First off let me say that I understand why the US was the only one with a semi automatic rifle in mass issue, and why other governments at the time put a hold on R & D to go ahead and use what they already had, and what they knew would work just fine in the field. My thought for this question comes specifically from North Africa, and wondering if any British soldiers saw the M1 Garand for the first time and started to wonder why they were breaking contact with a five round bolt action rifle when the US had an eight round semi automatic rifle. Did they start to question why their government wasn't supplying them with their own version of the M1? Or why they hadn't just ordered them from the US like they did Thompsons? Or were bolt action rifles still so common at the time that they didn't even give it second thought? I'd be interested to know if any British, Canadian or French soldiers took issue with this. This may just be a passing thought but I'd be happy to hear what this awesome sub has to offer on this one.
Well the USA was by far not the only one to utilize semiautomatic wepons.
Germany had MP-44/43 (forrunner of the AK47, described as bulky and unhandy but very accurate by US officals, ca. 420k), G43 (ca. 400k), G41 (40k - 145k), MP-41 (ca. 1.1M).
The Soviet Union had SVT-40 (ca. 1.6M), AVS-36 (ca. 34k), Fedorov Avtomat (3200), SKS(15M+), PPD-40 (90k), PPSh-41(6M), PPS (2M).
Brits had Sten (ca. 4M). Even france had production of both semi automatic rifles and submachine guns during the short time it was in the fight.
So semiautomatic rifles and even submachine guns were not uncommon, especially as the war progressed and production was adapted. Some of these designes have left the groundworks for all automatic and semiautomatic guns we know today. I just presented a snapshot of what was on the field, but being that these guns were around from the end of WWI, they were not exactly rare or a novelty. Germany officialy incorporated these into their Gruppen setup. The Soviets took it to the extreme with their Shocktroops, where every single man was equipped with one, essentially inventing modern infantry warfare in process (and proving quite effective).
Tl:dr: Europe was more surprised by the American accent then the rifles, as the rifles were around for a long time before American involvement.
I'm aware that there were other semi automatic weapons and sub machine guns in use by both the allies and axis powers, but were they mass produced and issued to EVERY standard infantry soldier in the field like the M1 was? To my understanding, rifles like the SVT-40, G43 and so on were most assuredly in use during the war, but in far less numbers than the M1. I.e. In 1945 most Germans were still using K98's. Towards the end the STG-44 was in wide use, and although it is regarded as the first real "assault rifle" and the genesis for many more weapons to come, it was too little too late, while the M1 had been in use more or less since the US entry. Did soldiers get angry that they had outdated bolt actions while others had the "new stuff"? Also not really focusing on sub machine guns as that technology was much more developed in 1939 than that of a larger cartridge, semi automatic rifle.
Thank you for your reply!
This is the perfect escape considering no one in my life gives a flying crap about any of this stuff.