Technically no, it's not the 4th rifle, but it is the 4th carbine. During WWII We had the M1 Garand and The M1 Carbine, both were M1s but one was a battle rifle , and the other a carbine, so there was and is s separation between the two.
If you think about it even further, we had the M1 Carbine, the M2, and the M3, the latter two being more or less failures, which is why we just went to the M16 and kept it that way until the shortened versions got up to speed (XM177 and so forth) leading to the M4 Carbine. Of course, that's just my conjecture based on what Excalibur has said and my own knowledge.
|