Army equipment that should have seen service

McPherson

Banned
As for the Brewster Bermuda - these should have been pushed overboard before they even left the factory!

With the corporate officers of Brewster strapped into the cockpits. Let them swim for it to see how aircrew liked the crap birds they pumped off of their crap assembly lines. (Could say the same thing about Curtiss, too.)
 

marathag

Banned
(Cough Winchester Model 1907 and Model 1910.) should have been a further warning.
While the Remington Model 8 cost over $40, the 1907 was half as much- and the M1 Carbine was $45.
39,000psi pressure and 1900J ME, just a hair under the 6.5mm Arisaka and above some loadings of the 35 Remington. 8 pounds of weight, same as the Model 8 and Type 30 Rifle was 8pounds 11 oz.

Just fine as is, yes, a bit heavier than M1 Carbine, but a lot more powerful as well.
So Model 1907 is
Cheaper
Powerful for 200 pound North American game
And was in production until 1936
 
I'd like to have seen the Besal LMG produced in 30-06 for use by the Home Guard. Why you ask? The H.G. was mostly armed with the M1917 Enfield rifle in 30-06 as a rifle, but also used various modified air service Lewis Guns in .303. It would therefore make sense for them to be issued with a .30-06 LMG instead, but it would best that it was a non standard weapon so as not to interrupt production for the regular army. The Besal was a sound design but was also designed to be simple to produce in ordinary machine shops.
 

Driftless

Donor
I'd like to have seen the Besal LMG produced in 30-06 for use by the Home Guard. Why you ask? The H.G. was mostly armed with the M1917 Enfield rifle in 30-06 as a rifle, but also used various modified air service Lewis Guns in .303. It would therefore make sense for them to be issued with a .30-06 LMG instead, but it would best that it was a non standard weapon so as not to interrupt production for the regular army. The Besal was a sound design but was also designed to be simple to produce in ordinary machine shops.

Once the 1940 Invasion scare goes away, do a reverse Lend-Lease and ship the 30.06 M1917's and 30.06 Besal's back to the US..... :biggrin: Forward them on to the Filipino's, who could have made great use out of them.
 

McPherson

Banned
While the Remington Model 8 cost over $40, the 1907 was half as much- and the M1 Carbine was $45.
39,000psi pressure and 1900J ME, just a hair under the 6.5mm Arisaka and above some loadings of the 35 Remington. 8 pounds of weight, same as the Model 8 and Type 30 Rifle was 8pounds 11 oz.

Just fine as is, yes, a bit heavier than M1 Carbine, but a lot more powerful as well.
So Model 1907 is
Cheaper
Powerful for 200 pound North American game
And was in production until 1936

Look very carefully at the function cycle during the test shooting and in the cyclic demonstration. The push rod cock to load first round procedure was a disaster as far as military use is concerned and given Joe Infantry's penchant for doing it wrong, when it inevitably feed jams the round half into the chamber from that SLOPPY pickup, how many faces blown off do you think would be part of the price of doing business as J.I. tries to cycle the feed clear? The Model 1910 was worse. It's name "widowmaker" is well earned.
 
Once the 1940 Invasion scare goes away, do a reverse Lend-Lease and ship the 30.06 M1917's and 30.06 Besal's back to the US..... :biggrin: Forward them on to the Filipino's, who could have made great use out of them.
Never mind the Philippines the regular US military could have made good use of them instead of the flawed B.A.R. (Too heavy to be a rifle, too light to be a truly effective LMG)
 

McPherson

Banned
Never mind the Philippines the regular US military could have made good use of them instead of the flawed B.A.R. (Too heavy to be a rifle, too light to be a truly effective LMG)


If not the BREN or the CZ. vz. 30, that gets an 🤙from me. Only thing is the RC feature on the barrel is a bit lacking.
 

Deleted member 1487

Not too long
M79 400 meter,vs 600 for Type 89.

Type 89 had 320 grams of filling, around 10xthe filling of the M79 grenades.

Many more types of ammo on the M79, and accurate in direct fire, and has an arming range, under 30 feet the fuze is safe. That's a big deal.
So the only advantage is for the M79 is the direct fire ability and the sorts of shells it could fire and stand off range.
Of course if you prop it up against a tree or something the Type 89 could fire directly, same as a modern commando mortar and a rifle grenade.

According to a U.S. Army manual, the Type 89 fired a 50mm round, and weighed ten pounds. Depending on the round used, it had a maximum range of just under 750 yards. It could fire incendiary rounds, smoke rounds, and high-explosive rounds. Think of it as kind of an M79 grenade launcher on steroids.

Two Marine Corps legends, "Chesty" Puller and Merritt Edson, both came away very impressed by this weapon. Edson, who lead the Marine Raiders on Guadalcanal, noted that a Japanese soldier could carry that weapon and ten rounds with no problem. The weapon was issued in large quantities to Japanese troops and had a high rate of fire. As a result, it was believed to have caused 40 percent of American battle casualties in the Pacific.
 

Deleted member 1487

Never mind the Philippines the regular US military could have made good use of them instead of the flawed B.A.R. (Too heavy to be a rifle, too light to be a truly effective LMG)
The BAR was fine as an LMG, but it required a QC barrel and 2nd crew member to actually put it into that category. Otherwise it wasn't significantly different than the Bren other than magazine placement and capacity.
 
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marathag

Banned
The push rod cock to load first round procedure was a disaster as
It was shown in the video to get around Browning's patents. Patents that would have expired by time a Military version would be wanted. In 30 years of production, not much was changed.
If a M1928 Thompson can be simplified for the Military to the M1, so could the 1907 to be changed to a side charger. Not a big deal.

Should note the the French were not having jamming problems, and same for US Hunters or Prison Guards.

Widowmaker? Who said that? It was not prone to exploding
 

McPherson

Banned
It was shown in the video to get around Browning's patents. Patents that would have expired by time a Military version would be wanted. In 30 years of production, not much was changed.
If a M1928 Thompson can be simplified for the Military to the M1, so could the 1907 to be changed to a side charger. Not a big deal.

Should note the the French were not having jamming problems, and same for US Hunters or Prison Guards.

Widowmaker? Who said that? It was not prone to exploding

Othais of CandR Arsenal. Refer to video on the Winchester M1907.
 
The absolute most important thing that should have seen service in every Army was the Model 1 of 1939 20/20 Hindsight. This novel feature let the user zero in on the past mistakes he and others had made and what they should have done differently. A follow-on project was the Model S-2 of 1943 Stratobutterfly
 
[QUOTEThere are several other Lend-Lease aircraft that carried on until 1946 or 1947.
As for the Brewster Bermuda - these should have been pushed overboard before they even left the factory!
[/QUOTE]

Actually the Aluminum/Aluminium ingots should have been sent right back into the furnace instead of going to the rolling mill. Along with everybody who ever drew a paycheck at Brewster.
 
What you don't think they should have been getting paid for having orgies in the factory, and helping themselves to the tools?
 
With the corporate officers of Brewster strapped into the cockpits. Let them swim for it to see how aircrew liked the crap birds they pumped off of their crap assembly lines. (Could say the same thing about Curtiss, too.)
Curtis had just about run out the string with the P-40. Probably better than it was given credit for but the Best of Show at the Westchester Kennel Club is still a dog. Maybe if Allison had mounted a two stage supercharger borrowed from Pratt & Whitney it might have made the difference. Another problem was Curtis simply had too many irons in the fire. C-46s, P-40s, Helldivers, Seamews (anything with that awful of a name simply has to be a piece of crap), SC-1 Seahawk plus the development projects. The XF14C, XP-55 (I will give them credit for thinking outside the box there) and others. Add in any contract work they were doing for other manufacturers. What was it with Buffalo, the winters? Drinking water from Love Canal?
 
The BAR was fine as an LMG, but it required a QC barrel and 2nd crew member to actually put it into that category. Otherwise it wasn't significantly different than the Bren other than magazine placement and capacity.
The clue is in the name. Browning Automatic Rifle. In Home Guard use it was first limited in the use of automatic fire to emergency (i.e. invasion) use and then banned from automatic use even if the Germans invaded.
 

Deleted member 1487

The clue is in the name. Browning Automatic Rifle. In Home Guard use it was first limited in the use of automatic fire to emergency (i.e. invasion) use and then banned from automatic use even if the Germans invaded.
Yet it served well in WW2 and Korea and even to some extent in Vietnam. In full automatic too.
 
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