This is a photo of the Rough Riders with their two Colt 1895 "Potato-Digger" machine guns, the first automatic machine guns used by the Army in combat. As you can read in the article, these guns were purchased privately and given to the Rough Riders.
Check out, though, the hat worn by the man on the far right. It looks as though he is wearing a cover from a large soup tureen.
Here's a Potato-Digger being fired:
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2 comments:
Scary, and the fact that they were DONATED says something about the lack of funds the military had in those days...
Even reading Col. Roosevelt's book "The Rough Riders", it's clear that the Army's logistics system was completely overwhelmed. Most of the Rough Riders didn't deploy. Still, they went from recruitment, through training, deployment, invading Cuba, some heavy combat, returning back to the States and demobilizing in under 140 days.
The other thing was that private citizens were able to purchase medium machine guns with their own funds and donate them to the unit. Try doing that now!
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