http://www.patreon.com/blokeontherange
Yes, another M1 Garand fuddlore video!!!
In this one, The Bloke hits himself in the head a lot, and throws metal objects at himself. All in the quest to test as much fuddlore as possible and to answer the age old question of “Will It Ping”? Which sounds like a corny 80’s gameshow… Based on the M1 Garand and its infamous clip. That apparently got people killed. Or not. Maybe. But anyway. Enough of that nonsense.
This is serious testing of military history, and using the power of the Internet to see if we can actually uncover a primary source on these myths to beat Roy Dunlap’s book which might even be the originator of this fuddlore. Anyone got any documentation on the supposed Aberdeen Proving Ground test he refers to? I can’t find any…
All of the myths tested here (even the most stupid ones) have come up in the comments on one of these videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2idYNKWGm4&t=1s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbGoU-yx8YA&t=1s&index=4&list=PLnYYU4WyjIANpGb9egJOi-GXshEejvXO4
So we’ve got throwing the clip at the helmet, onto the receiver of the rifle, tapping it on the helmet, and so on. I don’t demonstrate throwing it on a hard surface, cos I’m indoors and on carpet. But it makes the same noise as on the helmet.
You might also awfully like to consider looking in on our facebook page sometime: https://www.facebook.com/Blokeontherange/
UPDATE:
With thanks to Jonathan Ferguson, we have a Korean War Lessons Learned document here: http://thegca.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Use-of-Infantry-Weapons-and-Equipment-in-Korea-1952-reduced.pdf no mention of people trying to be tricksy with simulting pings, and far more concern regarding the noise of the safety catch than the normal “ping”, which was thought of more as a helpful indicator to reload rather than a risk.
And with thanks to +redjoshman, who writes: “Of note & interest is that “Fighting on Guadalcanal” which was published in 1943 and assembled using interviews from Marines and Soldiers from the battle only lists one problem with the M-1 Rifle, “Major Ben. J. Northridge, C.O. 2d Battalion, 164th Infantry: ‘We like this M1 rifle, but we don’t like the way the front end shines.'”(51)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/usmc/fmfrp/12-110/fmfrp12-110.pdf
You’d think that if the ping was as much as a problem as Dunlap said during the Battle of Guadalcanal that it would get mentioned at least once. The problem is also not mentioned in any of the US Army’s “Combat Lessons, Rank and File in Combat: What They Are Doing, How They Do It” 1-9:
No.1:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2588/rec/8
No.2:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/3346/rec/4
No.3:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2587/rec/7
No.4:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2736/rec/6
No.5:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/3384/rec/1
No.6:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2733/rec/3
No.7:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2734/rec/10
No.8:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2740/rec/11
No.9:
http://cgsc.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p4013coll8/id/2737/rec/12
And this, again, no mention (thanks to +redjoshman again): https://ia601309.us.archive.org/23/items/LessonsLearnedInCombatBy34thInfantryDivision-nsia/LessonsLearnedInCombatBy34thInfantryDivision.pdf
And yet another Lessons Learned-type document without a mention: https://www.fold3.com/image/270523952
Switzerland’s most popular native-English-language guns & shooting channel! Probably. Maybe. I guess. A somewhat off-the-wall and tongue-in-cheek look at firearms, military history and shooting, and a jolly good tilt at the windmills of fuddlore to go with it. And the odd off-topic vid about Switzerland, or whatever happens to take our fancy. We normally launch “in-series” vids on a Friday (early launch on a Wednesday via Patreon and the FB page https://www.facebook.com/Blokeontherange/ ), out-of-series vids launch precisely… whenever.
