Bad ideas in war

[HansMustermann]

For want of a nail a shoe was lost.... etc

See also "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics."

Indeed. Or how that more modern saying goes, "the US Military is a giant logistics company which occasionally dabbles into warfare too."

But yeah, that's warfare done right vs warfare done wrong.

 

[sackett]

Pedersen Device? Now there's a classic bad idea that mercifully never made it into the field. My father, during his hitch in the U.S. Cavalry (1920-23) participated in two days of troop trials with a bunch of them. The story's too long for now, but his evaluation was "NG!" There may have been an F in there too.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Pedersen Device? Now there's a classic bad idea that mercifully never made it into the field. My father, during his hitch in the U.S. Cavalry (1920-23) participated in two days of troop trials with a bunch of them. The story's too long for now, but his evaluation was "NG!" There may have been an F in there too.

More information than you will ever need on the Pederson Device 1 hour 14 minute documentary



The short versions, extracts from the long video

Mae shooting the Pederson



Bruno's animation

 

[HansMustermann]

You're describing an assault rifle.
As you say Browning (and the US Army) intended it as an 'assault rifle' (for lack of a better term), fired from the hip (hence the sling) using automatic fire. This didn't work. Quite probably the Pedersen would have worked better.

The BAR was later used as a LMG because of the USA resistance to the Lewis (which the USN and USMC, and Coast Guard, retained), for financial and other reasons. It was a pretty lousy support weapon, and the US never upgraded it, or replaced it despite the various attempts (T20, T24 et cetera).

And finally, as a military rifle, firing aimed semi-automatic shots from the shoulder, it didn't work because it was too heavy

Well, to their partial defense, nobody had the concept of an assault rifle at that time. (Nor, for that matter, anything like the modern LMG concept, but let's skip that.) They were, yes, struggling to discover the concept 25 years early, and not doing it perfectly the first time, but that's the nature of the beast.

Additionally, you have to just understand the context. They were ALREADY in a war, and the only other thing they had for the role RIGHT NOW was the Chauchat. And, oh dear, the Chauchat sucked royally.

Even the French 8mm Lebel cartridge version suffered from jamming in dirty conditions (like, you know, the mud in WW1 ), low fire rate, piss-poor accuracy (the long recoil design -- i.e., the whole barrel would slide back, not just the bolt -- made it shake like all hell), and a host of other problems.

But even that was perfect compared to the .30-06 version for the Americans. That sucked more ass than the vacuum toilets on the ISS. You'd be lucky if it could even extract more than none when firing. It was universally HATED by the US troops. And generally, all you need to know is that it's still considered the worst automatic weapon ever designed.

Could they have stopped, tried a bunch of other weapons, and chosen the best one? Technically yes, but they didn't have the time for it. They needed an automatic rifle, like, LAST YEAR.

Could they choose or design better with today's knowledge? Undoubtedly. But they didn't have that knowledge at the time.

 

[HansMustermann]

BTW, don't get me wrong, the Chauchat embodied several good and progressive ideas. Not gonna argue against that. It's just the execution, especially for the .30-06 version, where... shall we say... a few executions are missing

 

[sackett]

Chauchat? Go to Forgotten Weapons for some vindication of that old piece of pipe. But Ian is a Francophile and it shows.

 

[HansMustermann]

Not sure if anything can vindicate that, but sure, I'm open to new info. I'll look.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

But let's return to something I mentioned earlier: that Panther final drive. Well, the original design called for a more robust helical geared final drive. And they could build one all right. But Speer asked for a cheaper and simpler one instead, that could be made with untrained slave labour. He got his wish, and the Panther got... well, the drive we all know and love

But Speer could show his buddy Adolf, "look, line goes up!"

And the list goes on and on like Celine Dion's heart

I've also read that the final drive was designed for the original 30 ton design, and the 15+ extra tons of the final product was also a factor in the lack of reliability.

 

[HansMustermann]

It was, indeed, but they COULD and in fact DID redesign it to be (RELATIVELY) more reliable even for that weight, if Speer hadn't opposed that idea.

 

[theprestige]

Well upgrading AFVs at all is a bad idea in war. The upgrades always add weight and power requirements far beyond the vehicle's design specifications. You end up with a bloated, buggy vehicle that can no longer meet its original performance goals, nor adequately serve in its new role.

Just design a new AFV from the ground up, with all the new features already accounted for.

 

[HansMustermann]

Sorta yes and sorta no. I'll grant your point as a general idea, BUT... In the middle of a war you don't always get the TIME to do that. Not just because of design time, but also the time and disruption to retool the production lines. Sometimes upgrading what you have is the most expedient thing to do. That's, for example, why the M4A3E2 Jumbo was preferred over things like the T28, or why they made the Hetzer instead if retooling the Czech factories.

I think the more damaging issue is just changing requirements several times in the middle of a project, when you have no real time to redo everything affected. This not only applies to tanks, but also airplanes, ships, you name it.

 

[theprestige]

Sorta yes and sorta no. I'll grant your point as a general idea, BUT... In the middle of a war you don't always get the TIME to do that. Not just because of design time, but also the time and disruption to retool the production lines. Sometimes upgrading what you have is the most expedient thing to do. That's, for example, why the M4A3E2 Jumbo was preferred over things like the T28.

I think the more damaging issue is just changing requirements several times in the middle of a project, when you have no real time to redo everything affected. This not only applies to tanks, but also airplanes, ships, you name it.

What if you're changing requirements in the middle of a project because the project is in the middle of a war and the battlefield keeps evolving?

 

[jimbob]

Well upgrading AFVs at all is a bad idea in war. The upgrades always add weight and power requirements far beyond the vehicle's design specifications. You end up with a bloated, buggy vehicle that can no longer meet its original performance goals, nor adequately serve in its new role.

Just design a new AFV from the ground up, with all the new features already accounted for.

Didn't the Panzer IV work pretty well?

 

[HansMustermann]

What if you're changing requirements in the middle of a project because the project is in the middle of a war and the battlefield keeps evolving?

Well, isn't that always the case? But you can still do it right or you can do it wrong. Like, you can delay and make it work right, or just plough ahead with something dysfunctional just because "line goes up". Speer invariably chose the latter.

 

[Mojo]

War? What is it good for?

 

[Wudang]

Well, isn't that always the case? But you can still do it right or you can do it wrong. Like, you can delay and make it work right, or just plough ahead with something dysfunctional just because "line goes up". Speer invariably chose the latter.

And sometimes "perfect is the enemy of good". An imperfect AFV (or tank, gun, plane etc) that's here today might be more important than a better design next year.

 

[theprestige]

War? What is it good for?

Turns out war is good for a lot of stuff. Like, a lot.

 

[HansMustermann]

Turns out war is good for a lot of stuff. Like, a lot.

Not really, arguably. Sure, it gets some stuff such as, say, engines developed much faster, but that's just the result of allocating more government funding to them. Like, if the US government were to actually pay 87 billion for nuclear research today (roughly the 5 billion in 1945 that the Manhattan Project cost), it would probably produce the same advance. But that comes at the price of less investment in everything else, so it's a bit of a zero sum game. That money comes from SOMEWHERE sooner or later. Like, you can borrow it now, but you have to pay it back at some point.

Add onto that the cost of well, making tens of thousands of tanks, other vehicles, planes, ships, etc, pissed off just to be destroyed in a war, and you're looking at a net minus.

 

[HansMustermann]

And sometimes "perfect is the enemy of good". An imperfect AFV (or tank, gun, plane etc) that's here today might be more important than a better design next year.

Yes, that is true. But Speer more like chose wasteful crap today instead of a good one tomorrow. As in, a good one that was ALREADY designed and ready to go into production right now. That is all I'm trying to say.

 

[Andy_Ross]

You're describing an assault rifle.
As you say Browning (and the US Army) intended it as an 'assault rifle' (for lack of a better term), fired from the hip (hence the sling) using automatic fire. This didn't work. Quite probably the Pedersen would have worked better.

The BAR was later used as a LMG because of the USA resistance to the Lewis (which the USN and USMC, and Coast Guard, retained), for financial and other reasons. It was a pretty lousy support weapon, and the US never upgraded it, or replaced it despite the various attempts (T20, T24 et cetera).

And finally, as a military rifle, firing aimed semi-automatic shots from the shoulder, it didn't work because it was too heavy

Not at all, the BAR was never meant to be an assault rifle.

It was a squad weapon supposed to be a what later came to be known as a light machine gun. It was an improvement over the French Chauchat that was taken in to service because the USA had turned down the Lewis Gun.
It wasn't a good weapon, too heavy to use as an automatic or semi automatic rifle and too small a magazine to use as a machine gun.

As for the Pederson device, it was a waste of time. Too complicated, fundamentally unrelable and only firing a 32 ACP round.

The M1941 Johnson machine gun was developed o be an improvement over the BAR and was adopted by the US Marines commando forces.

It had a lot of similarities with the FG-42. It fired from an open bolt in automatic, closed in semi and had a side feeding magazine.
It was a long recoil mechanism.