Small arms that should never have seen service

Sachyriel

Banned
Damn it rogue you had to take the only good Canadian rifle and drag it though the mud! :mad:

referencing how it jammed
 
For snipers it was good. For everyone else it was a club.

Or worse. It was entirely possible to put the rifle's bolt assembly together backwards, resulting in (parts of) the bolt being shot out of the gun on firing and into the user's own head. With the expected fatal results.

Canadian units opted to replace the Ross rifles with 'previously owned' Lee-Enfields as soon as the could, whenever they could get away with it. (The PPCLI, being privately raised and not part of Canada's official commitment to the War until 1917 or so, went with the Lee-Enfield right from the beginning.) The permanent switch wasn't made until after Sam Hughes, Minister of the Militia, got fired in 1916. IIRC he held shares in the company that made the Ross rifle, among other things.
 

Japhy

Banned
The M-16A1 Might have made sense as an Air Force Guard Rifle, but its adoption for the entirety of the Armed forces was an awful decision in the 1960s. By all accounts I've heard its use in Vietnam was inferior in just about every situation to the M-14 and it would be decades before the US Military would sort it out into a decent weapon.
 
Some of the choices are interesting and appear to be based more upon the misuse that certain weapons were put to by their users, rather than necessarily any real problem with the design.

Examples from above are the Chauchat and the L85/SA80. The Chauchat in French service never provoked the condemnation it did in American service - interesting that. The L85/SA80 was in its earlier forms flawed but in its latest variant acclaimed as being more reliable than the weapons which it was trialled against (the M16a2).

The M16 design is flawed but not so much as to have perhaps prevented it seeing service. When modified with a gas piston, it is said to be excellent.

The only weapon off the top of my head which should never have seen service was the M60 GPMG. Unreliable and physically weak, its design was such that it was possible to place the gas piston into the cylinder backwards if one was not careful and that prevented the weapon functioning at all. Interestingly and perhaps ironically considering what I just typed, users had to purposefully install the clip which was designed to hold the retaining pins for the pistol grip and trigger group upside down because if installed the correct way up, it was prone to shaking itself loose.

The weapon was, because of the poor quality of the materials utilised, prone to a condition called "run away gun" where it would continue firing until the ammunition supply was exhausted once the trigger was released. In the Australian Army the approved IA (Immediate Action) for such an eventuality was to throw the belt of ammunition over the gun, so that it would purposefully cause a stoppage.

In 1960, when the Australian Army carried out trials for a replacement for the venerable and well liked Bren Gun, there were two contenders - the M60 and the FN-MAG58. The FN-MAG58 actually won but political considerations ensured that the M60 was adopted. When the M60 was finally replaced, guess what weapon replaced it in Australian Army service? The FN-MAG58 (actually the British L7 version).

In the late 1970s, the US Army carried out trials of their own for a new tank co-ax machine gun. The weapons trialled were an "improved" version of the M60, supposedly optimised for tank work and an FN-MAG58 also optimised for tank work. The M60 failed dismally. They found the only way they could get a stoppage in the FN-MAG58 after 100,000 rounds fired through it was to pour sand into it. After 500,000 rounds the FN-MAG58 showed minor cracking on the body. The M60 had failed after only 25,000 rounds, showing cracking already and by 100,000 rounds it was condemned as unsafe, IIRC.

The results were such that even the US Army couldn't ignore them and so they adopted the FN-MAG58 as a co-ax in the M1 tank. The Infantry quickly followed.
 
Or worse. It was entirely possible to put the rifle's bolt assembly together backwards, resulting in (parts of) the bolt being shot out of the gun on firing and into the user's own head. With the expected fatal results.

Canadian units opted to replace the Ross rifles with 'previously owned' Lee-Enfields as soon as the could, whenever they could get away with it. (The PPCLI, being privately raised and not part of Canada's official commitment to the War until 1917 or so, went with the Lee-Enfield right from the beginning.) The permanent switch wasn't made until after Sam Hughes, Minister of the Militia, got fired in 1916. IIRC he held shares in the company that made the Ross rifle, among other things.

The Ross mechanism was simply too delicate for the conditions of the Western Front. It was though, when working properly, considerably more accurate than the SMLE which replaced it. The SMLE with its rearward locking bolt was considerably more robust than its main competitor the forward locking Mauser action.
 
The German G41 semi auto rifle; admittedly its failures where because the requested spec's where insane; but even still I'd rather fight with a 40 year old kar98 than that thing any day of the week
 
The M50 Reising.

A Marine Colonel (no less a figure than Merrit Edson) actually ordered his company to dump their M50s into a river rather than use them to fight. Like the Ross Rifle the M50 was a civilian firearm, and a decent one at that, but completely unsuited to use on battlefield. Especially the Pacific theater, perhaps the grimiest and most unforgiving environment for firearms on earth
 
Rickshaw, I specified the SA80/L85A1. If I'd meant the A2 version, I'd've said so.

Also, both it and the M16/M4 series suffer from the 5.56 mm cartridge. The Brits would likely have been much better served if they'd stuck with the .280. 60 years later the ballistically similar 6.8 mm Remington SPC is widely seen as been the superior replacement for the insufficient 5.56 mm.
 
FBI should've gone with the .45 as well instead of the .40 short and weak.

You are aware of the reason the FBI switched from the 10mm to the .40 S&W aren't you? If not let me enlighten you. It was largely down to the fact that most agents had trouble handling the recoil of the 10mm, something that isn't going to be solved by switching to the .45 ACP. In fact the whole rational behind the .40 was that it was an acceptable halfway house between the 9mm and the .45, providing more stopping power than the former and smaller and easier to control than the latter. That last is an important selling point for law enforcement agencies as most cops never fire their weapons anywhere but the range and can't be described as marksmen.
 
M9. The US Army should have just stuck with the M1911.

Yeah, because sticking with a first generation auto-pistol whose design was seventy years old at that point is a great idea. Also add in the fact that most of the USArmy's stock of M1911's had been rebuilt two or three times each by the 80's and you're really looking at a weapon to see out the 20th century.

I actually quite like the Colt 45, but this constant banging on about the thing like it's a doomsday device is plain dumb. If you want a .45 pistol for your military then fine, but pick one that takes advantage of the last hundred years worth of improvements in design and ergonomics.
 
Yeah, because sticking with a first generation auto-pistol whose design was seventy years old at that point is a great idea. Also add in the fact that most of the USArmy's stock of M1911's had been rebuilt two or three times each by the 80's and you're really looking at a weapon to see out the 20th century.

I actually quite like the Colt 45, but this constant banging on about the thing like it's a doomsday device is plain dumb. If you want a .45 pistol for your military then fine, but pick one that takes advantage of the last hundred years worth of improvements in design and ergonomics.

You can install different grips and sights, but there's nothing wrong with the basics of the weapon. But yes, age is an issue...
 
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