M1 Carbine USMC Qualification Course of Fire

Establishing the various qualifications for the carbine and rifle was a project that I was kindof Gung-ho on and then put aside.  I probably have enough information to 'publish' an article, but thought it would be better to hold off until we could fill in some holes. 

U.S. Army qualifications were contained in the Field Manuals and change orders at least into the 1950s.  Also we have a number of wartime publications that help us understand what was actually being done at various training facilities, especially Ft. Hood.  But around 1952, the qualification requirements get a little murky with many rapid changes and the adoption of the Train-Fire system. 

For the Marine Corps, small arms training was spelled out in the MCOs (mostly).  From these we have a pretty good picture of what was done through most of the war, and up through 1948.  I don't recall if there are more recent MCOs digitized on the web.

Wayne - I thought I found a specific answer to the surprise targets - but don't recall where.  I'm sure it will pop up again if we dig into it.

The short answer is that the USMC dropped shooting for record with the carbine for most of WW2.  Qualification was done with the rifle, which included the pay bonus incentive.  Training for all ther small arms was done through familiarization courses.   When KD qualification record returned, it was basically the same as the Army's.  I suspect it diverged around 1950-1952

W5USMC wrote: ... and I have no what the "Surprise Fire" stage consisted of.

Surprise target set up is illustrated in the Oct 1951 FM 23-5 figures 129, 130, 131, 132.

These are used for the Transition Firing excercises given in tables VII and VIII. 

Table VIII was supposed to be scored for record.  See page 255 and the ones that follow.

Basically they are E targets (representing prone silouettes) that are briefly presented as targets on a field course. 

Next we can look at the USMC orders for early 1945 to see how the reinstated carbine qualification may have used these pop-up E-targets.