[JRJ]

Referring to your first question, I read a book on the battle of the Chosin Reservoir (The Frozen Chosin) in Korea, and the only GI's that felt out gunned were the ones with the M1 and M2 carbines. The round is anemic, and had trouble penetrating heavy coats and multiple layers of clothing. The cold weather posed two problems for the .30 carbines. 1. The wound, when it did penetrate, didn't bleed much due to the restricted veins (they attributed some of this to the narcotics the enemy was supplied with) and 2. The gas system wouldn't function reliably turning the carbines into bolt actions.

The GI's generally were happy with their Garands, and M14's as they had good knockdown power, reliability, and terminal ballistics in the cold weather. I'll try and find the book and post the name and the author for you guys.

 

[JRJ]

Lak, I was just passing on the opinions of the GI's in the book that I read. The guys in 'nam had a little different climate to deal with, and the carbines had already proven themselves capable in tropical environs (Island hopping in WW II) and I expect would give good results in an area such as Vietnam. The cold weather prevented some of the free bleeding that occurs in some of the warmer areas. There wasn't much trench digging at the Chosin Reservoir as the ground was frozen perma frost. I wasn't speaking for the Korean war in general, just for the one particular battle.

Heavy clothing will effect a bullet in both penetration and wound ballistics. If you are shooting a cartridge that has already been made marginal by the climate, then alot of layered clothing just compounds the problem.

I own a M1 carbine and I could see where the gas tappet that cycles the slide could give one problems if it got cold, and any oil on it thickened. The 30-06 of a Garand has alot more expanding gas to work with than the .30 cal. carbine does.

[This message has been edited by JRJ (edited 08-23-2001).]

 

[JRJ]

The name of the aforementioned book is BREAKOUT: THE BATTLE OF THE CHOSIN RESERVOIR By Martin Russ