But shortages of the Army M1C caused the 1903A1 Unertl to still be used till the end of Korea. The Unertl rifle was the main sniper rifle till Nov 1950 when the Marines replaced it with the Army M1C Garand sniper. And it basically saved the rifles from just being discarded. The Marines even though they cancelled the Unertl contract in Feb 1944, the ones in the field were still used to great effect on Saipan and Okinawa. Not only in the Pacific but stateside for training. The Marines had ruled snipers were not needed in jungle warfare. The Marines decided shortly after the switch to the A4, to cancel the whole Sniper program in Feb 1944 before the switch really happened.
![unertl scope serial numbers unertl scope serial numbers](https://www.gunsamerica.com/UserImages/3784/927693844/wm_6509090.jpg)
But it just didn't never seemed to happen.
![unertl scope serial numbers unertl scope serial numbers](http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/warisboring.com/images/M3_Sniperscope.jpg)
So the Marines actually decided to switch to the A4, because of these reports. As the Marines thought the reports were on the new Unertl. So many A5 reports helped to condemn the Unertl. As the Marines only called both rifles, 1903 sniper. There was a lot of confusion between the A5 sniper and the Unertl sniper in WWII. But the field reports were again probably comparing the Winchester A5 snipers compared to the A4. There were also field reports that the Army A4 was a better rifle. But were talking about the 40 A5's they had. It's interesting to note the Raiders probably didn't have the Unertl rifles in the report. So the Unertl contract was basically cancelled bc of this report. In late 1943, the Marine Raiders report said the M1 Rifle was more effective than a scoped 1903 in the jungle. The Marine Raiders also acquired about 40 of them and used them on Bougainville. Some of these were used for training pre WWII, and about 20 were used on Guadalcanal. And the islands of Bougainville and Tarawa were the first islands they were used in combat in late 1943.īefore that, the Marines had fielded some of the WWI style Winchester A5 snipers.
![unertl scope serial numbers unertl scope serial numbers](https://www.milsurps.com/images/imported/2015/01/0101024_zps73b63922-1.jpg)
The first ones reached the Pacific probably around May 1943. Yeah the Marines started to mount the Unertl scopes on the team rifles in Jan 1943. Great pics.So the Marines used the 1903A1 USMC Unertl sniper in WWII? When did they switch to the 1903A4? To be honest I never heard of a 1903A1 until now!! LOL