Who Got Their American Rifleman Issue?

[JimFromFL]

Top of page 38 has an interesting Note about Model Designations (that I never knew).

 

Interesting to read how rifles are named M1......M14...M16...M16A2 and so on.

 

Based on the article, the M1 Carbine was designated M1 since it was the first rilfe adopted and also when this new designation was used.

 

Here is a quote:

"For example, the next standardized service rifle after the M1 was the M14. The presumed reason for skipping from the M1 to M14 was because there were 12 rifles considered for adoption before the M14 was standardized in 1957."

 

My question now is, where does the Thompson M1 fall into the story? If the M1 Carbine was the first item then shouldn't the Thompson M1 be maybe M4 or M5 or another designation?

 

 

[Lancer]

My understanding is that the M1 rifle (Garand) was the first rifle adopted.

M1 carbine first carbine.

M1 Thompson first submachine gun.

 

In all three cases the first in their catagory.

[Sgt]

I always wondered why the "M" was such an important designation. It sometimes gets confusing when tanks and thompsons both held the same nomenclature.

[Arthur Fliegenheimer]

The M2 Carbine was adopted on September 14, 1944. The M3 Grease Gun adopted on January 11, 1943. The M2 Reising on April 30, 1942. Becuae the U.S. military procurement office has the imagination of a Vulcan, they couldn't conceive of adding any additional nomenclature to distinguish machine guns, submachine guns, carbines, rifles, bayonets, grenades, tanks, halftracks, etc, from one another. So the "M" in U.S. Military jargon stands for Meshugas.