Okay, so I took a bit of a thrashing in Round One. Nevertheless, we have learned a few things about Brant, our most cunning foe:
1) What a jerk
2) He kannot uz korrect orthografy
3) He is sensitive about posts on his non-updated blog implying that he is a drunkard.
4) Speaking of that non-updated blog, he should just trash it and move in here. He'd post more often.
That said, I move on to round 2:
I confidently assert that John Moses Browning was the greatest firearms designer ever.
4 comments:
Josh, you're probably right about Browning. However, let me throw out another name for consideration: Eli Whitney. Yes, he's mostly known for inventing but unsuccessfully capturing the value of the cotton gin. But perhaps more important was his contribution to firearms, and more generally, interchangeable parts.
I would suggest that while Browning may have designed more notable firearms, and more different types. Your wiki link mentioned that Browning is known as the patron saint of automatic fire. Pretty tough to fault that guy.
However, interchangeable parts seems like it might be more important, and also more of a radical break from the past. Josh, I'm sure you know, but isn't interchangeable parts one of the advances in the strategy game Civilization?
Anyway, you're probably right about Browning, but I'd hate to forget Whitney.
http://www.eliwhitney.org/arms.htm
And as far as joining your merry band, I'd prefer to remain the Steve Sailor of Stann's Blog.
Double blog-nerd points for knowing who steve sailor is without googling.
And who is Stann, anyway?
Well, interchangeable parts was certainly an advance in firearms manufacturing... but I'm not sure that the design was fundamentally improved from other firearms available at the time. You would suggest that while Browning may have designed more notable firearms, what?
I don't think interchangeable parts was one of the advances in any of the Civ games I played, but then I stopped at Civ II and went on to slightly more esoteric games.
I have no idea who steve sailor is, alas. Stann, or St. Ann's, was where Seth and I went to high school.
I guess I can't really disagree with your assertion. It's like asking what was the greatest car ever built. I might answer, well, the Volkswagen was built for fifty years and is virtually indistructable, and pretty much anyone can afford one. You might respond: That's ridiculous, it's obviously either an early Dusenburg or a Ferrari 250GT California; either of those cars are far more elegant and advanced!
Browning seems to have earned himself a pant-load of patents, for some memorable products. And maybe that makes him the greatest firearm designer ever. You certainly know more about this field than I do. But isn't manufacturing and the ability to repair an integral part of design? Doesn't design encompass all aspects of what make a product great or revolutionary? The Model T was not a great design because it was particularly fast, or elegant, or even durable (although off hand I think it was durable). It was a great design because it was so cheap that it changed the way people lived their lives, by making long distance travel a reality for most of the country. For the first time, real, personal freedom of movement was available to more than simply the elite.
Certainly Browning was a great designer, and created plenty of impressive products over the years. His revolutions, most importantly automatic fire, changed the way battles were fought, men killed
Whitney's development of interchangeable parts made modern, mass armies possible. He changed the way wars were fought; the way nations built themselves. His innovations were a crucial part of the Industrial Revolution.
I don't know, maybe that doesn't make him a great firearms designer. But it certainly makes him a firearms designer who is unsurpassingly great.
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