The Australian Army boots issued when we received camoflage uniforms in the 1990s. The previous issue boots were square laced - if you needed to get out of them in a hurry take your knife/bayonet run it down the laces for easy removal. The replacement boots when square laced popped the eyelets out. Did we get better boots - no - we were ordered to cross lace the boots.
Army equipment that shouldn't have seen service
- Thread starter SealTheRealDeal
- Start date
Australian Army rations have been long the envy of the world's armies. Consisting of Fresh where possible and where possible. Where not possible they consisted of either 10 Man ration packs (1 man for 10 days or 10 men for one day) or 1 Man ration packs (1 man for 24 hours, although I have known Americans to eat them in one sitting and then ask for more). The 10 man packs had menus A through to D and the 1 man packs have menus A through E. Since I was enlisted they have been supplemented by 5 Man ration packs and 1 man, dehydrated "Patrol Rations" ration packs. The dehydrated ration packs haven't been a success, requiring too much water (which on the driest inhabited continent isn't always available) to rehydrate.
How do I know they are the envy of most of the world's armies? Because all the foreign soldiers who encounter them are extremely complimentary on the variety and the make up of the rations in the pack (and that isn't just out of politeness). The problem is explaining to particularly Americans that a 1 man Rat Pack is for 24 hours, not just a single meal as in MREs. I have seen a number of Americans attached to Australian units eat their Rat Pack in a single meal and wonder where the next one is coming from.
Don't they teach all the boots how to make an MRE last at least a day, if not a week? Or is that just a Marine boot camp/MCT/ITB thing? Also for some reason I never seen 22 Beef Goulash before, and how dare you not mentioning the first strike bar? That shit has a higher value than the skittles during the MCT black market.
and they were right. It should have been proper Marmite. New Zealand Marmite would be an acceptable alternative.
Let the war commence..........
Because pistols are a not really even a secondary weapon, they are tertiary. They have little impact on the battlefield and so it is generally issued to people who need something lethal and portable but not an actual offensive weapon, so MP's, tank and air crew who don't have a lot of room for a SMG or rifle. Officers in actual front line units were best advised to ditch the pistol at the first opportunity and pick up a rifle or SMG and try to look as unimportant as possible to snipers.
Also, the more powerful the pistol the more training is required to effectively use it. It's one reason why people learn to shoot on .22 not .500 S&W, you want to learn how to shoot first without having to add recoil mitigation to the mix, the British Army switched to .38 precisely as they didn't want to spend time teaching pistol marksmanship to officers that could be better used training them to employ their units weapons effectively and of course most pistols had horrible sights at the time anyway.
I always had a soft spot for the G11 and its space age look:
It even made it into the movie Demolition man.
The inside on the other hand looks like something from a steampunk world:
I always suspected the action on the G11 was intended to ensure a ready supply of trained watchmakers for the German watch industry because no squady could fix that with a squirt of Break Free and a penkinfe.
I agree. This really looks like something which you cant fix in the field on your own.
"Hans, the clockwork broke!"
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It does kinda suggest it could've been built in the 1800s, tho, if some German clockmaker had a brainwave. ("Those verdammt French! I'll show them!
)They were only really useful against aircraft flying towards you as most IR SAMs at the time were not all aspect. They were not that great though and to be honest Stinger was only a few years away and I agree the British Army would have done better with Stinger.
i mention it based on something I recall from Max Hastings's account of the Falklands war (possibly not the best source). He was embedded with 2 para and commented that it was both heavy and required the user to expose them selves to guide the missile on target. He also mentions that one aircraft attacking was brought down by S.A.S equipped with a stinger.
It is well over 30 years since I read the book and my memory may well be faulty and one journalist 's assessment is hardly a comprehensive assessment.
Was the fact that it was made by Shorts, a factor securing jobs in Northern Ireland at a politically difficult time?
A better source for the air war in the Falklands is "Air War: South Atlantic". But Max's book is also pretty good too. The SAS Stinger team was short their normal "shooter" and so he got one but missed everything else.
The SAS Chap fully trained on the Stinger was among the 20 men killed in the Cross decking Helicopter crash on May 19
the s&w light rifle
ian has a run down on the matter,
but it was heavy, expensive, and fragile, and was so bad that the british asked for their money back
but it was heavy, expensive, and fragile, and was so bad that the british asked for their money back
BlackDragon98
Banned
Preformance of the Pak 97/38 was ok compared to Pak 38.Oh that 'weapon' was a shitshow:
7.5 cm Pak 97/38 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
As soon any the PAK40 was available the PAK97/38 was thrown out.
Had they bored them out to 81mm and used the PAW600 style ammo, even using a non-PAW propellant system, they would have been better off. I still don't know why they didn't use the French AT carriage and tried to use the PAK38 one with that.
Canon de 75 mm modèle 1897 — Wikipédia
fr.wikipedia.org
It was cheaper than the Pak 40 and lighter than it.
Mostly used HEAT shells which means no tungsten needed.
Best use is in ambush position against Soviet 1942 counterattacks. It has HEAT and HE which is good enough.
Afterwards just sell them en masse to the Finns, Romanians, or Hungarians. Make some $.
BlackDragon98
Banned
The Chinese ones taste like plastic and are probably made from plastic.... aaand I spend three hours watching MRE reviews (don't touch the Chinese one)
My uncle was former PLA, currently a private security contractor. I think he quit because of the rations.
BlackDragon98
Banned
Some bits of Chinese cuisine are pretty messed up, i.e. dog meat and co.
The rest is perfectly fine.
Deleted member 1487
With poor performance and brutal recoil. The HEAT ammo didn't work all that well, because it was a rifled weapon and spun HEAT really suffers in performance. Plus early HEAT didn't fuse well against sloped armor. Plus the Germans even made a version that used the PAK40 carriage, because the PAK38 one was not heavy enough.
That said, it was better than nothing or even the PAK38 minus tungsten core ammo.
It is telling though that they got rid of it ASAP when something better was available. The Finns weren't really able to pay for much and the Romanians and Hungarians weren't keen on it.
BlackDragon98
Banned
Just give it to the Finns for free or for cheaper nickel.
Pak 97/38 in Arctic might give Finns better performance.
OTL they were short AT weapons while that front wasn't a priority front for good Soviet tanks until 1944.