[4v50 Gary]

I'm a little over halfway finished but Hallanan's theme seems to be how incompetence leadership at the Nation's Armory System (or the Army's Ordnance Corps) has consistently supplied our armed forces with second class weapons.

For instant, he cites that when the Hall Breechloader was available, it took an inordinate # of years to get it adopted. Then it was phased out in favor of the older muzzle loader type firearm. The same goes for the resistence of the Ordnance Dept. for breechloaders & repeaters & early machine guns for the Civil War. When the Plains War was being fought, the repeaters that were successful during the Civil War were declared obsolete and the single shot Trapdoor Springfield issued in its place. We all know what happened to Custer. In the Spanish-American War, our troops still carried the black powder Trapdoor and the low powered Krag into battle against the 7mm Spanish Mauser. Ad infinitum.

I can't help but recall there was another book that preceded Hallanan's on the same thesis about Springfield Armory. Anybody know the title of it and did it precede Hallanan? Hallanan's "Misfire" was published in 1994.

[BowStreetRunner]

doesnt sound like the historian in question is to off base....militaries are rather bad at picking up on new stuff, i.e., the British had the Ferguson rifle during the Rev War, which was breech loading and rifled, but didnt do anything with it.
perhaps the only time we have gone into war with a far superior firearm is WW2 and the garand....any other times?
BSR