The weapon used a detachable magazine, a bipod, and long recoil operation with a gas assist. These were used in the light machine gun role and provided a man-portable, full auto option for troopers storming trenches. The Chauchat was part of a short-lived genre of weapons known as machine rifles. World War 1 proved that automatic weapons were an absolute necessity on the modern battlefield, from the Vickers gun to submachine guns. The L85 was just a mess, and it took HK to come in and fix it to get any rifle worth salvaging. In fact, it was so bad the magazines would deform if grabbed too tightly. Soldiers accidentally dropped magazines due to crappy ergonomic design. The rifle was unreliable and easily damaged. The gun was stamped, which was a first for RSAF. ![]() The metal rusted quickly inside and out of the gun. The plastic furniture melted when it contacted insect repellant, which says a lot about British bugs. While the Brits got their bullpup, it’s not been a very good rifle. If you had to simplify the design, you’d say it was an AR-18 converted to a bullpup. It took HK to refine and fix the disaster that was the L85. This rifle was a short-stroke gas piston design that fired 5.56 and was rather interesting looking. Finally, they got their way, and in 1985 the Brits got their bullpup in the form of the SA-80 family and the L85 rifle. ![]() Even before the L1A1, they were pushing a bizarre but seemingly sound EM-2 rifle. You’d have thought the Brits invented the bullpup concept by how hard they’ve pushed for it over the years. Luckily the 8mm Nambu cartridge isn’t known for being a man-stopper. Lord forbid you drop the gun or bump it too hard with the safety off. It’s one of the few guns where the term accidental discharge applies. If depressed, the gun can fire without a pull of the trigger. The biggest problem is the external sear bar on the side of the pistol. Taking it apart to clean is needlessly complicated for a blowback pistol. The cartridge is anemic, and the gun uses a simple blowback action. ![]() The Type 94 is a magazine fed, 8mm Nambu pistol that feeds from a six-round detachable magazine. The Type 94 was an accidental discharge machine. You aren’t quite confident in your own weaponry, and guns like the Nambu Type 94 are an excellent example of why you don’t have much confidence in your weaponry. As Marines pursue and punish your forces, you are feeling some kind of way. So there you were, Imperial Japan, and you found yourself facing the sleeping dragon that was the United States. Today we are looking at some of those legendary failures throughout the world with the five worst military weapons ever issued. In fact, sometimes it fails hard enough to be absolutely legendary in its failure. Well, sometimes that just doesn’t happen. We expect the military to have some expertise in weaponry and to be able to pick a rifle, handgun, machine gun, or whatever is appropriate for a military force. We all like to trust our military forces to choose the right gun for the job.
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