Krag not battleworth?

[Shooter5]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/201...m1903a3-rifle/

The (supposed) inadequacies of the Krag compared to the Mauser keep appearing over and again: Question - was the design and ammunition really poor compared to the Mauser or was the Krag sacrificed by the Army and Ordnance in order to cover up lack of training, preparation and poor tactical leadership in Cuba. In addition, to nationalist sentiment which demanded a domestic design (which ended up copying a foreign model anyway).
Discussion.

[Kragrifle]

Yes

[Michaelp]

It was an obsolete design from the beginning.
No amount of training will overcome the loading issue. Pretty big deal in combat.
How would tactics and leadership impact that?
Smoothest action gets no points.
A somewhat similar deal was the German M71.
Initially a single shot bolt action. Most were converted to tubular magazines, but meanwhile the G 88 was introduced.
The converted rifles went almost directly to surplus.
Lots of mint condition examples are found in the US.

[Dick Hosmer]

No amount of training will overcome the loading issue.

Please check out "stangskyting" on Youtube, and report back.

[Shooter5]

It was an obsolete design from the beginning.
No amount of training will overcome the loading issue. Pretty big deal in combat.
How would tactics and leadership impact that?
Smoothest action gets no points.

Has/was this point been applied to study? If so, how and what parameters? From a back of the envelope calculation; before or without machine guns - most combat engagements with rifle fire occurred from 100 to 300meters, possibly more depending on circumstances. What was the sustained rate of fire - not the maximum - for a platoon using the Krag? IIRC, the manual for an M16 is something like 12-15 per minute although that may have more to do with overheating than availability of ammo but using that as a guide for consumption purposes; a platoon of 40 shooting 15 per minute for 10 hours = over a quarter million rounds! Didn't happen. Lugging all that ammo for one platoon alone would have required a pack train of mules 100 miles long. Hmm, I would guess that the average rate of consumption was more like a a few shots per hour per man interspersed with periods of high activity…and lulls of nothing. During high activity, the sustained volume of units providing covering fire was probably adequate to occupy the Spanish…except that they had terrain, battle works and buildings and were fighting against essentially civilians either unwilling to advance in the open under fire, were poorly led, or were trying to fight smarter not harder and avoid Gallipoli type situations.
Regardless, offhand it appears a Krag could and likely did provide the volume of fire necessary and adequate to the task at hand. In a apples to apples force on force all out charge, yes, a Mauser could load and fire faster but that is probably a dynamic that was not occurring in Cuba.

[5MadFarmers]

Attempts to isolate the effectiveness of the individual rifle on the modern battlefield are useless as the other factors need to be added in to get the holistic result. By the same token attempts to isolate the tactical, leadership, and other force structure issues into individual silos is doomed to failure as the rules of complementary evolution are almost as fixed as the rules of thermodynamics.

The oft bandied "too much ammunition" assertion doesn't need to be heavily theorized as the load factors for individual issue and train supply are easily available as are the transportation capability figures for the standard transportation units. A "walk sideways" to engagements of a similar nature, before and after, are enlightening - specifically the Battle of Plevna.

The arbitrary leadership and conscript troop assertion requires two additional considerations for proper weight: enemy structure and analog comparisons. The "regular" U.S. army was there and heavily represented vis-a-vis the total strength of the army whereas the soldiers on the Spanish side were in fact conscripts. The "levy en masse" was an artefact of the French revolution and Napoleon didn't seem to have issue with regards to leadership or soldier performance.

The rules of complementary evolution are almost as fixed as the laws of thermodynamics and everybody ignores that aspect.

[PhillipM]

Attempts to isolate the effectiveness of the individual rifle on the modern battlefield are useless as the other factors need to be added in to get the holistic result. By the same token attempts to isolate the tactical, leadership, and other force structure issues into individual silos is doomed to failure as the rules of complementary evolution are almost as fixed as the rules of thermodynamics.

The oft bandied "too much ammunition" assertion doesn't need to be heavily theorized as the load factors for individual issue and train supply are easily available as are the transportation capability figures for the standard transportation units. A "walk sideways" to engagements of a similar nature, before and after, are enlightening - specifically the Battle of Plevna.

The arbitrary leadership and conscript troop assertion requires two additional considerations for proper weight: enemy structure and analog comparisons. The "regular" U.S. army was there and heavily represented vis-a-vis the total strength of the army whereas the soldiers on the Spanish side were in fact conscripts. The "levy en masse" was an artefact of the French revolution and Napoleon didn't seem to have issue with regards to leadership or soldier performance.

The rules of complementary evolution are almost as fixed as the laws of thermodynamics and everybody ignores that aspect.

Battle of Plevna, so much for the oft bandied remark that lever action Winchesters are too fragile for military use!

Little known today, and even less remembered, the the 30th of July, 1877, cast shadows which even now are still there for anyone with eyes to see. The great Russian army massed before the Turkish defenses of Plevna on the morning of that day stood in their might prepared to sacrifice themselves to the full, determined to storm the trenches ahead regardless of cost. They would not be halted; their front ranks would inevitably fall before the defenses of the courageous Turks. They were prepared for that. So thought General Todleben and his staff as they studied the quiet fields ahead on that fateful morning. In their trenches the Turks, barely half as numerous as the Russians, waited grimly, almost eagerly for the assault.

The Russian Guards soberly checked their Berdan rifles, their bottle-necked .42-caliber cartridges. Other units swung up the side-locking blocks of their .63-caliber Krnka breechloaders, confident that the modifications of the Bohemian Sylvester Krnka had provided them with the speed of loading necessary to match the American Peabody-Martini rifles in the trenches ahead of them.

Bugles sounded. Officers shouted. The men roared. In massed formations the long lines advanced stolidly, inexorably. The solid lines marched on until, suddenly, a cloud of smoke arose from the black-powder rifles in the trenches far ahead. Strangely and with terrifying accuracy, a plunging hail of lead ripped into the Russian ranks before the reports of the rifles reached them. The Russian staff stared aghast through their glasses as ranks thinned out before they could fire a shot. They claimed later that the slaughter began at a distance of two kilometers, some 2200 yards. Other observers on the Russian side claimed even more fantastic ranges for the Peabody-Martinis in the hands of the Turks -- as much as 3000 yards! Perhaps the observers were too excited to measure correctly. Perhaps they were seeking to alibi their terrible mistake in ordering massed men to certain death. But we do know the American rifles had shown deadly efficiency at 700 yards, and it is possible that massed plunging fire at 1000 yards may have decimated the advancing Russians. Riflemen of today armed with Springfields or Garands could not hit consistently at ranges claimed in 1877. Of one thing, however, we are sure, at a range considered far beyond that of a rifle of those days, the Peabody-Martini began chopping down the numerical superiority on which the Russians had counted for victory.

With the stoic calm of the true Slav, the Russian advance continued to ranges of 500 yards, 400, 300 -- 200. In the Turkish trenches there was a momentary pause. The Turks laid aside their single-shot Peabody Martinis. And the Russians charged madly ahead.

Russian Intelligence had duly reported the delivery of 30,000 Winchester repeaters to the Turks. Those were Tyler Henry's tube loaders with the new King patent side-loading gate, the first arm to bear the name "Winchester." The caliber was .44 rimfire Turkish. True, the arm had shown its merit in wild, far-away America, but what use would it be on European battlefields? Little if any, they surmised.

Russian Intelligence had not learned that the cavalry had been disbanded and that their Winchesters had been issued to the defenders in the trenches. They had not known the intensive drill they had been given in using the arms. They could not conceive what was about to happen. And so the charge went on.

At 100 yards the storm broke. All down the line a hail of rapid-fire lead burst from the muzzles of 30,000 Winchesters. "Each Turk," wrote General Todleben to General Brialmont in a letter dated January 18, 1878, "carried 100 cartridges, and had a box containing 500 placed beside him. A few expert marksmen were employed to pick off the officers ... the Turks did not even attempt to sight, but, hidden behind the trenches, loaded and fired as rapidly as they could ... the most heroic endeavors of our troops were without effect, and divisions of 10,000 men were reduced to an effective strength of between 4,000 and 5,000." But the General was a stubborn man. In the modern Rusian Army, he would probably have been shot at sunrise, and quite rightly, for his terrible failure. instead he lived to repeat the attack on Plevna with the same tactics - and the same results - on August 11, 1877! In all he admitted losing 30,000 men in the useless assaults!

The Winchesters broke the back of the Russian attacks in their closing phases, after the long-range Peabody-Martinis had whittled the advancing ranks down with harrowing fire. The "quick loaders" fastened to the sides of the Berdans and the Krnkas to hold cartridges ready for insertion in the breech were no possible answer to the true repeating arm.

A hush settled over the chancelleries of Europe that summer of 1877. Every European nation now set itself to re-arm with repeaters as rapidly as possible. The Turks turned first to Winchester for another 140,000 repeaters, then to Germany for a long secession of Mauser designs.

In the day of the nuclear bomb it is difficult to conceive the way the success of the Winchester then altered the economic planning and military thinking around the globe. The hush that began on the field of Plevna and spread throughout Europe was more than just another episode in the duel between Turks and Russians. It was a hush that presaged a development of arms and a course of diplomacy leading inevitably to years of strain that lay ahead.

Truly, the day of the single-shot military rifle was over.

[free1954]

PHILLIPM wrote" A hush settled over the chancelleries of Europe that summer of 1877. Every European nation now set itself to re-arm with repeaters as rapidly as possible. The Turks turned first to Winchester for another 140,000 repeaters, then to Germany for a long secession of Mauser designs."



do you know which countries issued lever action rifles ?

[5MadFarmers]

Battle of Plevna, so much for the oft bandied remark that lever action Winchesters are too fragile for military use!

Little known today, and even less remembered, the the 30th of July, 1877, cast shadows which even now are still there for anyone with eyes to see.

If one can only select one battle of the 1800s to study Plevna would be it. It was a Russian "war of expansion." The "Sick Man of Europe" was Turkey. The Russians used the "help the Romanians liberate themselves" as a land grab excuse - no different from the "help the Serbs" land grab which triggered WW1.

It wasn't "trenches" ala WW1 but "redoubts" outside of the town.

The Turks had no problem keeping their Winchesters fed for days yet, in spite of being on the defensive, the ammunition wasn't pre-located; the Turks had force marched to Plevna from another engagement at a distance.

The Turks marched far from support and were completely isolated and cut-off. Russian cavalry clipped their supply lines early on.

Much has been made of the long range fire from the Peabody rifles but a study of the weather conditions and a read of the personal accounts from those present paint a different picture as it was the rainy season with visibility obscured during many of the assaults.

Oddly enough there were Peabody rifles on both sides as the Romanians had them also.

It wouldn't be unfair to say the Turks "shot at" the Russians at long range with Peabody rifles and then "shot them" at close range with Winchesters.

The European armies studied the battle and a mad rush, as mentioned, to adopt repeaters ensued. The U.S. Ordnance Department, that narrative not fitting their notions, focused on the Peabody rifles and moved further away from repeaters with efforts to "prove" the trapdoor could hit a barn at 1,000 yards. Assuming the barn didn't move.

There is another overlooked aspect to that battle having to do with Winchesters and Spencers.

[11mm]

You have to return to 1890-92 during which systems were being evaluated by the US Army for an honest appraisal of the Krag's adequacy. The article cited is superficial and, in some instances, misleading. For instance, the author makes it seem that the US Army went from muzzle loaders to Krags...obviously ignoring the Trapdoors and several other systems which were sampled, such as the Lee.
The 1891 Argentine Mauser which is (in my opinion) superior to the Krag as a system, was perhaps available for study at the time, as were the Gew88 and the Belgian Mauser. However, at the time, none of those systems were proven in battle. I think I would definitely prefer the Krag to the GEW 88, and I have shot and collected both of them. The nearest analogy to the first bolt action small bore battle rifles would have been the early automobiles made at the turn of the 20th century. Only some few systems proved their worth, but many were proposed and manufactured.
That the 03 Springfield is superior to the Krag in numerous areas, including the cartridge, is obvious. But it was adopted ten years later, and there was much experience in that decade to point the way to the best systems. Comparing the the Krag and the '03 and then trashing the Krag is historical revisionism, in my opinion.