Originally Posted by Charge_7

"In the Civil War if units had rifled cannons they would look for enemy smoothbore after a battle because it was more accurate and faster."

Oh please. You are not an artilleryman. Show me any main artillery pieces today that use smoothbore. Stating that smoothbore is more accurate shows a lack of understanding of rifling. Also in the Civil War both rifled and smoothbore were muzzleloaders. They took the same amount of time to reload and fire. It was only the perfection of breachloading that increased the rate of fire the first time and the invention of the recuperator in the French 75 that speeded it up again as guns didn't need to be relayed after every firing. It had absolutely nothing to do with the bore.

The use of the smoothbore in the M1 has to do with the rounds that it uses and that it is a _direct fire_ weapon.