Guns used during the Korean War

The Korean war had many new inventions that were very high tech for this time period. Seeing all these new inventions coming out made this war very deadly and high powered. Three different kinds of guns that had a big impact on the Korean War were machine guns, rifles, and pistols.

Pistols had a big impact on the Korean War. For example, many of the officers and generals would carry around a pistol and only a pistol. Throughout the Korean war had many varieties and different kinds of pistols. For example, the .357 magnum revolver, .38 Caliber Revolver, .45 Caliber M1911A1, Type 51-Tokarev Tula 33 were all a major part of the Korean War(Miller). Although pistols could not be used as a long range weapon many of the soldiers relied on their pistols during the war. It was not very often you would catch a soldier without a pistol on their side.

Rifles utilized in the Korean War were of many models and nationalities. There are two types of rifles the bolt-action rifle and a semi or fully automatic rifle. For the Korean side it was mostly made up of Russian and Chinese models versus the Americans who were still using weapons from WWII, such as the M1 Garand. The M1 Garand was a semi-automatic, with a caliber of 7.62 x 63mm bullets(Top Ten). It could hold 8 rounds, fire about 2838 feet per second, also could soot about 30 rounds per minute(Top Ten). Also, the 1903 Springfield originated from the United States(Top Ten). This gun was a bolt action rifle, with 7.62 x 63mm, could hold 5 rounds, shoot 2700 feet per second, and could should about 10 rounds per minute(Top Ten). The Germans invented the Sturmgewehr 44, which was semi or fully automatic(Top Ten). This gun could hold 30 round, shoot 2,133 feet per second, and fire 500 rounds per minute(Top Ten). Germany also came up with the K98K Carbine, which was a bolt action rifle and could fire about 2,822 feet per second(Top Ten). It had the capacity of 5 rounds, and would fire 10-15 rounds per minute(Top Ten).

Machine guns are by far the most powerful gun in any country history. All of them are fully automatic and use ammo cartridges of rifle size or larger(Machine). When these kind of guns came out they dominated over trench warfare(Machine). In 1862 Richard Jordan Gatling invented the Gatling gun which was the first high powered machine gun, powered by a hand crank(Machine). The first revolving gun invented was the Hotchkiss revolving cannon by, Benjamin Berkely Hotchkiss(Machine). The M1919 fully automatic machine gun was brought into war by the United States(Machine). This gun had many improvements, like it was lighter and is air cooled(Machine).

With all these new weapons coming out during the Korean War made this war very deadly and had many casualties. Without all these new guns coming out this war would have been very different, and maybe even of come out with a different outcome.