RUN & GUN: Recreating A WWII-Era Live Fire Advance

By Bob Owens

We wanted to try and recreate an organizationally correct U.S. Army Paratrooper squad, with the same small arms and live ammunition that squad would have used in 1944. Recreating World War II small arms has so far been done through reenactments and in the film industry, but these only involve blanks. Shooting World War II small arms at a square range goes very far in understanding how these weapons functioned. But neither is truly using these small arms as intended. These M1 Garands, M1A1 Carbines, and 1919 LMGs were created to be used by American soldiers in accomplishing their task of assaulting Fortress Europe and conquering the Pacific. They were adopted and issued to be used by entire units of men, working together to neutralize an opposing enemy force.

For us today, that leaves a number of questions unanswered. Such as how did the actual rates of frame pan out among a group of advancing soldiers? What were the reload times under stress? What kind of malfunctions did those soldiers have to deal with? Just how accurate were these weapons while out of breath? You can’t research this through converted blank firing rifles, nor can you …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms