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008 - SIDEBAR Reising Gun · First Offensive- The Marine Campaign for Guadalcanal

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  Speaker 1: Chapter four sidebar of First Offensive the Marine Campaign for
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  Speaker 1: Guadalcanal by Henry Shaw. This LibriVox recording is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Racing Gun. The racing gun was designed and
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  Speaker 1: developed by noted gun inventor Eugene Ricing. It was patented
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty and manufactured by the old gun making
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  Speaker 1: firm of Harrington and Richardson of Worcester, Massachusetts. It is
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  Speaker 1: said that it was made on existing machine tools, some
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  Speaker 1: dating back to the Civil War, and of ordinary steel
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  Speaker 1: rather than ordnance steel. With new machine tools and ordnance
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  Speaker 1: steel scarce and needed for more demanding weapons, the ricing
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  Speaker 1: met an immediate requirement for many submachine guns at a
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  Speaker 1: time when production of Thompson M nineteen twenty eight and
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  Speaker 1: M one submachine guns hadn't caught up with demand, and
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  Speaker 1: the stamped out M three Greece gun had not yet
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  Speaker 1: been invented. It was a wartime expedient. The ricing was
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  Speaker 1: made in two different models, the fifty and the fifty five.
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  Speaker 1: The model fifty had a full wooden stock and a
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  Speaker 1: Cutz compensator attached to the muzzle. The compensator a device
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  Speaker 1: which reduced the upward muscle climb from recoil was invented
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  Speaker 1: by Richard M. Cutts Senior and his son, Richard Mcutt Junior,
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  Speaker 1: both of whom became Marine brigadier generals. The other version
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  Speaker 1: was dubbed the Model fifty five. It had a folding
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  Speaker 1: metal wire shoulder stock which swiveled on the wooden pistol grip.
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  Speaker 1: It also had a shorter barrel and no compensator. It
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  Speaker 1: was intended for use by parachutists, tank crews, and others
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  Speaker 1: needing a compact weapon. Both versions of the Ricing fired
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  Speaker 1: forty five caliber ammunition, the same cartridge as the Colt
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  Speaker 1: Automatic Pistol and the Thompson. In all, there were approximately
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  Speaker 1: one hundred thousand Ricing submachine guns produced between nineteen forty
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  Speaker 1: and nineteen forty two. Small numbers of the weapons were
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  Speaker 1: acquired by both Great Britain and the Soviet Union. However,
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  Speaker 1: most were used by the U. S. Marine Corps in
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  Speaker 1: the Solomon Islands Campaign. The Model fifty five was issued
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  Speaker 1: to both Marine parachute battalions and Marine raiders, seeing service
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  Speaker 1: first on Guadalcanal. After its dubious debut in combat, it
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  Speaker 1: was withdrawn from frontline service in nineteen forty three due
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  Speaker 1: to several flaws in design and manufacture. The racing's major
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  Speaker 1: shortcoming was its propensity for jamming. This was due to
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  Speaker 1: both a design problem in the magazine lips and the
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  Speaker 1: fact that magazines were made of a soft sheet steel.
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  Speaker 1: The weapons safety mechanism didn't always work, and if the
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  Speaker 1: butt was slammed down on the deck, the hammer would
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  Speaker 1: set back against the mainspring and then fly forward, firing
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  Speaker 1: a chambered cartridge. The design allowed the entry of dirt
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  Speaker 1: into the mechanism, and close tolerances caused it to jam. Finally,
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  Speaker 1: the steel used allowed excessive rust off form in the
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  Speaker 1: tropical humidity of the Solomons. Nevertheless, at six pounds, the
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  Speaker 1: Rising was handier than the ten pound Thompson, more accurate,
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  Speaker 1: pleasanter to shoot, and reliable under other than combat conditions,
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  Speaker 1: but one always had to keep the muzzle pointed in
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  Speaker 1: a safe direction. The Model fifty was also issued to
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  Speaker 1: marines for guard duty at posts and stations in the
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  Speaker 1: United States. John G. Griffiths end of chapter four sidebar
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  Speaker 1: read by Aaron Bennett