Ts9

The SVT-40 and the BAR are very similar in lenght, but the Browning is a much heavier weapon than the SVT-40, weighing twice as much. The SVT-40 comes in at about 9 pounds with ammo, the BAR at 20 with ammo. The SVT-40 was semi-automatic, the AVT-40 was both full or semi-auto. I think the SVT-40 would be better compared to the Garand as a semi-auto infantry rifle rather than to the BAR as a squad support weapon. The draw back to the SVT was its light construction (The Garand just feels much more "substantial") and a gas system that must be kept very clean to function properly. I've been told captured SVT's were popular with the Germans who lacked a semi-auto rifle of their own.

The 1st Special Service Force (Devil's Brigade) made use of the Johnson Rifle. I've never suffered a case of M-1 thumb myself, but I've seen fellow re-enactors get "bitten". I've just always made a habit of riding the op rod forward after inserting a clip. As for the "ping" the Garand makes when the clip ejects, I had a vet tell me once that some guys would carry an empty clip that they would drop on the ground while they still had a few rounds left. Don't know if it ever worked or not. I sometimes doubt if this was really as much of an issue as it is made out to be. I think in the middle of a fire fight I'd have better things to do than listen for a little "ping". I'm not sure that you'd even hear it with a lot of firing going on. I've never noticed it at a re-enactment, but then when I'm firing the BAR I can't hear much of what's going around me anyway. Maybe in a one on one situation it would be a concern.

In my opinion the Garand is a better rifle than the Tokarev. The two rounds seem to have a similar performance although the 7.62 x 54 seems be a little more powerful. The SVT is much more lightly built than the Garand. Not nearly as robust. It also has a fairly substantial kick to it. 10 round removable box magazine (can also be reloaded by stripper clips) compared to the 8 round enbloc of the Garand. The Tokarev is longer than the Garand, in fact it's slightly longer than my BAR, but seems very well balanced. A good rifle, but for a combat rifle I would take the Garand. It would handle the abuse of combat much better.

I had the chance a few weeks back to attend a public display/battle where we had a US halftrack available for use. I have to agree it would be very diffacult to fire with any accuracy when on the move, even over the relatively smooth ground we were on it was a very rough ride. With 10 armed and equipped GI's there was barely enough room to move around inside, this was with just the basic field packs and weapons. Much better to dismount and use the guns on the track for support. Getting to close to the enemy usually resulted in getting the track knocked out, a vet once told me they nicknamed their tracks "grenade buckets" because that's what they seemed to be.

As a re-enactor I can tell you that the best battles are the ones the public never sees. Unlike Civil War battles which can take place in large open areas easily viewed by the public, WWII combat does not translate well to a public display. Our group uses public events more as a recruiting tool than anything else. Public battles are intended to supply the viewers with a "flashbang" experience more than anything else. In the years I've been re-enacting I've never seen live ammo at an event (not to say it couldn't happen)and safety is absolutely #1 in our minds. The last thing this hobby would need is an accident involving live ammo. The true "tacticals" are closed to the public (kind of ruins the experience to be running a patrol through the woods and have spectators point out a MG42 nest for you.) It's a fun hobby though it can be rather expensive to do correctly. I do 3 "impressions", GI as a member of the 2nd Rangers, British Airbourne, and Russian Infantry. I've got thousands of dollars invested, most of that in the GI impression, and a large chunk of that in my BAR

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1917 and 1919 machine guns used the 30.06 same as the M-1 Garand and the BAR. MG34 and MG42 were 8mm Mauser same as the K98 bolt action rifle.

I would also like to speak up in defense of the M1 Carbine I have a 44' GM/Inland and have found that it is extremely accurate out to about 150 yards, beyond that performance does drop off. It was intended as a weapon for those who had no need for a full sized infantry rifle and in that capacity it performed very well. Would it drop an enemy at 500 yards, probably not, but it wasn't designed to. At close ranges I'm sure it was more than capable of stopping an attacker. As for the BAR, I carry one in my re-enactment unit and have come to have an even greater respect for the men who lugged it for real. It is very easy to fire accurately from the shoulder and with practice well-aimed 3 round bursts are easily possible. I have yet to see any of my German counterparts be able to do that with a 34' or a 42'. Recoil is actually lighter than my Garand because of the buffer system and weight of the weapon, muzzle climb is easily compensated for and is no worse than that of the Garand.

In my case collecting led to re-enacting which in turn led to even more collecting. I do GI (9th Inf), Brit Airborne (21st IPC)and have just gotten started on a Russian Infantry impression. So I have complete kit for the GI and Airborne as well as all the little accessories which complete the impressions. In addition I have a closet full of WWII US and British web gear. This all started with collecting US tunics (Ike Jackets and 4 pockets) at last count I had close to 30. But it's my firearms collection I'm most proud of, at last count it consisted of 25 weapons covering almost every combatant of WWII, among them: 2 WWII M-1 Garands dating from 1941 and 1942 1944 Inland/General Motors M-1 Carbine 1943 dated all matching 1903a3 Springfield 1942 dated No 4 MkI Enfield 2 K98 Mausers Japanese Arisaka Type 38 rifle & bayonet Japanese Nambu Pistol These last two were vet bring backs by a friend of mines father who served in the Pacific. The showpiece of my collection has to be my 1944 dated Browning Automatic Rifle. I normally carry the BAR when doing GI re-enactments and have developed an even greater respect for the men who lugged this 20 pound piece of steel across Europe.

Actually the blanks available on the market today feed fine in the Garand. The only problem you run into is being a gas-operated weapon unless you throttle down the opening in the barrel the action won't cycle semi-automatically. There are ways of doing this either with a barrel end blank adapter which threads on in place of the gas cylinder lock, or if you want to permanently blank adapt the weapon you can tap the barrel and insert a set screw that has been drilled out to the proper diameter. The blanks I use come from a company in Arizona called Joe Swanson's Motion Picture Blanks Inc. (shameless plug here). I understand he produced 400,000 blank rounds used in SPR. I've been using his blanks for two years without a hitch and they even feed correctly in my BAR which is not an easy weapon to use with blanks.

American rifle grenades were fired using a blank round. The M-7 launcher is a simple spigot tube about 4 1/2 inches in length with a short bracket and clip to attach it to the rifle. The tube fits over the end of the barrel (in this case my Garand)a short pin fits into the recess in the gas plug and the clip locks over the bayonet lug to keep it in place. It is possible to fire the rifle grenade at a downwards angle, there is a spring which wraps around the spigot tube near the top which creates enough tension to keep the grenade from simply slipping off. In fact, with the grenade in place and my Garand pointed directly at the floor I was unable to shake the grenade loose despite my best efforts. The spigot tube is marked with a series of graduated lines numbered 2-6 (1 would be fully seated). These positions combined with the angle the rifle is fired at are used to set the range. Position 6 (the top end of the spigot) combined with 45 degrees elevation would give an approx range of 60 yards, postion 1 (fully seated with a 30 degree angle would give approx 165 yards. These are figures for the adapter which is used to fire a standard "pineapple" grenade from the laucher. An impact fused grenade fired from position 1 at 45 degrees gives a range of 200 yards. This is not possible with the pineapple type grenade because the time of flight is greater than the fuze delay on the grenade. The launcher can be left in place as it does not effect the normal functioning of the weapon, just make sure you switch to a blank round prior to firing a grenade, otherwise your weapon will blow up in your face. At re-enactments I've even seen a British cup style launcher fired at a 45 degree down angle from a 2nd floor window so I know it's possible with that style launcher also.

No, I'm afraid it's nothing that creative on the name, simply initials + the GI unit I re-enact with, the 9th Infantry Division.

In the case of American GI's it was a shelter half. Each man would carry one, when buttoned together with a second it formed a two man tent. Early models had only a single flap for the back meaning one end was open to the elements. Shelter halves were seldom carried in combat they were usually left to the rear of the fighting lines. American shelter halves were carried in the pack "tail" attachment for the 1928 model haversack, rolled up inside the shelter were the tent pins, folding tent pole and rope. The soldiers blanket and various other items could be rolled inside also. This bundle then attached to the back of the haversack with a leather strap that weaves its way through a series of holes on the bottom of the haversack. Don't even get me started on the 28' haversack, the most worthless piece of gear the US Army had.

I'm afraid I don't have a picture that shows the Canadian color. I'm getting my info from pieces I have in my collection and the uniforms I use when re-enacting British Para's. My suggestion would be to check out a web site called King & Country (WWW.kingncountry.com) Go to the links page and there are links to a few Canadian Para units, On their equipment pages are pictures of a re-enactor wearing Canadian BD. While not the best quality photo it will give you an idea of the color. The Brit BD photos on King and Country's page will give you a good idea of the difference as his repro's are some of the best there are. Hope this helps.

Canadian battle dress does differ in color from British battle dress. Canadian is much more green than the British BD which is closer to a khaki/tan. Re-enactment units often allow either Brit or Canadian as long as the trousers and jacket are both the same shade, meaning you can't mix a British jacket with Canadian trousers. Post war Greek BD is also used as it is a reasonably close substitute. There are also several companies that now produce excellent quality reproductions of British 37' pattern BD.