No moving parts on the outside of the rifle (no snagging dangers here) The guys in charge of weapons procurement, saddled with the ideas of giving the soldiers weapons not too different from the toys they already played with years ago, stipulated the three ridiculous limits: And thus, we are left with the ideas surrounding gas-operation.

Blow-back rifle designs usually didn’t work that well in the 30’s (poor Pedersen got rejected because of the price tag). Recoil-operated rifles usually didn’t get far (over-emphasized Chauchat failures, anyone?), and even the really light machine guns that could qualify as automatic rifles would be unfamiliar to most troops of the day. This means that while there are a few that will make the cut and become great success stories, finding those select few in a sea of rejects will take weeks, if not months.

How about this: looser requirements may cause you to receive a flood of potentially disastrous designs just because each inventor wants to be as original as possible.

Kbsp wz. 1938m