Worst Small Arms of WWII

[Horch]

Originally Posted by cyberia

This one gets my vote...

Those Russians were ingenious!

[Wustenfuchs]

The Breda Modello 30 was pretty bad.

[Kurttis Thomas]

. Here's one the Nambu M94
This Japanese pistol is the worst wepon of WWII in my mind. It was considered one of the worst wepons ever made. It was so poorly manufactured that if the least amount of pressure was put on it it would atomatically fire knida scary if you have that thing in a holster and you go to take cover and land on it and a bullet goes into your leg. It's acuracy is horrible even with a well trained soldier it has a very small chance of hiting it's target. Even U.S. Marines that came across them rarley took them as soviners. It was produced around the end of the war in the Pacific and because of the allied bombing it was largely produced in small workshops in remote areas which added to the poor performance of the gun. If I was issued one of these things personelly I would throw it away as soon as no one was looking and find a dead guy with somthing better.

[Kurttis Thomas]

Well the Nambu M94 Was a piece of junk but now they go for big bucks.

[Nachtjager]

you guys think this stuff is bad, how about the crap that Britain and Canada pumped out in WW1. Their crappy rifles followed up with cardboard souled boots...in muddy tenches I might add.

[sample]

Originally Posted by JohnnieB

The BAR has to be on the list. Low magazine capacity, difficult to keep clean, no interchangable barrel.

It left the American infantry team without a real LMG, it was neither one thing nor the other, trying to be both.

The BAR was originally intended as a light automatic rifle, but spent much of its service life in various guises used in the light machine gun role with a bipod; also all the light machine guns of the interwar period were designed with 20 rounds magazine capacity like the finish Lahti-Saloranta M/26 or more famously, the Czech ZB vz. 26; this was adopted by Wehrmacht after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, renaming it the MG 26(t) and by Waffen SS; it was used in the same role as the MG34, as a light machine gun.

The only real drawback of the weapon was lack of interchangable barrel, but foreign weapon designers solved this problem too and the weapon served well in other armies:

In 1920, the Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) acquired sales and production rights to the BAR series of firearms in Europe from Colt’s. FN designed the swedish BAR (Kg m/21), the polish 7,92 mm rkm Browning wz. 1928 (first picture attached) and later the FN Mle D for belgian army (D – Demontable or “removable”) with a quick-change barrel. Also, dissatisfied with the rapidly overheating fixed barrel of the m/21, Carl Gustaf began to design a new quick-detach mechanism for the barrel which mates the externally grooved chamber to a series of rotating flanges in the receiver operated by a locking lever. The barrel also received cooling fins throughout its entire length. These enhancements were incorporated into the fm/1935 prototype trialed successfully in 1935, which in turn led to the m/37 (2nd picture attached) variant that lacks the finned barrel, selected into service in 1937 and remaining in first-line use until 1980.

[Kurttis Thomas]

Originally Posted by Wustenfuchs

The Breda Modello 30 was pretty bad.

I'll second that actually.

[Panzer_M]

Originally Posted by JohnnieB

I'm not sure where you are getting this. As early as the 1937
KStN 131a (R) (2.11.1937)
the basic Gruppe was 7 KAR 09, 1 MG34 and 2 Pistolen

By the 1944
K.St.N.131V (1.11.1944)
the basic Zug was 2 Sturm Gruppen of 7 Stgw 44 0r and a 3rd Gruppe of 5 Stgw 44 & 2 MG42.

That's organic squad fire support with a standard load-out of 1200 rounds of MG ammunition.

1944?

The common Zug of a Grenadier Regiment of a Infantrie Div still relied on K98ks w/ 1 le MG and automatic weapon to the NCO, and Fireteam leader normally, and 2-4 schwere MGs per Kompanie with Semi-auto rifles, Mps, and StGs mixed in, but not the standard weapon....Sturmtruppen units were more heavily armed were not the common infantrie type fielded.