Just thought

I was watching Patton and then line's hit me,


"We should'nt be disarming the Germans, we should be arming and getting them to help us fighting the russians"

Give me 24 and we will be at war with them and I'll make look like it was thier fault"

Just another option

The big problem with the EM2 was its unsuitably for the 7.62mm/.308 round chosen as standard for NATO- this choice being led by the US' huge stocks of this post-WW2, and almost infinite capacity to manufacture more. I suspect that a common ammunition would be desired in most of the scenarios we have outlined.
A magazine-fed Garand would make sense; I have an alternative that might not be technically feasible, and would welcome comments from those who have handled Garands. If the Garand was modified to have a bigger integral box magazine, would it be possible to hold the bolt back when the rifle was (partly) loaded, and recharge using the standard 8-round clips? That way the rifle need never be empty, in the same way that a Lee-Enfield can have its 10-round magazine recharged using the 5-round stripper clip, at any point after firing the first 5.

The Standard N-bloc clip would not be able to recharge. The disadvantage to the M1 Garand system as is, that its cannot be topped off. You can eject a partially used clip though, and then insert a full one.

Just to clarify the situation with the Garand ammunition feed, the clip is not a stripper clip but an en bloc type (AKA charger clip) that is inserted into the rifle in its entirety. It's this clip that causes the 'ping' when the rifle runs empty as the clip is ejected (to throw it clear making way for a loaded clip to be inserted).
There were a handful of other rifles that made use of en bloc clips such as the German 1888 Commission Rifle and other Mannlicher rifles of the era.

The following pictures should better illustrate the situation.

en bloc clips for the M1 Garand
http://www.a-human-right.com/enblocks2.jpg

top of the M1 Garand
http://www.a-human-right.com/M1top.jpg

loading a Garand with an en bloc clip
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi.../9f/M1clip.jpg
http://www.a-human-right.com/loadinggarand.jpg

Considering the 7.62x51mm NATO round was a 1950's development and the M1 Garand was chambered in .30-06 that doesn't sound very plausible, especially since the 7.62x51 round didn't even enter US service until 1957.

Note also it was US pressure on all the other NATO nations that caused the adoption of 7.62x51 as standard, after the EM-2 was developed. The .280 British round was deemed to be underpowered by the US even though they later adopted (and forced the rest of NATO to adopt) the 5.56x45mm round because the 7.62x51 was found to be overpowered... (as predicted by many at the time).

If war with the USSR had broken out shortly after WWII concluded, chances are Britain, along with Belgium (who were also looking at the .280) would have simply moved forward with their plans to field the EM-2 (which had already been type standardised and adopted as the next issue weapon on the 25th of April 1951).

If this post-war plan for Germany had happened there could have been a different country to fight over:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan

Instead the Marshall Plan was put into effect.

Two more articles on WWII continuing:

http://www.sfsfw.org/a/38/gotterdammerung-part1.php
http://www.sfsfw.org/a/39/gotterdammerung-part2.php

Part 1 is land, while part 2 covers sea and air war.