But they did not, and M2 was manufactured in relatively small numbers and was mostly used during the Korean war. Had Americans a little trouble to soup it up slightly in the terms of power and range, they could have a true assault rifle 20 years before they actually did, and probably with much less headache. The M2 modification, which had a select-fire capability and a magazines of larger capacity (30 rounds, interchangeable with the older 15-round ones), could be described as an 'almost an assault rifle' ('almost' is added due to the lack of effective range). It also offered relatively high practical rate of fire due to large-capacity, detachable magazines and low recoil.

It was lightweight and short enough to be more suitable for jungle combat, than a full-size battle rifles such as M1 Garand. In general, M1 Carbine was a really compact and handy weapon. Large numbers of surpulus M1 carbines also were sold at the civilian markets in the post-war period. It should be also noted that M1 carbines are still manufactured by various small US companies for civilian sales, using both military surpulus and newly made parts. M1 carbines saw limited use in the post-war West Germany and France. M1 carbines also were widely exported by US Government to numerous friendly nations, mostly in South-East Asia. After the end of the WW2 production continued for some time, and M1 carbine and its variations saw some serious action as a first-line weapon not only during the WW2, but also during Korean and early stages of Vietnam war. Since 1944, the only companies still manufacturing M1 carbines were Winchester and Inland. During the period of 1942 вЂ“ 1945 total of more than 6 millions of carbines were manufactured. Some other manufactures also were selected to produce the M1 carbines, such as Inland Manufacturing Division of the General Motors Corp., Underwood-Elliot-Fisher Co., Saginaw Steering Gear Division of the General Motors Corp., National Postal Meter Co., Quality Hardware & Machine Co., International Business Machines Corp (IBM), Standard Products Co. In any case, Winchester began to deliver its first carbines to the US Government in the July, 1942. But, according to some sources, this carbine was born as a spare-time hunting carbine project of some engineers at Winchesters' workshop, and, when military request appeared, this design was resurrected and adopted for intended use. The design of the Winchester carbine is often contributed to the David 'Carbine' Williams, who was the developer of the gas system. Many companies submitted their designs for US Army trials but the winner eventually became the Winchester. Anyway, it had still much longer range than any pistol round of its time, along with moderate recoil.

30 carbine cartridge can be called an 'intermediate' but the lack of the muzzle energy and round nosed bullet limited the effective range to about 200 meters or so. 45ACP pistol cartridge but still almost 3 times less than of. Muzzle energy was about 2 times more than of. It was a straight-case, rimless design with round-nose bullet weighting 110 grains (7.1 gram) and muzzle velocity of 1860 fps (~ 570 m/s).

30 caliber, M1', was developed by the Winchester company. The cartridge, officially named the 'cartridge, ball. 30 caliber but of power far less than of US general issue. Request was shelved for some time and re-issued in 1940. This request was probably the first recognition of the need in the Personal Defense Weapon in the modern sense. 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol or revolver. The idea behind this request was that a shoulder arm, such as carbine, firing ammunition of moderate power, will have more effective range and will be much simpler to train the users to fire it accurately, than the standard. The original request for a compact and lightweight shoulder arm to replace service handguns for second-line (non-fighting) troops was first issued by US Army in 1938.

The M1 carbine is an interesting little weapon. 30 M1 carbine cartridge (left) shown next to 7.62x39mm Russian (center) and 5.56mm NATO (.223 Rem, right). M2 carbine, a select-fire modification with enlarged, 30-round magazine. M1A1 carbine, a 'paratrooper' version with side-folding buttstock.

Burnside carbine serial numbers