Mike Irwin
Staff
"I have always thought that Pedersen had to be a heckuva salesman."
Mmmmm...
No more or less so than John Browning, really.
The Pedersen device was seen as a partial solution to the rather intractible problem of providing covering fire while advancing.
The Chauchat was largely a disaster, and the military brass was too afraid of the Germans getting it to issue the Browning Automatic Rifle in the quantities that had been first envisioned, so the Pedersen device was seen as a logical alternative.
I'm sure that when Soviets armed with PPSh submachine guns advanced that it often didnt' seem as if they were firing bullets, either. Until the first German or two got ventilated.
"Then he sold the Army on the .276 caliber, not bad in itself, but not a great idea when there were billions of rounds of .30 ammo in storage..."
He didn't sell the Army on anything.
After US experience in World War I it was thought that a smaller, lighter battle rifle cartridge would be a good idea. The Army experimented with a number of different rounds, from .25 to .30 cal., and finally settled on the .276 bullet diameter (matching, oddly enough, the caliber chosen by the British in 1913 to replace the .303...)
I'm not 100% sure who the Army Chief of Staff was when the decision to proceed with the .276 was made -- it was either Maj. Gen. John Hines or Gen. Charles Summerall -- but it was made BY the Army brass without Pedersen threatening them with one of his Pedersen devices...
In other words, while Pedersen couldn't get his rifle to work with the .30-06, the decision had already been made to replace the .30-06 cartridge. He provided the military with a viable alternative. Not much salesmanship involved, really.
Remember, when that decision was made the Depression hadn't hit yet and money, while a lot tighter than it had been in 1918, was still flowing a lot more freely than it would be in 1931 when MacArthur made the decision to stick with .30-06 due to strictly financial reasons.
Remember... when the US military decided to go to the 5.56 it had hundreds of millions, if not billions, of rounds of 7.62x51 in stock...
And when the military decided to go to 7.62 from .30-06 the military likely had tens of billions of rounds in stores given that the US had just finished World War II AND Korea...
"In WWII, it would have been outranged by the German 7.9mm as well as the Japanese 6.5 and 7.7."
Chimera.
Maximum range isn't important. Effectiveness at combat range is.
Typical combat range during World War II was something along the lines of 400 yards.
The myth of the American soldier being a deadly one shot one kill sniping machine out to 2,500 yards with his trust ThuddyOrtSax is exactly that, a freaking myth.
The .30 Carbine provide itself to be MORE than effective at typical combat distances both in Europe and the Pacific, and the .276 Pedersen round would have also proven to be perfectly suitable and effective at typical combat distances, and a lot more.
Mmmmm...
No more or less so than John Browning, really.
The Pedersen device was seen as a partial solution to the rather intractible problem of providing covering fire while advancing.
The Chauchat was largely a disaster, and the military brass was too afraid of the Germans getting it to issue the Browning Automatic Rifle in the quantities that had been first envisioned, so the Pedersen device was seen as a logical alternative.
I'm sure that when Soviets armed with PPSh submachine guns advanced that it often didnt' seem as if they were firing bullets, either. Until the first German or two got ventilated.
"Then he sold the Army on the .276 caliber, not bad in itself, but not a great idea when there were billions of rounds of .30 ammo in storage..."
He didn't sell the Army on anything.
After US experience in World War I it was thought that a smaller, lighter battle rifle cartridge would be a good idea. The Army experimented with a number of different rounds, from .25 to .30 cal., and finally settled on the .276 bullet diameter (matching, oddly enough, the caliber chosen by the British in 1913 to replace the .303...)
I'm not 100% sure who the Army Chief of Staff was when the decision to proceed with the .276 was made -- it was either Maj. Gen. John Hines or Gen. Charles Summerall -- but it was made BY the Army brass without Pedersen threatening them with one of his Pedersen devices...
In other words, while Pedersen couldn't get his rifle to work with the .30-06, the decision had already been made to replace the .30-06 cartridge. He provided the military with a viable alternative. Not much salesmanship involved, really.
Remember, when that decision was made the Depression hadn't hit yet and money, while a lot tighter than it had been in 1918, was still flowing a lot more freely than it would be in 1931 when MacArthur made the decision to stick with .30-06 due to strictly financial reasons.
Remember... when the US military decided to go to the 5.56 it had hundreds of millions, if not billions, of rounds of 7.62x51 in stock...
And when the military decided to go to 7.62 from .30-06 the military likely had tens of billions of rounds in stores given that the US had just finished World War II AND Korea...
"In WWII, it would have been outranged by the German 7.9mm as well as the Japanese 6.5 and 7.7."
Chimera.
Maximum range isn't important. Effectiveness at combat range is.
Typical combat range during World War II was something along the lines of 400 yards.
The myth of the American soldier being a deadly one shot one kill sniping machine out to 2,500 yards with his trust ThuddyOrtSax is exactly that, a freaking myth.
The .30 Carbine provide itself to be MORE than effective at typical combat distances both in Europe and the Pacific, and the .276 Pedersen round would have also proven to be perfectly suitable and effective at typical combat distances, and a lot more.