> [!quote] [[where did the weapons come from by Sean Manning]] > > Self-procurement has some advantages. If troops can choose their own kit, the savvy ones will pretty quickly learn which works well and choose that. Veterans seem to agree that modern outdoor sports such as hiking lead to huge improvements in the quality of load-bearing equipment and boots. If everyone in the army has to use the same weapons, then if they make a bad choice it will be hard to correct. The sheer size of these mass purchases also encourages corruption, because potential suppliers have a very great incentive to put their thumb on the scales. The Canadian army in WW I were stuck with the Ross Rifle because the designer was well connected and willing to put in some of his own money if he got the contract: it turned out that the Ross was a beautiful target rifle but too delicate to be a good trench rifle. The problem of different types of ammunition has been somewhat lightened by NATO and Warsaw Pact standardization. Instead of every country developing its own weapons in its own calibres, there are two main families of ammunition today. > > However, its hard to maintain a random assortment of smallarms. Every one needs different parts and has different quirks. And its easier to give a soldier a new copy of a weapon he has already learned than to train him on a completely new one. Its also easier to learn tactics when you are sure of the capabilities of the weapons which will be supporting you. Nobody wants to be in the middle of a firefight and trying to remember whether this particular anti-tank rocket has a minimum distance before it arms. Nobody wants to find that they can’t share ammunition with the other guy in the fighting pit because the other guy’s weapon uses the same calibre but different magazines. On the whole, standardization is probably better, especially in an industrialized war. But self-procurement can work well enough. And for most of history, it was how most soldiers got their kit.