The War with Germany: A Statistical Summary Page: 67

                                
SPRINGFIELDS, ENFIELDS, AND BROWNINGS.

careful tests of the new weapons had been made in Europe the
American commander in chief decided that the two new Brownings
were so greatly superior to any machine guns in use by any of the
armies on either side that the wisest course would be to wait until
several divisions could be equipped with them and a plentiful future
supply assured before using them in battle at all.
What he feared was that if the first of the guns to reach the expe-
ditionary forces were used in battle there would always be some
227
201
178
TOTAL ACCEPTED 227,000
143
SAccepted to date (whole oolumm)
Accepted during month           121
FIGURBUS IN THOUSLANDS
86
61
46
35
13
To  Jan  leb  hr   Apr hMy  Jn   Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec
Dec 31
1917                           1918
Diagram 27.-Thousands of American machine guns produced to the
end of each month.
chance that one might be captured by the Germans. If this should
happen it was possible that with their quick recognition of the im-
portance of any military improvement and the demonstrated German
industrial capacity for quantity production, they might begin the
immediate manufacture of German Brownings. In this event the
advantage of the possession of large numbers of greatly improved
types of machine guns and automatic rifles would be partly lost to
the American forces.

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