Excerpt from Small Arms and Ammunition in the United States Service: With 52 Plates
Thousands of volumes have been written concerning the tactics, engagements, campaigns, and personnel of our American armies. In determining the outcome of our many battles of the past, the weapons we used played a part second in importance only to morale. Yet the student of military history has available but meager information on the military characteristics and performance of these tools.
A number of excellent works have been prepared in recent years cataloging the small arms employed in the United States service in the early days as to models, fabricators, and dimensional details. However, when questions arose as to effective range, accuracy, ammunition, rate of fire, and allied subjects, little could be determined without extensive research. Such fragmentary data as were readily available were likely to be found inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading.
During 1944 and 1945, while a member of the Historical Section, Office of Chief of Ordnance, my attention was brought forcibly to this lack of information. The section, in addition to its routine duties, was the clearinghouse for all questions submitted to Ordnance on obsolete materiel. Many of those comparatively simple inquiries caused us considerable trouble, as there was no definite place to look for any specific item. Fortunately we were able to find most of the answers, but it involved a lot of digging.
It appeared desirable to assemble in one place all the pertinent information that could be located on the neglected phases of our small-arms history. I decided to try to forget what little I knew on this subject and to start with a clean slate. To avoid controversy and to get as nearly accurate a story as possible, contemporary source material was used for the most part. Where conjecture enters the picture, that fact has been clearly indicated. In some cases calibers or model dates are at variance with previously published data. Government documents themselves do not always agree, but in general the descriptions used are those employed officially at the time the arm was in service. That should come close enough.
