Most used PDW

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They did used to collect ears!

 

Really!

 

One big downside to the M1 is that it magazine, when empty, would eject from the weapon with a loud clang. This let enemy infantry nearby know that the weapon was now empty.

 

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Not only that, but the Ghoorka will not sheath his Kukri unless it has "tasted" blood. This means that he will knick his thumb with his Kukri and let the blood trickle onto the blade if he hasn't been able to wet his fighting knife with enemy blood. I don't know if they still do that now, but they certainly did so when I served in the Hong Kong Police 40 years ago.

 

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Boll****!

 

This isn't entirely true from the start, the magazine didn't eject but the clip feeding the rifle from the magazine would, although the references I have read refer to an "audible ping" rather than a "loud clang". I'm sure one of our US members will be able to elaborate on how loud a clang the ejecting feed clip makes.

In any case the disadvantage of this is largely myth anyway, fighting ranges would have to be extremely close for the enemy to be able to hear this at all much less take any advantage of it, besides how often in any firefight do you think individual riflemen squared off against one another in close range (say 10 or 20 yards) one on one marksmanship duels like this?

How often do you think they'd hear the magazine clip hit even hard ground (Much less leaves, mud or sand) over the general clamour of battle (Small arms fire, shouting, screaming, engines running, tank tracks clattering, bombs, shells and grenades exploding, but your average Whermacht or Japanese soldier is supposed to distinguish a small metal clip hitting the ground through all this loud background noise and identify that it belonged to that individual rather than any one of his other squad mates :roll: )?

On the whole I can't see it happening and even if it had any time an enemy soldier tried to take advantage of this he would have quickly found that the GI would have quickly reloaded or far more likely someone from the rest of the squad would deal with him instead.

Finally, Soldiers are a pretty resourceful bunch all told, if this were a common issue in reality I've no doubt that GIs would have quickly taken to carrying around a few spare emptied clips so that they could throw one down in a firefight to fool enemy soldiers into thinking they were out of ammunition.

 

Simon is correct. The ping is not really an issue. It's about as loud as a bell at a hotel desk.

Also, it takes me about 3 seconds to pull a clip from a bandoleer and reload my Garand. I'm sure an experienced combat rifleman would be able to reload quicker than that. Besides, a Garand gets eight shots per clip compared to a Mauser's & Arisaka's five.

 

Yeah.

 

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'Yeah'? most enlightening!

 

Now there's bolt actions and bolt actions - the British bolt action rifles were significantly quicker to operate than anyone elses' - some say that in experienced hands they weren't that far off semi-autos in a static firing situation (in terms of well aimed shots per minute) - semi autos really come in to their own when firing on the move in a rapidly changing situation and in close combat. Great reliabilty and accuracy from the Brit rifles too.

 

The Brit rifle you are speaking of is the Lee-Enfield .303
Namely the SMLE No.1 Mk.3 and the No.4
Admitedly they are very quick and smooth to operate and for some reason I do find the SMLE smoother to operate than my No.4 but that may be because my No.4 has seen little use and the bolt is still reasonably stiff.
A well practiced soldier with a SMLE could probably put out 20-25 rounds a minute without much hassle

 

The Enfields cock on closing rather than on opening like most other bolt action rifles. I'm not sure if this was on purpose but the cock on close allows the Enfield's bolt to be pulled really quickly. However, it does require a bit more effort to close the bolt.

 

But the effort is much easier to do with the rifle in your shoulder as it is a forward motion and you can put more strangth into it, unlike a Mauser cock on open action which takes alot of effort to turn the handle upwards, and I often find myself taking a K98 out of my shoulder to operate the action.

 

How many rounds would a Thompson hold?

 

30, 50 and 100 round magazines were made for them with the 30 round stick magazine being the most common.

 

Was the 100 round magazine the drum type?

 

Yep and very heavy it was. Nobody liked carrying them.

 

And easily jammed, if my books have not lied to me. Still, it looked cool, which as we know is the most important thing

 

Cool pic!

 

Russian Sherman crews along with their tanks,receved tommy guns allso for personal defense,but they did not liked it. "It was too heawy ,to bigg for tank,and poor accuracy". They prefered PPSH r the MP40.