On this day, exactly fifty years ago, the communist revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara was executed by a Bolivian Sergeant named Mario Terán.
A full look at Guevara and his actions is something beyond the scope of this post. He was a close associate of Fidel Castro, did little during the Cuban revolution, then he went and bungled his way through every job he was given.
His (possibly ghostwritten) work on guerrilla warfare was a middling work at best. If he had read it, he might not have ended up eating nine rounds of .30 carbine. While attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia, he and his follower's actions lead the locals, who he was depending on to start the revolution, to turn him over to the Bolivian government and the Americans.
He lost every single time someone bothered to fight back against him. Though in his defense, the CIA and US special forces were supporting the Bolivians and Congoese at the time.
Guevara personally bosted that he had killed thousands personally, and the number killed on his orders probably is in the tens of thousands. Yet for some reason, he is lionized by millions of historically illiterate around the world.
Perhaps it's the fact he photographed well.
But he's dead, and his hands are still probably in a basement at Langley from when the CIA cut them off to verify his fingerprints.
He still has his hands here, the day after he was executed
Let's look at the M2 Carbine!
I dearly want one of these
The M2 is something of an odd duck of a gun. More powerful than a submachine gun, but without quite the oomph of a real assault rifle, it's been called a proto personal defense weapon (PDW) by some people. The .30 carbine (7.62x33mm) cartridge and the M1 Carbine was intended to give personnel behind the front lines a weapon that was more powerful than the M1911, but lighter than the M1 Garand (no mechanical relation) or the M1 Thompson (no mechanical relation).
It was a fairly popular weapon far beyond its original intended users, as it was lighter and handier than a full-sized M1 Garand. But there were alleged issues that it lacked stopping power, particularly in the Pacific theater. The later M2 Carbine added a select fire capability to the gun, and gave it a 30 round magazine. It had effectively supplanted the SMG in the United States's arsenal by the Korean war, where the issues of power came up once again. Most confirmed kills with the M2 were at less than 50 yards. Its last major use was in Vietnam, where it was eventually totally replaced with the M16.
The issue of stopping power is a complex one. The .30 carbine bullet weighed 110 grains, while .45 ACP from a Thompson SMG or M1911 weighed about 230 grains. The M1 Garand's .30-06 had a bullet that weighed around 150 grains. A heavier bullet isn't deflected or slowed as quickly when fired through say, jungle vegetation on some island somewhere. The more mass an object has, the more inclined it is to just keep going. Also, during the Korean War, lots of the equipment was leftover WWII stock. There might have been serious quality issues with the ammunition that was provided to the troops, that when combined with the cold of the peninsula, could have seriously degraded the effectiveness of the firearm.
During the Cold War, US sold or otherwise provided thousands of M1 and M2 Carbines to its allies and other nominally allied groups. Bolivia received at least 4,084 M2 Carbines over seven years through the Military Assistance Program. All told, the US sent more than three million M1 and M2 Carbines as military aid in various forms around the world.
Sources:
http://www.bavarianm1carbines.com/carbinesnara.html
Small Arms of The World: The Basic Manual of Military Small Arms. W. H. B. Smith
A full look at Guevara and his actions is something beyond the scope of this post. He was a close associate of Fidel Castro, did little during the Cuban revolution, then he went and bungled his way through every job he was given.
His (possibly ghostwritten) work on guerrilla warfare was a middling work at best. If he had read it, he might not have ended up eating nine rounds of .30 carbine. While attempting to incite a revolution in Bolivia, he and his follower's actions lead the locals, who he was depending on to start the revolution, to turn him over to the Bolivian government and the Americans.
He lost every single time someone bothered to fight back against him. Though in his defense, the CIA and US special forces were supporting the Bolivians and Congoese at the time.
Guevara personally bosted that he had killed thousands personally, and the number killed on his orders probably is in the tens of thousands. Yet for some reason, he is lionized by millions of historically illiterate around the world.
Perhaps it's the fact he photographed well.
But he's dead, and his hands are still probably in a basement at Langley from when the CIA cut them off to verify his fingerprints.
Let's look at the M2 Carbine!
The M2 is something of an odd duck of a gun. More powerful than a submachine gun, but without quite the oomph of a real assault rifle, it's been called a proto personal defense weapon (PDW) by some people. The .30 carbine (7.62x33mm) cartridge and the M1 Carbine was intended to give personnel behind the front lines a weapon that was more powerful than the M1911, but lighter than the M1 Garand (no mechanical relation) or the M1 Thompson (no mechanical relation).
It was a fairly popular weapon far beyond its original intended users, as it was lighter and handier than a full-sized M1 Garand. But there were alleged issues that it lacked stopping power, particularly in the Pacific theater. The later M2 Carbine added a select fire capability to the gun, and gave it a 30 round magazine. It had effectively supplanted the SMG in the United States's arsenal by the Korean war, where the issues of power came up once again. Most confirmed kills with the M2 were at less than 50 yards. Its last major use was in Vietnam, where it was eventually totally replaced with the M16.
The issue of stopping power is a complex one. The .30 carbine bullet weighed 110 grains, while .45 ACP from a Thompson SMG or M1911 weighed about 230 grains. The M1 Garand's .30-06 had a bullet that weighed around 150 grains. A heavier bullet isn't deflected or slowed as quickly when fired through say, jungle vegetation on some island somewhere. The more mass an object has, the more inclined it is to just keep going. Also, during the Korean War, lots of the equipment was leftover WWII stock. There might have been serious quality issues with the ammunition that was provided to the troops, that when combined with the cold of the peninsula, could have seriously degraded the effectiveness of the firearm.
During the Cold War, US sold or otherwise provided thousands of M1 and M2 Carbines to its allies and other nominally allied groups. Bolivia received at least 4,084 M2 Carbines over seven years through the Military Assistance Program. All told, the US sent more than three million M1 and M2 Carbines as military aid in various forms around the world.
Sources:
http://www.bavarianm1carbines.com/carbinesnara.html
Small Arms of The World: The Basic Manual of Military Small Arms. W. H. B. Smith
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