RIFLE MACHINE GUN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1932, Page 8

RIFLE MACHINE GUN.

SECRET AMERICAN DEVICE. MEANT FOR USE IN WORLD WAK, REVEALED AFTER 14 YEARS. The United States War Department disclosed last month that for 14 years it has kept secret the existence of a device for converting the Springfield rifle into a miniature machine gun. .Production of the attachment was begun -during the World War, .but it was not ready for use in active bpera-j tions before the armistice was signed. It had.been intended 1 to use the device in a surprise attack early in 1919. ■

The secret was divulged because it was decided that a short-range weapon of this type would have limited usefulness in any future emergency. "The contrivance," the department said, "often called the 'Pedersen device,' after its inventor, J. D. Pedersen, was an automatic bolt for the Springfield rifle, which, weighing only two pounds and two ouncce, could be instantly placed in the rifle as a substitute for the regular bolt. "Magazines holding forty pistol-size cartridges each could be attached and lired automatically in less than onehalf minute. "Each soldier was supposed to carry I his regular bolt and his regular supply of full-sized ammunition in addition to this deyico and ten magazines containing in all 400 rounds of the small-sized cartridges. "ft was intended to use this detachment for either assault firing on the enemy trenches or for defence against close assault by the enemy."