In World War II, the Germans manufactured history’s first mass produced assault rifle. It was a great innovation in firearms design. Not so great was a device designed to accompany it: a bent barrel, intended to fire bullets around corners. It did not work anywhere near as well as its designers had intended. Below are twenty two things about that, and some of history’s other badly designed weapons.
22. Trying to Make History’s First Mass Production Assault Rifle Fire Around Corners
Germany’s WWII Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) was an innovative weapon and history’s first successful assault rifle. Although significantly heavier than its modern equivalents, it had all the basic features common to all assault rifles today. It was more compact than its era’s battle rifles, that fired fully powered cartridges theoretically able to hit targets more than a thousand yards away. Instead, the StG 44 used intermediate cartridges, designed for targets within a few hundred meters – the range in which the overwhelming majority of engagements occurred. It could also put many more bullets down range, with controllable automatic fire. All in all, the StG 44 was a huge success. Not so an attachment that was developed for use with the innovative weapon: a curved barrel intended to allow soldiers to fire an StG 44 around corners or over obstacles without exposing themselves.
