Army equipment that should have seen service

[Deleted member 1487]

Quoting from the Home Guard official document of the time: (Commander-in-Chief Home Forces issued Instruction No. 60. 1943)
This rifle is not designed to fire bursts. Firstly no degree of accuracy can be maintained and secondly the gun will overheat. It is interesting that the U.S. Forces armed with this weapon had great effect on Guadalcanal. A trained man can fired 40 well-aimed shots a minute using single shots. All references in Home Guard Instructions to firing bursts with this weapon should therefore be deleted. Home Guard will not fire bursts, even in emergency, but will rely upon a high degree of training in firing single shots.
(earlier instructions limited 'burst fire' to 'emergencies'.)

Why are you accepting Home Guard claims at face value? Especially when they never used it in combat, but the US military did extensively for decades?

This demonstrates that the BAR was a perfectly adequate(heavy and bulky) automatic rifle. Not a Light Machine Gun. Many of the Home Guard were experienced Lewis Gunners from WW1 and/or trained for the Lewis or Bren in their Home Guard service so they knew what a light machine was and what it should do. The document is quite clear. There are no circumstances where automatic fire should be used. Aimed semi automatic fire was mandatory. This with well maintained weapons kept and used in easy conditions.

They had different expectations of the weapon because the Lewis and Bren were more sustained fire weapon, something I already said earlier; the BAR would need a QC barrel to really become and LMG, but as a SAW it was fine. And again who cares what the Home Guard trainers thought when they never used it in combat?

 

[McPherson]

' Widowmaker' was tagged on the Winchester 1911, a long recoil shotgun using paper hulls, not blowback rifle using brass cartridges

Winchester Model 1911 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Due to patent restrictions on the 1898 design, Winchester was unable to copy the Browning design they had rejected earlier, the only autoloading shotgun design at the time, so Winchester had to adapt the design for their own production without infringing on Browning's patents; T.C. Johnson, reportedly, joked that "it took him nearly ten years to design an automatic shotgun (the Winchester 1911) which would not be an infringement on the Browning gun."[2] One of Browning's patents was for the charging handle on the bolt of the 1905 shotgun; Winchester worked around this restriction by using the barrel as the mechanism to charge the weapon.[3] In order to use the 1911 SL, a user would place the gun on safe, point the firearm in a safe direction, load the tubular magazine, and then pull back on the barrel by the checkered section. After disengaging the safety, the weapon was ready to fire.

The stock can be laminated with 3 separate lengthwise pieces glued together.

Design and safety flaws
The novel method of charging the 1911 could be potentially lethal if done incorrectly. Shotgun cartridges of the time were often made of paper, which could make the cartridge body vulnerable to expansion when exposed to moisture in large quantities. If this happened in the 1911, the barrel would have to be cycled in order to open the chamber so that the swelled shotgun shell could be removed. Some users mistakenly cycled the barrel by placing the butt of the weapon against the ground and forcing the barrel down. In this position, the muzzle of the weapon would be pointing towards the face of the user, and the swelled shell could fire, injuring or killing the user. This safety issue led to the Model 1911 being nicknamed "the Widowmaker".[4] This situation could be avoided with adherence to safety procedures common to handling firearms, in particular, the practice of keeping the weapon pointed in a safe direction at all times.

The potential for slam fire when clearing jams was not the only flaw in the 1911's design. The system of buffer rings used to reduce the recoil (two fiber washers[5]) when the weapon was fired often failed. The breakdown of these rings greatly increased the recoil when a round was fired. The gun's "hammering recoil" caused many a stock to split.[3]

The sales of the "mechanically ill-fated" weapon lagged significantly behind those of Remington's and Browning's autoloaders,[3] and Winchester ceased its production in 1925, after producing almost 83,000 of them.[2] As recently as 2005, four people accidentally shot themselves with the 1911 while loading or clearing the weapon.[6]

The M1910 used the SAME COCKING SYSTEM as the shotgun. When it jammed, Joe Infantry had the tendency to try to clear the jam the same way Rupert Redondo, the civilian, did: stick the buttplate on the ground, grab the barrel and shove down on the barrel. Head blown off was the result.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Madsen.

Why? It appeared quite straightforward to me.

Explanation: As I watched Othais take this turkey apart, I thought about its design in 1900 and I was horrified. The gun uses a single stack magazine with gravity feed into a hopper and then indexes shells sideways into the feed path that then rams into the breech. That is a complex feed geometry that even in 1905 is NTG.

The latching of the magazine into the tray is very weak connection-wise with a tendency for human body parts to bump into it and knock the magazine out of the tray. There was another gun that had that kind of magazine into feeder tray lip.

Sideways, that was, and see how aggressively large the feed tray lip is? Also note the line of travel in the function path? There is no 90 degree turn as in the Madsen. The cutoffs for both the Johnson LMG and the Madsen are built into the single stack magazines (Which is the reason they are single stack magazines.), which makes the magazines long awkward extrusions, another mechanical fail point and adds a further undesirable military field fail. These setups are EXPENSIVE to make and require an indexer to pull the individual bullets through from cutoff to final position to ram into the chamber. COMPLEXITY means fail to function heaven in an automatic weapon. The more complex the operating action, the more ways a machine can fail. This is why the Johnson rifle and machine gun were ultimately rejected, what the US found wrong with the Madsen, what the Danes markedly improved in the 1920s through tweaks and quality control and why I frankly hate the 1905 gun. I see too many ways in the modern field range demos under ideal conditions that it failed.

Note on the Lewis gun.

As a comment, I should add that while the Lewis gun worked as well as I expected it would, like the Brownings, it had to be tuned exactly right to be the jewel it was as to TIMING. This is the problem with such 'clockwork" and recoil machine guns right through the M60.

One of the reasons I LOVE the Hotchkiss, actually better than the Maxim, is that the Hotchkiss has no need for timing adjustments in the recoil. It is gas operated. It will function as long as the gas system has enough pressure to drive the rods and cams. The recoil features of the Maxim require space adjustment and halfway decent ammunition as so do the Brownings. You can shove garbage ammo through the Hotchkiss and adjust by cranking up and down the pressure through that humongous and robust gas bleed valve.

Beautiful machine. Turning it upside down, made it a mechanical fail nightmare, as the feed pawl system, and tray clips worked against gravity instead of with and that is what killed the Portative. You have to think about what happens to a machine when you change acceleration forces markedly during a cyclic. Browning short recoils for example, do not like to be turned sideways as the pawl and indexer lets the feed misalign and stovepipe. Airplanes like to turn sideways. A gas operated gun (HS404) does generally not have that kind of problem provided that the indexer is Hotchkiss like.

 

[yulzari]

who cares what the Home Guard trainers thought when they never used it in combat?

Possibly you might wish to investigate who were the Home Guard trainers, commanders and troops and the combat experience they brought with them. By the time of the above Order they had 3 years of mature experience of the weapon in the expectation of immediate use. They used the BAR in the role of a SAW rather than an LMG but found that semi automatic use was more effective. Of course in the earliest days having a BAR was prized and perforce was the LMG of a platoon but when actual LMGs were more common it devolved to section level and formed the suppressive fire task in a section action. The TV series 'Dad's Army' rightly reminds us of their courage but underplays their professionalism in favour of entertainment, which was the purpose of the series.

We will have to agree to differ on this. I see the BAR as an automatic rifle which has a 'burst fire' facility if necessary, rather than an automatic weapon with a good single shot option.

 

[McPherson]

You make good points about the 20 round magazine, but I still think it would have been a good idea. A soldier g7*

No comment.

You're a tough guy. Brewster did their part by producing other companies aircraft on license. Why would you say that about Curtiss? The engine scandal? Curtiss built the P-40 Warhawk, which was the workhorse fighter for the USAAF till 1943. I don't think the RAF wanted to dump their P-40's into the ocean in 1942. The P-40 was a match for the Hawker Hurricane, and was the mainstay of the RAF Desert Airforce during the critical battles in 1941/42. The P-40's did a great job under Claire Chennault in China. Using the right tactics the P-40 could handle the Zero. It should have been replace earlier by more advanced, and capable fighters, but to call it a crap warbird is grossly unfair.

1. Brewster quality control failed on the factory floor.
2. The Buffalo was not reworked in the wing lift co-efficient and engine watts as the Wildcat was when the USN (Bu-Air) belatedly added armor and weapon change requirements to the bird. Grumman did due diligence to try to keep to demanded final performance.
3. Labor mismanagement. Sure; I blame the union local's leadership (criminals and thugs.) but I also blame company management for falling down on their end with the rank and file.
4. The Buccaneer was a flying death trap. I'll have much the same complaint about the Son of a Biscuit second Class in a mo. .

Garbage planes from Curtiss.

5. The problem with the P-40 is that it is an evolved Seahawk. It goes back that far. (1927) Each Hawk that follows is an incremental improvement to the original airframe with Curtiss designers moving bits around to make all the parts sort of work together. Bigger heavier engines, they move the main wing back and adjust the tail control. The cockpit gets shoved back a bit and the CG/CM solution is approximated in a mushy sort of way until they "balance" the four aeronautical forces and the bird is stable in the air. Curtiss designers could cheat that way until the performance instability margins needed were too narrow to allow such Jesus tweaking to make their fighters work. The P40 was the end of their bag of in-house tricks. Subsequent planes were GARBAGE in the air, being either miscalculated as to live load, underpowered, inadequate tail control, faulty engines and some were pilot killers with the aerodynamic issues added, but most after 1938 were badly designed as if in defiance of the best aeronautical science of the day. Seamew, Helldiver II, Commando etc. . Trash planes. Why was Curtiss allowed to sell their WWII junk? POLITICS.

Curtiss also built the C-46 Commando, the workhorse transport of the Hump Route into China. The C-46 had a longer range, and higher altitude then the C-47, making it the right aircraft for the job. It also supplemented the C-47 in the other theaters of war. The SB2C Helldiver is more of a mixed bag. It was too delayed, and had too many development problems, but it did have a payload, and speed advantage over the much loved SBD-Dauntless, and did credible war service. Post war they designed, and built the X planes that explored supersonic flight. Curtiss was no crap company, they made many great contributions to winning WWII, and the History of American Aviation.

See previous comments. The C46 had garbage engines and was "barely adequate" as a plane. It was there and it was used, so it gets a reputation. There were better options.

You can only mean the Vought Corsair? The USN demanded Brewsters build a machine to turn each aircraft over to shake out all the loose parts before it left the factory.

Yup. Great QM that was. Planes from Brewster had a tendency to unzip their rivets.

The Corsair was a carrier-borne combat aircraft. Brewster built versions were restricted to land based trainer use only. The wings were known to fall off mid-air. The British refused to use their Brewster built Corsair Mk IIIs in combat.

Brewster Buffalo: Warminster plant to close

www.warbirdforum.com

NADC History, WWII thru 1947

http://www.warbirdsintlnow.com/issue-spreads/2017/july/WIjul-aug17Brewster.pdf

The wing joins at the barrel fatigue cracked in the skin. CREF rivets.

I agree with your comments about Curtiss-Wright. They had other troubles. They were stuck on the downward curve of their fighter development cycle and locked themselves into constantly improving their old designs when they really needed to try something new.
There was the scandal Curtiss-Wright had with the defective engines and bribery of inspection staff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss-Wright#Defective_engines_sold_to_U.S._military_in_World_War_II

See my previous comments. Curtiss probably killed as many US pilots as the enemy did in their lousy planes. I regard them as the Messerschmidt of US aviation.

 

[marathag]

The M1910 used the SAME COCKING SYSTEM as the shotgun. When it jammed, Joe Infantry had the tendency to try to clear the jam the same way Rupert Redondo, the civilian, did: stick the buttplate on the ground, grab the barrel and shove down on the barrel. Head blown off was the result.

Since the barrel is fixed on the blowback guns, it can't be the same system- it closer to pump guns. With the safety on, there is no way for a hammer release, different from the shotgun. Rewatch the videoyou posed, there is an animation. And again, jamming wasn't a problem with metallic cases as paper hulls in any case. Blowback guns, remove the magazine,and pull the plunger back. Cleared.
Replace mag and you're good to go. Can't pull the mag /lifting tray on the shotgun

Only you call the 1905,07 and '10 blowback guns 'widowmakers' everyone else call the '11 shotgun that, because it was a terribly unsafe design.

Just admit you're wrong on this one.

 

[marathag]

The C46 had garbage engines

Same P&W R-2800 engine as many other aircraft

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Possibly you might wish to investigate who were the Home Guard trainers, commanders and troops and the combat experience they brought with them. By the time of the above Order they had 3 years of mature experience of the weapon in the expectation of immediate use. They used the BAR in the role of a SAW rather than an LMG but found that semi automatic use was more effective. Of course in the earliest days having a BAR was prized and perforce was the LMG of a platoon but when actual LMGs were more common it devolved to section level and formed the suppressive fire task in a section action. The TV series 'Dad's Army' rightly reminds us of their courage but underplays their professionalism in favour of entertainment, which was the purpose of the series.

We will have to agree to differ on this. I see the BAR as an automatic rifle which has a 'burst fire' facility if necessary, rather than an automatic weapon with a good single shot option.

How many of them used the BAR in combat?

 

[McPherson]

Same P&W R-2800 engine as many other aircraft

Leaked oil. Caught fire. Not usual for Pratts but in the Commando, they did. I of course blame Curtiss, not Pratt. Maybe it was the cowling they screwed up.

 

[McPherson]

Since the barrel is fixed on the blowback guns, it can't be the same system- it closer to pump guns. With the safety on, there is no way for a hammer release, different from the shotgun. Rewatch the videoyou posed, there is an animation. And again, jamming wasn't a problem with metallic cases as paper hulls in any case. Blowback guns, (1) remove the magazine, (2) and pull the plunger back. Cleared.
Replace mag and you're good to go. Can't pull the mag /lifting tray on the shotgun

Only you call the 1905,07 and '10 blowback guns 'widowmakers' everyone else call the '11 shotgun that, because it was a terribly unsafe design.

Just admit you're wrong on this one.

Could be...

Joe Infantry and Francois Flyer found that way to do it wrong. They forgot steps 1 and 2. As Othais demonstrated in the video.

 

[Catsmate]

For a .45 calibre Sten gun the gun would have to be much heavier due to the weight of the bolt needed to cope with the .45 auto ammunition and the entire weapon scaled up to cope the increased stresses.

Why? .45 ACP isn't that much more powerful than 9x19mm.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

For a .45 calibre Sten gun the gun would have to be much heavier due to the weight of the bolt needed to cope with the .45 auto ammunition and the entire weapon scaled up to cope the increased stresses.

M3 submachine gun - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mass	M3 (empty): 8.15 lb (3.70 kg) M3A1 (empty): 7.95 lb (3.61 kg)

Sten - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mass	3.2 kg (7.1 lb) (Mk. II)

 

[riggerrob]

Dear Father Maryland,
Au contraire!
My father shot on the Canadian Olympic Team - twice - and insisted that P-17s were the most accurate military-surplus rifles, at 1,000 yards, over iron sights.

 

[riggerrob]

The difference in weight - between Sten and M3 Grease Gun - reflects different manufacturing methods. British methods emphasized using large numbers of semi-skilled labourers, partly to keep unions employed and out of politics. Sten was optimized for construction by British artisans with only vice, drill press, and files.

OTOH American's automotive industry was always short of labour, so invested more in tooling. M3 was optimized to be pressed on the huge hydraulic presses that made auto bodies.
M3 was also more advanced, with a proper pistol grip and collapsing butt-stock.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

You remember those WALLY hunter killer teams I wrote about earlier in this thread? The ones who compelled the Germans to develop the MG08/15?

No. Requote here so I know what you're talking about.

I really recommend the CandR Arsenal/Forgotten Weapons series. It destroys a lot of myths and corrects a great many misperceptions about the small arms tech of WWI. AND I might add this archeology is quite recent and hands on for us for a across the board data set. Now I have a greater appreciation for the "idiots" who tried to solve brand new weapons (smokeless powder and high powered small bore bullet) tech of the late 19th century. They were not idiots after all.

For example, for me, among LMGs.

The Madsen after I've seen it in use, is horrible.

The Benet Mercie is worse than the Madsen.

The MG 08/15 was a kludge. It worked, but it was "weird".

The Lewis gun is phenomenal for the era.

The Chautchat for what it was supposed to do, is actually a lot better than I originally believed. That is one myth destroyed.

And the BAR is the BAR.

McP.

You're seriously taking a range test for what is viable in combat? Per pre-WW2 range tests the Garand was effective out to 500 yards for the average rifleman. Operations research showed the average rifleman couldn't hit squat with the Garand beyond 100 meters in combat.

The Lewis gun in your video is pulling down with each shot and they're only firing at target a few meters away. There is a reason the BAR had a special hip holster to brace on:
Why wasn't the BAR given an extended magazine? | Page 5 | WWII Forums

 

[McPherson]

No. Requote here so I know what you're talking about.

Seriously, dude?

You're seriously taking a range test for what is viable in combat? Per pre-WW2 range tests the Garand was effective out to 500 yards for the average rifleman. Operations research showed the average rifleman couldn't hit squat with the Garand beyond 100 meters in combat.

HunH?

I'm using Gun Jesus and another certified weapons expert doing hands on weapons archeology to demonstrate actual weapons in use and trials. Also I want to see that ops research that claims the average Joe Infantry could not hit anything with the Garand beyond 100 meters. THAT was not combat firing which was as much about keeping the other guys' heads down as it was about aimed fire at scuttling human beings. Apparently Joe Infantry could hit the other guy beyond 100 meters as a lot of Germans were found with bullet holes in them in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy proper and so forth. Hill country with ranges longer than 100 meters being routine shots?

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Seriously, dude?

Yes, if you want to refer to something and someone asks to quote exactly what you mean if you want your point to even be addressed you should do so.

HunH?

I'm using Gun Jesus and another certified weapons expert doing hands on weapons archeology to demonstrate actual weapons in use and trials. Also I want to see that ops research that claims the average Joe Infantry could not hit anything with the Garand beyond 100 meters. THAT was not combat firing which was as much about keeping the other guys' heads down as it was about aimed fire at scuttling human beings. Apparently Joe Infantry could hit the other guy beyond 100 meters as a lot of Germans were found with bullet holes in them in Tunisia, Sicily, Italy proper and so forth. Hill country with ranges longer than 100 meters being routine shots?

And you can't see the lack of realism in those 'tests'? They don't have combat rigs on, they aren't march firing over ground that approximated WW1 field conditions, they're firing at targets that are at incredibly short ranges compared to normal trench distances, etc.
Its certainly fun to see all that shooting, but the real world combat applicability of those tests is virtually nil.
I've posted that research before and you didn't bother to read it.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/000346.pdf

P.23 of the PDF, which is p. 9 on the report itself.

Man-Rifle Operations Studies

The British AORG during World War II, and ORO in FECOM, have both attempted to study part of the man-rifle complex by interviewing experienced riflemen on their use of the weapon in offensive and defensive combat actions. The British examined officers and NCOs who had experience in the ETO 7 and ORO examined men with experience in Korea. 8 The agreement of the two independent studies is striking. For attack and defense in European actions, it was found that about 80 percent of effective rifle and LMG fire takes place at less than 200 yd and 90 percent at less than 300 yd, according to the estimates made by the men interviewed. About 90 percent of the LMG fire was at less than 300 yd. Of 602 men questioned about use of the M-1 rifle in Korea, 8 7 percent said that at least 95 percent** of all their firing was done at targets within 300 yd range (day time offensive fighting) , R For day time defensive fighting, 80 percent of the men said that rifles were used at 300 yd or less. Figure 1 shows the frequency in which rifles are used as a function of range, based on responses of interrogated infantrymen. The approximate correspondence of the curves in the Figure indicates that the use of the rifle is to at leas.t some extent dependent upon battlefield terrain features as they affect visibility."*"' Although it is freely acknowledged that the use of data derived from judgments of the men about the use of their basic arm may be subject to question, the validity of the opinion survey has been substantiated by a more recent Korean study conducted in combat areas.9 Also, as mentioned earlier, the analysis made by AORG tends to support the conclusion that the infantry basic weapon is actually used, on the average, at shorter ranges than commonly believed.

**The men were asked to give the outside limit of 95 percent of their firing in order to eliminate those rare shots which might be fired at long ranges without expectation of hitting the target.

***See section on battlefield visibility.

 

[jsb]

To be fair they wanted a BAR if they had a Pattern1917

To be fair the HG tended to be very finicky about non British weapons. Look at all the endless complaints about the M1917 Enfield which was a perfectly good rifle. Its only flaw was that it wasn't " British".

Home Guard claims

Might that have something to do with 20 year old guns not in the best of shape or storage, rather than how good they are when new? Did perfectly good 1917s not get taken out of boxes in the Philippines and find they had lots of issues that needed to be fixed (extractors etc) is it not likley that hand me downs to the home guard had the same faults that are nothing to do with the guns design?

 

[yulzari]

Might that have something to do with 20 year old guns not in the best of shape or storage, rather than how good they are when new? Did perfectly good 1917s not get taken out of boxes in the Philippines and find they had lots of issues that needed to be fixed (extractors etc) is it not likley that hand me downs to the home guard had the same faults that are nothing to do with the guns design?

The Pattern 1917s were not just handed out straight from the crate. They were inspected before issue to the Home Guard units and faults dealt with in the normal way at that point and when found in service. They worked fine. The issue troops had was that they were not Regular Army weapons so they were anxious to get 'proper' rifles i.e. Lee Enfields in .303. A perception that they were getting 2nd class weapons but the rifles themselves were not thought poor in themselves. Some units got quite cross when they had SMLEs etc. taken away but it was important to have each unit standardised on either .303 or .30-06 for all it's weapons. IIRC my grandfather's Company very early got Vickers and SMLEs as they were on the East coast and very likely to meet an invasion. Later they were swapped to a .30-06 basis and these were taken away and Pattern 1917s issued in lieu. I don't recall what replaced the Vickers in the concrete pillboxes. Later they reverted to .303 and Vickers in 1943.

FWIW a 2 bore punt gun was also a weapon in their defence plan. But doubtless someone will assure me that they should have had a USA Browning Auto-5 as it had a 5 round capacity.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

How many of them used the BAR in combat?

Almost certainly Zero - issue here is many of them would have used the Lewis in combat in WW1 - a far better LMG than the BAR and the organisation who while a militia army do have close links with the actual Army who also have Bren guns.

So that Home Guard Statement is probably a result of them comparing the BAR with the BREN and Lewis for whom a robust manual of arms existed

Now that's not intended to slight the BAR - it is after all 'not an LMG' but a well made, John Moses Browning designed 'automatic rifle that could' and in the lack of an LMG the US Military muddled through with it.

And had the Germans decided to fully identify as a sea mammal in late 1940 then BARs then in service with the Home Guard would see them muddling through as well and using them as LMGs.

 

[McPherson]

Yes, if you want to refer to something and someone asks to quote exactly what you mean if you want your point to even be addressed you should do so.

Since I repeated from memory, why should I?

And you can't see the lack of realism in those 'tests'? They don't have combat rigs on, they aren't march firing over ground that approximated WW1 field conditions, they're firing at targets that are at incredibly short ranges compared to normal trench distances, etc.
Its certainly fun to see all that shooting, but the real world combat applicability of those tests is virtually nil.

You have to be kidding. The tests were identical for each gun under controlled conditions. The malfunctions noted would have been worse in combat. The users were expert in the takedowns and jam fixes as SEEN.

I've posted that research before and you didn't bother to read it.

https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/000346.pdf

[/.quote]
P.23 of the PDF, which is p. 9 on the report itself.

I did read it. Did you, again? The researchers claim the shooters in the British studies reported the shooters (Korea specifically) used their weapons most effectively within 300 yards (270 meters) of enemy, *(Turks shot by the Chinese, BTW.) not that the M1 Garand could not hit anything beyond 100 meters. The one study which cites Bougainville and the M1 and short ranges is JUNGLE TERRAIN where I would expect meeting engagement ranges (ambushes) would close down to the 70 yards cited as typical. SHEESH, context and accuracy is important when one cites data.