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Even though the assembly line is here in the US, it bothers me that all three of our primary infantry weapons are made by a foreign nation.
The M17 pistol, M7 Carbine and M250 LMG are all made by SIG, a German company.
Our other machine gun, the M240 is made by FN, a Belgian company.
FN has been making our M4 carbines and M16A4 rifles for a while now. At least they're domestic designs?
H&K, a German company, makes the Marine's M27 rifle.
I cannot help but think this is because American's aren't readily allowed to tinker with full-auto like we used to.
The pistol thing really rankles. Beretta is Italian.
America has viable pistols and it's military value is so nugatory that we could have taken any US company's handgun off the shelf and been fine.
I am thinking that the European nations have a leg up on us because they swim in markets that are restrictive and they have trouble surviving without government red tape.
US guns typically go to American gun owners with no more specification than what ammo it will eat and if they can convince us that it's kewl and hawt. They don't need military contracts to stay open because the American consumer outbuys NATO.
It could be said that we're going back to Revolutionary-era traditions. The Continental Army was mainly equipped with Brown Bess muskets from Britain and Charleville muskets from France. (A thought: Has anybody ever done a comparison test on those weapons to see which is actually better?)
ReplyDeleteThe Charleville is the superior musket, but the Brown Bess is priced for an empire.
Deletebritishmuzzleloaders on YouTube has some videos about the India Pattern Brown Bess, and one comparing it to the 1800 Baker Rifle.
DeleteAnd Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons on YouTube has one on the Springfield 1795, which he says is a copy of the 1766 Charleville.
But I didn't look for anyone doing direct comparisons.
I got a neat presentation from a friend who did revolutionary war reinacting.
DeleteHis opinion from using both was the French weapon was superior, unless you needed a shit ton of them relatively quickly. The virtues of the Bess were in how it was made and how the British standardized the pattern so that it could be readily replicated by any shop that could do the metal work.