View Single Post
Old August 17, 2014, 01:20 PM   #88
Mike Irwin
Staff
 
Join Date: April 13, 2000
Location: Northern Virginia
Posts: 41,374
"In the end, the 12 ga. trench guns proved to be much more effective."

Shotguns were effective, but how much more effective they might have been as compared to the Pedersen device can't be measured because the Pedersen never saw combat.

US shotguns were also hampered by other considerations in WW I combat... First, there weren't that many of them. From the stories it would make it seem as if every other GI was armed with a shotgun. Not the case.

The shotgun also only held 7 rounds, and was time consuming to reload.

Then, there was the problem of actually getting close enough to the Germans to actually make effective use of the shotgun:

"The hours dragged by with but little interruption of any sort. Now and then we would stand to one side to allow a band of 'moppers-up' to pass. They had some strange looking camouflage on their helmets and were armed with trench knives, hand grenades, and several of them carried the new U.S. riot guns, a 12-gauge pump-gun shooting a heavy charge of buckshot. These guns were designed for close quarters and, judging from our experiences of the next few days, they found but small use for them, owing to the fact that the Huns were in no frame of mind for hand-to-hand combat."

OUR BATTLE OF THE ARGONNE, Mechanic Vernon R. Nichols, 363d Infantry, 91st Division"
__________________
"The gift which I am sending you is called a dog, and is in fact the most precious and valuable possession of mankind" -Theodorus Gaza

Baby Jesus cries when the fat redneck doesn't have military-grade firepower.
Mike Irwin is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03430 seconds with 8 queries