What is the advantage of having an 8-round clip-fed magazine as opposed to a 20 round magazine? Or a 30 round magazine, for that matter?
I never heard that George Patton envision a tanker M-1. Tankers don't in fact need a rifle...a subgun (the M 3) and the M 1 carbine were made for them. You don't have muchroom to shoot an M 1 inside a tank. I think the Tanker M 1 was the product of rebuilt M-1s with faulty barrels.
Accuracy at 600 yards is laudable for target shooters, but most combat occurs at far less range...something like 150 yards and closer. SLA Marshall determined this after WW II in a study of combat casualties. In fact, in combat conditions, WW II snipers were encouraged not to shoot at targets farther than 400 yards as under field conditions they were wasting their time and using up their barrels.
Current combat conditions are at ranges of 70 yards (bypically) and eat up a lot of ammo. Given the current trend toward house-to-house combat, which isn't likely to change since the world's population continues to grow, any one armed with an M 1 today in an Infantry unit would have a low life expectancy.
