Posted on 07/21/2022 6:07:25 AM PDT by max americana
On July 21, 1918, German soldiers captured a U.S. soldier from the 307th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, near Baccarat, France. He was carrying a weapon they had never seen: a Winchester Model 97 pump-action shotgun.
On September 15, 1918, the German government officially protested the use of the shotgun.
" This response, from the New York Sun, was typical: "It is hardly necessary to point out how ridiculous is this protest from a government that has used in war every foul means known to a foul mind. The inventors of poison gas objected to the use of a clean bullet!"
1:00 On September 15, 1918, the German government officially protested the use of the shotgun in a note verbale—an unsigned diplomatic note—transmitted to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, then to the Swiss Embassy, and eventually to the American legation in Berne, Switzerland. The note asserted that the use of shotguns by U.S. forces violated Article 23(e) of the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions and warned that any American captured with a shotgun or shotgun ammunition would be executed.
2:00 When fired the new American gun sprays the contents of each shell over an area measuring nine feet horizontally and about three feet vertically, so that it is almost impossible not to hit a large number of enemy infantrymen coming to the attack in the typical mass formation of the Germans.
2:50 “the chief purpose of employing it in combat is, of course, the highly necessary one of killing or putting out of action at close range as many as possible of the enemy in as short a time as possible.”
4:00 The Model 97 “trench shotgun,” as it quickly came to be known, was the brainchild of William G. Eager of Valdosta, Georgia, who had a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and was working as the general manager of a local lighting company.
5:00 known as "trench sweepers", Germans were aghast when they found out our boys killed 3-4 with one shot at the first Battle of Bella Wood (thats why the krauts kept bitching)
5:00 Benedict Crowell, Secretary of War and future president of NRA responds..
next 3 minutes, the hypocrite krauts (the inventors of mass killings by train and exterminations camps) kept whining like little girls to the State Dept..
Javol Fritz. War is Hell. No?
Another John Browning creation, along with the 1917/1918 machine guns, the 1911, and the M2.
I have one, my grandfather’s legacy
The shotgun is very heavy
Right? They weren’t too particular about the wide spread of poison gas.
Not to mention the submarine warfare on anything that floated. A lot of luminaries back then decried the sub as a sneaky and uncivilized method of killing people.
Even way before that, the use of the crossbow was judged by many to be inhumane.
I imagine it’d have to be, otherwise it’d be pretty hard to handle in slam fire mode.
20.5” barrel “killing 3-4” with one shot? I suppose, if they all hugged as if trying to fit a large family into one photo...
Ref. one of a nearly infinite number of shot spread tests, this from an 18.5” barrel and no choke. https://www.guns.com/news/reviews/12-gauge-shotgun-pattern-test
Pershing threatened to execute German POW’s on a one to one basis and they backed down.
Of course what is not mentioned is that the US Army learned from direct experience from the Confederate Army just how effective shotguns could be at close range. Before that everyone had only thought of them as sporting arms. Though, they really should have realized how effective they could be given that crude blunderbusses had been used commonly in naval combat to take out densely packed swarms of boarding parties or overcome densely packed defenders when boarding. They put nasty things down the barrel of those - nails, broken glass, etc.
To this day several NATO militaries use shotguns for house to house fighting.
Good gosh. Mustard gas is fine, but shotguns? Noooooooo...
They perfected the use of machine guns, too. What’s the difference between spraying a lot of lead out of a machine gun or shotgun?
The same was said of the atom bomb.
And sniping (until Vietnam came, when the US military opened its first permanent, full-time sniper schools and began incorporating snipers into our order of battle doctrine).
Next in the barrel likely will be autonomous weapons systems.
Judgements as to whether something is fair in war usually is determined by who's ox it is that's getting gored.
Yeah. My Grampa suffered from the after effects of mustard gas till he died in 1978.
I know nothing about the history of the shotgun- but it had to be invented before 1917 (??)
The same concept in artillery, grapeshot, was used at least since the Napoleonic wars.
I still decry the sub as a nasty and sneaky way of killing people. Just look at all the fat in those sandwiches.
I still decry the sub as a nasty and sneaky way of killing people. Just look at all the fat in those sandwiches.
Cool.
The elite didn’t like the crossbow because it was cheap, a peasant farmer could learn to use it in a couple of hours, and the bolt would slide right through some fancy pants knight’s plate armor.
The elite have never like us commoners well armed.
Oh, please - compared to what?
The M1897 Trench Gun loaded weighs 8.0 pounds. Springfield 1903 - 8.2 pounds, M1 Garand rifle 10.5 pounds loaded, BAR loaded - 19.5 pounds, the M16A2 loaded - 8.8 pounds.
Maybe you avoid the service if that weight is "too heavy".
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.