Guess you didn't read about the ineffectiveness of the 30 Carbine Round at the Frozen Chosin in Korea..... I've talked to several Marine Vets who were there, and none of them had a good thing to say about it other than the detachable magazine.
Plus when used to engage targets over 100m. The round was worthless...
Yes, I have read about the ineffectiveness of the .30 Carbine round at Chosin. I have also read about the ineffectiveness of the 5.56mm round (folks calling it a poodle shooter) and the ineffectiveness of the 9mm. However, there are still an awful lot of dead folks who have not heard about this because they are dead and I know that I would not want to be hit by any of these rounds. Heck, in the book Marine Sniper by GySgt Carlos Hathcock he wrote about hitting a VC with his .30-06 and the VC then started running toward him and his spotter. Hathcock’s spotter pumped round after round of 7.62mm NATO from his M14 into the guy until he finally ran out of blood and stopped just before reaching them. Does that mean the 7.62mm NATO round is ineffective as well? Should we all just be running around with Barrett .50BMG’s so we are not undergunned?! I have also read about Eskimos hunting polar bears by stalking them until they could get close enough for a brain shot through the ear with a .22LR! Does that mean the .22LR is all I would need to carry in the wilds of Alsaka?
My point is that you make it sound like the guy would be better off throwing the M1 Carbine down and just grabbing a sharp stick or a rock because it is soooooo underpowered. Sure, it is not as powerful as a .30-06 or .308, but it is still more powerful than just about any handgun including the ones that many folks feel are real “man-stoppers”. Would I hunt hogs with it? No, hogs are tough and hard to kill. Would I feel I need to just lie down and surrender if all I had was an M1 Carbine? No, it still is effective enough for most scenarios. They would not have made over 7,000,000 of them if they were such a POS.
I often wonder how many of those stories of the carbine's ineffectiveness were nothing more than a macho cover up for missing the intended target.
I have often wondered that myself. I don't doubt that there may be problems penetrating alot of gear/clothing (especially from long range), but if the Carbine would not penetrate that gear/clothing, then a .45ACP from a 1911 wouldn't either and I don't hear anyone saying a 1911 is "underpowered". My father carried an M2 Carbine (full-auto version of the M1 Carbine) in Korea and he never had any issues with it.