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It's amazing to think that tribal horsemen, in one way or another, were loving up the plans of empires from the days of Cyrus the great to, pretty much, the British Empire. Nobody found a solution for their style of warfare until the wide-spread use of rifles. You would think that when an Emperor or a King or a grand ruler decided "Hey let's go gently caress with the Parthians/Scythians/Mongols/Huns" they would have some advisors going  THIS IS A BAD IDEA.
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Apr 23, 2016 14:47
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He was also the wanker who coined the phrase "vive la Quebec libre" which gave a big ol' bolus to the seperatists and nearly ended ripping Canada in half I still remember that referendum, it was unbelievably close.
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May 2, 2016 01:27
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There are so many bad procurement stories. One of my "favorites" has to be that of the Ross rifle. Basically, goes like this.  gently caress you England, you won't give us the license to build the SMLE so we'll build our OWN rifle and it will be better!Enter the Ross rifle. Straight pull bolt action in either .303 or .280 Ross. A supremely accurate rifle for our mounties and troops! A few problems, however. Which became evident immediately on entering the trenches. See, the Ross has pretty tight tolerances, and it doesn't seem to like mud. Or dirt. Or any sort of FOD whatsoever. Getting the rifle dirty means jamming the rifle. And even WORSE, on disassembling the rifle to clean it, if you were in a rush (say under attack or some such hogwash), it was possible to re-assemble it so that the locking lugs didn't secure, promptly ejecting the bolt into the face of the fine young Canadian lad using it at high velocity. Our troops were picking up SMLEs from dead British troops rather quickly. On hearing reports on "possible" issues with the Ross (IE, sudden bolt-to-face insertions) the minister of Militia and Defence, Sam Hughes, basically went on a PR rampage saying "PISH POSH NOTHING IS WRONG WITH THE ROSS THEY'RE JUST USING IT WRONG" (He was the one who pushed for the Ross to be introduced in the Canadian military in the first place). It got so bad that Douglas Haig finally said "gently caress it, All Canadians get Lee-Enfields, send the Ross' back to Canada for use in training." Some were kept as sniper rifles, but it was remarked that they required "immaculately clean" ammunition to fire, and any dirt would cause them to jam.
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May 3, 2016 01:39
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