1" or "M4" pistol was supposed to be...
I have been wondering this, too. Thanks for doing this video. You did a great job, as always.
Everyone knows the real reason for the odd, non-sequential model number scheme is due to military personnel not being able to count.
Thanks!
When I first joined the Army in the late 70's, we had a 20mm sub-cal device for the 105mm L-70 tank gun.
Im guessing you dont mean the sabot shell, either?
Great video! The subcaliber training situation points to the impact zone safety issue. As a forestry contractor on an active National Guard base, we could not enter any of the 8000-or so acres on days whenever M2 firing was in progress. When I see 50s on public ranges, I marvel how lucky everyone down range must be.
I'd definitely be interested in a similar video for the pistol M-series
In 1968, the jeep mounted 106 recoilless rifle had a sighting round firing 30-06 rifle attached to the 106 tube sighted to the same point of impact. The rational being that the recoilless round had so much back blast it was so easy to spot that you dare not miss. So you fired the 30-06 rifle first with a tracer roundly. If it bounced off the tank, you quickly fired the 106 round and quickly backed the h-ll up and over the hill before the tank returned fire and absolutely ruined your day.
The 105 Howitzer had a rifle barrel that was fitted into the open breach of the 105 tube to practice point blank shooting at targets, saving the more expensive 105 shells. My, oh my, was it loud when fired in the 105 mm echo chamber.
Well, now we need a video about machine guns. How have we already reached M250?
Oh great XD
machine guns fire faster, so they don't want to run out of numbers
I’d guess more variations due to aircraft use.
M60, M73, M134, plus a whole bunch of experimental or limited-adoptions like the M63 (Stoner 63, aka XM207) and Colt LMG (XM106)
You're not asking the real question. Where the fuck were the 1013 shotguns before M1014?
Some numbers were not used to avoid confusion with other weapons or equipment which already were using that number. This was mostly done to avoid confusion in combat between ammunition orders.
I'd be interested to know how the XM5 (I assume will become the M5) was named as such as it isn't really a carbine to follow on from the M4?
Also how many machine guns have there been to end up with the M60, M240, and M249 etc.
It really depends how pedantic you want to get the Spear is 5 inches shorter than the M16, so I can certainly see the argument that it’s not a rifle from an ergonomics standpoint.
@@thomasstevenhebert That is a good point, as a carbine isn't defined by its calibre, of course! The K98k and No.5 MK1 'Jungle Carbine' come to immediate mind for examples of full power rifle cartridge carbines. The short barrel variants of the FAL could be argued as being carbines as well, although I don't think I've ever heard them officially referred to as that.
But perhaps the next musing would be, can a carbine be a carbine if there's no 'full sized' variant already in existence? Perhaps the M1 carbine would answer that question, but is that the exception to the rule due to the requirement at the time to differentiate it with the M1 Garand for logistic purposes? No other examples spring to my mind.
Maybe the AKS74U- but is that similar enough in principle to the AK74 to see the clear heritage...
I knew about the .50 caliber M8C spotting rifle for the M40 106mm recoilless rifle, but didn't know you made a video (or two) about it. We had an old technical manual for them in the small arms repair shop when I was in the army, but it was after they quit using the things. The army Rangers were still using the M67 90mm recoilless rifle back then, in the '80s. They finally replaced it with the Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle sometime in the '90s. The M67 had a sub-caliber training device too.
Partly into WWII sometimes Army ordnance would skip over certain numerical designations across different equipment lines so as to be less confusing. The Chieftan touches on this in, I think, part 2 of his U.S. Armored Warfare Doctrine series.
I liked the old Q&A video format. I prefer a long video with lots of questions and answers over this new format of one question at a time.
You should check out a book called Compliant Mechanisms. Its engineering textbook but i cant help but see potential for its use in firearms design. It's about using flexibility in machine parts which is untraditional.
the gun shop my dad works at built a sub caliber device for a recoilless rifle. Once the demilled tube was welded and kept in a demilled state, we made supports so that a 50 BMG M2 barrel would be inserted and could be fired from the rear. it was a hoot to shoot!
Somehow I'd gotten the impression that the M7 was the Armalite survival rifle which was chambered for .22 LR and could be rapidly disassembled and stored in the hollow stock and could float either stored in the stock or assembled.
That's the AR-7, which is a pretty easy misremembering to "M7" I suppose.
You are thinking of the ArmaLite AR-7 Explorer. Remember AR != M, thus the AR-15 resulted in the Rifle M16 and Carbine M4 for the Army. The USAF has a whole other mess of designations.
The AR-7 was never issued to any US military branch. Its predecessor, the AR-5, technically was a limited issue rfle. The Air Force purchased a total of twelve AR-5s, designated the MA-1, with the intention of replacing the M4 and M6 survival rifles. When the Procurement Board discovered that they had thousands of M4 and M6 rifles in inventory that had never been issued, they cancelled their order for 3000 AR-5s. Armalite then refined the design and sold it on the civilian market as the AR-7.
Had the AR-7 been adopted by the Air Force, it would have continued the numbering of its predecessor and been designated the MA-2. It would not have been the M7.
The M7 would've predated the Armalite company by a fair spot.
@@bronco5334
A real genius, absolute clear explanation, and enough self restraint accepting to ignore some aspects of the calibers and designations
Future video: "Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Forgotten Weapons, and I am Ian McCollum here at Area 51 near Roswell, New Mexico with the M3, M10, and M11 rifles..."
There is also an M2 carbine which is a fully automatic submachine gun which was used in Okinawa in 1945 fully automatic with a 30-round magazine
The pistols that go between the M9 and M15? I think Ian just asked a question for the next 'Ask Ian'.
Oh, I think that one is far simpler. The M9 was probably called that because it was chambered for 9×19mm Parabellum, in the same way that the M45 was chambered for .45 ACP. the M17 was adopted in 2017 (and the M18 came with that, so it just got the number after).
I can tell you that the M11 pistol is the SIG-Sauer P228, if that helps?
I think there were .38 caliber USAF pistols that were like M1 through M8 but I'm not 100% sure.
The ones I know about between that haven't been mentioned:
He's already done a vid on the S&W XM10 - the XM10 project was late 80s to replace the Beretta M9 but the M9 control outperformed the contenders.
There was the XM13 which was a SIG SP2022.
I've trained with and used "subcaliber insert guns" on the 84mm Carl Gustaf - we could in fact use either a 7.62 FMJ-cartridge with a reduced loading or a cartridge and bullet made of plastic (the latter having a much reduced mass and thus a much shorter range).
The FMJ would indeed act very similar to a full-sized rocket-grenade in terms of trajectory and flight time - the only difference (for the purpose of training) was that the FMJ would behave like any bullet and go downwind if there was any wind - the real rockets would go upwind (the wind affecting the tail more than the warhead).
The blue plastic rounds made it possible to shoot at what we callled the "mini range" - a sandbox with some wires overhead that could pull miniature tanks across the sand - great fun to score a direct hit as it would send the miniature flying.
When using FMJ-rounds, a "back-blast-box" could be added - some sort of gunpowder in a plastic box that would ignite and simulate the considerable backblast of the rocket - those were sometimes also used on manoeuvers to make the other guys in the squads both conscious of and used to the blast.
Come to think of it, we also had a 20mm subcaliber "rocket" - more like a blunt dart that would be fired from the rocket launcher and act in a similar manner to the real deal.
Not sure if any of this stuff is being used anymore - last I heard, the remaining 'real' rockets have been given to Ukraine but I do not know if we kept the launchers or sent those as well. If so, I would assume all the training kits were sent too.
Not that it requires a lot of training to shoot one of these launchers - but you WILL* get a surprise when you fire the first full-size round so it is perhaps a good idea to work up to that in a few training steps. It may also improve the chances of hitting something - which is quite another matter than just launching the rocket.
*Remember, the 84mm is shoulder-fired but has almost as much backblast as the 105 shown in the video - imagine that boom and blast right next to you!
I had wondered this myself... Thank you, Ian.
@2:25 maybe the same reason we have the F-35, some general misspoke and the number stuck.
My Uncle Art was an Ordnance Capt in WW2 in France. He dispersed M1, M1A1 Carbines, M2 carbines (auto carbine) and M3 scope carbine to very view...like the sniper today. I have his M1A1 carbine today that he had in WW2, Korea and in Vietnam
Very interesting topic. As an Army Grunt we used several types of Subscribe devices. The M-72a2 LAW, M203/ M-79. Observered .106 Recoilers rifles use their spotting rifle man the accessory was sopt on. Where the .50 round hit is where the main round hit.
I was going to ask about the M2 select tire M1 Carbine and M3 with the NV scope, but I see the other comments where you explain that rifles, carbines, and submachineguns all got separate designations. You mentioned the pistols in the video, and honestlyid watch the followup. It seems like the carbines are pretty obvious, and idk if we ever had an M4 sub-gun, so it may be mostly just pistols, but I'd watch it regardless
I saw the “Brown water Navy” using a mortar with a barrel about 6 feet long BUT with a 50 cal bolted onto it for spotting, it was mounted on a plastic patrol boat in the Delta
Meanwhile, in the navy, everything with a rifled barrel is referred to as a rifle, so you hear about guns referred to as things like "sixteen inch rifles"
AS a Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps on Camp Pendleton in 1968 and 1969, I spent a lot of time on the firing ranges. My favorite was the 106 range. The 106's had a bolt action 50 cal mounted to the side, not the top. It was said that Carlos Hathcock took one of those spotting rifles, put a stock on it and used it for sniping. I don't know if that was true.
Ian talking about something really obscure but designated in a familiar system? YES PLEASE!
(I am the sort of person that deliberately looks up what the P-52 or P-48 was.)
The M8 was modified during Vietnam and utilized as a ad-hoc sniper rifle by using a modified barrel (re-chambered in .50 Bmg) mounting a stock made locally (don't know what the stock was made of) and then they mounted a scope rail ( machined locally), my dad was a weapons tech that made some (no he didn't invent it) while stationed in Vietnam
I love watching you review guns. it's easy to understand
2:15 During WW2 the US Army had the M10 tank destroyer and since 1989 an M11 aka SIG Sauer P228.
The M10 used a M7 three inch gun in an M5 mount.
One would think that using different letters besides M for such diverse pieces of equipment might be a good idea. Reduced opportunities for confusion.
Thanks Ian, very informative.
Fascinating.
Thank you for clearing this up. I have often wondered what came between the M1 and M14.
The Air Force as an independent branch was founded in 1947, only 2 years after the war. Were they still just adopting what the Army adopted for awhile longer after that?
I would guess that most of these were concurrent in use. so there may not be that much time involved between them, other than the time we know between the adoption of the M1 Garand and the M14.
Also, not all of these were used by the Air Force anyway, i.e. the artillery sub caliber guns and the M14...
@@Ashcrash82 Yes of course, I was just confused because he referred to the army air corp's adoption of army weapons as "awhile after ww2". For example the M4 survival rifle was adopted in 1949, so were there M1 thru M3 AF weapons? or did they use the M4 designation just as a continuation of their previous affiliation with the army?
@@gavinheimerman6320 The Air Force was formally an independent branch of the military by 1947, but _functionally_ the separation took a number of years to complete.
The M61 Vulcan was one of the last holdovers in that nomenclature system and is still in use to this day. USAF nomenclatures are a mess in itself, but are easier to research.
Every aircraft gun after the 1963 (common nomenclature for the aircraft of all services) is basically a GAU (i.e. Gun Aircraft Unit). Which made the self-powered gunpod version of the M61 Vulcan the GAU-4/A.
The AT4 has a 9mm sub caliber conversion that we used in basic for training with firing procedures. Supposedly 9mm has a very similar trajectory and velocity to HE AT4 shells. There are also loads of massive caliber “guns” as you put it without even getting into artillery pieces. Was 11C so I regularly shot 60mm/81mm/120mm mortars (fun fact: the US is one of the only countries to use 81mm mortars while most others use 80mm. This is intentional so that we can use 80mm shells in our cannons, but they cannot use our 81mm shells in theirs). I also got to shoot a 115mm recoilless rifle (more like a cannon at that size) which was insane.
Note how they casually granted a new designation for non-combat rifles that share the same design and purpose (M7 and M9), but absolutely refused to give a new designation to a radically improved combat rifle and kept adding suffices instead (M16 and M16A4).
It was improved, but it was fundamentally the same base platform. The A# iteration had been going since WWII, and it seems like they reserved changing the model number until the role of the weapon was changed drastically. The M1 Thompson and M1A1 were pretty different, but they both served the same purpose. Something like the M1 vs. M2 carbine is a better example of the gun being modified in such a way that its employment reflects it.
They aren't the same design. One fits in a 75mm and the other fits in the much larger 106mm. The M16A4 is just an m16 with cheese graders attached.
@@joshh1693 Well how about M110? M110 is SR-25 while M110A1 is G28, fundamentally different design but fall under the same designation.
@@qingyunwang3802 You got me there. If I had to guess, the people in charge are not gun nuts and figured it had the same form factor and role.
IIRC, there was a full-auto version of the M1 Carbine that was designated "M2". It even fed from a 30-round curved box magazine instead of the straight 10-round mag used in the M1, though still chambered the same .30 Carbine round.
Gotta love US military designations. So a U.S. platoon loaded up a convoy with m1s, m1s, m2's and a couple of m4s. The men then prepared their m1s, m1s, m1s, m2s, and a couple m3s for personal defence. Do you understand?
Yeah I've always wondered about this. My best guess was that the M2-13 were the prototypes for upgraded M1s that culminated with the M14.
I wonder if they made a full length M5 (oh god, the weight) if it would be M17 or if there's already some rifle with that designation
these are the questions.
Well aren’t the newest rifles the army just adopted the M17s?
@@ottovonbearsmark8876 I think you’re confusing the carbine with the new M17 and M18 pistols, also from sig
Rifle, Caliber .277, M17
@@ottovonbearsmark8876 because the new (X)M5, despite being pretty chonky, is a successor to the M4 Carbine.
Could be as simple as wanting to avoid confusion, like why M4 was skipped in the light tank series (the improved Stuart was, IIRC, briefly the "Light tank, M4" but was quickly redesignated "Light tank, M5" to avoid confusion with the M4 Sherman ("Medium tank, M4") in the medium tank series.
and so many more even after the M16. even during Vietnam, they were up to at least M21.
M21 is classified as a Sniper Weapon System.
Sub-caliber rounds were still used at least as of the 90s. I remember doing USMC training with AT-4's that used a subcaliber round, a .223 if I remember correctly.
Interesting. The training version I used in '07 was a 9mil. Looks like I know which project I'll be looking into to see its evolution.
@@Deridus Oh, it might have been 9mm, I am older and all I remember for certain was that it was a small arms cartridge.
What about the 1910 handguns that came before the M1911? Browning was a very hard working designer I guess
It took a long time to tame the all-mighty power of the .45
He has already made a video on that
@@Meth4 Yeah, it was actually a 400 hour long playlist. Almost 2000 handguns takes a long time.
Makes you wonder about all of those 1900+ models that came before the Springfield
Cool video. When I was in the Army, we used subcaliber rounds in the M67 RR, the M76 LAW, and the 4.2 mortar.
In Germany
G1 - FN FAL
G2 - stg57
G3
G4 - AR-10
????
G11
G41
G36
G8 was used for a HK21 variant.
G28 DMR -> HK416 A5 , not to be confused with the G28 Sniper -> Accuracy International AWM
G95 Rifle -> HK416 A7
Also everything a total mess.
@@FirstDagger chronological order is lost. See G36 was adopted in 1994, and g27 and g28 in 2010-15.
G3 = G3
@@Treblaine ja, ich weiß :)
when I was in Air Cadets we used M5's for range training. It is fantastic to finally hear any info about these rifles.
Dear Ian, can you please clarify the muddy history of the M16a3.
@John Smith wiki also says my old military unit was in a battle it never was in. LoL.
@John Smith wait you seen one of them too? I seen one on a table at a gun show in I think in Allentown PA in 2008 or 2011 guy said he got from a gunsmith and didn’t know anything about it
I also seen an SKS all dermaled out to take AK mags
@John Smith it’s one of those weird things you find at gun show you don’t forget but don’t know enough about to pick up, kind of like those ww2 German .22s
When you're a grunt in the back of a M3 halftrack cleaning your M3 grease gun while the grunt next to you sharpens his M3 knife while you're in a convoy behind a M3 medium tank, a M3 light tank, and a M3 scout car towing a 37mm M3 gun and the guy across from you talks about how much he loves the M1 and you can't figure out if he means the carbine, the Garand, the flamethrower, the Thompson, or the helmet.
So in summary, rifles between M2 and M13 were either obscure rifles made for branches of US army that were used for small caliber survival rifles or as training rifles/inserts to artillery guns with 3 designations never officially used, probably as they were reserved for projects that never reached fruition.
I've asked this question on forums before. Glad to finally know the answer.
This just video just connected some dots for me, the reason they went from M16 to M4, was because the M4 was a carbine, and carbines M1-M3 were already a thing in WW2.
They used to have XM8 too, not M5, not M17. Not sure which category it belongs to.
@@maou5025 ; Probably a good marketing designation as the XM8 should have been so modular as to replace alot of weapons. 8 = infinity and such. Or they dropped the 1 from M18.
@@maou5025 Perhaps to reserve the numbers 5-8 for its different variants?
@@maou5025 X is an Army designation for a porotype or experimental design. The XM8 was never adopted so it never got a M8 or other designation. Another example is the current XM5 (SIG Spear) carbine that will be called the M5 once it is officially adopted, and the XM250 turning into the M250.
The Airforce also uses a similar system, for example, the YF-22 and YF-23 were porotype planes competing for what would become the F-22
The M-2 & the M-3 were the only variants I found info on so this was a much watch! Oh I am pretty sure all I know about the M-2 came from Ian's video and then looking it up.
Did any country other than US adopt the M14 as a standard battle rifle (not counting the use of M14 as sniper rifle or DMR)?
South Vietnam probably and Argentine during falkland wars
my country use them but not standard ones, some units here have someone carrying one or two of them sometimes 3 or whole squad equipped with them
Pretty sure Taiwan and the Philippines adopted it, along with a fair number of Central American countries.
What country are you talking about Joshua?
@@hendriktonisson2915 Ph
The M1 Carbine later had a M2 version that was select fire. M3 was the Grease gun SMG, and the M10/M11 were a Sig P226 that was used by certain police units and CID.
The the missing M3 is actually because a clerical error classified the M3 Lee as a licensed copy of the Lee Enfield rifle instead of as a tank.
That wouldn’t make much sense, the M3 Medium tank was type classified before the British ever had the opportunity to nickname it as Lee
@@NUCL3ARTAC0S ; They did skip an Light Tank M4 in favor of the Light Tank M5 designation though so there is no confusion with the Medium Tank M4 Sherman.
@@FirstDagger sorry brainfart, meant the M3 Medium tank
@@NUCL3ARTAC0S the British nickname for their M3s was the Grant
dang now my follow up question would be why we got up to m16+ and then suddenly were back to m4 and now m8
Thank you for this one, this topic seems to get a disproportionate amount of fud lore online and it’s nice to have a direct rebuttal to their nonsense
Putting the training and survival guns in the same numbering series as the infantry rifles is one thing, but including subcaliber adapters is just unconscionable.
Could you stick a sub-caliber rifle into a sub-caliber gun into a larger artillery piece? I assume it wouldn't work, but just the thought made me laugh.
I can't think of any specific examples that would work, because the chamber dimensions for the subcaliber insert would not match the external dimensions of the subcaliber rifle. I know there are 22mm subcaliber inserts for some guns (81mm mortar tubes), and possibly other "large" subcaliber insert sizes, but I cannot think of any subcaliber inserts designed in a chamber dimension that would accommodate one of the subcaliber rifles. It just wouldn't make sense to make subcaliber training devices that still fired a large, full-range projectile (IE a 37mm adapter for a 75mm gun), when the purpose is to enable large guns to be fired on less expansive practice ranges. All the insert needs to do is match the ballistics, or even just match the ballistics at a reduced ratio (IE, it drops as many minutes of angle at 100 meters as the real thing does at 1000 meters) so the gunner can practice their sight picture and firing procedure. That can generally be accomplished with relatively cheap rifle-caliber bullets, so no need for medium-caliber inserts.
@@bronco5334 there are sub-caliber inserts of mid-calibers i.e. 37 mm etc. that were use with large caliber coastal artillery ; so you could have a .22 insert in a 37mm insert in a 12in coastal gun
@@jamesberry3230 Interesting. Curious what exact chambering was used. Could you point me to some sources?
Edit: ah, found some. Minor problem, it's not 37mm ATG ammunition. It is 1-pounder naval ammunition (AKA 37mm Hotchkiss). This means the dimensions of the insert are not going to fit. Any inserts for the 37mm ATG will be designed to fit the 37x223mm rimmed ATG cartridge; but the ammunition designed to go into the coastal artillery insert is 37x137mm; a short, stubby, straight-walled design, NOT the long, bottlenecked ATG cartridge.
It simply won't fit, despite both being 37mm bore diameter. The subcaliber device for the 37mm will be too wide at the base to fit the chamber of the subcaliber device for the coastal gun.
@@bronco5334 The American Arsenal intro by Ian Hogg; I could be wrong, no dimensions given; sub-cal. rifle M-2 in sub-cal. mount M-6, in 37mm sub-cal. gun in 10"/14" coastal gun, other combo's may be possible
Enlisted in the airforce in 1974, those that were issued a sidearm, were given the S&W model 10, in .38 special, 130 gn ammunition
isn't the m3 the grease gun
I'm going, for the sake of discussion, assume this question is legitimate, but no the M3 Grease Gun wasn't part of this list.
All categories of materiel had different number lists. There was a very rare M2 submachine gun before the Grease Gun got the M3 designation. Rifles had their own category, and so did carbines, and so on.