Gun show carbines

[firstflabn]

Just because there was a wholesale mix up of parts done at FN after the war as a make work project for Belgians, doesn't mean everyone did it that way.

Except for this part, good job trying to teach the OP that a line in a TM is not the same as budget authority or a work order. I don't know, are we the only ones that understand the effects of the devastating budget cuts immediately postwar?

The ETO General Board in their early postwar report describes an "...emasculation of Ordnance service. Personnel received as replacements for high points ordnance personnel were generally unskilled and unsuited to the task of receiving, repairing, and preparing for shipment the volume of materiel that flooded Ordnance installations."

So it was the loss of experienced personnel that led Ordnance to FN's door. Without FN (and many other private concerns) even more ordnance materiel would have rusted away in supply dumps and on railroad sidings. Units redeploying to the Pacific packed their own gear and the occupation force had adequate ordnance support (thanks to a year's worth of planning), but that left all the gear formerly carried by the nearly 800k GIs being discharged upon arrival back in the U.S.

Redeployment was, of course, an ETO top priority and every nerve was strained - either to get units packed up and on their way to the Pacific or demobilizing GIs on their way home to resume making Buicks and babies.