Worst small arms of the 20th century?

[YotoKiller]

G' Morning!

I'm Looking for any nice deluge of info on some military guns that have been co mplete total failures on both the battlefield and the market.

A Pistol,
Rifle,
Submachine gun,
machine gun,
ect. that has stood out like a sore thumb.

1900 to WWII would suffice.

 

[Ramius75]

The liberator

 

[Bugfatty300]

Bad and terrible small arm designs are actually pretty rare. If the gun won't work then people and armies will not use it when their lives depend on it. But still some guns that have seen service seem to defy all logic and common sense.

Pistol: The Chezh vz/38 was pretty much worst design coming out of Europe just before WWII. It fired a 9mm from a short case making it unbelievably underpowered.
It had no thumb hammer, and since it was double-action, its accuracy was equally terrible.

The Japanese Type 14th and 94th year pistols were also complete wastes of metal by any standards

Submachine Gun: The American Reising M50 was pretty bad compared to WWII submachine guns. Probably because most of them used the tried and true blowback system. For example, the British stengun was incredibly crude and looked like a peice of **** but it was cheap to make and worked pretty well. The M50 was unreliable, compicated and expensive to make. These were issued to Marines who gladly threw it away in favor of the Thompson. Some were sent to Russia were they probably did the same with local weapons.

Rifle: The German Grewhr 41 comes to mind although there probably are worse examples. This is the only one I can think of at the moment. It was heavy and unbalanced, slow to reload and too complicated. Only 8,000 were made and they were quickly replaced by the much better Grewhr 43 rifles.

Machine Gun: The French Chauchat of 1915 was probably the worst gun ever. Most certainly the worst ever used by US forces. And what it is so confusing is why it was still being used all the way until the 60s. It was crappy in every single way a gun can be crappy.

 

[Kafka2]

The British SA-80 assault rifle. It's a national scandal.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

The British SA-80 assault rifle. It's a national scandal.

I'd be enraged if I saw any backup to your statement that took you 3 seconds to write.

I'll instead provide a link to what I consider to be a decent article about the SA-80, its problems such as cost and many early teething problems (resulting in high cost) and its strengths such as being very accurate as a weapon for soldiers that are well trained (British soldiers).

Whilst the SA-80 isn't the weapon I'd equip British soldiers with, it is by no means the worst weapon ever, or even near that title.

 

[Warman17]

The Chauchat from world war one has to be one of the worst.

 

[emzie]

The liberator

Indeed. The only gun ever made that took less time to produce than to reload.

The correct name for the Liberator Pistol is the "Flare Projector" Caliber .45 (FP-45). During 1942 over a six month period one million pistols were produced. Actual production of the pistol was about 11 weeks. Using that figure, 300 people produced a pistol with 23 parts every 6.6 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 11 weeks. This is probably the only pistol that could be made faster than it could be loaded. Loading takes about 10 seconds.

It was a single-shot pistol, meaning, reload time was important. One shot every 10/11 seconds is pretty bad.

The pistols were mainly used in the Philippines and China. Their effective range was about 8 feet since they were without spiral-bore (the inside of the barrel was completely smooth, thus, the projectile had no spin, making it travel widely). Their only use was to sneak up behind a Japanese solider, shoot him in the back of the head, and take his gun.

 

[amadeus]

I thought the primary purpose of that pistol was assassinations? At least, I believe that's what it says in my small arms book. I'll take a second look.

 

[storealex]

http://images.google.dk/imgres?imgu...ev=/images?q=the+liberator+gun&hl=da&lr=&sa=G

 

[Marla_Singer]

Landmines.

 

[Jack the Ripper]

The Chauchat from world war oen has to be oen of the worst.

This guy took the words right outta my mouth. Whoever fought with onna these was bound to make his wife a widow.

 

[YotoKiller]

Why all the negative against the Liberator?

From what I know it was very effective for what it was intended.

Sort of like a disposable lighter.

Bad and terrible small arm designs are actually pretty rare. If the gun won't work then people and armies will not use it when their lives depend on it. But still some guns that have seen service seem to defy all logic and common sense.

I never even heard of those weapons you mentioned. Except the Chauchat.

 

[Chaos_BF1942]

Landmines.

It small arms, I think think of landmines as small arms. But I do agree they are nasty weapons, but they are far from being failures.

I would have to say the French Chauchat, I only heard bad things about that gun

 

[Bugfatty300]

Well I tried to stay away from the ussual over-hyped targets such as the M16 and SA80 neither of which fall into the category of total failures and the former being quite succesful to any standards.

The Chauchat:

The cz/38.

The M50

 

[bigmeat]

the m16 isn't that bad, it's not that good either though

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

Landmines.

Not that I wouldn't agree completely, Marla, but the other folks posting here have a totally different view...they actually like weapons.

Sorta like asking "Worst disease of the 20th century?", and not aiming at AIDS, Spanish Flue, Tuberculosis, but Common Cold, "...'cause it fails to kill those affected."

 

[Marla_Singer]

Not that I wouldn't agree completely, Marla, but the other folks posting here have a totally different view...they actually like weapons.

Sorta like asking "Worst disease of the 20th century?", and not aiming at AIDS, Spanish Flue, Tuberculosis, but Common Cold, "...'cause it fails to kill those affected."

Oh sorry, that's another thread for gun freaks we can find across the Ocean.

Sometimes I wonder why they don't do a little war between each other since they seem to find it so funny.

 

[joycem10]

Dont remember the names or designations for the weapons, but a history channel special on the arms of the Japanese Empire was particularly scathing. The basic argument of the show was the the Japanese inability to develop small arms was a major factor in their eventual defeat.

The one weapon I remember best was a grenade launcher which, if used properly, would break the users leg. Ingenious.

 

[YotoKiller]

@Marla and Doc Tsiolkovski: If you don't like the subject of the thread then don't post in it. Others might find this a reasonable discussion worth a deal of thought so don't spam or TJ it.

 

[Doc Tsiolkovski]

I beg to differ: It's the title of the thread that's misleading. I wouldn't bother if you'd called it "Least effective small arms..." or something in that direction.

Nevertheless, I'll be quiet now.