Quote:
Originally posted by sappernz@Jan 31 2005, 09:54 PM
The Australian Owen submachine gun was a ultra reliable weapon as well.
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Extremely well designed, made to a budget that allowed them to be built like the proveriable "brick outhouse" and could fire for as long as you could feed it ammunition under extreme conditions.
I have fired it - very interesting muzzle climb...
Testing to see if it could take extreme conditions including placing it and sever magazines with no protection in a slurry of mud (to simulate jungle conditions). They were well stirred in it, left to lie there for half an hour. They were removed and shaken twice (that is two up and down movements - not particularly sharp). Magazine placed on weapon and fired both auto (3 rd bursts) and single shot (trigger manipulation). When that mag was empty it was replaced with its companion and then that was fired in auto (3 round burst) until expended.
The Owen was not wanted by the Australian MGO - he preferred the Austen (a bowlderised amalgam of a MP38 bolt and spring cover and Sten main parts with a few Oz ideas - turned out looking like the Sten Mk5 over a year before that was developed). It was fragile, suffed from the same magazine feed problems (weak spring, soft lips) and could not stand up to the conditions.
It required political intervention to get the Owen to the troops (who had wanted it any way they could).
(The reason that Australia developed its own SMG was due to need to replace th TSMG they had been using. They had to purchase these and their ammunition (NOT Lend Lease) and could not afford to keep buying it (the ammo). A 9 mm ammo line was comin into production for pistols (Browning HP35 for China - it just never got there) so they thought of a 9mm SMG. They could not get drawings but had a Mk2 as a pattern plus a MP38 captured in Crete that had come back for evaluation so like much of the equipment made in Australia it was done from effectively a zero base with no or little help from the "mother country"- cf tanks, artillery, optics, radar, etc)
Cheers
Edward
PS also fired Austen - hated it.