Teal made an interesting post in the "Best Weapons of WWII" thread:

"I guess the flipside would be "What was the 'junk' of WWII weapons?"
I'm not talking things that were R&D failures but widely issued and inventoried but total crap for the end-user?"


I'll start with Japanese planes. Not so much the Zero, it did have excellent maneuverability although we matched it with the F6F, but their planes' overall lack of armor and self sealing gas tanks. They'd catch on fire in a heartbeat.

Anything else come to mind?

Anything the French tried to use that they made....

The M4 Sherman Tank in Europe. No match against any German anti-tank weapons from the Panzerfaust to the 88mm gun.

US tanks, also known as a "Ronson", anything French or Italian, and AXIS Sally

The early war USN Mark 14 torpedo and its Mark VI exploder.

The problems were eventually resolved making the Mark 14 a very competent weapon but the early war versions sucked very badly.

You should have watched the Military Channel today. A couple of shows about strange weapons. Like bats that carried napalm, pigeons with napalm attached.

They even built a Japanese like village and dropped the bats from aircraft in a bomb (no explosive)devise and the bats flew down and set the village on fire. They canceled the program in early '45 after workng on it for about 2 years. Guess the B29s showed them they didn't need the bats.

I don't know what the devise was called but they used it to warn of gas attacks during WWII. In the early '50s they were sold as Halloween noise makers. Some of the vets in the neighborhood sure didn't like them.

Yeah like all the Italian Breda anti-aircraft guns the Brits captured during operation compass, reissued em, and shot the schidt outta axis aircraft with em.

1 Vicount Bernard Montgomery
2 General Charles DeGalle
3 Benito Mussolini

Maybe the 3 worst U.S. aircraft of WW2 in the Pacific?

F2A Brewster Buffalo
Douglas TDB Devastator
Bell P39 Airicobra

I'm sitting here going over what I know about various weapons and I can't really come up with much that was total junk on a level with the French Chauchaut of WWI, particularly individual weapons. Opinions vary on the effectiveness of the M1 carbine but folks either liked it or hated it.

Some equipment was outclassed fairly quickly, such as the Stuka, but on it's own it was a decent dive bomber and continued to serve the Germans om the Eastern front. It was just too slow to survive against the faster fighters. Most of our fighters were obsolete as we entered the war but it doesn't make them junk, just outclassed. Even with that, adaptive tactics allowed them to be useful against faster and/or more maneuverable foes. IIRC the old slow F4F was in use throughout the war.

My Dad thought the torpedo launcher on his Destroyer Escort was a pretty worthless weapon. It came close to rolling the DE over when it was fired. He said the Captain had it removed.

The Liberator pistol was intended to be a cheap way to arm resistance forces - hundreds of thousands were made, but at least according to Wiki, there is no documented case of one being used as intended.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberator_pistol

My father landed on Guadalcanal with a Springfield, he didn't carry it long.

if you want to stretch the definition a bit and call it a weapon, the Maginot Line wasn't all that great. Although I'd guess it was respected enough for the Germans to go around it instead of through it...


Getting back to other things, the amphibious tanks at Normandy were pretty well worthless except to drown their crews, although those were a fairly specialized weapon and not in general issue throughout the war.

NSAQAM your military and firearms back ground is very impressive indeed! Where Did you receive your impressive firearms and military training?Anti gun Gov Dayton? Al Franken? Hubert Humphry? Obama? Feinstein?

You supported this anti gun coke fiend

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/in-the-news/2007/1/franken-seeks-advice-for-possible-bid.aspx


As a military combat vet who has trained in many of the combat firearms in the world I find it very offensive thatbsomeone like NSAQAM, who came on here after the election and bragged that he voted for anti- gun Obama twice and campaigned for anti- voter ID laws, resulted in the disenfranchisement of thousands of active military voters whose votes were not counted or cancelled by voter fraud accross the country.

http://minnesotafreedom.org/index.cfm/pageid/62

The Japanese Type 94 pistol was a pretty large piece of junk.

Could fire it by pressing on the exposed sear lever.

The Sherman Tank. It's main gun was too light and bounced off the Panzers and Tigers, and they were so lightly armored a single shot from one of the two German front-line tanks would set them ablaze.

The Sherman was a good tank when it first came out, as the Brits found it a good match for the Pzkw III and IV. The problem was our govt. didn't upgrade it or develop another more appropriate tank for Europe. Many tanks had gasoline engines and had less problems with fire. Very few tanks would withstand a direct hit from an 88mm, it would punch through the heaviest armor installed on WWII era tanks. A major Sherman flaw was that the ammo was stored behind the thinner vertical armor in the sponsons over the tracks. General Leslie McNair stood in the way of building anything superior. His reticence caused a lot of unnecessary deaths.

I read an article about a German Gas Trap rifle that was a dismal failure after real world testing. The ones they actually built were issued to clerks/etc. in the homeland. I guess it was a real pile and ugly to boot.

I've read a lot of disparaging things about the Reising gun.

The Amrican Torpedo for the first part of WW II were unreliable. We never were able to match the performance of the Japanese Long Lance type 93 torpedo.

Yes, the U.S. Navy had a serious problem with torpedoes at first. Worst regular issue pistol had to have been most any of the Japanese. Without question the worst manufactured pistol had to have been to U.S. Liberator, but it was a special purpose weapon not designed to be issued to regular troops. The worst rifle prize should go to the Italian Carcano. Second place worst to the Japanese. Having said that, I am told that the action of the Jap Arisaka rifle is very strong, but the rest of the rifle to me apears to be junk. Some of the worst fighter aircraft were probably the U.S. Brewster Buffaloes and the P-39 Airacobras. However, the Russians did find that the Airacobras were good ground attack planes. The U.S. Reising submachinegun was very unreliable in combat conditions.

Something that I have never been quite able to understand is the U.S. Sherman tank. It was obviously inferior to most any German tank or anti-tank gun in Europe. Certainly good against fortifications, light armored vehicles, trucks, etc., and as direct infantry support, but from what I hear for most of the war, the main gun of a Sherman was ineffective on about all German tanks. U.S. shells regularly just bounced off of German tanks, but almost any shot from German tanks or anti-tank guns easily penetrated the Shermans and set them ablaze, hence the German nickname "Ronson" ("lights first time, everytime"). That being the case, if it is true, how could a Sherman go into combat against a German tank and do anything but lose? Maybe disable the German's tracs and bypass it? I really would like for someone to explain this as I have always been baffled by how they did it.

While it was pre-WWII (and pre-WWI) it did see service in WWII: the Mosin-Nagant revolver. To paraphrase one gun writer, "Its the perfect weapon for your enemies: bad trigger pull, anemic cartridge, and very slow to reload." I used to own one for for awhile... a revolver without an ejector system? Really? So I have to take out a cleaning rod or pencil to poke my empties out? Who thought that was a good idea? (yes I know about how the gas seal makes a silencer work but that's a small benefit...)

My vote goes to the Italian Carcano. Although it seemed to work well for Oswald

Has a cool factor, and I'd love to see one in the metal, but I imagine the Boys anti tank rifle became superceded fairly quickly during the war.
Hate to be anything un-armoured on the receiving end though.

The Sherman was an example of the U.S. Military going for production capability vs. upgrading performance capability. When first put into production the Sherman was viable but was soon found wanting as far as crew protection and ability to to take on the German heavy tanks was concerned. Since the Sherman was a medium and the German Panther and Tiger were heavies it was a mismatch from the get go. It took the Israelis to show what a Sherman could really do. Super Shermans with 105mm guns going toe to toe with T54/55s and T62s over twenty years after our Military deemed them obsolete.

As to what was the worst how about the British mini-subs that pretty much invariably killed their crews.

Our ex local Dentist had a 55 cal Boyes when he was here, he used it on old car bodies for the fun of it, he is over in Wagga now-a-days...one of my mates played with another out at the local range about two weeks ago...he still has a big stupid grin on his mug.

Not something that ever interested me though.

The Sherman is getting a bad rap. While it was bested in many cases, it also killed one helluva lot of German armor. When the Brits up gunned it with a 17 pounder 76.2mm gun, it was more than able to take on the Panther and Tiger.
Along with the better gun, came 'wet storage' for the tank ammo, which really cut down on fires after being hit.
The Sherman was upgraded in 1944 with heavier armor. This version, with the 76mm gun and extra 10,000 pounds of steel was the equal of a Panther.
Biggest advantage the Sherman had was numbers. We produced over 45,000 of them , or about twice as many Shermans as all of the tanks the Germans produced.

Spot on..a version of the Sherman was also produced with a diesel engine but I have no idea why this never became standard? Maybe to prevent overly complicating the logistics chain?

I think I remember that the Israelis still have Shermans in service as hull down along the boarders. I believe that they also have m-48s and m-60s for the same purpose.

Jim

I've got two worse than the Brewster Buffalo and the Devastator. At the start of the war we still had some Vought Vindicator's soldiering on. They were way past their prime.

Another lemon came from the British. The Fairey Battle and the Boulton Paul Defiant failed miserably and were eventually relegated to target tug status. Many good men died before they pulled those birds off the front lines.

The Stuka was outmatched in air-to-air combat, obviously, but talk to the guys on the ground who faced this plane, and you will get a far different story. Dad said the Stuka was feared and hated universally by the ground troops, as it extracted a horrible toll and demoralized many troops with it's screaming dives.

Quite likely..Towards the end of WW2, the British introded the Comet, an improved version of the Cromwell, and that stayed in service with various armies around the world untill the 1970's..

The Israelis also did a lot of development work to both the Sherman (became known as the Super Sherman) and the British Centurion, and I know both stayed in service along time..

Operation Aphrodite.

I agree. We produced so many of the Shermans, numerical superiority eventually was ours.

[quote=gophergunnerthe Boulton Paul Defiant failed miserably and were eventually relegated to target tug status. Many good men died before they pulled those birds off the front lines. [/quote]

Actually, althougth the Defiant was a flop as a day fighter, it went on to give decent service as a night fighter before getting religated to a target tug....

It seems crazy to build a fighter without any forward facing guns, but it was based on a WW1 concept..early in the war, the Royal Navy had a similar turret fighter, although I forget the name..Both became obsolete in fairly short order..

The PIAT was a pretty lousy anti-tank weapon.
Incredibly difficult to load and punishing to shoot.

Amen.

One of my uncles, a sergeant in The Royal Canadian Artillery, was an instructor on these and other weapons, before becoming an officer cadet and was injured by one of these "PIAT" guns. He was a volunteer and was chosen to become an officer, however, he deliberately gave this up and the safety of service in Canada, to volunteer as an infantry replacement when Canada, was so short of men for combat during the "Rhineland" campaign.

I never knew about this as most Canadian vets, of the scores I have known, were very reticent in discussing their service or what they had experienced. His younger brother told me about it at his funeral, and I have always admired a man who would leave a position as an officer in Canada, to serve in combat and quite possibly be killed.

I am so humbly grateful that I am the first eldest son of my mother's family in literally centuries who did not serve for at least a part of his life as a British or Canadian infantry officer; my generation has been SO blessed and we should always think about how bloody good, overall, we have had it in life.

Cousins of mine, US-born served in Vietnam and a couple of friends from WA. state were killed in that tragic conflict, again, boy, I often think of this and how a mere 50 miles of "geography" saved me from a similar fate at age 21 or so.

The worst "weapon" of WWII, Adolf Hitler, thank God.

That diesel was a Caterpillar design. 9 cylinder radial diesel, and was not at all successful. I don't think that they made more than 100 of them. The model was M4A6.

American military doctrine at the time was to employ "tank destroyers" to kill enemy armor. The Sherman was not initially intended to directly combat enemy tanks. Plus the govt. believed that the Panther was going to be another heavy like the Tiger and not be produced in large numbers. I don't know if I would have wanted to be in a tank destroyer or not; big high velocity guns that were effective, but thin hull armor and open topped turrets.

I watched a show here a while back on the tank destroyers. I think it was the M-18 that had the engine air intake and cooling air intake for the engine in the back of the crew compartment. Anytime they were in cold weather, the guys froze their butts off from all the outside air being pulled through. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Coupled with the fact that they seemed to have no idea what armor tactics were take a look at the cracker barrel Japanese tanks of WWII.

The one massed armor charge they tried on Sipan was wrecked by 37 MM guns maned by dug in gunners.

Clueless US leaders who let Stalin take over most of the Europe.

Read Death Traps by Belton Cooper for a good review on the Sherman.

Here's a question for the experts.

Was the full on ramped up production of Sherman tanks influenced by it's performance in North Africa?

To the best of my knowledge they did OK there.

Welllll, it could also be argued that, while we of The British Commonwealth, were the largest force in the "D-Day" affair, providing more troops, much of the air cover and most of the ships were Royal Navy; the FACT is that I doubt that we could ever have successfully invaded the Euro. mainland without the enormous contribution of the USA.

While, I find the exaggerated "we won WWII" attitude of all too many of our American cousins a bit too much, the FACT, again, is that the USA WAS "the arsenal of democracy" and thank God they finally got into the fight.

We would have won, we would have lost at least twice as many of our finest young men (and women) and we WOULD have been devastated at the end of what would have been at least 3-5 years more of horrific total war. So, while Marshall, et al, did not choose to attack Russia, the FACT is that the American people DID NOT want to have more of their boys die to save European nations/peoples that always seem to be embroiled in wars with each other.

Wrong? Well, whatever, the will of the people, it's called "democracy" and, I might add, we of the "Anglosphere" really did NOT have to fignt the Nazis and we lost hundreds of thousands of our people in doing so. So, maybe, a European, might be grateful and pay respect to our human and imperfect leaders or, maybe the Russkies were "better" allies, after all?

One allied point here: In WWI, we "British"lost over 1 million soldiers, a high percentage of them in Belgium, these were combat deaths. Ypres, in particular, is literally soaked with our blood, given to save France and Belgium from "Le Boche".

Yet, at the outset of WWII, the British asked the Belgians if the Brit. forces could cross Belgian territory to make a superior defence against the "Blitzkreig" of "Hurricane Heintz" Guderian's Panzers. The reply to we who had given them so much some two decades before, was "NO"....that to me says it all about fighting for Euros.

They did, but they were up against older German armor, specifically the Panzer III with a 50mm gun and the PKWIV that originally had just a short 75mm Howitzer (later retrofitted with the high velocity 75). Also, they had huge numbers over the Germans as well. As to the upgraded Sherman being the "equal" of the Panther, I'll disagree. Then Panther was way ahead of it's time, some experts called it the best tank design up to th early 50s. Also, the French tanks BTW, were acutally better than what the Germans fielded in 1940, they just had no clue as to how to use them.

The problem with russians is that they replaced germans with an even worse regime - not freedom or democracy like western forces.

to quote a German General tho... ( I forget which one tho, sorry ).. "a German Tiger was equal to 10 Sherman Tanks...
sadly for us, there was always an 11th..."

to quote a German General tho... ( I forget which one tho, sorry ).. "a German Tiger was equal to 10 Sherman Tanks...
sadly for us, there was always an 11th..."

While they were loved at first in North Africa, used by the British ( who just needed equipment) the American M3 and M5 tanks...

another little known fact, is that Rommel utilized captured British equipment to support his army... the allies were shooting down or sinking a large percentage of equipment being shipped to North Africa.. so Rommel had to rely on something and his army was capturing a lot of American made stuff given to the British...

once Rommel's driver got lost during a battle with the British advancing and German forces retreating... his driver found a large group of armor 'advancing' by all the dust that they would have been kicking up...

he assumed it must be German Armor... turned out to be British... Rommel and his driver realized it only when they were in the middle of the advancing enemy armor... where they moved abreast and staggered, instead of in a column...

Rommel and his driver quickly took off their uniform coats, but kept advancing with the British column, as it was moving toward German lines, where they needed to end up...

as they advanced past the forward moving tanks, Tank Commanders would salute the Officers passing by in the staff car.. and Rommel would return the salute...

how did all the British Tankers not realize it was Rommel.. a man they wanted to capture so badly?

The staff car he was traveling in was a captured Chevrolet, and of course still had all the British staff markings on it..

even when the Germans retreated from North Africa to Italy.. they took a large number of the American trucks and support vehicles with them to Italy...that they had captured off the British.. and pretty much left the markings on it, that they had been captured with...

they were still using this equipment in Italy right up to the end of the war...

Soviets loved the P39 and built a pot-load of them. Beauty is in the eye....

Oh yes, the magnetic exploder; what a POS, and the Navy was hopelessly wedded to it. Everyone knew it didn't work, but the Navy would come down hard on anyone converting the magnetic to a contact. By mid 1943 they gave up on the magnetic exploder and just went with the contact exploder, and that lead to the "happy" days of US Sub warfare.

I think Mush Morton fired something like 11 torps at a Japanese freighter before one finally went off.

I believe that the Sherman tank and the B-17 were examples of industrial warfare at it's best. The depots kept turning out crews and the factories kept turning out planes and tanks.
The Germans and Japanese kept turning out planes but not crews for the planes. The German tanks were so finely made that it was impossible to produce any meaningful quantity and they kept producing upgrades and new models which made maintenance and repair difficult.
The American generals in Europe used the same battlefield tactics that the Union used at the battle of Cold Harbor,Va. Just keep throwing men and material at the enemy until the enemy ran out of ammo and troops.

Jim

�Sacre bleu, Jacques, how do you start ze en-jeen in zees tawnk?�
�Mon dieu, Pierre, I �ave no clue how to turn on ze en-jeen.�
�Well, we bettair fin� out tout suite, here come le Boche!�




Sorry, your comment just made me think of this...

on the Japanese rifle being crap, must have only looked at late war examples, early examples are as fine as most military rifles...late war Mausers were pieces of chit aswell so hard to hold that against the Japanese...

on our armor not standing up to the 88mm.....i dont think a Tiger could take a hit from an 88 either, that was just one killing SOB and it took the lessons learned in WWII to come up with a solution to it....

actually if it wasnt for its gun the Tiger is a pretty piss poor tank.....to heavy, to wide, to complicated, to hard to work on, to sensitive to fuel quality.....werent for the fact it had that 88mm we would be laughing at it as a flop today instead of holding it in awe....

RE:P-39

WE built a pot load of them(12,000)and gave them to the Soviets. And yes they loved them.

RE: Brewster Buffalo

The Finns used them to great advantage against the Soviets.


Tactics made the difference for both.

Which made me think of why they plant trees along the roads in France.

ya know Kutes... the history books still are written the way, that certain powers that be, want them to read...

examples being on how few people know that Poland was attacked by Russian on their eastern border, a week to 10 days, after the Germans had attacked their western border...

in defense of Germany, their main goal was to recover parts of Germany that had been taken away after WW 1 by the allies, and especially the French.. and that is pretty much what they occupied...

Russia on the flip side, just wanted more territory, and to eliminate the Poles period...The Russians occupied 2/3s of Poland...and considered it Russian...

history books in most Allied Countries leave this part of history out... because the Russians later became our allies, against Germany, after Germany invaded Russia.... but before that, they were no friends of ours at all...

As far as Americans claiming we alone won the war... I counter, is it really Americans bragging on the USA or is it a case out of lack of real historical knowledge, the contributions of Britain and her commonwealth nations...

my perspective is different than a lot of my countrymen... as I have lived in Britain in my youth, and lived off base... I've seen the remnants of WW 2 first hand...and have known and listened to many British people who experienced the war first hand...

perhaps that is why I view Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand as peoples of my own country...I view then just the way I view different states in the USA, yeah we are different entities but we make up the USA...

I still maintain "Commonwealth" Loyalties.. hell even tho I am 17 th generation in this country, my home 'state' is Virginia.. but it is not known as the State of Virginia.. it is known as the Commonwealth of Virginia...

the USA really only has 46 "states".. the other 4 are Commonwealths.... Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Massachusetts...

So the Germans can march in the shade...

The armor on the Tiger and Panther were no match for the 90MM US anti tank gun in the M36 tank destroyer. While the 76 mm gun of the M10/M18 could kill a Panther or Tiger, they were not effective past 500 yards. The 90 mm M3 gun solved that problem.

First axis tanks the US airborne troops had a real run in with during Market Garden were French Char B's being used by an SS panzer batallion. Extremely thick armor and dang hard to penetrate. But a real gas guzzler. Another great tank was the S35. Quick and handy. Bad thing was the French had this bad plan to keep all their fuel vehicles in the rear of the logistics column. And the first thing to clog the roads in France after the attack were a gazillion refugees!

On a side not there was an obscure French Cavalry Colonel wrote a book in the mid 30's ("Vers l'Armee Metiers" or "Towards a Professional Army) that is said to have greatly influnced Heinz Guderian's way of thinking concerning the Blitzkrieg. This Colonel knew that France could not continue to rely of 2 year conscripts and reservist to defend France. Book expounded on the used of mechanized infantry to support the attacking armor spearhead. He pushed for a standing professional army which fell on deaf ears. His Name was Charles de Gaulle.......

It was mainly a stiff-necked Admiral at BuOrd who resisted changing the detonator. The same guy had also developed the contraption. The name escapes me.

True.

Saboro Sakai was one of Japan's leading aces to survive to V-J Day, had very little respect for the P39 (aircraft) as a dogfighter affording its pilot little protectection/chance of success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiten


American losses credited to Kaiten attacks came to a total of 187 officers and men. The losses of Kaiten crews and support staff were much higher. In total 106 Kaiten pilots lost their lives (including 15 killed in training accidents and two suicides after the war). In addition to the pilots, 846 men died when eight Japanese submarines carrying Kaiten were sunk, and 156 maintenance and support personnel were also killed.[24] This contrasts markedly with the success of the Kamikaze pilots.[25]

[edit]

The Sherman was certainly outclassed in the European portion of WWII. There were conscious (and questionable) decisions made to stick with it instead of the M26 (pershing?) that was in the same class as the Mark IV. That decision being made from a logistics and training standpoint. Many think it was wrong.

Labeled as the "Tommy Cooker" (sorry, Pete), the Sherman, and even the Grant, were considered top of the class in the North Africa period of WWII.

One should consider the brief duration of our involvement in the war. I do not know the date of the Mark IV deployment, but consider that the Sherman was outclassed from say mid-43 till early 45, less than 2 years. Tank design progressed at a rapid pace during the war and it takes time to deploy a weapons system and provide adequate training and logistical support. Think of how short our involvement on continental Europe - 6/6/44 till 4/45. Less than 1 year.
I'm no pro, but I suspect that there was justification for the decision to stick with the established system and take advantaged of the geared up Sherman production capabilities. Our war production, troop training, and deployment were a huge juggernaut already set in motion, perhaps letting it continue to roll was the right decision, in spite of its vulnerabilities.
Hard to argue with success.

There is a decent book out written by a guy who had responsibility for Sherman recovery and rebuild - another thing that we did right that the guy credits with contributing greatly to our success. Many tanks were knocked out in battle and repaired to fight again. The guy hammers the Sherman bad, but reading his timeline really gives credence to the thought of making the end run with the deployed system.

that is very true a great strength of the Sherman is it was easy to repair and get back in the fight....huge negative on the Tiger was it was so damn heavy when it broke down or bogged down it was a beotch to get to the rear lines and repaired and even if you got it back so it could it was so [bleep] complicated, especially the running gear which are the part of the tank most prone to breakage it took forever to get it repaired....

Italian tanks tank could be destroyed with a HMG.

The Sherman needed a better gun. Like the 17 pounder on a british fireflys.

That was the Sherman tank. They called it that because when hit it lit the first time every time just like the Ronson lighter ad. Shermans killed a lot of our tank crews.

Definitely the Reising sub MG. The Marines would toss them overboard....

Kute is gonna love that...

It really wasn't all due to the Shermans being gassers. A LOT of the deadly fires were from the recoil oil (cherry juice) in the gun recoil system. It si EXTREMELY inflammable!! ANY turret hit would rupture the system and would turn the crew compartment into Hell. That same crap was still being used up until around 1980. Tank fires nearly always came as a result of a rupture in the recoil oil system.

The Stuart was another weak tank that easily and quicky became a raging inferno.

Some weapons were not bad, just out of date (most bolt action rifles) or not truly suitable for its mission (The Sherman in Europe 1944). The American Torpedoes were truly bad; some defects were corrected by 1944; but they were never equal to their Japanese equivalent. Our torpedoes cost American lives and possibly prolonged the war in the pacific.

Going into WW II, the US wasn�t really happy with the Thompson as their SMG. The earlier Thompsons were complex, horrendously expensive, and very heavy. Knowing that we were about to enter a war, the US Military was actively seeking something lighter and less expensive than the Thompson. There were many projects along these lines. The M3 Grease Gun, UD, and the Reising.

(Some SMG costs in WW II: Thompson � about $225.00. Reising � About $50.00, , M3 Grease Gun � About $19.00, Sten � About $9.00)

M1 Carbine � About $45.00

The Reising was a good idea that didn�t get enough time to turn it into an effective weapon. You have to understand it was intended as a law enforcement carbine, but was pressed into military service because the Thompson was heavy, very expensive, and far too complex for its own good. The Rising was a good 4lbs lighter, much more accurate due to its closed bolt design, and the closed bolt design made it much easier to learn how to employ effectively in full auto. One downside of a closed bolt SMG is the lack of cooling. With an open bolt design, there is never anything in the chamber until you�re shooting, so the barrel cools much faster.

The Reising, like the Johnson rifles were pressed into use with short notice. They didn�t have the benefit of significant military development to discover the weak points and correct them that the Thompson and Garand did. So when they got into combat, they didn�t fare so well, even though both were better designs. The tight tolerances of the Reising receiver, combined with a poorly designed magazine that mated up to a lousy feed ramp, made for a rather unreliable weapon. To top it all off, the Reising wasn�t very user friendly for maintenance. Although the mechanism was simpler than the 1928 and earlier Thompson�s, it was much more difficult to field strip and clean.

Before they could put any serious effort into fixing what was wrong with the Reising, the M1 Carbine started showing up in numbers. It had more power, greater accuracy, and fantastic reliability, so it replaced any role the Resigin was supposed to have.

Later in the war the US would make the M3 Grease Gun as a replacement for the Thompson, but the Thompson was never replaced, and although the M3 was much more reliable than the Thompson, it had its own set of issues.

To my mind, the STEN was the clear winner in the best SMG category of WW II.

Those 12 round mags wouldn't make you happy. Have heard there were 20 round mags also. I'v seen photos of the Wind Speakers(indian code talkers?) carrying Reisings with 12 round mags.

The M4 Sherman could match the German MkIII and MkIV they encountered in North Africa. Once in Europe they were very outclassed by all the German antitank weapons.
The Sherman production numbers are huge. And they were designed to be repairable in Theater. They were more reliable in service than German Tanks were...
But they were deadly to their crews!

Yes, the majority of magazines made in WW II were 20 rounders.

John, (Seafire) and I are old friends from our days on AR before that dipshit bigot "Don" [bleep] that site so badly and I completely understand what he means here.

As it happens, I agree as we of "The Anglosphere" now need each other as never before,even in 1939-'45, those camel jockeys hate all of us and they NEED a good culling....it's what English-born, US resident, the immortal Kipling, would have called, "The White Man's Burden" and that is NOT "racist", but, the sad truth of the 21stC.

Well, we bundle our flags, with the motto, "These colours do not run" and proceed to do what we must to literally save civilization..........

Sam Hughes historical reputation in WWI was sullied by poor decisions on procurements for the force. For instance, perhaps his most controversial decision was the purchase of the MacAdam shield-shovel, a device which Hughes patented under his secretaries name, purported to act as both a shovel (for digging trenches) and a shield against bullets. In fact, the shield-shovel was too heavy for use as a shovel, and it was incapable of stopping bullets. All purchased units were quickly discarded upon arrival in Britain.

What folks don't realize, the 17lb gun used the Firefly was actually a better, more powerful gun than the 88mm used in the Tigers, and the Firefly could defeat the armor on the Tiger's and that the gunners sights on the Sherman was better than on many versions of the various Panzer's.

The Sherman was an evolutionary design that had been a long time on the drawing board and as a project, was not without it problems..The same could be said for the M26 Pershing which did not fair well in Korea a few years later and was later upgraded/developed into the Patton..

Us Brits had similar problems developing the Cromwell and the Comet and while both eventually became good tanks, and in some respects slightly better than the late model Shermans, they simply weren't available in numbers like the Sherman..

The German Panzer IV was their version of the Sherman, not perfect, but a work horse that continued to evolve through the war. As noted by others, until it was up gunned mid way through the war, it struggled to penetrate the armour on the better Allied tanks..

In the end, Allied air power so serious disrupted German industry she was forced to "down grade" to simpler production models to try to keep up with losses in the field..

I've always wondered how the STEN and the M3 compared, given they were both "cheap and cheerful" by design..I've used a STERLING SMG, the "delux" successor to the STEN and even that was pretty spartan..

Liberator Pistol

Not sure I'd want to pull the trigger on that!

All accounts I've read of the Sherman Firefly was that it's gun was effective against German Tanks. So much so that that the Germans prioritized killing it over other Sherman Tanks.
But the biggest threat to German armor in Western Europe was our artillery, and tactical fighter-bombers with rockets and napalm.

I totally agree..From a perspective of war rather than just interesting discussions, it always the "big picture" that's important...

The STEN and M3 were both perfection of the simple blowback SMG design. Both were models of manufacturing efficiency and low cost design. Both were open bolt, both fired from double column single feed magazines. Double column single feed magazines were VERY reliable if you kept the magazine clean, but became problematic in heavy dust or sand. Still dust and sand were rarely a problem because spare magazines were always in a pouch. Both guns had a heavy bolt reciprocating back and forth, but obviously the M3�s bolt was heavier.

I�ve shot both quite a bit and I�ll say flat out, the STEN is the superior weapon. Both were extremely reliable, two of the most reliable SMG�s of the war. But the M3 had horrible ergonomics and the rate of fire was so slow that full auto fire wasn�t very effective. The STEN actually balanced rather well. The STEN even though it had a higher cyclic rate, was more controllable than the M3, lighter weight, and generally easier for the user to employ effectively. The Brits were really onto something with the side magazine, a design curiously overlooked by most everyone else. When fire is incoming, a soldier can�t seem to get close enough to the ground, and the side mag really helps there. For CQB I�ve never found the magazine to be a hindrance at all. It never catches on doorways as its detractors claim it would and it doesn�t make the weapon want to roll in your hands. In short, it works very well.

At $9.00 per copy it was the most brilliant SMG created. And of course, it would later be refined into the Sterling, which is without a doubt the finest SMG ever built. There�s a reason why there were more Sterling�s built than any other sub gun in the world.

Sir Sam's reputation has been unjustly sullied in the past two decades due to the feud between the "Turner-Hughes" and the "Currie" factions in The Great War. Some popular historians, who lionize Currie, a common thief, for all his other virtues, have denigrated Hughes and in a vicious and foolish manner.

With his various issues addressed, it is the factual truth that Sir Samuel Hughes, D.S.O. was THE man who founded and largely built the basis of the Canadian Expeditionary Force, that became the finest military force of WWI, as the legendary "Canadian Corps". He blustered, badgered, browbeat and bullschitted the creation of "The Old Red Patch", the First Canadian Division, to get to France and become, as one British general called them, "the pride and honour of the British Army".

Hughes, is an important figure in our history and his family still serve in Canada's Forces to this day. He was my maternal great-grandmother's first cousin and my grandfather, Lt. D.N. McCallum, wounded at Courcelette and, badly, at Passchendaele, was his "nephew" and served in the 21stBatt.C.E.F, under Sam's younger brother, later Brig.-Gen. William St. Pierre Hughes,D.S.O.

After, 50+ years of reading history, I have learned that much of what is written about any figure is largely a result of the biases of the author, Churchill comes to mind and was, himself, guilty of a lot of this sort of "history".

Wasn't ol' Sam the main sponsor of those wonderful Ross rifles used by the CEF?

Lots of tank talk - they don't "always" improve...

Broken pull through will cause that!

Gunsmith version,,,,,

"I loaned my tank to my brother in law this past weekend and,,,,,,"

I got a Krieger I'll sell them for replacement.

Caption...

"I don't know L-Tee, we all went out for a beer, and when we got back, it was just like that."

Or better yet...

"See L-Tee, it was the cross-eye'd guy from Arkansas. He said hold my beer and watch this..."

Glock makes a tank?

Wasn't there a POJ 45 cal single shot pistol made out of stampings? Maybe it wasn't an issued weapon but were they dropped for the French Resistence or something?

Yup, and we bought ammo from sources that we should not have, plus the English ammo did not fit the Ross's chambers, IIRC. There were not enough Lee-Enfields at first, so, there are all sorts of theories as to why the Ross was chosen.

It was much like the US Army with no artillery, no transport, no ships, etc and they had to use whatever the Brits. and French would spare although their commander, Pershing, kept them out of actual combat for most of the time any US soldiers were in France.

Nobody, except the French and the Germans, were prepared for the huge "war of attrition" that soon evolved in western "Yurp" and everyone made some serious errors, BUT, Sam, got us into the fight forthwith and he deserves a LOT more credit than he has been given.

Most Canadians, now, know more about the US Civil War than the feats of their own men,due to the excessive presence here of US media, another serious issue in itself.

"Most Canadians, now, know more about the US Civil War than the feats of their own men,due to the excessive presence here of US media, another serious issue in itself."

Hey what are neighbors for???? Consider it our little gift you you guys!

BTW, spot on about the US Army! But Pershing was nice and offered the French The entire US Marine expeditionary force including the 2nd US Inf Div as well as the 36th Division! I don't think Johnny P wanted to mess with them....

George, I believe that was the Liberator that has been covered.

Well, it was obviously caused by some nitwit's handload as there has never been a case of blow-up caused by a factory load. I know this because an editor has said so.

The Bell P-39 Aircobra was not a bad airplane, it was not a piece of junk- it was just a lousy fighter, but a hell of a good ground support airplane, had a 37mm cannon in the nose. The Russians loved the airplane. Bell made a lot of them for the Soviets. If you got to Watson Lake Yukon, there is one its a memorial - Americans would fly them to there, and Russian pilots would fly from across Siberia to were the fighting was. As for cannon tubes failing well they do from time to time. That Abrams was no doubt put back into service right quick they can pull barrels pretty quick on them. As for the liberator pistol, the intend was for the Frenchy to sneak up on the german and shoot him in the head and take his gun. And to give the germans a lot of sleepless nights thinking about it. A case of any gun is better than no gun at all.

How about the Japanese Type 97 grenade? Any kind of explosive that calls for striking it on a hard surface while it's in your hand is just a bad idea.

Thanks John. My apologies; I hadn't read the whole thread.

Now THAT, is a piece..

"I told Jerry to take the bore sighter out first!!!"

Fixed

There are a few facts that you are forgetting. First there was no way we could have prevented this short of fighting a war. There was no way that the west could have fought this war as we had just finished 4-6 years of war and were ready for peace.

It's a "worst", but not exactly a weapon:

Guy Small, head of British intelligence, flew to Washington DC about 3 months before Pearl Harbor, and briefed J Edgar Hoover on the impending attack. Apparently, Hoover did nothing with the information because we were caught completely flat footed.

Hoover later sent Small a very expensive gold table top cigarette lighter, which Small would show to his guests and tell them that it was his reward for not ratting Hoover out.

I knew Small's daughter, Anne, very well a few decades ago. Since I was into WWII history at the time, she took time to tell me some of the back stories that aren't in the books.

We realized in late 1941 that that there would be "an attack". However, I seriously doubt that anyone knew when and where the attack would take place. In fact, the evidence points against anyone but a very few people on the Japanese side who did know.

Anything else is just tin foil hat conspiracy nonsense.

The Allied forces in Sept. 1945, numbered in the millions, were now well-blooded, superbly and completely equipped and led by Brit.US.Canuck generals who had learned to like, respect and work well with each other.

The Russians, DID have LOTS of troops, but, their best were nowhere close to the US paras, the British Guards, Highland and other "regiments of the line" and certainly not to the outstanding First Canadian Army. They DEPENDED on US for supplies and many of their troops would have GLADLY defected if Allied lines were close enough to surrender to.

So, not that I am keen on war, too many of my immediate family bled in both WWs, but, we could have destroyed the entire Soviet Union in about 18 months or less with conventional weapons. We SHOULD have done so, BUT, Marshall read the mood of the US people very well and knew that the Yanks were sick and tired of sending their boys to die in some Euro. schithole for some foreigners who seem to never learn to live together in peace.

We of The Commonwealth, could have beaten the Russkies, BUT, we did NOT have the manpower to really survive such a conflict as viable nations and who wanted to end up like the poor, bloody civilian survivors in Germany, Poland and, for that matter, Russia, itself?

I know that almost every Canadian, Brtish and American combat veteran of WWII I have known, quite a large number, has told me that they just wanted the hideous slaughter to end so they could go home.....and, would any of us be different?

Complex situation, but, it may yet end that the Russians become our close allies against the horror and terror of radical Islam, Sikhism and all the other grotty scum of the "east".

PA is communist? Really? Dang I guess communism really isn't that bad then. Don't know what I was so worried about?

I am not forgetting nothing. The point I was trying to make was, that from Stalin's side the war was political in every aspect - while western forces were trying to win the war first and deal with after war Europe later. Stalin knew that Churchill did not trust him - that's why he cooked it with FDR instead - zones of influence and all that jazz. NKVD was moving east with Russian army, arresting and shooting russian immigrants from before the war along with russian POWs, Vlasov's soldiers and such. They were seeting everything ready for all those east block russian satelite we all remember from 1950 on till 1989.

I agree with you that Stalins war was completly political. As the Soviet army moved forward the NKVD set about removing any opposition in the occuppied countries.

FDR thought his charm and intellect would sway Stalin to cooperate with him. FDR was a fool.

After the defeat of Hitler there was still the war with Japan do deal with. Those American forces in Europe would be transferred to the Pacific for the planned invasion of Japan. And the U.S. was negotiating for the Soviets to invade Manchuria. The idea that the U.S. and the Brits could have forced the Red Army out of Eastern Europe is an unrealistic fantasy.

Agree 100%

At this stage in the war the Soviet Union no longer needed American largess to field their huge Red Army and Red Air Force. They were producing some of the finest equipment, particularly armor, in their very own factories.
The lousy Soviet officers had been weeded out to a large extent and the NCO's and junior officers were competent and experienced.
Battling the Red Army toe to toe with the Soviets having the advantage of interior lines of communication would have been folly.
Unless of course the US was able and willing to use their atomic monopoly against a former ally.

or not. I have always felt Roosevelt was a commie himself, and that he sympathized more with Stalin's aims than with Churchill's.

Too true! First time I saw the village of Greenbelt in MD I thought I am back in 50ties. Community owned store, community gathering place - the reign of FDR was closest the USA got to socialism.

Hmm, I take that back, the current administration is on the roll

FDR= Stalin's lap dog

More like Stalin's B-otch! FDR swallowed Stalin's BS hook, line, and sinker.

And more to the point though, for a gazillion reasons, we couldn't have fought the Sov's after the war. Almost no one would support that which is kinda sad. For Eastern Europe we traded one sociopath for an only slightly more stable sociopath. I thought we were there to liberate Europe, but apparently only parts of Europe. Sad.

Roosevelt and his horse-faced dyke of a wife were both not so closet communists. Edited to add, then again so are ALL members of the democrap party...

And it became the American tradition - most of US presidents believed soviet leaders. But for the communists the main goal and doctrine is the global revolution and for that goal it is acceptable to lie, cheat, steal and kill - the end justifies the means.

Winston Churchill knew what they were up to - and so did Ronadl Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - but those were just few.

I think that was the case up to Brezhnev, or at least toward the end of his reign, but then came Andropov who would have returned to much of Stalinism if he could; certainly the world socialism part. Honestly I think Andropov scared the hell out of everyone. The weird part was Andropov asked to have Gorbachev succeed him; and we know Gorbachev took the country in a completely different direction. After Andropov the Soviet Union finally came to the realization that their quest for world socialism was unsustainable, and they had to deal with their own internal issues. Problem was, by that time it was too late.