Thread: Other contries equipment cock-ups.

Originally Posted by CC_TA

SA80 also went to the Romanian Navy

Equipment c*** ups - nothing wrong with the design, just the destination - An Iso container full of lawn mowers turning up in shaibah Log Base - Iraq - Giggles.

Romanian Navy with A1's and no foresight (might just be for ceremonial though)



Not just weapons, our kit too!

Originally Posted by ironrations

I once heard a story (perhaps other ARRSErs can confirm/deny about a French machine gun so secret that it was issued without instructions on the outbreak of WW1, leading to them being abandoned en masse as usual...

I think you are confusing two weapons...

The one the French were so secretive about was the Mitrailleuse, which is classed more as a Volley gun than a true machine gun..

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

The WW1 French machine gun was the infamous Chauchaut which they fobbed of on the US (serves them right for being late and buying ANYTHING off a Frenchman IMHO.)

..both weapons utterly useless

Chauchaut
was apparently used by the yanks as there boss wanted to keep the new Bar back till the offensive of 1919 germans were quite good at back engineering any half decent allied kit they captured

Iraqes brought some tanks off the chinese which were so shite they only ever gave them to their reserve units .

Originally Posted by "emptyeye

Not just weapons, our kit too!

Not just the combat jacket, but the REME TRF too...

I dont think they are real either... imho

Originally Posted by brighton hippy

Chauchaut
was apparently used by the yanks as there boss wanted to keep the new Bar back till the offensive of 1919 germans were quite good at back engineering any half decent allied kit they captured

No the BAR simply wasn't ready when the US Army went to war. Full-scale production started in June 1918 and it was being used in action by September. The Lewis gun, though heavier, would have been a better alternative than the Chauchat.

Since work on the gun did not begin until February 1918, so hurried was the schedule at Winchester to bring the BAR into full production, that the first production batch of 1,800 guns was delivered out of spec;[6] it was discovered that many components did not interchange between rifles and production was temporarily halted until manufacturing procedures were upgraded to bring the weapon up to specifications.[7] The initial contract with Winchester called for 25,000 BARs. They were in full production by June 1918, delivering 4,000 guns and in July were turning out 9,000 units....

By July 1918, the BAR began to arrive in France and the first unit to receive them was the U.S. Army’s 79th Infantry Division, which took them into combat for the first time on 13 September 1918.[7] The weapon was personally demonstrated against the enemy by 2nd Lieutenant Val Allen Browning, the inventor's son.[7] Despite being introduced very late in the war, the BAR had made an impact disproportionate to its numbers; it was used extensively during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and made a significant impression on the Allies (France alone requested 15,000 automatic rifles to replace their notoriously unreliable Chauchat machine rifle).[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1918_B...utomatic_Rifle

The Chauchat was utter crap, its .30US chambering even more feculant. It's estimated that over half the number purchased for the AEF were thrown away by Doughboys.

We had the Lewis in USMC/USN service, but due to a personal beef the Chief of Ordnance(General Crozier) had with Col. Lewis, it was a non starter for the US Army. A few thousand were used for training in the states, but when the Marines landed in France, their Lewis's were confiscated, replaced with the rusty sardine can, Le gun.

Lewis donated every cent of the royalties he recieved during the war to the US Treasury.

American Cockups

T24 Light Machinegun- American MG-42. Developed in 1943 and intended to replace the M1919 in Infantry platoons, it was abandoned after firing trials. Seems the engineers at Saginaw Steering didnt make the MG-42 receiver long enough for the .30US Service Cartridge. Weapon jammed almost every burst, several catastrophic failures to due short chambering

T13 Beano Handgrenade, fragmentation- Developed under the premise that all Americans knew how to throw a baseball. Combined with an impact fuse, Premature detonations ensued when Joe pulled the pin and fliped it in the air before throwing it.

M50 & M55 Reising Submachinegun- Total Crap with a 12 rd mag. used by the USN/USMC/USCG. Col. Edson of the Raiders had his Marines dump the units issue in the Tenaru river on Guadalcanal.

M1903A4 Sniper rifle- Ordnance didnt even test them for accuracy before slapping on cruddy telescopic sights. Now the USMC M1903A1 with the 10X Unertl was a whole 'nother story, a real killer.

and of course how can one forget the USAAF's Bat Bomb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb (apologies for using Wiki)

Moving on we have the
M60A2 Tank aka the "Starship"
M551 Tank aka the "Shank"
Both used the 152mm Gun/Shillelagh Missile launcher. Sheridan also had a crap tranny and ended its days as a VISMOD OPFOR vehicle at NTC. Most of the M60A2's became AVLB chassis.



The M2/M3 IFV/CFV swimming screen- I had the dubious pleasure to experience a failure of the screen during a crossing of Cowhouse creek at Ft. Hood, Tx in 1982. We re-enacted a sinking U-Boat crew trying to unass that vehicle without drowning. By sheer luck all 9 of us made it out safe. It took 3 M88 recovery vehicles to dredge the Brad out of the depths.

The RAN ordered 11 SH-2G Super Seasprites in 1997. The aircraft never entered SQN service, the program cost over A$1 billion, all for nought .... scrapped in 2008.

"Premature detonations ensued when Joe pulled the pin and fliped it in the air before throwing it."

Bet they were popular with the rest of the squad, "Hey, watch this guys!" *Splatter*

Originally Posted by Mr_Deputy

French Lebel rifle - design flaws. Some target shooters now say this is rubbish but I think its problems lay in combat use so I think it is true to say. (No jokes about a white flag always popping out of it - I'm not much of a poilu basher!)

Germany - Prussian & Bavarian officers. (Mad and couldn't even bomb Hitler from 5 feet away.)

The problem with the Lebel was not that it was a bad rifle - it's just that it was fed from a magazine running the length of the barrel which took minutes to reload while the SMLE or the G-98 used clips that allowed for faster reloading. If If too long (it was called the "fishing rod"), the Lebel was extremly accurate and was used for target shooting until the 60s.

The Stryker. while in theory it can be loaded on a c-130 and roll off the ramp ready to fight, in actuality it has to be stripped of all additions to the hull (rpg cage, antennae, smoke launchers, and TWO WHEELS). and even after stripping the behemoth bare, they still needed a waiver from the USAF to fit it on a plane. total reassemply on the ground could take as much as two hours. and as for its claims of being IED proof, with the introduction of shape charges they became just as vulnerable as the HMMWV.

Originally Posted by HE117

Originally Posted by ironrations

I once heard a story (perhaps other ARRSErs can confirm/deny about a French machine gun so secret that it was issued without instructions on the outbreak of WW1, leading to them being abandoned en masse as usual...

I think you are confusing two weapons...

The one the French were so secretive about was the Mitrailleuse, which is classed more as a Volley gun than a true machine gun..

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

The WW1 French machine gun was the infamous Chauchaut which they fobbed of on the US (serves them right for being late and buying ANYTHING off a Frenchman IMHO.)

..both weapons utterly useless

Funny how the Chauchat story always comes out and not the French 1897 75 mm cannon (still used during WW2) or the French 155 mm GPF cannon (the basis of the 155 "Long Tom" of WW2), both used en masse by the US Forces during the two world conflicts...not to mention the FT 17 tanks, Spad aircrafts and countless other bits and pieces. The US were equipped by the French when they arrived in 1917 a long time before the opposite became true.

Fantassin, that is not what the thread is about now, is it?
No need to always be so defensive, I think that loads of people on here do respect the French Military.
Now, having said this: white flag blablabla etc :D

Originally Posted by para_medic

Fantassin, that is not what the thread is about now, is it?

You should know by now that my goal in life is to edumacate you lot in the errors of your ways about the French. When I read BS I have to contribute....