Army equipment that should have seen service

[Deleted member 1487]

San cristobal carbine
Looks like a beretta smg
Use the .345 winchester
Its a kiraly lever delayed design
Its strong , fires a powerful round for a smg
A proto AR for ww2 View attachment 535963View attachment 535964

You sure that's the right cartridge for the carbine?

 

[Terço]

Its a ww1 cartridge designed for the Burton blowback carbine
If a blowback handles it , a lever delayed will handle it fine

 

[Terço]

Its not a true ar , its closer to the lathi experiments in ww2

 

[marathag]

San cristobal carbine
Looks like a beretta smg
Use the .345 winchester
Its a kiraly lever delayed design
Its strong , fires a powerful round for a smg
A proto AR for ww2 View attachment 535963View attachment 535964

per the Wiki, these was the criteria for the new carbine round
U.S. Army specifications for the new cartridge mandated the caliber to be greater than .27, with an effective range of 300 yards or more, and a midrange trajectory ordinate of 18 inches (460 mm) or less at 300 yards. With these requirements in hand, Winchester's Edwin Pugsley chose to design the cartridge with a .30 caliber, 100–120 grain bullet at a velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s). The first cartridges were made by turning down rims on .32SL cases and loading with .308 caliber bullets which had a similar profile to those of the U.S. military .45 ACP bullets. The first 100,000 cartridges manufactured were headstamped ".30 SL" (for "self-loading").[9]

Some production had been been done with the .276" for the Rifle program, and to recover cost on that, decide to use that 125 grain spitzer in a necked down
351 Winchester SL case

So call it the 6.8x35mm in Metric speak-- a less powerful Remington 6.8SPC, say 2100fps that gives a ME of 1660J

would have less drop than .30 Carbine and would meet all the specifications the Army wanted, but a far more accurate round
http://gundata.org/ballistic-calculator/ with a custom downloaded Rem 6.8 to 2100 fps and heavier bullet vs M1 Carbine

Twice the energy past 200 yards and flatter trajectory

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Its a ww1 cartridge designed for the Burton blowback carbine
If a blowback handles it , a lever delayed will handle it fine

Yeah, but we don't really know how well or if the Burton LMR worked as advertised. The similar Ribeyrolles carbine was a reliability nightmare and the designer never got it to work right. It used the same cartridge in blowback. The level delay probably would have helped, though once you get to a certain level of cartridge power you need to either lubricate a well tapered cartridge or flute the chamber to deal with extraction issues.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

per the Wiki, these was the criteria for the new carbine round
U.S. Army specifications for the new cartridge mandated the caliber to be greater than .27, with an effective range of 300 yards or more, and a midrange trajectory ordinate of 18 inches (460 mm) or less at 300 yards. With these requirements in hand, Winchester's Edwin Pugsley chose to design the cartridge with a .30 caliber, 100–120 grain bullet at a velocity of 2,000 feet per second (610 m/s). The first cartridges were made by turning down rims on .32SL cases and loading with .308 caliber bullets which had a similar profile to those of the U.S. military .45 ACP bullets. The first 100,000 cartridges manufactured were headstamped ".30 SL" (for "self-loading").[9]

Some production had been been done with the .276" for the Rifle program, and to recover cost on that, decide to use that 125 grain spitzer in a necked down
351 Winchester SL case

So call it the 6.8x35mm in Metric speak-- a less powerful Remington 6.8SPC, say 2100fps that gives a ME of 1660J

would have less drop than .30 Carbine and would meet all the specifications the Army wanted, but a far more accurate round
http://gundata.org/ballistic-calculator/ with a custom downloaded Rem 6.8 to 2100 fps and heavier bullet vs M1 Carbine
View attachment 535986

Twice the energy past 200 yards and flatter trajectory

.276 is 7mm not 6.8. Also the Pedersen .276 126 grain bullet consumed about 9.14mm of case capacity, so at 35mm long there isn't that much room left for powder even if the case is wider. Add in the boat tailed design and smaller caliber diameter and you're going to be losing a fair bit of surface area for the expanding gasses to press on on the bullet, which will cost velocity.

 

[Catsmate]

What sort of 5.7mm could be point black at 300 yards and still use a simple blowback system???

.20 cal was floated in 1930 in an Aberdeen Proving Ground report by a guy named Kent.

Gun designers figured out the small caliber, high velocity thing (for the time) at least as early as the 1890s:

6mm Lee Navy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

An Obscure Birth for the Military Twenty Two: The Forgotten .22 US Army of 1895 -

What was the first military .22 caliber high velocity infantry rifle round ever developed? Many would name the 5.56mm round designed in the 1950s to that title, but that would be incorrect. In truth, it’s probably impossible to know for sure due to the large number of obscure and even totally...

www.thefirearmblog.com

6mm Lee for example, even the heavier bullets were at 800m/s at the muzzle.

 

[Terço]

Compared to .30 m1 the next one 9x35 lathi seems powerful , the 9x40 litja its like the .30 but longer

 

[Father Maryland]

Isn't Singapore unofficial policy to fight in somebody else country by advancing off the island faster than they can do anything about it? Its also a question of if the likley opponents have that much high end AT fire-power?

Fair enough. Though isn't "If war seems inevitable do your best to fight it in someone elses country" IDF's unofficial policy as well.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Austria-Hungary should have adopted Mannlicher's pistol calibre carbine.

An M1 Carbine in WWI? Would have really buffed their Jagdkommandos.

 

[Terço]

Lewis assault phase rifle
Probably better than a BAR

 

[McPherson]

True
But MOWAG products work just fine and are built in Canada and US

I can only report the history and draw the conclusions. MOWAGs are wheeled ATVs. A tank is a tracklayer and a decidedly more difficult engineering headache human factors engineering problem as to ergonomics and mechanicals> BTW it takes a real lack of experience to figure out how to knock out the electrical system, futz the radio, and render the main gun inoperative by mutual signal interference or conflicting draw demand paths on the service busses inside a tank all powered off the main engine instead of/or with an another backup power source. How do you do that and call yourself competent in the problem? Should have asked for French or British help at some point in the PZ68 process.

 

[Deleted member 1487]

Lewis assault phase rifle View attachment 536011
Probably better than a BAR

Maybe, but the lack of inline stock will make the recoil in automatic problematic.
Plus frankly in .30-06 it was probably too light. In .276 Pedersen it would have been a gem.

 

[Terço]

.250 savage
Low recoil , flat trajectory

 

[Deleted member 1487]

.250 savage
Low recoil , flat trajectory

We talked about that here:

Design an automatic rifle for WW2 in 1938

So since the topic of the BAR came up today in this thread: https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/army-equipment-that-should-have-seen-service.485565/page-30 Assuming cost and existing equipment was no restraint, design the US an ideal (in your opinion) automatic rifle replacement...

www.alternatehistory.com

The only issue is that even by 1914 the .25-3000 was out of date as it was designed around lower pressure powders. With a modified .30-06 case chopped down and with a modern (for the 1910s) powder (or in the 1920s a ball powder) at the same length it would have been really formidable in a 100 grain bullet.

In that case the Lewis APR in .25 caliber with an inline stock would have been killer.

 

[Veiovis]

It occurred to me that the other most likely country to purchase a Merkava would be Singapore. Similarly to Israel it's a very very wealthy country with conscription and extremely limited manpower reserves. Pretty much any Singaporean tank use is going to be defensive and in a urban enviroment meaning the Merkava's lower speed is less of a disadvantage and it's heavier armor is a better trade off.

No,singapore quite sensibly regards actually fighting in its own city as having pretty much lost the war. It instead plans to quickly attack north,which is why its SPG systems for example are much narrower than those of many others-they are designed to fit the narrow tracks of malaysian plantations.

 

[Not James Stockdale]

It occurred to me that the other most likely country to purchase a Merkava would be Singapore. Similarly to Israel it's a very very wealthy country with conscription and extremely limited manpower reserves. Pretty much any Singaporean tank use is going to be defensive and in a urban enviroment meaning the Merkava's lower speed is less of a disadvantage and it's heavier armor is a better trade off.

Maybe SK as well. Or perhaps ROC if Israel had worse relations with China.

Similarly perhaps Finland.

Isn't Singapore unofficial policy to fight in somebody else country by advancing off the island faster than they can do anything about it? Its also a question of if the likley opponents have that much high end AT fire-power?

The specific circumstances of Singapore's strategic situation mean that the Singaporeans have about three days to advance into southern Malaysia and secure the reservoirs before the city runs out of water. Once these are secure, they have significantly more strategic and tactical flexibility. Desalination capacity is increasing, but they simply don't have the money to build anything beyond the bare minimum to keep the population from going thirsty, and everyone knows that those plants are going to be immediate targets.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

The Swiss make excellent precision machinery. However; their history of tank design and production is not the best.

The operator testimony at the bottom of that article seems to suggest that the Pz68 wasn't nearly as bad as its reputation and scandal would suggest.

And I've found another with similar sentiment.

 

[tomo pauk]

The only issue is that even by 1914 the .25-3000 was out of date as it was designed around lower pressure powders.

?? What mattered (and still matters) is bullet muzzle velocity, weight, shape and diameter. The .250-3000 was just fine for the automatic rifle needs.

 

[McPherson]

The operator testimony at the bottom of that article seems to suggest that the Pz68 wasn't nearly as bad as its reputation and scandal would suggest.

And I've found another with similar sentiment.

I had the opportunity to fulfill my service in the Panzer 68 and in its combat performance increased version. I can still remember well, that with the combat performance improved vehicles we were used in a Leopard(Leopard 2 since we never used the Leo 1) recruit school in Bure as training vehicles. We totally schooled them, until the point a shouting command came through, that we have to start losing since we were driving the inferior tank. We definitely had fun until the end, while drills were still made in the recruit school… A well trained crew, which understood to unburden its commander during fire control, to allow him to perform battle management, had a definitive chance against the on paper superior foe.


And our heater always worked perfectly ;-)

I read that and I immediately wondered WHY he made specific mention of it, if there were not fire control issues?

(Original article in German.)

The tank that fired by itself
by Peter Blunschi - The Swiss army has once again fallen into the twilight with the Nef affair and the Kander drama. In a series, we look back at scandals and affairs of the last 50 years. Today: the defective tank 68.

During the summer session of Parliament in 1979, "Weltwoche" published an article that stirred up a lot of dust not only in Bern. The newspaper quoted from a confidential letter from Divisional Robert Haener, the head of the Mechanized and Light Troops. In it, Switzerland's supreme "tank general" came to a devastating conclusion: Panzer 68, a proud product of the Federal Weapons Forge in Thun, was not fit for war.

"In view of the current situation with Panzer 68, I reject any responsibility for the operational readiness of the respective armoured units," Haener stated in the letter he had already sent to Chief of Staff Hans Senn in March 1979. Because he reacted only hesitantly, the letter probably ended up with a targeted indiscretion at the "World Week", which spoke of a "tragic chapter of Swiss arms policy".

Turret as a weak point

The Parliament set up a group of experts headed by Sigmund Widmer, LdU National Councillor and Mayor of Zurich. It listed dozens of flaws. Thus, the protection of tank 68 against nuclear and chemical weapons was insufficient, the crew had to wear protective masks. The reverse gear could only be taken at a complete standstill and not in full speed, as would be necessary in combat. And when using the radio at full strength, the tower began to spin by itself.

The turret was the tank's biggest weak point anyway. At first it was far too small, the crew could hardly move in it. From the third series, a larger turret was set up, but the extra weight meant that the armored chains were wearing off faster than planned and in some cases even jumped off.

Probably the biggest flop had already made headlines in 1978: When the heating was switched on, the cannon fired itself. The reason for this was that different systems were attached to the same circuit. When the heating was turned on, so-called creep currents could be generated, which activated the detonator of the cannon. Only with luck nothing serious happened. "The Panzer 68 are much more dangerous than they look," wrote the "Blick" at the time with a sarcastic undertone.

"An industrial necessity"

The poor production of the Panzer 68 was not a new finding. As early as 1974, a federal commission had come to a ruthless conclusion: "The nature and number of defects do not make it possible to speak of a vehicle suitable for war." But that didn't matter, because procurement was not for military reasons, but for economic reasons. The Swiss armaments industry demanded orders. Federal Councillor Nello Celio, as head of the Federal Military Department (EMD) in 1968, bluntly stated it when he bought the first series: "This is not a military necessity, but an industrial necessity."

After the publication of the Haener letter, the problems could no longer be ignored. Rudolf Gnägi, Celio's successor as head of EMD, came under criticism. As is the case today, the Bernese SVP Federal Council was regarded as weak in leadership. The Mirror quoted mocking voices at NATO in Brussels: "As long as Switzerland affords the Gnägi as Minister of Defence, the Kremlin cannot do anything evil in its shield." At the end of 1979, Gnägi resigned, not because of the tank scandal, as he pointed out.

Further self-construction stopped

The Panzer 68 was made reasonably operational with expensive retrofits. After the turn of the millennium, he was retired. The planned sale of the last 200 copies to Thailand failed, after which the former scrap tank was scrapped. The affair had far-reaching consequences for the arms industry. The development of another self-build as a successor to the British Centurion was stopped and the German Leopard II was purchased instead. The dream of a battle tank from local production was dreamed up.

I think that sums the case.