If it was 1914...

Propaganda in ALL forms has distorted what actually happened in history to the point that often the course of actual events has become distorted.

One example is the ACTUAL performance of the Ross Rifle in the gas attack at St. Julien, April 23, 1915. Men I knew who were there told me a polar OPPOSITE to the conventional wisdom, which is still being repeated on this forum today.

Same thing, the propaganda tale is that the internment of Japanese Canadians was completely unnecessary, racist and cruel because there were NO Japanese spy rings in Canada. Funny: my MOM helped break one up in Vancouver. After the war ended, she never contacted her best friend, a Canadian-born 'Jap' who had spent most of the war in a Camp..... just out of sheer shame for having been a member of the race which had done THAT to Canadian-born teenage girls...... because of where their Grandparents had come from. Same thing, there were no German spies either. Few days ago I was shooting where one had lived! My old rifle coach was Air Force Intelligence during the war, foiled a Jerry saboteur who had crashed 3 of our aircraft, stood there and watched as the guy was shot down. Never happened, according to the books.

I quite agree regarding photos and maps in contemporary material: excellent. But you can NOT trust the writing! My "Illustrated London War News" from 1915 shows a NEW weapon captured from The Beastly Hun: a ferocious REVOLVER-CANNON capable of spewing HUNDREDS of explosive rounds every minute, proof positive of the Evil lurking in the heart of The Hun. It is an 1874 1-inch Gatling, "Made in U.S.A.", which generally fired a solid bullet. One must NEVER let the mere Truth of a matter get in the road of a GREAT piece of hate literature!

MUCH history needs to be re-examined but SOME, such as some of the books by Correlli Barnett, remain classics in their field. I do not think "The Desert Generals" will ever be surpassed..... but I do wish it were bout 3 times as long!

SOME contemporary accounts are worth reading in tandem. I have a book called "The Retreat From Mons", written by a junior British officer..... and I also have "Th Advance From Mons",written by a junior German officer who was facing him from 500 yards away. Absolutely FASCINATING.

Canadian history needs to be cleaned up very much. Right now there seem to be two versions of mainstream Canadian history: the Anglo version which presents rather a rosy picture with a few tiny misunderstandings..... and the Separatist version, which seems to hold that even a traffic ticket handed out the "pure laine" represents pure oppression and an anglo plot of some kind. Result is that separatist Premiers can drive drunk, run over people.... and it is barely even mentioned in the papers. Right, René? NEITHER version mentions such things as the deliberate destruction of the East Coast industrial base in order to move the centre of finance and production to the Centre, neither addresses very real concerns in the West, both are filled with holes which should not be there (Regina Massacre, Estevan Strike, little things like that). BOTH treat the West as something to be taxed for the benefit of the East but otherwise ignored (it's okay to do that to us stupid rednecks, you know)..... and so on and so forth.

And now MORE groups, usually with Federal subsidies, are getting into it. Indians, Metis both now have growing History movements to prove that Whitey is nothing but an oppressor, not quite as bad as Hitler (but trying hard, just the same). When do they hand out a grant to an al-Qaeda group to write the true story of the oppression of Muslim terrorists by the RCMP? Keep on as we are and it's not far off.

The two races who founded this country have got to stop their eternal bickering, blaming and begging for more money, get together and CO-OPERATE (for a change) while we still HAVE a country.

So let's be honest, write the Past as it really WAS, LEARN from its mistakes..... and go on and BUILD SOMETHING GRAND.... for EVERYONE..... together.

For a change.
 
The bickering is never going to stop on this side of the border Smellie, until you surrender Vancouver and give us back Stargate SG1 headquarters. Its time to start up "54 40 or fight" again and stop showing it raining so much around Cheyenne Mountain Colorado. :bangHead:
 
Ed, you guys already GOT Vancouver, WA. We should be able to have one, too!

Besides, ours has a better Chinatown than yours. Dim sum is AWEsome!

Really wish you hadn't spilled our Secret Invasion Plans, Ed. What if the NSA is watching?

We have a top-secret factory in Edmonton which is turning out troop-carrying pods which are 35.8 inches in diameter.

When we get that 36-inch pipeline finished, we will be able to pipe our entire invasion force right into your most secure refinery complex!

The US Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines and National Guard all will be paralyzed because OUR troops will be sitting on top of THEIR gasoline and Diesel fuel supply....... and it will already have been PAID FOR, too!

Oooooh, but we can be cruel!
 
smellie

Do us a big favor and build the oil pipeline down to Miami Florida and take over South Florida from the Cubans, Haitians and South American drug cartels. That way we could put toll booths on Interstate 95 and make money off the oil rich Canadians driving to "New Florida". You won't even have any complaints from the captured Americans changing the official language from Spanish to English and French. :rolleyes:

If you think you Canadians can be cruel wait till we teach you how to play hockey in Florida in a swimming pool full of alligators. :evil:
 
Last edited:
smellie said:
NOW LET'S GET BACK TO THE MAIN ISSUE: 1914.

I am thinking that a German immigrant who came here after the age of 18 already would have been conscripted as a part of the Imperial German military service. He would thus have been a sworn servant of the Kaiser and of his local King already and to break faith with THEM would have been TREASON. And he would STILL BE A MEMBER OF THE RESERVES. On the other hand, he had chosen to become a Canadian..... and there was, as yet, NO such thing as Canadian Citizenship, would not be for another 35 years.

So he had a choice of fighting for the country he had LEFT or committing Treason in order to fight for the country he had CHOSEN. When I was a kid, I had neighbours who already had been here for 2 and 3 generations before the War even started. This included a family closely related to FM von Hindenberg and another family closely related to the General commanding German troops on Vimy Ridge. They were NOT trusted. It was manifestly unfair, of course, considering that Uncle Erle served 6-1/2 years in the Canadian Artillery...... and could not speak a word of German! No matter: his medals spoke volumes.

In the end, it all was worked out, but the end product was ugly and nasty and unfair, but it suited public opinion. Enemy aliens were registered, issued cards and many of their civil rights reduced. When I was driving cab, I had a trip every night from a local Motel, to take the cleaning-lady home. She spoke almost NO English, could not even give her address clearly. I had a BIT of Ukrainian by that time and was able to talk with her a bit. Turned out she still was MIGHTILY p*ssd at the Government of Canada because they had made her register for an Enemy Alien Card because her Passport said that she was AUSTRIAN (she was from the Austrian part of Galicia, today part of Ukraine) and she was on OUR SIDE.

Unfair, of course, but in the face of NO Oath of Citizenship, what else could be done?
Click to expand...

I suspect this actually happened in my great-grandfather's family. My great-great-grandfather brought his entire family from Prussia in the late 1880s and they all spoke German. There are records of my great-great-uncle enlisting in the CEF, but I'm not sure of where he served. So, indeed, he would've sworn off the Kaiser and considered himself Canadian. Although, I suspect they all did that when they emigrated. In my family, the German heritage is completely extinct. The only thing German/Prussian/Polish is our name and the spelling has probably been Anglicized. The last person to speak German in the family was my father's grandfather and he passed away in the 1950s.
 
smellie said:
Propaganda in ALL forms has distorted what actually happened in history to the point that often the course of actual events has become distorted.

One example is the ACTUAL performance of the Ross Rifle in the gas attack at St. Julien, April 23, 1915. Men I knew who were there told me a polar OPPOSITE to the conventional wisdom, which is still being repeated on this forum today.

Same thing, the propaganda tale is that the internment of Japanese Canadians was completely unnecessary, racist and cruel because there were NO Japanese spy rings in Canada. Funny: my MOM helped break one up in Vancouver. After the war ended, she never contacted her best friend, a Canadian-born 'Jap' who had spent most of the war in a Camp..... just out of sheer shame for having been a member of the race which had done THAT to Canadian-born teenage girls...... because of where their Grandparents had come from. Same thing, there were no German spies either. Few days ago I was shooting where one had lived! My old rifle coach was Air Force Intelligence during the war, foiled a Jerry saboteur who had crashed 3 of our aircraft, stood there and watched as the guy was shot down. Never happened, according to the books.

I quite agree regarding photos and maps in contemporary material: excellent. But you can NOT trust the writing! My "Illustrated London War News" from 1915 shows a NEW weapon captured from The Beastly Hun: a ferocious REVOLVER-CANNON capable of spewing HUNDREDS of explosive rounds every minute, proof positive of the Evil lurking in the heart of The Hun. It is an 1874 1-inch Gatling, "Made in U.S.A.", which generally fired a solid bullet. One must NEVER let the mere Truth of a matter get in the road of a GREAT piece of hate literature!

MUCH history needs to be re-examined but SOME, such as some of the books by Correlli Barnett, remain classics in their field. I do not think "The Desert Generals" will ever be surpassed..... but I do wish it were bout 3 times as long!

SOME contemporary accounts are worth reading in tandem. I have a book called "The Retreat From Mons", written by a junior British officer..... and I also have "Th Advance From Mons",written by a junior German officer who was facing him from 500 yards away. Absolutely FASCINATING.

Canadian history needs to be cleaned up very much. Right now there seem to be two versions of mainstream Canadian history: the Anglo version which presents rather a rosy picture with a few tiny misunderstandings..... and the Separatist version, which seems to hold that even a traffic ticket handed out the "pure laine" represents pure oppression and an anglo plot of some kind. Result is that separatist Premiers can drive drunk, run over people.... and it is barely even mentioned in the papers. Right, René? NEITHER version mentions such things as the deliberate destruction of the East Coast industrial base in order to move the centre of finance and production to the Centre, neither addresses very real concerns in the West, both are filled with holes which should not be there (Regina Massacre, Estevan Strike, little things like that). BOTH treat the West as something to be taxed for the benefit of the East but otherwise ignored (it's okay to do that to us stupid rednecks, you know)..... and so on and so forth.

And now MORE groups, usually with Federal subsidies, are getting into it. Indians, Metis both now have growing History movements to prove that Whitey is nothing but an oppressor, not quite as bad as Hitler (but trying hard, just the same). When do they hand out a grant to an al-Qaeda group to write the true story of the oppression of Muslim terrorists by the RCMP? Keep on as we are and it's not far off.

The two races who founded this country have got to stop their eternal bickering, blaming and begging for more money, get together and CO-OPERATE (for a change) while we still HAVE a country.

So let's be honest, write the Past as it really WAS, LEARN from its mistakes..... and go on and BUILD SOMETHING GRAND.... for EVERYONE..... together.

For a change.
Click to expand...

Let's be fair here. The BC premier also got to drive drunk and then was then rewarded by being appointed Ambassador to the Court of St James. Harper, what were you thinking? An let's not get into the bozos he has appointed to the Senate. Harper was so set on reforming the Senate when he took over that I think he planted Duffy there as a sort of "Trojan Horse" to cause it to implode.

One aspect of Canadian history which interests me is the settlement of the west and the many reasons for this being pushed by the Canadian govt in such an intensive way in the early 1900s. It's great that it happened, but it wasn't all about altruism and national sovereignty for sure. We saw a lot of backroom dealing by Canadian industrialists and railroad interests to create a captive market for goods which were made in Quebec and Ontario, carried on Canadian rails, and sold at a set price which was protected by high tariffs. We, in the great unwashed, got our manufactured goods and got to ship our grain and livestock to market, but all through a monopoly system with no other options. It was kind of a land-locked version of the British mercantile system with the railroads substituting for ships. It amazes me to find die-hard defenders of the Cdn Wheat Board in the western farming community today.

I like to call the aboriginal/native funding and advocacy imbroglio "the Indian Business" for want of a better word. There are a lot of tax dollars at play here and the pot continues to grow. It's major beneficiaries are the native chiefs, lawyers, social workers, revisionist historians, social advocates, and of course the bureaucrats and politicians. There are really no incentives for the players to change the system so the circumstances of the natives never improve too much.

There were 2 founding races in the country up until about 100 years ago, but it has certainly changed since then, and for the better I think. It's a real eye-opener to look at the ethnic origins of the population today. You are hard pressed to find someone of English origin on the streets of Toronto today, and the last time I was in Montreal there were an awful lot of black and oriental looking Frenchmen going about their business. It seems that old Canada is moving towards the kind of ethnic melting pot that we have always had in the west, no matter what the social engineers and politicians like to say about having an ethnically diverse and distinctive rainbow of mini-cultures.
 
Being first is not everything, a country belongs to the ones who build it. Its an opinion, not a fact :) :)

Oh and you forgot the Wendats, the Algonquins, the MicMacs, the Montagnais, and so on and so on and so on...
 
It would be virtually impossible to tell just who were the first peoples to live within the boundaries of present day Canada. They all came across the Bering Straight to begin with. Some stayed along the N. Pacific coast while others migrated down and across the continent.

History is replete with human migrations, either caused by natural effects, by choices, or by war. History shows us that those who win the wars get to occupy and run the territory that they conquer, at least until the cycle repeats itself. That's the reality of it.
 
smellie said:
Propaganda in ALL forms has distorted what actually happened in history to the point that often the course of actual events has become distorted.

One example is the ACTUAL performance of the Ross Rifle in the gas attack at St. Julien, April 23, 1915. Men I knew who were there told me a polar OPPOSITE to the conventional wisdom, which is still being repeated on this forum today.
Click to expand...
Now I'm a big fan of yours smellie and let me be clear..The Ross rifle holds pride of place in this house:) There's no doubt that those who survived the gas attack were very effective in maintaining rapid fire and in areas the German advance foundered, but it is well documented the issues encountered over this period..Major H.M Urquhart was particularly verbose in his comments...
Click to expand...
 
Yes, I suppose it is well-documented, but I have a small but I believe significant query: in an area in which there were Mausers, Rosses and Berthiers galore, to be picked up by anyone, where did 5,000 SMLEs suddenly sprout from?

As far as I understand, they don't grow on bushes.

I have any number of books attesting to the borderline stability of Sir Sam Hughes. Only a few hours ago I was gifted with a photocopy of the actual letter sent by Sir Sam to General Alderson on 7 March, 1916, 10 months after the St. Julien gas attack, in defense of the Ross Rifle and putting forward his position on the issue of oversized ammunition. It is polite and it is quite thorough and it is not at all the ravings of a madman. Thanks for this wonderful gift, Ballsofice154.

The entire issue of the jamming of the Ross Rifle was investigated and the results set forth in the 40-or-so volumes of the Official History in 1938, in an Appendix. This report has been available as a reprint in booklet form for some years now and this is the Good Part, for the entire Official History (if one could actually find a copy) would fill my little car. But the good always mirrors the bad, and the Bad Part is that so very few people have bothered to READ the report, which is the result of an expensive and time-consuming investigation.

That the Ross Rifle still is being slagged is proof absolute of the persistence of propaganda. Like the Crucified Canadians, the Raped Nuns and the manifold war crimes of the Evil Hun (which generally turned up in the popular Press just as the Army needed more men; my study is on file at the University of Manitoba), the Jamming Ross Rifle has become a part of folklore. I doubt the TRUTH ever will be recognised.

Ballsofice 154 was here earlier. We spent half the day playing with old junk, including a pair of Ross Rifles. One was through Second Ypres and the April 24 night assault with the Canadian Scots, then served in the Armada do Chile until it went into storage at the time our old Superdreadnought was scrapped, half a century later. The other served with the Royal Marines through BOTH World Wars. They work fine. We didn't shoot them today because the range has no cover and it was over 90 degrees here today, but, next time we are together, both of these rifles will be shot.

I am looking for some good targets.

I am NOT looking forward to any smoking craters on the rifle range, craters where once stood a silly Canadian..... with a Ross Rifle.
 
your welcome for the letter smellie its the least I can do. (but I bet you more can be done whenever you visit the museum in the brandon armoury)

now I just need to get my dirty paws on a ross rifle seeing as when I'm looking for one I can't find any.

smellie you better watch that one of your rosses doesn't walk off as according to the canine commandments;

If I get my dirty paws on it its mine
If I lick it it is mine
if I chew it its mine
if I drop it and come back it's still mine
if it breaks its not mine
 
Last edited:
smellie said:
Yes, I suppose it is well-documented, but I have a small but I believe significant query: in an area in which there were Mausers, Rosses and Berthiers galore, to be picked up by anyone, where did 5,000 SMLEs suddenly sprout from?

As far as I understand, they don't grow on bushes.

I have any number of books attesting to the borderline stability of Sir Sam Hughes. Only a few hours ago I was gifted with a photocopy of the actual letter sent by Sir Sam to General Alderson on 7 March, 1916, 10 months after the St. Julien gas attack, in defense of the Ross Rifle and putting forward his position on the issue of oversized ammunition. It is polite and it is quite thorough and it is not at all the ravings of a madman. Thanks for this wonderful gift, Ballsofice154.

The entire issue of the jamming of the Ross Rifle was investigated and the results set forth in the 40-or-so volumes of the Official History in 1938, in an Appendix. This report has been available as a reprint in booklet form for some years now and this is the Good Part, for the entire Official History (if one could actually find a copy) would fill my little car. But the good always mirrors the bad, and the Bad Part is that so very few people have bothered to READ the report, which is the result of an expensive and time-consuming investigation.

That the Ross Rifle still is being slagged is proof absolute of the persistence of propaganda. Like the Crucified Canadians, the Raped Nuns and the manifold war crimes of the Evil Hun (which generally turned up in the popular Press just as the Army needed more men; my study is on file at the University of Manitoba), the Jamming Ross Rifle has become a part of folklore. I doubt the TRUTH ever will be recognised.

Ballsofice 154 was here earlier. We spent half the day playing with old junk, including a pair of Ross Rifles. One was through Second Ypres and the April 24 night assault with the Canadian Scots, then served in the Armada do Chile until it went into storage at the time our old Superdreadnought was scrapped, half a century later. The other served with the Royal Marines through BOTH World Wars. They work fine. We didn't shoot them today because the range has no cover and it was over 90 degrees here today, but, next time we are together, both of these rifles will be shot.

I am looking for some good targets.

I am NOT looking forward to any smoking craters on the rifle range, craters where once stood a silly Canadian..... with a Ross Rifle.
Click to expand...



I have no doubt that the Ross slagging was political. I can't see how the Canadians held that line if ALL their rifles jammed. You can only use the bayonet on one attacker at a time. There are many cases throughout the war, as Smellie points out, where exaggeration was used to forward another piece of politics.

I'm also sure some of the rifles did jam. The ammunition was out of spec, but clearly not all the ammo either. Plenty of milspec .303 from all over the Empire/Commonwealth has been shot in these rifles through both wars by many different nations and this seems to be the only account of such a problem. Spin is a powerful thing.

Any neutral accounts of the Ross at 2 Ypres are probably buried there. Unless Smellie has dug one up?
 
Thanks for that, Kirk.

I only ever knew TWO men who were actually THROUGH the gas attack t St. Julien on April 23. One was Lance-Corporal Robert Courtice, the other Private Alex McBain. Both were in the Reserve company of 8th Battalion which ran up through the gas cloud and plugged the Line when the French Colonial troops (who had NO gas protection at all - our guys had a BIT) broke. Fritz was trying to push 3 Divisions through that gap; they were stopped by ONE COMPANY with Rosses in what surely must have been the single most horrific rifle engagement ever. Both men were very much in favour of the Ross and would not say a thing against it. Pte McBain very nearly became violent when I suggested that there were rifle problems, shouting that it was "all lies! There was NOTHING wrong with the G*d-damned Ross Rifle!"

A balanced view, I believe, came from Captain George Dibblee DCM (from the first assault at Regina Trench), who was with the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles and had a lot of pre-War experience with weapons. He said, "The Ross Rifle was UNPOPULAR due to its length and weight; you couldn't get into a dugout with your rifle slung." Responding to a further inquiry on my part, he went on, "We had NO trouble with the Ross in our outfit..... but we kept our equipment CLEAN, unlike some outfits which never cleaned their rifles."

My own Grandfather, Pte Alex Paterson of the 54th Battalion (The Kootenay Regiment) told me that he "carried two rifles, a Short Lee-Enfield for quick work and a Ross for deliberate shooting". He only ever spoke of a single shot (at a dug-in Jerry sniper, range over 300 yards, total darkness) and otherwise would not talk about the War. Gassed twice and shot-up three times, I do not blame him a bit.

Those accounts, plus the virtual explosion when I broached the topic with Ellwood Epps on the single occasion I was privileged to meet him, pretty much decided for me that my own exprience with Rosses and my own opinions about them, had some merit. I have been shooting Ross Rifles for 50 years now and I still have both eyes, both hands and my head (although I find I am using it less and less these days).

SOME day the Truth might come out. Until then, the Propaganda seems to be winning.

And the whole story was VERY MUCH political.
 
smellie said:
Thanks for that, Kirk.

I only ever knew TWO men who were actually THROUGH the gas attack t St. Julien on April 23. One was Lance-Corporal Robert Courtice, the other Private Alex McBain. Both were in the Reserve company of 8th Battalion which ran up through the gas cloud and plugged the Line when the French Colonial troops (who had NO gas protection at all - our guys had a BIT) broke. Fritz was trying to push 3 Divisions through that gap; they were stopped by ONE COMPANY with Rosses in what surely must have been the single most horrific rifle engagement ever. Both men were very much in favour of the Ross and would not say a thing against it. Pte McBain very nearly became violent when I suggested that there were rifle problems, shouting that it was "all lies! There was NOTHING wrong with the G*d-damned Ross Rifle!"

A balanced view, I believe, came from Captain George Dibblee DCM (from the first assault at Regina Trench), who was with the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles and had a lot of pre-War experience with weapons. He said, "The Ross Rifle was UNPOPULAR due to its length and weight; you couldn't get into a dugout with your rifle slung." Responding to a further inquiry on my part, he went on, "We had NO trouble with the Ross in our outfit..... but we kept our equipment CLEAN, unlike some outfits which never cleaned their rifles."

My own Grandfather, Pte Alex Paterson of the 54th Battalion (The Kootenay Regiment) told me that he "carried two rifles, a Short Lee-Enfield for quick work and a Ross for deliberate shooting". He only ever spoke of a single shot (at a dug-in Jerry sniper, range over 300 yards, total darkness) and otherwise would not talk about the War. Gassed twice and shot-up three times, I do not blame him a bit.

Those accounts, plus the virtual explosion when I broached the topic with Ellwood Epps on the single occasion I was privileged to meet him, pretty much decided for me that my own exprience with Rosses and my own opinions about them, had some merit. I have been shooting Ross Rifles for 50 years now and I still have both eyes, both hands and my head (although I find I am using it less and less these days).

SOME day the Truth might come out. Until then, the Propaganda seems to be winning.

And the whole story was VERY MUCH political.
Click to expand...

That's very interesting, Smellie. There are no longer any living vets, so it's difficult to document first-hand accounts of the Ross's performance. Although, if, as you say, one company held off 3 German Divisions with them, the barrel length couldn't have been so bad. I'd prefer a longer reach with a bayonet—less brains on my tunic.

I can also see how you'd want a shorter rifle if you were in and out of trenches and dugouts. But the speed of the Ross bolt must make up for that in some way, no?
 
Heimrick said:
Pretty interesting! Would you say that the Ross episode was more or less like the Avro Arrow story in some ways?
Click to expand...

I'm going to say I doubt it. Smellie would be the expert. But the Arrow was an incredibly expensive piece of equipment and it had been untried with the new engines. That's a pretty good reason for canceling a contract right there. The Ross was already in the fighting and seems to have done quite well apart from the length.
 
Kirk1701 said:
That's very interesting, Smellie. There are no longer any living vets, so it's difficult to document first-hand accounts of the Ross's performance. Although, if, as you say, one company held off 3 German Divisions with them, the barrel length couldn't have been so bad. I'd prefer a longer reach with a bayonet—less brains on my tunic.

I can also see how you'd want a shorter rifle if you were in and out of trenches and dugouts. But the speed of the Ross bolt must make up for that in some way, no?
Click to expand...

I have talked to quite a number of veterans who had returned from WW1. At the time I knew nothing about a Ross rifle, except that the bolt moved straight back and forward.
One fellow told me that their Ross rifles jammed and they couldn't open the bolt. He said that some soldiers had stood the rifle up, then stood up beside it and tried to jump on the bolt handle with their boot, to try and open it. He said that after the battle, such soldiers would be found dead, beside their jammed rifle. He said that after the battle a lot of Ross rifles were found with mud all over the bolt, where the bolt had been attempted to be opened by jumping on it a with a boot.
I heard other WW1 veterans talk of jammed rifles, but no others gave the details.
 
H4831 said:
I have talked to quite a number of veterans who had returned from WW1. At the time I knew nothing about a Ross rifle, except that the bolt moved straight back and forward.
One fellow told me that their Ross rifles jammed and they couldn't open the bolt. He said that some soldiers had stood the rifle up, then stood up beside it and tried to jump on the bolt handle with their boot, to try and open it. He said that after the battle, such soldiers would be found dead, beside their jammed rifle. He said that after the battle a lot of Ross rifles were found with mud all over the bolt, where the bolt had been attempted to be opened by jumping on it a with a boot.
I heard other WW1 veterans talk of jammed rifles, but no others gave the details.
Click to expand...

Ok, we're getting a little off topic now. But, I would bet the jamming was not due to the inherent unsuitability of the rifle, but the out-of-spec ammunition. I don't need to tell you that when a rifle touches off either over-charged or poorly sized ammo, it will explode in internals of the action, thereby jamming the action so that it will not open. I've seen that happen. Perhaps the poison gas did something to the atmosphere that caused jams? And it's further possible the jammed rifles were not as clean as the ones that didn't jam. Smellie quoted a Cpt. Dibblee in a post on this page who said this was a problem in some units. Plus, mud was on EVERYTHING in that war. That's hardly conclusive evidence.

This still doesn't change the fact that no one since has been able to duplicate the jam-ups. Nor does it change the fact that switching rifles was a POLITICAL move.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom