BungalowBill wrote: Mon Jun 17, 2019 2:22 pm
The main weakness of the Krag doesn’t seem to be with the rifle itself but with the Army’s leadership at the time. They didn’t want soldiers to have a rapid fire rifle with a large capacity magazine. Even after they adopted the Springfield, they required soldiers to load and fire one round at a time — hence the on/off selector switch where the bolt can be removed. Good thing they wised up before 1917.
Interesting article too. I did a little Googling of Stanhope Sams, and he sounds like a fascinating guy (despite his pronouncement that the Krag could shoot “on a straight line” for 600 yards).
i've seen the doctrine discussion before, especially with regard to the 1911 and .45 acp. from what i've seen, the army had stopped issuing .45 caliber revolvers before the span-am war, and officers carried lighter .38 revolvers which proved inadequate when facing "savages" who would take hits and keep coming. 9mm, .38 and such were deemed adequate for "civilized" warfare, but not for fighting warrior cultures. the same complaints were lodged against the .30-40 krag cartridge. though more powerful, i don't really see the 30-03 (and 06) which replaced it as that much of an improvement. note that all this was going on shortly after frederick jackson turner in his "frontier thesis" declared that the american frontier was closed, i.e. no more indian fighting.
now i'm off to google mr. sams. eta: newspaperman, war correspondent. i would expect him to have a layman's understanding of ballistics. he's repeating something he was told, probably misunderstood.
i'm retired. what's your excuse?