spudgun in the army

[SpudFarm]

i was looking around on google for gun laws in Norway and guess what google directed me to!

a Norwegian talk forum, that is not what is cool, the thing that got me fired up was that for a long time ago a member there was looking in the newspapers (confirmed on other post's there) and it said that the norwegian troops made their own spudguns that they took under their arm when they where about to walk in a war.
they shot frozed potatoes at the anemy and some of them did die!

don't know how they managed to do this but it is suposed to be true!

so tell me, what do you think about this absurd story? (i think it is bullsh!t, but i can't seem to understand why sevral old men should lie about seeing it in the newspaper)

[Sticky_Tape]

It could be true why not if it is a war on terror it would be legal right shotguns are legal in terror wars even though they aren't in regular wars.

[daxspudder]

shotguns are against the Geneva convention since they are weapons that maim, but with slugs, or w/e the 9 ball shots are, are considered to not maim anymore than an AR, so are therefore allowed(I'm military, so my source is good)... using a spud gun wouldn't necessarily maim, so technically it wouldn't be banned, as long as you weren't firing shrapnel from it...

as far as the story being legit, I think it may be... in medieval times, when wars were fought, often it was tradition to use a homemade spear before using the sword/axe/w-e that you got from the blacksmith... so i could see that story being true, just adapted to guns...

[starman]

and it said that the norwegian troops made their own spudguns that they took under their arm when they where about to walk in a war.
they shot frozed potatoes at the anemy and some of them did die!

don't know how they managed to do this but it is suposed to be true!

so tell me, what do you think about this absurd story? (i think it is bullsh!t, but i can't seem to understand why sevral old men should lie about seeing it in the newspaper)

I'm not thoroughly versed in Norwegian geo-politics...but.. when in the heck has Norway participated in a war lately? and one where they could keep there potatos frozen? (certainly not Iraq or Afghanistan) Sounds like BS to me...not with real troops able to carry very effective, very compact, very available, very deadly real weapons.

[VH_man]

yea, definetly a myth.

however, i dont doubt a frozen potatoes ability to seriously injure somebody. and it does have about the same muzzle energy as a handgun bullet......... a small one but a handgun bullet nonetheless.....

[trollhameran]

As for spudguns in the army, as serious weapons, I doubt it. Range, accuracy and rate of fire just aren't up to even the standards of an old flintlock musket.

But at the same time, with all this stuff about injuring rather than killing, cant deny spud guns would be effective. Stick a lead sinker that costs 5p in your barrel and you can injure someone pretty badly.

[Gippeto]

That still leaves the problem of actually hitting them BEFORE they wipe you out with their magazine fed, assault weapons at 200 meters.

[starman]

As for spudguns in the army, as serious weapons, I doubt it. Range, accuracy and rate of fire just aren't up to even the standards of an old flintlock musket.

But at the same time, with all this stuff about injuring rather than killing, cant deny spud guns would be effective. Stick a lead sinker that costs 5p in your barrel and you can injure someone pretty badly.

Well yeah but....unless you've got a "spudgun" that has some really advanced features, they aren't going to be very effective as a weapon on a modern battlefield. Accuracy stinks, repeatability stinks, reload time stinks, weight to power ratio stinks, fueling is tedious, etc etc. In short, they make really awful weapons. That doesn't mean you couldn't lay a hurtin' on some poor unsuspecting soul, but before you can reload and do it again, his buddies are going to be on you like stink on poop...if you know what I mean. 8)

[trollhameran]

I don't deny they would be awful weapons for full on battles, but for urban warfare, in countries where civilians cant get weapons to defend themselves, they could have there uses.

personally I would bring back medieval weapons, and have soldiers running around with battle axes, and bastard swords.

[SpudFarm]

the post on the forum would be trancelated to about this: "when my dad was young (wich is a while ago) he said he saw a story about soilders (realized it did not say NORWEGIAN) that took some spudguns with them and shot frozen fruits on other soilders (also known as anemy) and some of them did die"

then there was post's that said things like "ohh i saw that to"

BTW i will now ask one of the mods to clean this thread down to the bone from all the bullsh!t about rifles.

[Ragnarok]

Basically the discussion boils down to the fact that it's not practical to do so, and is probably an urban myth spawned from a joke down at the pub which later got misrecalled as true.
Can you actually produce any evidence of these "spudguns in war" from a credible source, not just something someone is recalling on a forum from what sounds like a 3rd hand source at best (Guy -> his father -> someone that told his father that story)?

[MrCrowley]

You want to talk about 5.56 and 7.62 rounds, make your own thread guys.

A little bit off-topic would've been fine, but two pages is just ridiculous.

[POLAND_SPUD]

ohhh.... so all my posts have been removed... weren't I one of the few staying on topic??

I do not want to complain but if I spend like 30 minutes writing something and I did stay on topic why did they all get deleted ?

[MrCrowley]

I deleted all the posts that were off-topic, I did read them. If you had anything worthwhile on topic, I would've just edited the post like Rag's above.

As far as I remember, weren't you talking about Norway and WW2? I can't remember exactly, I deleted a lot of posts.