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M1955 Machine Carbine

Following the Second Great War, the United States found itself in dire need of a new semi-automatic rifle design to replace the bolt-action M1903 Springfield. The Confederate States had proven the effectiveness of its select-fire Tredegar Automatic Rifle chambered in the lighter 7.7x51mm "Confederate Short" rifle cartridge. As US forces captured innumerable TARs throughout the war and even found themselves issued captured examples in cases such as the Battle of Chattanooga, reverse-engineering the rifle seemed the obvious choice to pragmatists who had firsthand experience on both ends of its operation. Using original tooling captured at the Tredegar Iron Works in Virginia, initial experiments in simply rechambering the TAR to .30-06 failed due to the lighter pressure of the Confederate round. At the direction of Philadelphia, a new intermediate cartridge was developed to fill a similar role to .303 Confederate Short based on similar German Empire concepts for intermediate cartridges. Finalized as 7.62x46mm, the cartridge was simply a shortened .30-06 designed to work "superbly" with bolt-actions, semi-automatic rifles, and machine guns while retaining all of the same machinery. The M1945 Automatic Rifle was effectively an otherwise unmodified Tredegar Automatic Rifle chambered in this new cartridge, and first saw action in the Second Pacific War from 1948 to 1952.

Although highly successful in its own right, the M1945 was never intended to be a permanent solution for the US Military. A joint exercise between the United States and German Empire in 1950 gave a close look to the MKb-47, a development of the world's first "machine carbine." With a modern ergonomic design and intermediate 7.92x33mm cartridge, the MKb-47 proved extremely popular with soldiers given the opportunity to fire it and left a considerable impression on General Daniel MacArthur who became one of the strongest proponents for developing an American machine carbine. The official order to do so was given in 1953 after the surrender of Japan in the Second Pacific War, with prototypes from Winchester and Springfield accepted for testing by 1954. The Winchester Automatic Carbine was ultimately chosen for production and given the designation M1955. With a firing mechanism largely unaltered from the M1945, it was deemed the "safer" of the two designs and suffered no major malfunctions during testing.

The M1955 Machine Carbine is a gas-operated short-stroke carbine that fires 7.62x46mm ammunition. It replaced the M1945 Automatic Rifle as the standard-issue rifle in the United States Military in 1955 and although largely replaced by the M1971 remains in limited service to the present day. The M1955 saw service in every theater of war in the late 20th century from Peru to Liberia to the endless anarchy of central China, and in 1968 National Guardsmen carrying these rifles would fire upon a crowd of protesters at the University of Richmond in what would soon spark the Yankee Spring. As one of the most produced firearms in history, it was widely exported to over 40 countries across the world including the Confederate successor states, and is among the most popular civilian rifle patterns in the United States. The rifle was proven to be remarkably adaptable, with a number of variants being produced such as light machine guns, short-barrel carbines, marksman rifles, and lightweight paratrooper models.

Specifications:

In service: 1955-present

Designed: 1953-1954

Manufacturer: Winchester

Produced: 1954-present

Length: 38.7 in

Barrel Length: 21 in

Cartridge: 7.62x46mm

Action: Gas-operated tilting-bolt

Rate of fire: 600 rounds/min automatic

Feed system: 20- or 30-round detachable magazine