The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[Vespers War]

One I just found enough information for after seeing it six months ago, the Winchester-Pugsley Anti-Tank Rifle, patented in 1919. It uses a 1911 pistol grip for both the trigger assembly and the bolt; rotating the pistol grip counter-clockwise and pulling back is how the bolt is drawn back. A 10-round box magazine feeds .50 BMG into the rifle, and the grip is pushed forward and rotated back down to lock the bolt. As Ian mentions, the only known survivor is cracked through the receiver, and I only have information on the barrel length and total length, so the weight is probably not accurate (according to the Cody Museum, it's "stupid heavy").

Winchester-Pugsley Anti-Tank Rifle (12.7x99mm)
Wt 19.76 kg, BA, Dam 8, Pen 2-3-4, Blk 11, Mag 10, Rcl 5, Rng 186

While it wouldn't be much today, it would be effective against most WW1 tanks at some range. Beutepanzer were more common than A7V, and the Mk IV was 2/1/1 for HF/HS/HR and the Mk V 3/2/2. The A7V would be immune to frontal shots, but the 5/2/3 armor would be vulnerable to flank shots.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I have a question for you regarding the Winchester AT rifle, how did you determine the magazine was 10 rounds
In the video Ian says "apparently five rounds" and he mentioned single stacked but that box looks plenty big to hold more than five rounds. Without the internals for the magazine it's impossibe to see if it was designed for single or double stacked but it also appears wide enough to be double stacked.
However he does mention that the early versions of the cartridge were rimmed and the design was built around that rimmed cartridge so I'm wondering if there's some confusion on his part because of that

The few websites I checked that had any details all state 10 round but aside from Historical Firearms site, none had any reference sources so I'm also wondering if you got access to better info that what's on the web From what you wrote it sounds like you made inquiries at the Cody Museum

Regardless of all that, thanks for bringing another obscure piece of kit to our attention

[Vespers War]

I have a question for you regarding the Winchester AT rifle, how did you determine the magazine was 10 rounds
In the video Ian says "apparently five rounds" and he mentioned single stacked but that box looks plenty big to hold more than five rounds. Without the internals for the magazine it's impossibe to see if it was designed for single or double stacked but it also appears wide enough to be double stacked.
However he does mention that the early versions of the cartridge were rimmed and the design was built around that rimmed cartridge so I'm wondering if there's some confusion on his part because of that

The few websites I checked that had any details all state 10 round but aside from Historical Firearms site, none had any reference sources so I'm also wondering if you got access to better info that what's on the web From what you wrote it sounds like you made inquiries at the Cody Museum

Regardless of all that, thanks for bringing another obscure piece of kit to our attention

No, no better sources. I used Gun Wiki for as much as possible, and the Cody Museum's collections page for the rifle lists the barrel length and overall length, which were the key bits of data I didn't already have. If I was doing something more professional, I would inquire regarding the weight, but I'm happy enough with the ballpark figure that FF&S kicks out to not feel the need to take up museum staff time.

With regards to the ammo, I agree with the general consensus that the magazine looks too large to only hold five rounds, especially for a gravity-feed that doesn't have extensive springs.

[Vespers War]

One more because I'm bored - the Cei-Rigotti automatic rifle of the late 1890s.

Allegedly chambered for 6.5mm Carcano, all the surviving rifles are in 7.65mm Argentine Mauser. Rifles were equipped with 10, 20, or 50 round fixed magazines fed by 5-round stripper clips; the rifle has to be partially disassembled to change the magazine. Its relative lightness would probably make it difficult to control under automatic fire, as indicated by the recoil rating. The gun had some tendency to overheat, as it seized during a test after firing 300 rounds on full automatic.

Cei-Rigotti 7.65mm Automatic Rifle
Wt 4.3 kg, ROF 5, Dam 4, Pen 2-3-Nil, Blk 7, Mag 10c5/20c5/50c5, Rcl 4/10, Rng 73

The "c5" for the Mag entry designates that a 5 round clip can be loaded for each action used to reload the gun.

If there was a 6.5mm Carcano version, it would have the following changes to its statistics:
Dam 3, Pen 2-Nil, Rcl 3/7, Rng 63

Honestly, the Carcano version isn't a half-bad automatic weapon for the early 20th century. The recoil's a bit high for a shoulder-fired weapon and I can see why it wasn't accepted during the era of the Cult of Slow Accurate Long Range Marksmanship, but for trench warfare (either attacking or defending), it would have been extremely useful.

[pmulcahy11b]

You mean the Storm Gun won't cut it

And what about the Splat Gun (from an issue of Space Gamer, for Traveler) It's an 8-chamber grenade launcher (can't remember what caliber) that fires one chamber at a time -- or all once, in a tight group...

[StainlessSteelCynic]

@ Vespers War.
Here's one that may interest you (assuming you don't already know about it!), the Faucon Fusil %oquilibr or in English, the Faucon Balanced Rifle.

https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/136635613428/faucon-balanced-rifle-lieutenant-colonel

https://www.all4shooters.com/en/shooting/culture/early-bullpup-rifle-designs/

Brief mentions in these articles: -

https://armourersbench.com/tag/francis-bannerman/

https://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfmidarticles=1822

And just to pique people's interests, a picture of the beastie in question...

[Vespers War]

I hadn't seen the Faucon before, so thanks for posting it. Assuming it is using a 6.5mm round, then the statistics are:

Wt 5.5 kg, SA, Dam 3, Pen 2-Nil, Blk 7, Mag 6(c)6, SS 4, Rng 93.

According to the 1910/11 patent (filed 1910, issued 1911), the barrel was 120 calibers in length (my French is just good enough to glean that), so the bullet diameter matters for calculating the barrel length.

Unsurprisingly for an early bullpup, it had issues with the trigger system when tested after the war.

For logistical reasons, this was never going to win out over an RSC using 8mm Lebel. An RSC 1918 was .7 kilos lighter and had the same range, bulk, and recoil, with a more powerful cartridge out of a shorter barrel and similar overall length, and only 1 less round per clip. If the Faucon could get at least two out of the three of lighter weight, a 10-round capacity, and using 8mm Lebel, it might have had some chance of adoption if it was also made mechanically reliable.

[copeab]

For logistical reasons, this was never going to win out over an RSC using 8mm Lebel. An RSC 1918 was .7 kilos lighter and had the same range, bulk, and recoil, with a more powerful cartridge out of a shorter barrel and similar overall length, and only 1 less round per clip. If the Faucon could get at least two out of the three of lighter weight, a 10-round capacity, and using 8mm Lebel, it might have had some chance of adoption if it was also made mechanically reliable.

The 8mm Lebel was an obsolete cartridge based on the old 11mm Gras black powder cartridge. It was rimmed with a severe taper, making it a poor choice for self-loading weapons (look at the magazine of the Chauchat).

[Vespers War]

The 8mm Lebel was an obsolete cartridge based on the old 11mm Gras black powder cartridge. It was rimmed with a severe taper, making it a poor choice for self-loading weapons (look at the magazine of the Chauchat).

8mm Lebel didn't start being replaced until 1936, and was only slightly more obsolete than .303 British (which was also a rimmed cartridge converted from black powder to smokeless that didn't work well in self-loading actions). The taper wasn't an issue if ammunition capacities were kept reasonable (by contemporary standards, not modern ones). The RSC 1918 used the same Mle 16 5-round en bloc clip as late bolt-action Berthier rifles. During the Occupation, they were used by Vichy and Volksturm troops under the name Selbstlade-Gewehr 310(f).

[copeab]

8mm Lebel didn't start being replaced until 1936, and was only slightly more obsolete than .303 British (which was also a rimmed cartridge converted from black powder to smokeless that didn't work well in self-loading actions).

The French started replacing 8mm Lebel in machine guns in the mid 1920's with a new 7.5mm round that worked much better in autoloading weapons.

The Bren had a larger magazine than the Chauchat but wasn't nearly as curved, a clear indication the .303 wasn't nearly as obsolete as the 8mm.

I know the flaws of the cartridge (and the Lebel rifle) weren't the fault of the French designers; they were given an incredibly short amount of time to come up with a working rifle (as it was feared that if development took too long, France would quickly lose it's edge of smokeless powder). It only gained them a few years, as in 1889 the superior Mauser rifle was released.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I think the British did view the .303 as obsolete but with the size of the British Empire at the time, they probably considered it far too expensive to change plus there was still the concept of single, well-aimed shots and the ability of most British soldiers to lay down a decent amount of fire from their SMLEs, (plus it was quite robust, able to take a lot of abuse, so why change something that works and works well)
I think they believed the financial cost probably wasn't worth the effort when they felt there wasn't any imminent need to change.

[Vespers War]

And now for something completely different - a vehicle, rather than a weapon.

Before the Great War and before Henry Ford pinched every penny he could on the cost of the Model T, automobiles were expensive things. A number of inventors, hobbyists, and industrialists had the idea of combining a motorcycle engine with a light (and cheap) chassis and frame to create a contraption known as a cyclecar. One of these was the 1914 O-We-Go, manufactured (appropriately enough) in Owego, New York, and sold for $385. With a top speed around 50 miles per hour, a 4 gallon tank of gasoline, and a range of roughly 45 miles per gallon, it was a potentially useful cheap vehicle. Estimated production during the company's one year of existence is 300 vehicles. One example survives today in a museum.

O-We-Go Cyclecar
10 hp V-2 engine
Fuel Type G
Load 150 kg, Veh Wt 276 kg, Crew 1+1, Mnt 1, Night Vision None, Radiological Open

Tr Mov 164/17, Com Mov 38/4, Fuel Cap 15, Fuel Cons 8, Config Stnd, Susp W(1), HF0, HS0, HR0

[pmulcahy11b]

Before the Great War and before Henry Ford pinched every penny he could on the cost of the Model T, automobiles were expensive things. A number of inventors, hobbyists, and industrialists had the idea of combining a motorcycle engine with a light (and cheap) chassis and frame to create a contraption known as a cyclecar.

Oh good god, I'm not even going to bother with that one...

[Vespers War]

Oh good god, I'm not even going to bother with that one...

It sort of made sense at the time, since some jurisdictions taxed vehicles based on horsepower. Illinois and Georgia did so in the US (and IIRC Missouri still does), and most of Europe had some sort of horsepower-based tax, so a small car with a very low-powered engine was economical. It also drove oddities in engine design, because the calculated horsepower was based on bore size, but stroke length didn't matter. That incentivized small-bore, long-stroke engines, which tend to run at low RPM and have high torque and low power for their displacement.

A fair number of early British cars will have their taxable horsepower and actual horsepower in their name - the Talbot 14/45 was taxed at 14 horsepower, but the engine delivered 45 horsepower, while Alvis had a 12/50 that did well in racing and MG developed the long-stroke engine all the way to an 18/80. If the Model T had had a similar name, it would have been a Ford 22/20, equaled in actual power by the lower-taxed Triumph 10/20.

Most cyclecar manufacturers lasted only a handful of years (something true of a lot of Brass Era car makers), but there were a few marques that stuck around either on their own or by being acquired, such as Frazer Nash, AC Cars Ltd, and Scripps-Booth (which was acquired by Chevrolet early in that marque's history).

[cawest]

How about the F-18L I cut his from a wiki page

From a strict technical point of view the F-18L (the Northrop version) was the better aircraft for the NFA project, with performance roughly equal to the F-16, Sparrow capability, and the twin-engine design that the Canadian Forces favored. Compared to the F/A-18A (the McDonnel-Douglas version), its lower weight and resulting better range would also be very useful in the air defence role over Canada. The F-18L was also offered with a lucrative industrial program; Northrop agreed to move major portions of the F-18L project to Canada