[Vespers War]

I read an interesting anecdote tonight that illustrates how oddball weapons could show up somewhere in the Twilight War.

Back in the 1950s, Austria received 26,385 M1 carbines from the United States and bought more from France as the French removed them from service. They were apparently extremely popular, with Austria acquiring almost $1.5 million of ammunition. They remained in frontline service until 1959 when the FN FAL replaced them and the M1 Garand, and were used by the reserves and the customs and tax police in the 1960s. It was thought they had all left service in 1970.

In 1993, workers discovered a stockpile of guns that had been stored in Vienna's government quarter as last-ditch weapons in case of an invasion. There were 1,900 M1 carbines still in factory grease that had been stored for almost 40 years and forgotten about. These kind of forgotten Cold War caches could turn up pretty much anywhere with just about any type of weapon that was being discarded by the major powers after WW2, particularly in countries that were maintaining large reserves relative to their active military and were hardware-rich in a way that storing guns for use by reserves made sense.