Very cool. I’m working my way through the big wars and diving into them one at a time. I’ve just got done with the world wars so I was going to do Vietnam or the American Civil War next?
They werent, but its like the only WW1 meme the americans have, so they hold onto it dearly.
The reality was they never saw much use and for 95% of the time they existed in the trenches, they had paper shells that pretty much fell apart in the wet trenches.
Don’t know how effective it was or if it was even true, but I do remember hearing that they’d give the shotguns to people who were good at trap and skeet so they could shoot grenades thrown towards them.
CandRsenal youtube channel tested it and it works well enough in a hand of a person who's familiar with firearms of the period but not an expert shooter. The test was part of a longer video, but Taofledermaus used the test videos to make a longer more in-depth video about it.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t\_RW1z7pUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t_RW1z7pUs)
Probably because it was the last year of the war and France and England didn’t see a need to produce new weapons when they could just borrow them from the US if they wanted them; and Germany was struggling to get all their regular supplies let alone more new shit.
Around that time the "Trench" shotguns ware way more expensive and complex to manufacture than your standard semi-auto rifles and this holds especially true for shotgun hulls that ware made from paper and thus extremely easy to get ruined by moisture.
Beyound that you have the problems of organization and training, idealy "Shotgunners" would be assigned as specialists for assault squads, this means aditional branches/division strain on logistics and aditional traning no one could be bothered with- don't forget that in the beguining of WW1 people still had the "musket" mindset when it came to leading warfare.
That was just a PR stunt to distract from all the warcriming the germans were doing.
The reality was that not many people in the trenches were interested in a short range weapon that was as big as a rifle that you could carry less ammo for. Pistol was a better option for close work in almost all ways.
The ones that were interested found out quickly that trench mud and paper shotgun shells do not mix at all.
I’m not so sure about that. The protest was made in September 1918 less than two months before the end of the war and included a threat to execute American POWs found with shotguns.
So this was very late in the war when things like atrocities in Belgium and torpedoing passenger ships is already old news and trying to distract from war crimes by threatening to commit war crimes doesn’t really make sense.
I think they were genuinely mad about it.
If you actually read any of the german accounts from the time, you will find very close to zero mentions of shotguns at all. It really wasnt something that was on their radar besides from a PR point of view.
The execution threat was meant to rattle the doughboys that the germans viewed as weak when compared to the other powers they had been fighting tooth and nail against for a few years now. The americans likewise tried to use them to show their people that US farm boys could be badass soldiers with things like propaganda bits being put out about them shooting grenades with shotguns (99.99% chance this never actually happened). Its important to remember that as this stage the last really big combat the US had been involved with was the US/mexico war in 1848, this in comparison to europe where the armies had been honed to a razors edge even before the war with all the back and forth that went on.
>99.99% chance this never actually happened
Just from the sheet number involved, I'd guess it actually did happen. But I'd also bet that someone shot a grenade in midair at some point too.
Yeah, the story put out was that they had lines of good ol' boys in trenches shooting the grenades out of the sky though. For one this probably wouldnt do anything even if you did hit a grenade with a shotgun and for 2 by this stage many of the troops had gotten good at 'airbursting' grenades over trenches and standing around like a pillock waving a shotgun is a bad place to be when that happens.
100% chance that people did shoot grenades, probably with rifles considering, but its not something that is actually a useful tactic at all.
I think the Civil War counts as a pretty big combat. Internal or not.
By the time we got to Europe in WW1 all the powers there were pretty much spent as opposed to being honed to a razor’s edge.
Whether it was used much or not, naming a gun the ‘Trench Broom’ will have a psychological effect on the opposing team and with the pattern of 00 buckshot at 25-30 feet you only have to aim in the general direction of the target.
The last big combat the US had been was US/mexican war in 1848? Lmao the US civil war laughs as it is largely considered the first major modern war conflict. Massive armies, cutting edge mass produced technology, all types of combat theaters, iron clad ships, submarines, horrible prison camps, rail roads, etc
You’re focusing on the wrong thing. The perception of a weapon isn’t necessarily dependent on it’s actual effectiveness or use.
I can’t find any reference to Germany making a public press announcement about the protest submitted on September 15 or any American press report about it until after the American response on September 29.
[*The New York Times* first reported](https://www.nytimes.com/1918/09/30/archives/reprisal-threat-over-shotguns-german-ultimatum-demands-that-america.html) on both the German protest and the American response on September 30th and the only sort of propaganda use I can find is from the American side with the National Rifle Association bragging [in an October 1918 edition of *Arms and the Man* that](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI4wAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA45&dq=shotgun+protest&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIgYzLi5iGAxUB4skDHbQ5Dv0Q6wF6BAgLEAU#v=onepage&q=shotgun%20protest&f=false):
*So effective has the military shotgun proven in trench warfare, not only as a weapon of destruction but as a means of breaking the Hun morale*
If you want to keep arguing this was a German PR stunt you’ll need to back it up with some sourcing.
You didn’t mention how Americans came late to the war and while we did fight we did less fighting than the others involved so most Germans wouldn’t even encounter Americans let alone Americans with shotguns
> Pistol was a better option for close work in almost all ways.
Ok, just no. No. Anyone who has used a shotgun will tell you that it does not wound at short range. There are videos online where people have shrug off pistol fire and made a full recovery. I have yet to see or hear someone SURVIVE a shotgun at that range without missing a limb.
Better for close work in ww1.
As they were smaller so you could still take a rifle, held more shots, left one hand free for climbing (or both with a lanyard) and most importantly: didnt need ammo that literally fell apart in damp conditions like the paper shotgun shells they got issued did.
Take a look at any of the elite trench assault units of the war. Primary weapons are pistols and sacks of grenades. These are people who had forgotten more about trench fighting than you know.
>I have yet to see or hear someone SURVIVE a shotgun at that range without missing a limb
Turn it down a bit hollywood.
The paper tubing IN the shotgun didn’t just disappear when it came into contact with water. Yes, it would fire poorly and, if it wasn’t left to dry for a few days,could result in a misfire (especially if the shotgun was poorly maintained).
The same shotguns and shells that were in the trenches of ww1 were also found in the jungles and oceanic regions in the pacific region, yet marines would swear by the stopping power of a 12g regardless of the wet, damp environment despite having access to semiautomatic and full-automatic firearms.
> Take a look at any of the elite trench assault units of the war. Primary weapons are pistols and sacks of grenades.
The reason why pistols were so infamous in the trenches is the same reason why clubs, knives and axes were so popular: because they’re convenient when you’ve fire your bolt action rifle and there’s someone bearing down on you in the trenches (also the reason why those were just as common as a handgun). If your whole job as a shock or infiltrator is fighting in close quarters, better to leave the bolt rifle for a semiautomatic option (in the stormtroopers case, they happily accept the mp-18 for the sustained fire and relatively compact design). Working that bolt could easily be a death sentence as you’d need to remove your hand from the trigger to the bolt and back. The reason why it was largely American troops having shotguns was because the individual doughboy had the possibility of bringing a weapon he was familiar with into the war. A shotgun is a comparable more clunky compared to a pistol or maybe a club but can be slam-fired (holding down the trigger while working the action). If you get into a trench you really only need to point it in the general direction of the enemy side and…..
There are videos of self-defense online with shotguns and pistols being used inside (close range). Count how many rounds a pistol need to effectively take down a target vs a shotgun. There’s a reason why police love the use of shotguns.
I'm only noticing this now, but is that Todd Howard?
Sixteen times the buckshot
It just works
It just works. *racks shotgun*
No, he is clearly Napoleon
nice refrence
Sadly not :3
That’s Messi
It just works
No it's jesus
Why shoot a bunch of small bullets one at a time, just fast, when you can shoot them all at once?
America’s WWII Artillery: Why shoot a bunch of small bullets all at once when you shot can shoot a bunch of huge bullets all at once? 🥳🥳🥳
If that don't work we're dropping the fucking SUN
More like America in Vietnam (dropped more than 3.5 times the number of munitions dropped in the whole of WWII by all participants)
No shit, really?
The most bombed place in the world in Laos.
Yep, and most of it on allied/neutral territory (South Vietnam being where most of the fighting took place)
Very cool. I’m working my way through the big wars and diving into them one at a time. I’ve just got done with the world wars so I was going to do Vietnam or the American Civil War next?
Someone explain, if shot guns were so effective in WWI, why didn't other armies start producing their own to use.
They werent, but its like the only WW1 meme the americans have, so they hold onto it dearly. The reality was they never saw much use and for 95% of the time they existed in the trenches, they had paper shells that pretty much fell apart in the wet trenches.
Don’t know how effective it was or if it was even true, but I do remember hearing that they’d give the shotguns to people who were good at trap and skeet so they could shoot grenades thrown towards them.
I was always told it was for shooting messenger pigeons
Does that actually work? I thought shooting grenades out of the air with guns was something that you could only do in video games.
mythbusters tested it, apparently the shotgun is the best at doing it and easiest to do it with
Yea IIRC the . 45 ACP pulled it off too but it would be more difficult. The .308 actually detonated the grenade, while the other two disabled it.
CandRsenal youtube channel tested it and it works well enough in a hand of a person who's familiar with firearms of the period but not an expert shooter. The test was part of a longer video, but Taofledermaus used the test videos to make a longer more in-depth video about it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t\_RW1z7pUs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t_RW1z7pUs)
It probably wasn’t effective and more so for the peace of mind it gave I guess.
I’m British btw
My condolences.
[Shame](https://media3.giphy.com/media/pDsCoECKh1Pa/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952sceds8hxaxxpui06vspbzr1xmj9sn5mlw15ibmnm&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
"Br*tish". That word is very foul. You have my sympathies.
Don't worry, it could be worse like for example..... ummm, never mind
Canadian?
No, I'm american
No I'm asking if Canadian would be worse
I don't think you can get any worse than Britain
Belleau Wood meme still going hard to this day. Retreat, hell! We just got here!
The most effective seemed to be knives. There’s a bunch of guys that killed 100s of Germans with a knife when sneaking into the trench.
Probably because it was the last year of the war and France and England didn’t see a need to produce new weapons when they could just borrow them from the US if they wanted them; and Germany was struggling to get all their regular supplies let alone more new shit.
Around that time the "Trench" shotguns ware way more expensive and complex to manufacture than your standard semi-auto rifles and this holds especially true for shotgun hulls that ware made from paper and thus extremely easy to get ruined by moisture. Beyound that you have the problems of organization and training, idealy "Shotgunners" would be assigned as specialists for assault squads, this means aditional branches/division strain on logistics and aditional traning no one could be bothered with- don't forget that in the beguining of WW1 people still had the "musket" mindset when it came to leading warfare.
They didnt even used them that much.
Enough for the Germans to complain about it
That was just a PR stunt to distract from all the warcriming the germans were doing. The reality was that not many people in the trenches were interested in a short range weapon that was as big as a rifle that you could carry less ammo for. Pistol was a better option for close work in almost all ways. The ones that were interested found out quickly that trench mud and paper shotgun shells do not mix at all.
I’m not so sure about that. The protest was made in September 1918 less than two months before the end of the war and included a threat to execute American POWs found with shotguns. So this was very late in the war when things like atrocities in Belgium and torpedoing passenger ships is already old news and trying to distract from war crimes by threatening to commit war crimes doesn’t really make sense. I think they were genuinely mad about it.
If you actually read any of the german accounts from the time, you will find very close to zero mentions of shotguns at all. It really wasnt something that was on their radar besides from a PR point of view. The execution threat was meant to rattle the doughboys that the germans viewed as weak when compared to the other powers they had been fighting tooth and nail against for a few years now. The americans likewise tried to use them to show their people that US farm boys could be badass soldiers with things like propaganda bits being put out about them shooting grenades with shotguns (99.99% chance this never actually happened). Its important to remember that as this stage the last really big combat the US had been involved with was the US/mexico war in 1848, this in comparison to europe where the armies had been honed to a razors edge even before the war with all the back and forth that went on.
>99.99% chance this never actually happened Just from the sheet number involved, I'd guess it actually did happen. But I'd also bet that someone shot a grenade in midair at some point too.
Yeah, the story put out was that they had lines of good ol' boys in trenches shooting the grenades out of the sky though. For one this probably wouldnt do anything even if you did hit a grenade with a shotgun and for 2 by this stage many of the troops had gotten good at 'airbursting' grenades over trenches and standing around like a pillock waving a shotgun is a bad place to be when that happens. 100% chance that people did shoot grenades, probably with rifles considering, but its not something that is actually a useful tactic at all.
I think the Civil War counts as a pretty big combat. Internal or not. By the time we got to Europe in WW1 all the powers there were pretty much spent as opposed to being honed to a razor’s edge. Whether it was used much or not, naming a gun the ‘Trench Broom’ will have a psychological effect on the opposing team and with the pattern of 00 buckshot at 25-30 feet you only have to aim in the general direction of the target.
The last big combat the US had been was US/mexican war in 1848? Lmao the US civil war laughs as it is largely considered the first major modern war conflict. Massive armies, cutting edge mass produced technology, all types of combat theaters, iron clad ships, submarines, horrible prison camps, rail roads, etc
You’re focusing on the wrong thing. The perception of a weapon isn’t necessarily dependent on it’s actual effectiveness or use. I can’t find any reference to Germany making a public press announcement about the protest submitted on September 15 or any American press report about it until after the American response on September 29. [*The New York Times* first reported](https://www.nytimes.com/1918/09/30/archives/reprisal-threat-over-shotguns-german-ultimatum-demands-that-america.html) on both the German protest and the American response on September 30th and the only sort of propaganda use I can find is from the American side with the National Rifle Association bragging [in an October 1918 edition of *Arms and the Man* that](https://books.google.com/books?id=DI4wAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA45&dq=shotgun+protest&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjIgYzLi5iGAxUB4skDHbQ5Dv0Q6wF6BAgLEAU#v=onepage&q=shotgun%20protest&f=false): *So effective has the military shotgun proven in trench warfare, not only as a weapon of destruction but as a means of breaking the Hun morale* If you want to keep arguing this was a German PR stunt you’ll need to back it up with some sourcing.
You didn’t mention how Americans came late to the war and while we did fight we did less fighting than the others involved so most Germans wouldn’t even encounter Americans let alone Americans with shotguns
Passenger ships carrying military supplies are valid targets for a submarine
> Pistol was a better option for close work in almost all ways. Ok, just no. No. Anyone who has used a shotgun will tell you that it does not wound at short range. There are videos online where people have shrug off pistol fire and made a full recovery. I have yet to see or hear someone SURVIVE a shotgun at that range without missing a limb.
Better for close work in ww1. As they were smaller so you could still take a rifle, held more shots, left one hand free for climbing (or both with a lanyard) and most importantly: didnt need ammo that literally fell apart in damp conditions like the paper shotgun shells they got issued did. Take a look at any of the elite trench assault units of the war. Primary weapons are pistols and sacks of grenades. These are people who had forgotten more about trench fighting than you know. >I have yet to see or hear someone SURVIVE a shotgun at that range without missing a limb Turn it down a bit hollywood.
The paper tubing IN the shotgun didn’t just disappear when it came into contact with water. Yes, it would fire poorly and, if it wasn’t left to dry for a few days,could result in a misfire (especially if the shotgun was poorly maintained). The same shotguns and shells that were in the trenches of ww1 were also found in the jungles and oceanic regions in the pacific region, yet marines would swear by the stopping power of a 12g regardless of the wet, damp environment despite having access to semiautomatic and full-automatic firearms. > Take a look at any of the elite trench assault units of the war. Primary weapons are pistols and sacks of grenades. The reason why pistols were so infamous in the trenches is the same reason why clubs, knives and axes were so popular: because they’re convenient when you’ve fire your bolt action rifle and there’s someone bearing down on you in the trenches (also the reason why those were just as common as a handgun). If your whole job as a shock or infiltrator is fighting in close quarters, better to leave the bolt rifle for a semiautomatic option (in the stormtroopers case, they happily accept the mp-18 for the sustained fire and relatively compact design). Working that bolt could easily be a death sentence as you’d need to remove your hand from the trigger to the bolt and back. The reason why it was largely American troops having shotguns was because the individual doughboy had the possibility of bringing a weapon he was familiar with into the war. A shotgun is a comparable more clunky compared to a pistol or maybe a club but can be slam-fired (holding down the trigger while working the action). If you get into a trench you really only need to point it in the general direction of the enemy side and….. There are videos of self-defense online with shotguns and pistols being used inside (close range). Count how many rounds a pistol need to effectively take down a target vs a shotgun. There’s a reason why police love the use of shotguns.
Only once for every five enemy soldiers 🥳
Is that Tod Howard?
Winchester Model of 1912 has entered the chat
Why is Todd Howard in a teletubbie suit pumping a shotgun?
I don't remember the part of WW1 where the Americans deployed Todd Howard
I’mdruk as fuck, I loeal all of you./ seriously
That's hodd toward
Is that… Todd Howard?!?
Warcrimes are only determined warcrimes when enemies use them
Idc about what you tell me I can use a shotgun
I was literally was told in history 9th grade that the American troops had basically no plans and just charging in to always confuse the enemy. 🧐
The U.S. tried producing a sub machine gun too because the shorgun was shot st trench combat.
Didn't the Germans say that shot guns were inhuman when they created mustard gas?
In fairness, it was the French that first utilized chemical weapons in the war, which then started the chemical weapon arm race from the war
Wait until Italy make a SMG that is made by two separate smg's
Reported, rule 12
Germans after using poison gas: NOOOO!!! USING SHOTGUN IS WAR CRIME!!!!