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Sturgeon's House

Das Gee-Sechsunddreißig Ist Tot.


Sturgeon

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If you're referring to the "some dudes get rifles and some dudes get ammo" thing, I have never seen a scrap of evidence for that.

 

 

Lots of primary source on this.  Although the first mentions of unarmed battalions and lack of training occur as early as Plevna, just a single glance at the literature of WW1 gives us hundreds of mentions in letters, battle reports, meetings of the allied high command, German discussions of the subject, and the like.  Here is a small example:

 

"In the early weeks of the war (1914) the Russian Army was supplied with one rifle for every two men.  In the fighting in Galicia, the Russians had one rifle for every six men, and later one rifle for every ten men.  Battalions were even sent into battle un-armed.  Relief could not be brought up because the rear reserves had to wait for rifles of dead soldiers to train with". 

-Literary Digest, October 1917.
 
"Russian soldiers routinely enter battle without rifles.  Russia states that it desperately needs 200,000 rifles per month but is not getting near this number.  Soliders share rifles and enter battle using improvised weapon".
-Notes from the Chantilly Conference, December 1915.
 
"Unarmed men are being sent into the trenches to wait until their comrades were killed or wounded and their rifles become available."
 General A. Knox, British Observer to the Imperial Russian Army.  
-Discussed in detail in "With the Russian army, 1914-1917 : being chiefly extracts from the diary of a military attaché" where his diary has nearly 20 entries where lack of rifles are cited by Russian high command.
 
 "Before Riga in 1915 there were but half as many rifles as there were men.  In the trenches were a multitude of utterly unarmed men, who gained a weapon only when a comrade fell.  They were fed well enough and had plenty of cartridges, but they lacked rifles."
 -Russia in Upheaval
 By Edward Alsworth Ross, published 1918.  Ross was a complete ass better known for accidentally starting the tenure movement in the US but he had unparalleled access to Russia.
 
The main problem is that this lack of weapons was advanced to include WW2, where Russia, except for a few distinctly unusual cases (which could be argued affected every army), had plenty of weapons.
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Oh, World War I. Yes, I buy that. I thought you meant the Red Army. The Imperial Russian Army in WWI was chronically short on weapons, hence the orders to the US, etc.

 

 

After 1922 the Red Army was able to mostly arm itself.  The last mentions of "half armed battalions" comes from the Poland-Soviet War, and from Red Brigades who were suppose to take equipment from Soviet units.  A famous case that Finnish members of the board likely learn in school was a Red Finnish unit who was ordered by the Soviet Army to try and attack a target.  It did not, and a few days later a messenger showed up on a mule and handed a note over to the Soviet commander.  The note - a small scrap of paper, was written in charcoal.  It said, "Cannot attack.  No rifles.  No ammunition.  Also, no paper."

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  • 4 months later...

Current article list about the controversy:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2012/04/26/hk-g36-useless-at-200m-when-hot/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/05/28/alleged-corruption-german-military-rifle-acquisition/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/06/23/alleged-hk-g36-accuracy-problems/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2014/06/30/hk-g36-rifle-faulty-bad-ammunition-caused-poor-accuracy/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/03/the-g36-controversy-intensifies/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/18/breaking-news-g36s-cannot-hold-accuracy-bundeswehr-report-confirms/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/22/heckler-koch-fires-back-at-g36-audit-report/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/23/german-defense-minister-g36-has-no-future-with-bundeswehr/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/04/27/test-g36s-alleged-accuracy-problems/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/05/11/german-defense-minister-claims-government-official-tried-to-cover-up-g36s-problems/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/05/17/breaking-news-hk-admits-to-asking-mad-to-cover-up-g36-problems/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/06/10/hk-troubles-continue-mg5-under-scrutiny-by-german-mod/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/07/17/lithuana-stops-buying-g36s-pending-german-investigation/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/08/29/breaking-bundeswehr-accepts-hk417-as-temporary-replacement-for-g36-with-front-line-troops/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/09/01/clarification-recent-bundeswehr-hk417-purchase-is-supplementary/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/09/08/breaking-german-mod-releases-rfi-for-new-infantry-rifles/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/09/09/delays-beset-german-mg5-program-outlets-report-7-62mm-gpmg-lacks-accuracy/

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/09/13/bundeswehr-set-to-procure-g36-replacement-weaponsman-tells-us-where-things-stand/

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  • 4 weeks later...

I would kill for a pallet of ammo and about 50 G36s so I could spend a week trying to destroy them in order to put this damn thing to rest.

 

Sadly, killing Germans and picking up their rifles and ammo as souvenirs went out of fashion 70 years ago. 

 

I mean...

 

Yeah. It would be totally awesome to legally procure some G36s...

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I'm careful to jump on either side. I have no real interest to see the G36 succeed or fail. The interviewing of soldiers can be a good or bad thing. On one hand, you have testimony of using it during battle conditions. On the other hand, soldiers can have poor perspective on how much better or worse things can be. It should be taken into account, but not all at its word.

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  • 7 months later...

Hecker & Koch is taking the German government to court over its reputation and any criminal wrongdoing.

Notably, it doesn't seem like H&K is taking a stance of "nyet, rifle is fine", but rather "well, we built it to Bundeswehr specs, it's the specs that are wrong".

The company this whole time seems to be dancing around the fact that the rifle has these flaws in the first place, that they've known about them, and they haven't done anything to fix them.

 

Also, that they tried to sell that same kit and kaboodle to the US Government as the XM8.

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Jesus christ and people actually call US weapons designers and defense contractors corrupt? holy fuck.

 

(I was going to call you the ultimate thread necromancer but, because I can never resist taking a shot at H&K....)

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On one level, I sympathize with H&K: The G36 is this holdover from their darkest days, when they'd do anything for money.

On another level, the rifle for all the world seems to have issues, and H&K has known about them since before the controversy erupted. Why didn't they do anything?

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On one level, I sympathize with H&K: The G36 is this holdover from their darkest days, when they'd do anything for money.

On another level, the rifle for all the world seems to have issues, and H&K has known about them since before the controversy erupted. Why didn't they do anything?

 

Because clearly no one would have ever noticed.

 

"What? is that us stamping our own MoD approval markings you say? look the other way now, this interview is over! I must be off to a meeting to rub my testicles in money I make from our products made that sell based on our reputation from when we were still good."

 

Clearly that would go unnoticed too.

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