LN1903 Debate question (NOT for the reason you're thinking)

[Smokeeaterpilot]

Hey I don't mean to beat a dead horse. But I recently spoke to an advanced collector of M1903s.

Now I don't want to get into the safe vs safe. Debate because that's a bit over done...

But while talking with this gentleman he brought up a very thought provoking point.

We all know the numbers of rifles produced as well as how many documented receiver failures there were documented in various sources including Hatcher's notebook.


Wouldn't there be a good cause to politically blow up this issue before the public in the WWI post war years? Typically during peacetime, especially following a war the military sees a significant reduction in funding for their budget due to the need the threat of war has been removed.

If you want to maintain your war production capabilities and justify funding in the post war peacetime era, how do you justify it to the Congressmen and Senators? You create a problem, crisis that needs immediate attention....

You need to completely revamp the whole production process which is going to require tooling, personnel, training and most importantly a non-stripped budget. So that way you don't lose your factory and workers.


Now I don't know if this is a dated argument or been done before. I haven't heard it before. But everything in government goes back to money. Could this LN debate been started by the War Department trying to hang onto its budget when the Armistice was signed?

I thought it was a thought provoking argument, I'm don't know if it holds water.

[mhb]

the problem was identified DURING the war, and the corrective measures were implemented at that time. SA introduced the new heattreatment in 1918, at around SN 800,000, and RIA actually ceased production for about six months (!) during the war, before re-commencing manufacture with the improved heattreatment at around SN 285,000.
All this is explained in 'Hatcher's Notebook', by MG Julian S. Hatcher, who was there at the time. If you have not read this book, you should certainly do so, because all the points of debate in the following years (until the present, in fact), are explained in such detail that there should really be no remaining reason for doubt.

mhb - Mike

[Col. Colt]

You guys are projecting the Modern Politicians (Liberal, Progressive, Lying, etc.) EVIL on people of a MUCH more honorable time. It was not a post war issue, as mhb points out.

If it wasn't a REAL problem, and it was decided to be a serious one by the using Service - the UNITED STATES ARMY ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT (not civilian politicians) - you sure as hell would not cut down the supply of rifles during a hot shooting war.... Lives were at stake - and everybody knew somebody who was involved. That would have been Treason. The problem was solved during the War, fixes implemented, production resumed and we moved on, nothing left to see here. No longer an issue, post 1918. CC

[Rick the Librarian]

It was actually an embarrassment for the Ordnance Depart, right in the middle of the time they needed rifles so desperately. Had M1917 production been ramping up, they would have REALLY been in a pickle.

[louis]

Politicians were not so honorable even back then but I happen to agree with Mike Rick and Colt

[Southron]

Well, lets think this thing through-

IF the "Low Number Springfield Rifle Blow Up Scandal" was a plot by either the Ordnance Department OR the U.S. Army to insure more funding from the Congress for both Springfield and Rock Island after the end of World War I, then it would have been a very, very "Counterproductive" political ploy.

WHY? Well, the heat treating screw up would have been the best argument for closing down both "Government Owned and Operated" Springfield Armory and Rock Island and turning over all small arms manufacturing responsibilities to private armories. After all, Winchester, Remington and Eddystone produced millions of U.S. M1917 Rifles WITHOUT any "lousy heat treatment, rifles blowing up" problems compared to Springfield and Rock Island.

Most professional officers in the military services during World War I realized that when the war was over, all the military services would be shrunk back down to their Peace time strength and appropriations from the Congress would be limited.

What no one anticipated was the post war Senator Nye and his Senate Committee investigations of the "Merchants of Death." This was a Conspiracy Theory that alleged the J.P. Morgan bank and all the arms manufacturers had conspired together to get the United States involved in World War I so they could reap huge profits off of war time contracts with the government.

Matter of fact, DuPont was so "burned" by Nye's reckless allegations in the 1930's about their role in World War I; when they were approached secretly to work on the Manhattan Project [the development of the Atomic Bomb] during World War II, they only reluctantly agreed and then insisted in the contract for their participation in the Manhattan Project that their profit would be limited to $1.00!

http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/...s_of_death.htm

[John Beard]

If low number rifles were so dangerous as most have alleged, then why didn't the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps scrap and replace their low number rifles as well during overhaul? Surely their rifles were no stronger or more reliable than those in the Army.

If low number rifles were so dangerous as most have alleged, then why did Army Ordnance suspend scrappage of low number receivers a full year before Pearl Harbor and U.S. entry into WWII?
Are we to suppose that time cured the problem and strengthened the receivers?

Food for thought.

J.B.

[PhillipM]

You guys are projecting the Modern Politicians (Liberal, Progressive, Lying, etc.) EVIL on people of a MUCH more honorable time.

Study the reason Crozier didn't allow our Army to be equipped with the Lewis gun and get back to me.

[Major Tom]

If any of you have LN 1903 rifles you are afraid of shooting......send them to me, I'll pay the shipping cost.

[louis]

It truly makes one wonder why the Marine Corps accepted these rifles and fired them on Guadalcanal, rifle ranges etc. with no problem. I personally have no problem with them especially since I collect USMC 03's