So you think this war is fucked up. With the political inbiting and so on.

I just recently found out about this on the history channel. During WWI, American troops being intergrated into the european forces were handed a lightweight french machine gun, I forget the name seems like it was called a char char or something like that. Usually within a week of being given one it was thrown away as a bow an arrow were more reliable. The magazine had two large notches open to the world. Ever see pictures of the trenches. Also they were so poorly and hastily made it was quite literally impossible to take parts from one gun and use to patch up another.

The americans had a far superior weapon in the Browning, but was so afraid that the germans would get ahold of it, they kept most of them at home. The british had at least a rather good machine gun but General Pershing told them He wouldn't let the americans serve as replacements for British troops. So the British only issued their guns to british troops. So the only guns issued to americans were this flimsy piece of french snail shit. Probably killed as many allies as the germans did. Politics killed people then and keeps on killing, makes the energizer bunny look bad.

It's amazing how many good weapons we develop and then are afraid to use.

What is even worse is how many bad weapons systems we develop, fail to test properly to show the flaws, and then insist our troops use. For example the torpedoes we gave the torpedoe bomber pilots at the start of World War II, which ran at a depth of 37 feet, when the deepest draft of any Japanese ship was 32 feet.

The gun in question was called the "sho-sho" by the American troops it was issued to, and it was indeed a mediocre weapon at best. There was a problem with the interchangeabilty of parts, and if you look at a picture of one with a crescent magazine, you can see that the sides of the magazine are open so you can visually check your ammunition status. Imagine trying to keep mud out of your ammo clip.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8663/machinegunchauchatln5.jpg

Thank you for the back up Vilepagan.

Imagineer, I had heard about the torpedos but had forgotten, good point.

I think I recall reading somewhere that about one-third of the torpedoes our subs fired were duds.

The U.S. was woefully unprepared for WWII.

The gun in question was called the "sho-sho" by the American troops it was issued to, and it was indeed a mediocre weapon at best. There was a problem with the interchangeabilty of parts, and if you look at a picture of one with a crescent magazine, you can see that the sides of the magazine are open so you can visually check your ammunition status. Imagine trying to keep mud out of your ammo clip.

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/8663/machinegunchauchatln5.jpg


it's called a magazine pagan

it's called a magazine pagan

Err...what is?

Time, Life, National Geographic, ...

Err...what is?
An ammo clip.