[cplnorton]

Mike if they are saying the T3 killed 30% of all Japanese in Okinawa, there is no way. I've seen a lot of authors see something stated by another author and they just repeat it. I'm not sure how else they could have come up with that statement unless they are just repeating what they saw someone else say. There are just no mentions of the T3 in any counts or after action reports on Okinawa.

For instance this is the counts at the end of the battle of Okinawa for the Marines in June 1945.

 

[Blackbat242]

What I see there is a 30,985 combined total of .30 carbines of all models, without any differentiation of what model/version.

 

[cplnorton]

What I see there is a 30,985 combined total of .30 carbines of all models, without any differentiation of what model/version.

Yes but that is because at this time the Marines didn't have any other version of the Carbine on Okinawa.

All the M2's and M3's did not come into the Marine Corps until after Okinawa. I have the docs of when they started to receive them.

 

[cplnorton]

The M3 Carbine was adopted in late Aug - early Sep 1945, so it would have been a good trick for them to be in the Okinawa campaign. In fact, zero of its predecessor, the M2 Sniperscope, were produced before V-J Day, so it's not a close call. The nomenclature is a bit confused, but unquestioningly passing along internet crapola is perilous.

This is what Is see as well in the docs. I see testing of the M3, but nothing really till after Aug 1945 on them. In fact the design of the M3 receiver and stock modification wasn't even approved till Aug 16th 1945 by Ordnance.

Going thru all the Complete history of the M1 Carbines in the Ordnance files, I do not see any mentions of any M3s other than saying they were experimental. There are three or four books on the complete history of the Carbine written by Ordnance in 1946 and I see no mentions of them actually used in combat. Even looking at the history of the Carbine written by Inland and Winchester themselves, I don't see it mentioned. In fact all just say they were experimental and never got out of the experimental stage in WWII.

I will go back and investigate further. I do not see anything that makes me believe any were used in combat on Okinawa as of yet. But I will keep digging. They certainly were never used in causing 30% of the Japanese casualties. Lol

Now I see them used in Korea. But even then I really don't see them used in the role they were intended. In fact I see in the after action reports they weren't that useful. I actually see them mentioned more as a signaling device.

It talks about patrols would carry one, and when they were returning, they would signal with their M3 to another M3 on the line that they were returning. They said you could signal with one that only another M3 could pick it. That way the line knew friendlies were returning and not to fire.

Other than that, I don't see much actual mentions that the M3 was effective in Korea as an actual combat weapon to inflict casualties. My memory of the docs is that they were viewed as not very useful for killing. They just didn't have any real range.

 

[cplnorton]

Ok to add more to this. I went back and looked some more. The Marines requested to receive two T3's with the infared Sniper scope on Jan 26th 1945 for testing.

The two rifles were shipped from Army Ordnance after this Jan 26th date (Probably in late March, maybe early April 1945) to test at Quantico and were to be returned to the Army when complete. The Marines after receiving them tested them for several weeks and the report was typed up on April 20th 1945.

The report states that the rifles were effective at firing at a man sized target up to 65 yards and possibly 75 yards in the right conditions, but it was impossible to identify the uniform of the target past 25 yards. So it said you really couldn't identify any features of a man past 25 yards other than the outline of his body. It said you could see movement of troops up to 100 yards. But that was really about their limit.

At the end of this test in late April 1945, the Marines were to return the two rifles back to the Army and did not order any. They only tested them and returned them. I have the docs of when the Marines actually ordered them and I am hoping to have some time this weekend to back and post the exact dates so there is no question on this. But I am positive the Marines didn't receive any until after Okinawa. .

 

[tenthfla]

Our formerly eager poster has gotten scarce. Maybe he's looking for calculator batteries to figger out what 30% of 100k is. Typical drive-by.

This scenario is what happens when the misinformed present wild claims disguised as facts. Just a nod in the direction of a source allows honest misinterpretations to be corrected and bogus sources identified. Gee, that sounds like a discussion (a rarity).

Canfield and Sennich get plenty of details wrong in the AR article. Shameful for someone of Canfield's stature to use lengthy quotes from secondary sources without verifying. Canfield couldn't even be bothered to address the conflict in two different quotes he presented. Does he not know the difference between "seven days" and "early weeks" or "rifle fire" and "small arms fire"? Since AR never edits any article, I guess it was an easy paycheck. AR does this constantly - publish anything that comes in the door from well know writers.

No one has ever presented a primary source for the one-third claim. The closest to a contemporary account, though secondary, is described in CCNL #124 (March 1987). Ironically, it's from a June 1946 AR article and says approx 30% of small arms casualties over the first seven days. So, 35 years have passed and no one noticed this source.

Well, anyone who knows anything about the campaign knows that was a period of rapid advances against basically holding actions - not at all typical of later action. The Tenth U.S Army AAR includes an estimate of 3,703 Japanese killed in the first seven days. And anyone who knows a little more understands that, looked at broadly, small arms fire in WWII accounted for around 25-33% of casualties. If that holds here, then that would be about 1,000 dead, and 30% of that would be 300; a bit different from what our vanishing poster claimed.

USAFFE reported supplying the USMC component of the Okinawa operation with 295 Snooperscopes and 215 Sniperscopes. The 1MARDIV Ord Co reported repairing 44 Milly and 76 Molly units, so it's certain they got them.

The 96ID reported receiving trtaining on the scopes from 4 to 17 February, further evidence that all Okinawa Sniperscope models were the M1.

 

[cplnorton]

I'm not a fan of the American Rifleman Articles. Other than the ones I see Andrew write, or supply documentation to I usually find too much I don't agree with.

That is really interesting you have the Marines getting those on Okinawa. I have never seen that. Now you have me curious how I missed it. I will go back and look for that more because I really don't remember that. But I know your research is always thorough so I was just wrong on that then.

I just wonder why I've never seen that mentioned in any of the after action reports or any of the weapons logs. I do remember seeing reports of them repairing Unertl Scopes after Okinawa and a count on those, but I will have to back and see what I have on all this.

Thanks for the info.

 

[Lyman1903]

Our formerly eager poster has gotten scarce. Maybe he's looking for calculator batteries to figger out what 30% of 100k is. Typical drive-by.

This scenario is what happens when the misinformed present wild claims disguised as facts. Just a nod in the direction of a source allows honest misinterpretations to be corrected and bogus sources identified. Gee, that sounds like a discussion (a rarity).

Canfield and Sennich get plenty of details wrong in the AR article. Shameful for someone of Canfield's stature to use lengthy quotes from secondary sources without verifying. Canfield couldn't even be bothered to address the conflict in two different quotes he presented. Does he not know the difference between "seven days" and "early weeks" or "rifle fire" and "small arms fire"? Since AR never edits any article, I guess it was an easy paycheck. AR does this constantly - publish anything that comes in the door from well know writers.

No one has ever presented a primary source for the one-third claim. The closest to a contemporary account, though secondary, is described in CCNL #124 (March 1987). Ironically, it's from a June 1946 AR article and says approx 30% of small arms casualties over the first seven days. So, 35 years have passed and no one noticed this source.

Well, anyone who knows anything about the campaign knows that was a period of rapid advances against basically holding actions - not at all typical of later action. The Tenth U.S Army AAR includes an estimate of 3,703 Japanese killed in the first seven days. And anyone who knows a little more understands that, looked at broadly, small arms fire in WWII accounted for around 25-33% of casualties. If that holds here, then that would be about 1,000 dead, and 30% of that would be 300; a bit different from what our vanishing poster claimed.

USAFFE reported supplying the USMC component of the Okinawa operation with 295 Snooperscopes and 215 Sniperscopes. The 1MARDIV Ord Co reported repairing 44 Milly and 76 Molly units, so it's certain they got them.

The 96ID reported receiving trtaining on the scopes from 4 to 17 February, further evidence that all Okinawa Sniperscope models were the M1.

not sure who the eager poster is, hopefully not the OP, his info is usually good,

re the articles,

Canfield, seems to be a bit vague or generic in his articles, I have, in my limited research, learned more in places like this than from his articles,

but his articles do plant the seeds that send me looking sometimes,

 

[mike radford]

They are saying they were killed by the T3?

That is what the link said, shot at night claiming the Japanese widely used to sneak in at night and kill a lot of GIs. They were saying 30% of causalities due to small arms fire, suspect they did not do the kind of research you do. The Senich sniper references are not to be relied on IMO but not terrible, mostly just out of date. The German sniper rifles he studied were partly from a bad collection. I once mentioned an error by Canfield and heard from him pretty quick so no comment. As I always say, we continue to learn.

They were not the T3 though, they were the earlier "sniper" and "Snooper" scopes. They cited max effective range as about 60 yds. Interesting read, even if fantasy.

 

[cplnorton]

Ok I went back and really dug and I see why now I missed it. They just weren't used, hence why no real mentions of them except for a sentence here or there buried in the docs. The Marines did get some but they were small in number and from everything I am reading they really didn't use them. Initially they intended to have 5 per rifle company and 2 per headquarters company and set up a school to teach them how to use them but none of that happened from what I can tell.

Yeah if Senich and Canfield are saying the T3 inflicted 30% of all Japanese casualties on Okinawa, that is not what I am seeing. Everything I am seeing is they were very small in number, they just weren't used, and played no real role.

From an Marine Okinawa after action report.

 

[cplnorton]

I guess when I think about it more, logically it all sort of makes sense. At Quantico they state it had a maximum effective range of 65 yards, and possibly 75 yards under perfect conditions. Over 25 yards you could not identify a man's uniform and could only see the outline shape of a man. 100 yards was the maximum that you could see a man's shape move, but at that range it was a blob.

I imagine all of this testing at Quantico was under some of the best of conditions, not combat conditions like on Okinawa. Nor would the Marines testing at Quantico have been acting the way the Japanese fought, which was very stealthy. Almost all vets of the Pacific I've interviewed said they barely ever saw a live Japanese in combat. They would take fire and would direct mortars, flame throwers, or grenades in the direction of the fire until it stopped.

If you could not make out a man's uniform past 25 yards, and the maximum effective range for hitting a man size target was 65/75 yards. I would guess in combat it would be far less.

If Japanese were that close to me, I would have chucked that thing, grabbed a regular m1 and fixed bayonets. Then I would have popped a flare and started to look for targets. It would have been too easy to have got tunnel vision with that scope at that close of range and get yourself killed.

But I mean that is what Is saw in the Korean docs too. It wasn't used for actual shooting because it wasn't effective, but for signaling it worked great.

I sort of imagined they trialed them some and realized they weren't that effective and went back to what actually worked.

Just my thoughts.

 

[cplnorton]

Here are a couple pics from the Quantico testing files

The Sniperscope

The Snooperscope

 

[tenthfla]

Between internet guppies swallowing then passing along whatever claims grab their fancy and the so-called pros presenting totally unsourced conclusions, it's just about hopeless (present company excepted).

The hit-and-run poster I referred to was the one making the bogus one-third claim. Not worthy of quoting.

p. 360 (handwritten #) of 1MARDIV SAR shows repairs. No details on how they broke that many. Nothing wrong with the experimenting in the field with a new toy - with the invasion of Japan looming. Canfield really exaggerated on their effectiveness in his last paragraph. So, besides relying on bogus sources, he employs puffery for his melodramatic ending. Not that much different from the internet.

Extensive use of star shells followed by the rains starting in mid-May seems to have pretty much ended the experiment.

Had Canfield or AR bothered, there's plenty of info in the CCNLs and on the CC website. Imagine that, writing an article about carbines and totally overlooking a source of detailed info. Had Canfield read CCNL #368 from 10 years ago, he could have avoided these errors (and found "actual sources"):

1. It is reported that all 1,700 of the wartime infrared scopes were slated to be sent to either Okinawa or the Philippines. A good trick since only 715 M1 Sniperscopes existed at the time, with the first M2 Sniperscopes scheduled to start production on 1 Aug.

2. Although several thousand infrared units were manufactured during World War II, only about 200 were actually employed in the South Pacific. Totally wrong. A July 1945 report showing 715 made says "mostly in POA" (Pacific Ocean Areas) as of Jul 45. Army divs got about 110 Sniperscopes and 140 Snooperscopes each for Okinawa. That raises another sore point for me: Okinawa is at 26 deg North Latitude. What the hell, South Pacific. Is he talking about the Broadway musical?

3. Apparently, none of the T3 carbines and their infrared scopes were deployed to the European Theater prior to the end of the war. Nope. Production models were sent to not only the ETO (25), but SWPA (25) and CBI (25) starting in Sep 44. There are brief mentions in ETO reports of field usage, so not just a familiarization/training tour.

4. If Canfield had looked at primary sources, he might have discovered 800 flash hiders were made in theater for the Okinawa operation. So, he got it right on a technicality, but missed the obvious point that sensors in scope would have been burned out by muzzle flash without the flash hiders.

Army observers (who landed and stayed through first 10 days) made one interesting mention of tactics: "When the Japs made a night attack, two sniperscope men fired tracers, and all other riflemen fired at the point where the tracers intersected." This sounds a lot more reasonable on where the casualties came from - with a Sniperscope, not by a Sniperscope.