Impractical weapons, armour, and equipment - Mike Sparks spinoff

[King Kong... with wings?]

Nobody mentioned this surprisingly

 

[AnOminous]

They were susceptible in the sense that getting smashed with a pollaxe would knock anyone over from the blunt impact, but the impact would be far more devastating to someone not wearing armour. A helmet would often make the difference between being knocked out and having your skull caved in.

The utility of polearms is often underestimated these days because they're not really "sexy" weapons like swords. They had a lot to do with being easily improvised from items that existed on farms and that peasants would have access to, and the ability to use them in formations to keep an enemy too far away to use their sexy swords and other such weapons. They would also discourage cavalry charges directly at the formation, and if someone were foolish enough to charge anyway, punish them for it. And of course, the hooked polearms like the glaive-guisarme could dismount a horseman.

They weren't particularly fantastic for directly dealing damage, but if you could hold the baddies off indefinitely, you had time to whack at them.

They also had the advantage of being fairly effective even with relatively untrained troops, i.e. you could put them in the hands of a bunch of peasants you didn't really care about, although there were also professional troops who used these as well. Compare to swordsmen, who were often highly skilled and trained and of noble birth. If you lost a bunch of skilled swordsmen, your forces would be crippled for years while you trained new ones from the ground up.

Polearms are sort of on the exact opposite end of the subject of this thread, i.e. ridiculously practical and completely un-sexy.

Nobody mentioned this surprisingly

What is that even for? Hunting triceratopses? It looks like it would turn a rhinoceros into hamburger.

 

[HG 400]

Assault weapons in general are impractical for civilian use.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

The utility of polearms is often underestimated these days because they're not really "sexy" weapons like swords. They had a lot to do with being easily improvised from items that existed on farms and that peasants would have access to, and the ability to use them in formations to keep an enemy too far away to use their sexy swords and other such weapons. They would also discourage cavalry charges directly at the formation, and if someone were foolish enough to charge anyway, punish them for it. And of course, the hooked polearms like the glaive-guisarme could dismount a horseman.

They weren't particularly fantastic for directly dealing damage, but if you could hold the baddies off indefinitely, you had time to whack at them.

They also had the advantage of being fairly effective even with relatively untrained troops, i.e. you could put them in the hands of a bunch of peasants you didn't really care about, although there were also professional troops who used these as well. Compare to swordsmen, who were often highly skilled and trained and of noble birth. If you lost a bunch of skilled swordsmen, your forces would be crippled for years while you trained new ones from the ground up.

Polearms are sort of on the exact opposite end of the subject of this thread, i.e. ridiculously practical and completely un-sexy.



What is that even for? Hunting triceratopses? It looks like it would turn a rhinoceros into hamburger.

Polearms were used by all classes, though, including nobility. Knights and winged hussars had lances, and dismounted 15th century knights usually had a pollaxe as the main weapon, with a sword in reserve. Samurai who fought in close combat used spears, with swords in reserve. And so on.

Spoiler

Cavalry charging into pikemen would hit with long lances, leading to a sort of arms race between lancers and pikemen to outreach each other. Polish lances and the pikes opposing them got ridiculously long in the 17th century.

Swords were used as primary weapons on battlefields by 2 groups of people: people like Romans with massive shields to protect them from spears while they got in close, and cavalry who weren't going to be charging into pike blocks anyway (for example, Napoleonic cavalry, although there were some lances used there too). Other than that, the sword was a backup in case the polearm broke, or the enemy got so close it wasn't useful anymore. It's true that a load of peasants with polearms could stop noble enemies, but nobles would often be using similar equipment themselves.

 

[:thinking:]

Assault weapons in general are impractical for civilian use.

I disagree.

 

[AnOminous]

Polearms were used by all classes, though, including nobility. Knights and winged hussars had lances, and dismounted 15th century knights usually had a pollaxe as the main weapon, with a sword in reserve. Samurai who fought in close combat used spears, with swords in reserve. And so on.

I mentioned that indirectly, in terms of professional soldiers also using them. This is largely because a dismounted knight would often be dealing with people with this kind of weapon. Samurai are definitely also famous for using multiple weapons, and you can piss off weebs by pointing out that their beloved katana was ultimately mostly abandoned for just not being all that good a weapon and that samurai were actually more likely to use polearms, bows and other kinds of weapons.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

A Viking who is less encumbered and less protected would have to be stupid to play by the same rules as the knight in this situation. If it were me, I would maintain distance and poke at him with the spear. You only have to overbalance him, if you get him on the ground he's finished regardless of what he tries to do.

Why should the knight play by the Vikings rules and not just trample him into the ground with his horse?
A knight is primarily a mounted warrior, after all.

If they both fight on foot, throwing the knight to the ground won't be like overturning a turtle.

IMHO you have to be a poor fighter if you can't keep a guy with a sword away from you when you are armed with a spear AND are less encumbered.

If the Viking wants to actually kill the knight, he'd have to attack and when he attacks, he's vulnerable for a counter attack.

In the end, the thing to keep in mind is that the kind of armament and armor that the vikings were so fond of didn't prevail on the battlefield for a reason.
It's not like trends in fashion where someone decided bolting together little pieces of metal was so much more fashionable than tiny interlocked rings. It's an evolution from one state to the other and every step in between is an optimum of mobility, weight, protection and affordability at its time.
With new technology, new weapons and new tactics, the requirements for armor changed as well.

The 14th century is especially interesting in that regard, since you can see how French and English armor become a lot more elaborate very quickly with closed plate armor for legs and arms while German knights were still wearing mail chausses for decades. The reason is pretty obvious: England and France were engaging in the 100 years war, whereas in Germany, you'd primarily find little feuds or small scale conflicts here and there.

The question whether a Viking could win against a Knight seems kind of moot, since, historically, he already did win, if not by knockout then surely on points.

It would be possible for the Viking to win (as in kill the knight and not die or be maimed himself) if he had good footwork to avoid leg cuts, but it wouldn't be easy at all.

The viking would have to be constantly on guard and needs a lot of luck throughout the entire fight to hit the right spot with enough force without being hit himself.
The knight only has to be lucky once and hit his opponent with a glancing blow and he will win.

They would also discourage cavalry charges directly at the formation, and if someone were foolish enough to charge anyway, punish them for it. And of course, the hooked polearms like the glaive-guisarme could dismount a horseman.

According to Arne Koets, there was a technique where mounted troops would join the tips of their lances to one massive bundle during a charge and use that to effectively push aside the polearm formation of their enemies the moment they make contact.
This, of course, was something that had to be trained and the timing was crucial. Trying to open the hostile formation of spears too early or too late and you end up smashing into a forest of pointy steel that'll ruin your day.

This explains why heavy cavalry stayed relevant on the battlefield for so long, since if a few metres of wood with a steel tip on top could make you invulnerable to cavalry attacks, that kind of attack would have went extinct a lot sooner.
Then again, you can't underestimate the speed of a cavalry charge either. If the formation is distracted for just a moment, even heavy cavalry can flank them within seconds.

Still, the best life insurance against a cavalry attack is a forest of pointy steel on sticks and it does make your enemy think twice whether he wants to attack you or not.

 

[Pointless Pedant]

I mentioned that indirectly, in terms of professional soldiers also using them. This is largely because a dismounted knight would often be dealing with people with this kind of weapon. Samurai are definitely also famous for using multiple weapons, and you can piss off weebs by pointing out that their beloved katana was ultimately mostly abandoned for just not being all that good a weapon and that samurai were actually more likely to use polearms, bows and other kinds of weapons.

The sword was used in civilian life and duels, since it's easy to wear as opposed to carrying a spear around everywhere. It was never a primary battlefield weapon in Japan, except for the huge "nodachi" which were as long as some pole weapons anyway. The sword was often worn in reserve by spearmen, archers, and musketeers on the battlefield; it was used if the spear broke, or if archers or musketeers got into close combat. This was fairly similar to how swords were worn as backup weapons by archers and pikemen in Europe.

Spoiler

You can see that, while bows and lances are the primary weapons, most people also have a sword in reserve.

 

[8777BB5]

Behold! President Reagan's brilliant plan for getting nuclear missiles anywhere in the United States. The plan was to hide Peacemaker nuclear missiles in cleverly disguised railroad cars and have them ready at hidden bases. Should war happen, these trains would be activated and sent to strategic points so that they could fight back. For those wondering the obvious, the trains these missile cars would be part of would be fitted with flatcars of panel track (A fullsize version of track you would use to build a model railroad) so if the track was blown out it could easily be bypassed. These missile trains would also having living quarters for the crew as well as relief supplies. Sadly the fall of the Soviet Union caused Reagan's successor George H.W. Bush to cancel the project.

 

[Red Hood]

Here's a weapon that doesn't suffer from poor build quality or questionable design flaws- it's just a bit too light for the round it fires to be comfortable for more than a round or two. Overall impractical unless you live in bear country.

The Smith and Wesson model 329 turns their full-size 629 into a somewhat concealable, lightweight package, using a scandium instead of stainless steel frame. What's so odd about that? It fires the vaunted .44 Magnum round. While the .44 Mag has been surpassed in power as a handgun cartridge, it still packs a hell of a punch. A .38 Special in the same type of alloy frame can be fatiguing to shoot over an extended period, so it stands to reason that the .44 Mag- which can be an exhausting gun to fire even in a full-sized, all steel revolver- would probably not prove a hugely popular choice.

The Ross rifle (a WWI-era, straight-pull bolt action) is interesting because of its impracticality as a general infantry weapon but finding favor in a more specialized application. When first issued to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police they reported 113 defects in the design. It performed poorly as soon as any grime got into its action, which was made worse by the battlefield conditions and cheaply made ammunition. It was withdrawn from general service with Canadian troops, but snipers liked its long-distance accuracy, and were more in-tune with their rifles, and it managed to find a second purpose in the hands of Allied marksmen.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

It's time for some WW1 french engineering: Meet the Chauchat.

Heralded as the "most ineffective machine gun ever produced", this gun was plagued by several poor design choices.

Originally planned to be an LMG akin to the BAR, meant to be used for suppressing fire against trenches while the shooter is moving, the whole construction relied on a rather wonky gas-assisted long recoil system, that gave it a very low rate of fire with jarring recoil (lowering accuracy) and said mechanism was very prone to jam, once the metal expanded due to prolonged firing.
Similarly, the open side of the magazine was meant to allow the shooter to check his ammo with a quick glance - unfortunately this also meant that in the trenches of WW1, dirt could very easily enter the magazine and this lead to jamming, too.
The magazine was supposed to carry 20 rounds, but fully loaded, it had a strong tendency to make the gun jam.
Since the last few steps of production where done by hand, it was pretty unlikely that parts from one Chauchat would be interchangeable with another, even if they were produced on the same day.

It was later adopted by the Americans, who built their own version in .30-06 rather than the french 8mm Lebel.
Due to a conversion error from metric to imperial, they ended up making the chamber too short for the .30-06 rounds, which could (you guessed it) make the gun jam or outright tear the spent cartridge in two, rendering the weapon completely unuseable.
It seems the .30-06 Version barely saw any use in WW1, since pretty much everyone just threw it away after they used it in combat for the first time.

And just as a cherry on top:
The sights were not aligned correctly with the barrel, the bipod was way too flimsy to be useful and firing the gun from a cheek weld carried the risk of cutting open the shooters cheek, since there was a sharp ridge in the way.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

The FP-45 Liberator pistol seemed like a good idea: a cheap ($2.10), mass produced, single-shot .45 ACP pistol that could be air dropped to resistance forces in occupied Europe so they could kill German sentries and take the Kar98K or MP-40 they were carrying. They turned out to be wildly impractical for a few reasons:

- The welded sheet metal handgrip sometimes split open at the back due to recoil, causing injuries.
- After shooting several rounds, the stamped metal breach would be bent into a disc shape so badly that the firing pin couldn't hit the primer
- The Air Force didn't want to have to waste time air dropping pistols when they could be bombing factories and towns.
- The barrel was a smoothbore, reducing accuracy to several feet.
- There was no extractor, meaning the user had to literally poke the spent cartridge out with a stick.

About 1,000,000 Liberators were made during WWII. 450,000 were given to the OSS in Europe, who didn't bother distributing them, preferring to give guerillas actual weapons like Stens and Enfields. Most of these were dumped into the North Sea or melted down for scrap. The only significant use of the Liberator was by the Philippine police.

 

[ZeCommissar]

Any vehicle from 40k can make this thread in some way lol

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

Any vehicle from 40k can make this thread in some way lol

You just reminded me of this little gem:

 

[King Kong... with wings?]

What is that even for? Hunting triceratopses? It looks like it would turn a rhinoceros into hamburger.

your guess is as good as mine it's a heavy beast of a gun

 

[TiggerNits]

The F-104 Star Fighter

This thing was, is and always will be a horrible piece of shit. It was a failure in every single way it could have been except commercially, because Lockheed had hired so serious hucksters to push this thing to NATO allies and the fallout was, in hindsight, a really good look at what was to come for almost everything that would be pushed on to NATO from the American defense industry

This thing was a lawn dart, the glide ratio was about the same as a telephone pole's and it had to be going QUICK to generate enough lift to actually fly, and it bled energy (ie speed/alt) in any turn it took, meaning it would lose speed at an alarming rate in a dogfight and have to dive and go full burn to get away and try to re-engage. Given the size of the engine compared to the plane itself, the F-104 could theoretically excel int his arena.

The F-104 was the epitome of the Shoot and Scoot/Zoom and Boom mentality that stopped working once on board radar, heat seeking missiles and competent jet tactics became a thing in the early 60s. Built with the frame of mind that made the F4U and P-38 all-stars in WW2, that you engage while diving at the enemy, from behind or a 30 degree off set from behind (makes the target bigger and easier to hit with minimal lead needing to be given by the aggressor) the F-104 was designed to go very, very fast, dive even faster, and pop off a few rounds from it's 20mm gatling gun or it's 2 early Sidewinder missiles that had a bad habit of tracking things like the sun, or really hot pavement instead of jet exhaust because it turned out jets moved fast and the missile's tracker didn't, so it would just hit what it could see. It had a giant engine and a slim frame making it perfect for that role. AT least in theory. In practice, it turns out that someone forgot that giant jet engines burn fuel REALLY quick when you're going full burn.

Another issue was their all-aluminum body and frame construction, which did make them lighter and faster, but much more susceptible to experience metal fatigue and suddenly break apart at mach 1 or just making a gradual turn after take off.

So to combat this, they added drop tanks to the wing tips at the expense of the sidewinders. Not a huge loss, due to the awful nature of those early sidewinders, They eventually decided to add more hardpoints to the plane on the centerline and under the wings. It also had a decent (for the era) onboard radar so it eventually got the AIM-7 semi-active radar guided missiles. They also tried to use the aircraft for Close Air Support (CAS) missions, having it carry a napalm canister in that role. It was miserable at this, too. It moved so quickly at low altitude to avoid stalls that it was very difficult for pilots of the day to drop munitions with any kind of reliable accuracy. The US only combat deployed them in the early stages of the Vietnam conflict, where they never shot down any enemy MiGs, but few were lost, as well.

Only five were downed in combat, two by SAMs/AAA, one got shot down by the chinese airforce after the pilot got lost and strayed in to it and didn't realize the chinese airforce was telling him to fuck off, then two trying to find his wreckage ran in to each other the same day. Afterward the entire US inventory of F-104s got taken out of the Air Force and put in to the hands of the air national guard after the Joint Chiefs finally realized the 1,100+ aircraft they had purchased were never going to be anything other than a lackluster interceptor and not the multirole super fighter they had been sold on by Lockheed.

Another fun fact by the way, the F-104 also got an upgrade in the early 60s to carry a nuclear Air-to-Air missile on the centerline pylon, and it was the only US jet fast enough to fire it and hopefully escape the blast radius, but that depended heavily on wind conditions and the speed the weapon was fired at. Early Cold War anti-bomber tactics were nuts, ya'll.

Lockheed even hired a hollywood production company to make a serial film, that was shown in US, Italian, English and West German theatres about how great the plane was. MST3K even did a riff on it. The UK's press got wise to how awful the plane was, and how their homemade Electric Lightening was superior in a great many ways, including cost, and it started a debacle after the government showed signs of being bought off to purchase the planes and canceled the deal. It led to a great british comedy album shitting all over the aircraft and lockheed.

So we made over 2500 of these planes and sold them to Japan, Italy, Canada, Norway, West Germany and Spain, which led to each country's Air Force in to wondering what the fuck their procurement departments were smoking, and the easiest way to find out how to say "Flying Coffin" in like, 7 langauges. Though the Canadians had the best nickname for it with "Aluminum Deathtube" which sounds like a really bitchin punk band. The safety record of the aircraft was absolutely awful. The worst the USAF has ever dealt with, infact, with 30.6 aircraft lost per 100,000 operational hours. The next worse is only at 16.2. Think about that

The Germans and Italians used them for the longest span as a dedicated fighter, and both lost almost a quarter of their inventory to accidents and breakage. The German Airforce and Navy so despised the aircraft that when the wall fell, they quickly deactivated all their starfighter squadrons and replaced them with MiGs. The Italians, being Italians, kept them for another 8 years, and even used them during Desert Storm and offering to send some to Afghanistan to support the US after 9/11. Admittedly, the Italian F-104s were re-manufactures from Italy proper, and were believed to be inherently superior to the originals, boasting a removal of the gun, additional pylons and a stronger frame.

 

[RomanesEuntDomus]

The F-104 Star Fighter

This thing was, is and always will be a horrible piece of shit. It was a failure in every single way it could have been except commercially, because Lockheed had hired so serious hucksters to push this thing to NATO allies and the fallout was, in hindsight, a really good look at what was to come for almost everything that would be pushed on to NATO from the American defense industry

This thing was a lawn dart, the glide ratio was about the same as a telephone pole's and it had to be going QUICK to generate enough lift to actually fly, and it bled energy (ie speed/alt) in any turn it took, meaning it would lose speed at an alarming rate in a dogfight and have to dive and go full burn to get away and try to re-engage. Given the size of the engine compared to the plane itself, the F-104 could theoretically excel int his arena.

The F-104 was the epitome of the Shoot and Scoot/Zoom and Boom mentality that stopped working once on board radar, heat seeking missiles and competent jet tactics became a thing in the early 60s. Built with the frame of mind that made the F4U and P-38 all-stars in WW2, that you engage while diving at the enemy, from behind or a 30 degree off set from behind (makes the target bigger and easier to hit with minimal lead needing to be given by the aggressor) the F-104 was designed to go very, very fast, dive even faster, and pop off a few rounds from it's 20mm gatling gun or it's 2 early Sidewinder missiles that had a bad habit of tracking things like the sun, or really hot pavement instead of jet exhaust because it turned out jets moved fast and the missile's tracker didn't, so it would just hit what it could see. It had a giant engine and a slim frame making it perfect for that role. AT least in theory. In practice, it turns out that someone forgot that giant jet engines burn fuel REALLY quick when you're going full burn.

Another issue was their all-aluminum body and frame construction, which did make them lighter and faster, but much more susceptible to experience metal fatigue and suddenly break apart at mach 1 or just making a gradual turn after take off.

So to combat this, they added drop tanks to the wing tips at the expense of the sidewinders. Not a huge loss, due to the awful nature of those early sidewinders, They eventually decided to add more hardpoints to the plane on the centerline and under the wings. It also had a decent (for the era) onboard radar so it eventually got the AIM-7 semi-active radar guided missiles. They also tried to use the aircraft for Close Air Support (CAS) missions, having it carry a napalm canister in that role. It was miserable at this, too. It moved so quickly at low altitude to avoid stalls that it was very difficult for pilots of the day to drop munitions with any kind of reliable accuracy. The US only combat deployed them in the early stages of the Vietnam conflict, where they never shot down any enemy MiGs, but few were lost, as well.

Only five were downed in combat, two by SAMs/AAA, one got shot down by the chinese airforce after the pilot got lost and strayed in to it and didn't realize the chinese airforce was telling him to fuck off, then two trying to find his wreckage ran in to each other the same day. Afterward the entire US inventory of F-104s got taken out of the Air Force and put in to the hands of the air national guard after the Joint Chiefs finally realized the 1,100+ aircraft they had purchased were never going to be anything other than a lackluster interceptor and not the multirole super fighter they had been sold on by Lockheed.

Another fun fact by the way, the F-104 also got an upgrade in the early 60s to carry a nuclear Air-to-Air missile on the centerline pylon, and it was the only US jet fast enough to fire it and hopefully escape the blast radius, but that depended heavily on wind conditions and the speed the weapon was fired at. Early Cold War anti-bomber tactics were nuts, ya'll.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4SxGs5An1oA
Lockheed even hired a hollywood production company to make a serial film, that was shown in US, Italian, English and West German theatres about how great the plane was. MST3K even did a riff on it. The UK's press got wise to how awful the plane was, and how their homemade Electric Lightening was superior in a great many ways, including cost, and it started a debacle after the government showed signs of being bought off to purchase the planes and canceled the deal. It led to a great british comedy album shitting all over the aircraft and lockheed.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=yEBE5RqtV9U
So we made over 2500 of these planes and sold them to Japan, Italy, Canada, Norway, West Germany and Spain, which led to each country's Air Force in to wondering what the fuck their procurement departments were smoking, and the easiest way to find out how to say "Flying Coffin" in like, 7 langauges. Though the Canadians had the best nickname for it with "Aluminum Deathtube" which sounds like a really bitchin punk band. The safety record of the aircraft was absolutely awful. The worst the USAF has ever dealt with, infact, with 30.6 aircraft lost per 100,000 operational hours. The next worse is only at 16.2. Think about that

The Germans and Italians used them for the longest span as a dedicated fighter, and both lost almost a quarter of their inventory to accidents and breakage. The German Airforce and Navy so despised the aircraft that when the wall fell, they quickly deactivated all their starfighter squadrons and replaced them with MiGs. The Italians, being Italians, kept them for another 8 years, and even used them during Desert Storm and offering to send some to Afghanistan to support the US after 9/11. Admittedly, the Italian F-104s were re-manufactures from Italy proper, and were believed to be inherently superior to the originals, boasting a removal of the gun, additional pylons and a stronger frame.

Oh god, the F-104... I'll admit it looks sexy as fuck, especially with those wingtip droptanks, but it was just so poorly handled all around.

In the role of a very light and fast interceptor, this thing would have been decent (and a lot of german pilots praised it for this role), but thehigher ups also wanted to use it as a multi-role Fighter Bomber and the Bundeswehr (or rather Josef Strauß, the Minister of Defense at the time) was looking for a fighter that could be equipped with nuclear weapons.
So Lockheed just glued some more hardpoints under the wings, which fucked up pretty much everything from its maneuverability to the handling during regular flight and the stress during curves could tear that thing asunder. (Though the German version did get some notable improvements here and there, such as a reinforced fuselage and wings).
In 1965 alone, there were 27 accidents with 17 fatalities.

You already mentioned a couple of mind-blowing flaws, but there's 2 things that I need to add:

1) The engineers at Lockheed feared that the pilot might strike the T-shaped wings at the back of the plane when using the ejection seat, so the first version came with an ejection seat (called C1) that propelled you downwards. The C2 propelled you upwards, but it could only be used at a minimum speed of roughly 70mph. Below that speed, chances of survival were abyssmally low.
Due to its poor design, the seat could get entangled in the parachute during pilot-seat-seperation.
They switched to a british ejection seat that could reliably eject the pilot even from a parked plane with a decent chance of survival.

2) The take-off speed of this plane was 250mph. At 260mph, the air resistance was strong enough to make the landing gear jam. That meant that after takeoff, the pilot had roughly 2 seconds to stow the landing gear before it would get stuck. If it did get stuck, he'd have to go around the airport, put the plane into landing configuration and try to stow the gear again once the speed dropped low enough, if successful, the pilot could throttle up and continue as planned. It was also possible that the gear could become stuck completely or get otherwise damaged. Enjoy landing a plane with the glide characterisitcs of a phone booth, broken landing gear and a minimum landing speed of 170mph...

Extra Fun Fact Time: the most accomplished combat pilot of all time, Erich Hartmann (352 verified aerial victories, was never shot down) was send to America to see how well the F-104 performed and whether it was suitable for the Bundeswehr or not. The pilots and ground crew that he talked to during official meetings were praising that thing like crazy, however in the evenings, Hartmann would hang out in the same bars that the pilots and crew would frequent and here he heard about the atrocious state of the F-104 and all the problems that it had.
He came back and advised against buying the F-104 but Günther Rall (275 Aerial victories, was shot down a couple of times) said -I shit you not!- that Hartmann lacked experience and thus recommended to ignore his advise.
This was an important factor when Hartmann later left the Bundeswehr in 1970.

 

[Dangerhair]

As for another piece of useless military gear, you might have heard of the Ross Rifle debacle the Canadians had in WW1. Well, Sam Hughes, the minister of defence and the center of that controversy, also concieved a Shovel That Doubled As A Shield

In defence of the Ross, it was actually a quite a decent rifle- it was extremely accurate, it was lighter than the Enfield despite being longer, and had a unique straight-pull bolt mechanism that made the action faster too.

It had two major quirks that made it unsuitable as a service rifle in WWI though:

1. It was notoriously delicate and complicated to service, and if it wasn't put back together properly or if any of the parts got dirty or bent, it was prone to jamming or simply blowing the bolt into the soldier's face when fired.

2. Did I mention dirt and jamming? The Ross would only accept perfectly clean ammunition. If it was dirty at all, the Ross could be relied upon to jam. In trench warfare, this is not ideal.

The Canadian Army conceded that they needed a replacement in 1915 and started ordering Enfields. However, the Ross was re-purposed as a dedicated sniper rifle. Canadian, British and Commonwealth snipers praised the weapon when they were supplied with better ammunition and Warner & Swasey telescopic sights.

 

[Goofy Logic]

In defence of the Ross, it was actually a quite a decent rifle- it was extremely accurate, it was lighter than the Enfield despite being longer, and had a unique straight-pull bolt mechanism that made the action faster too.

It had two major quirks that made it unsuitable as a service rifle in WWI though:

1. It was notoriously delicate and complicated to service, and if it wasn't put back together properly or if any of the parts got dirty or bent, it was prone to jamming or simply blowing the bolt into the soldier's face when fired.

2. Did I mention dirt and jamming? The Ross would only accept perfectly clean ammunition. If it was dirty at all, the Ross could be relied upon to jam. In trench warfare, this is not ideal.

The Canadian Army conceded that they needed a replacement in 1915 and started ordering Enfields. However, the Ross was re-purposed as a dedicated sniper rifle. Canadian, British and Commonwealth snipers praised the weapon when they were supplied with better ammunition and Warner & Swasey telescopic sights.

I own one. Their trigger is perhaps the best one out of the milsurps I have handled.

Sam Hughes was partial to having a "Grassroots" army with Canadian designed and made equipment. I don't know much about why, but I believe either before or during the start of world war 1, the British had a scrap with Canada and refused to license them their Lee-Enfield rifles, leaving the Canadians with no modern battle rifles.

Ross's rifle always was a sporting rifle, and he was hoping to expand into government forces with it. The RCMP tried out the Mark 2, but rejected it with a laundry list of issues that needed to be worked on. When the Army was gearing up for WW1, they needed guns, and Ross came along at about the right time. They quickly modified the rifle for .303 and sent them out with little field testing.

 

[Raging Capybara]

General Butt Naked was a Liberian commander who fought totally naked, he believed this gave him protection against bullets.

Probably the best armor ever conceived by humankind.