W&T: Rifles and Pistols

Rifles and Pistols: 

How Many Different Types of Rifles Were There?

                        One certain type of rifle was the Bolt Actions, which were the ones mainly used by the infantry in the trenches and battlefields. These bolt actions could fire around 10-15 rounds per minute with an experienced shooter at the trigger. The main rifles that the German infantry would use were the Mauser Rifles, which were very good for armor penetration and packed a great punch, (the one downside it had was that it couldn’t fire very quickly). On the other side the British had the widely famous Lee Enfield, the Canadians the Ross Rifle, (which they later replaced with the Lee Enfield due to the very poor make of the rifle). The French had in their arsenal was the Lebel, (which would sometimes fire smokeless cartridges), the French later switched to the Berthier which was a lot more reliable than the Lebel but only had three rounds, which was later increased to five.

                                                               

    

                                                                      German Mauser Rifle

                        The longer on the was went there was more development put into rifles which finally came up with the carbine, which is a smaller size than the longer rifles being used and hence had a little less range, but the weapon was a lot less unwieldy than the longer barreled weapons. One such carbine was used by the Americans called the U.S. Springfield, (received the name from where it was developed at Springfield, Massachusetts). This rifle was the standard issue weapon of the U.S. army during the time, but due to short supply around half of the U.S. soldiers overseas were given the M1917 “American Enfield”. The Austro-Hungarians also had a carbine called the Steyr-Mannlicher, this weapon was produced in Budapest and Steyr and was the standard issue rifle in the Austro-Hungarian army, its production started in 1895. This weapon was of a very strong design, it could withstand firing 50,000 rounds from the same rifle without any lubrication.

                

Who Invented the Rifles and Pistols We Know From WW1?

The rifles we know from the war were not invented by a single person, but by a company name Winchester in 1873, rifles were very basic but were very reliable and were used by many countries, the rifles were very common and extremely affordable, which meant that it was a very generic rifle used in the late 1800’s and first years of the 1900’s.

The invention of the semi-automatic pistols was credited to a man name Joseph Laumann in 1892, they were loaded into a clip underneath the weapon.

Pistols of WW1:

Pistols and revolvers of the like were originally supposed to cavalry exclusive weapons, but were then issued to infantry, officers, tank crews, airmen, and military police. Some common pistols/handguns were the British Bull Dog, Colt M1903 Pocket Hammerless, Colt M1909, Colt M1911, Enfield Mk 1 & Mk 2, Lancaster, Mauser C96, and Smith & Wesson M1899.There were three kinds of pistols that were used, revolvers, clip-load automatics, (were normally loaded through the handle of the weapon), and the “blow-backs”, they were called this because of the expanding propellant gas put in them caused the gun to reload by forcing the bolt back when fired). .People such as tank crews and airmen used pistols and revolvers were because conditions were normally very cramped without much room to properly move around, which tended to make having something such as a rifle rather unwieldy. Military Police weren’t given rifles for the simple reason of shortages and high demand, so they were given pistols and revolvers which were more accessible and easier to come by.

The German army had the Luger, this weapon was mainly used by the officers but were given to soldiers who were given a wide variety of tasks, (close-quarter jobs).

            

   

                 German Luger

The British army had the Webley Mk IV revolver, this pistol was standard issue and was very reliable in every condition, but the weapon needed much training to fire accurately since it jumped a lot while firing.

                      Webley MK IV Revolver

The French’s standard issue weapon was the Pistole Revolveur Modele 1892, which was manufactured in the areas of Belgium and Spain. The weapon is very accurate and well-made but the only downside was that it didn’t pack much of a punch

How Much of a Difference Did These Weapons Make?

These weapons made a huge impact on the war; they were much more effective at killing and maiming people than every other weapon that was ever made. They were a huge breakthrough and led to even more developments in weaponry and sciences, these weapons also had an indirect impact on all technologies that would soon be developed later on in time because of all the new technology that made construction and the performance of these weapons better.