I’ve spoken to a bunch of US WW2 vets who fought in Italy and France - armoured infantry and paratroopers - and most preferred the carbine, for a reason that will be familiar to anyone who’s served in a frontline unit.
The Garand weighed almost twice as much as the Carbine. That’s it.
Whatever the arguable advantages of the big gun in combat, a huge amount of soldiering is carrying your shit from place to place, and having a gun that’s good but doesn’t weigh much is a big deal.
This is why no-one in the infantry wants to be a machine gunner (despite the fact you get a big cool gun), and the machine gunner is often a big guy - even a relatively small increase in carried weight drastically increases how tired you are at the end of the march.
Most people liked their Garands, but they envied the people carrying carbines.
Writer on Quora: Willard Foxton
