How About the Worst?

Well, as it started out, Kim listed his 100 favorite guns, then Tam picked it up and ran with it.

I, however, choose to take another course. Here is my list of the worst weapons used in military service. Not even near 100, thankfully.

4 - The Canadian Ross Rifle. This rifle actually did well as long as it wasn't in the trenches of WW I. In that arena, it jammed on a regular basis.

3 - The Japanese Type 94 pistol (WWII). The only pistol I know of that could be in perfect working order and cause an accidental discharge. Can anyone say "exposed sear"?

2. The US Reising submachine gun. An overly-complicated piece of junk given to our Marines in WWII, there are numerous accounts of these being dropped once a a suitable replacement (aka anything) was found. One story has a Marine commander dumping his outfit's Reisings into a river so they would be issued something else.

That's hard to beat, but here's

Number 1 - The French Chauchat light machine gun (WW I). This gun was a sterling example of bad engineering and even worse quality control. Magazines with huge openings on the side (exposing the rounds to trench gunk), overheating at the drop of a hat, magazines that wouldn't properly feed. This gun was so shoddily made its parts weren't interchangeable between guns. Once they broke, they made good poles, I guess.

I know there are others out there. I also know the original M16 (not the A1, A2, etc) could have come in at number 4 along with the Ross, but seeing as the M16's problems were quickly fixed, I left it off.

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