Really bad weapons...

[dragoon500ly]

Here it is, late at night, the kids are in bed, and I'm bored!

So here is a new thread about some of those real "gems" of weapons that have been inflicted on the innocent service member...

For any US tanker, the weapon that leaves you shuddering in disgust is one that was designed by the good ole Springfield Arsenel as a replacement for the venerable M-1919A4 machinegun. It was known as the M-73 co-axial 7.62mm machine gun.

The big feature of this weapon is that it has a very compact body, saving precious space inside the turret for other items. Breaking down the M-73 usually left you with over 30 parts, many of them small. A real pleasure to break down and maintain inside the turret, but that wasn't make it a bad weapon.

What really took this weapon into the realm of just plain aweful was the development of its replacement, the M-219. This improved model of the M-73 had even more parts (40) and earned the nickname of "The 25 and jam".

Without fail, no matter how much love and maintaince, no matter the amounts of RBC and Break-Free applied, no matter how much was offered to the Eldar Gods. This piece of junk would fire from 5 to 25 rounds and then jam. The loader of a tank could always be identified by the impressive muscles on his right hand and the callus on his left palm. You used your right arm to yank the chain to eject the misfired round, while using the left hand to hold down the manual trigger. A favorite statement was that if the Soviets invade West Germany, the first M-16 that could be scrounged would be mounted in place of the -219. At least the M-16 would fire!

When the M-240C first came out, the civilian ordnance techs had a great demonstration. They would mount the -240C on a tripod and layout a thousand round belt of ammo. Then load the weapon and hold the trigger down. The sight of a machine gun firing for that long and not jamming amazed every tanker that witnessed it.