The evolution of the army combat shotgun—from the blunderbuss to the lightweight shotgun system: the origins of today's combat shotgun can be traced to the time that the earliest settlers reached America. This article examines this weapon's development process

Military Police, April, 2003 by Bo Barbour

From Blunderbuss to Fowling Piece

With the arrival of the first English colonists, soldiers brought an armory of weapons, two of which were the matchlock-ignited rifle and the blunderbuss. The rifle was used for long-range targets, the blunderbuss for short-range targets. This arrangement served the average English soldier well as he protected the Jamestown colony and hunted for food. The blunderbuss was the weapon of choice for close-range Indian attacks and shipboarding. This weapon had the added advantage of using (for ammunition) whatever small, sharp objects one could cram down the barrel on top of the black powder. Over time, the flintlock ignition replaced the matchlock, and the blunderbuss was replaced with the single- and double-barreled English fowling piece. In the South, during the Revolutionary War, faced with a desperate shortage of muskets, the colonists used the fowling piece as a close-quarters combat weapon while ambushing the redcoats on the flanks of their line formations and shooting the horses from under their cavalrymen.

One hundred years later, the flintlock was supplanted by the percussion system and the fowling piece by the shotgun we know today. As settlers moved west, the standard musket was loaded with shot to hunt birds and small game and single balls to hunt large game. The double-barreled shotgun had been developed by midcentury and, in an era of single shots and slow loading, was to be a major contributor in the coming conflict.

Shotguns and Cavalry in the Civil War

The Civil War was fought with every conceivable firearm available. Muskets, carbines, numerous repeating rifle systems, and shotguns were all employed. The shotgun was used extensively in all theaters of the Civil War, but most prominently by the Confederate cavalry who--much like their forefathers in the Revolutionary War--used it to skirmish with the Union cavalry at close range. The writings of Union cavalrymen contain indignant passages about horses and riders being shot with rocks, nails, and screws that were fired from the barrels of Confederate sawed-off shotguns. The combat shotgun had come into its own.

At the close of the Civil War, the Army was charged with protecting westward expansion; therefore, a variety of shotguns were pressed into use. By 1865, the Army had replaced percussion system weapons with centerfire cartridges similar to those used today. The newly developed "trapdoor" Springfield rifle was also built in a shotgun configuration using its same Allin system (named for the armorer who developed it). Until the turn of the 20th century, this was the shotgun that soldiers used in the West to fight Indians, guard prisoners, and hunt game. Meanwhile, in the 1880s, the demand for a shotgun with more firepower (needed for market hunting) produced the first true combat shotgun--the Winchester[R] Model 1897 (known as the Model 97).

Combat Shotgun in the World War I Trenches

The rifle and machine-gun fire of the Allied and Central Powers forced men to seek the safety of trenches. Taking to these trenches also underscored the weaknesses of the long Springfield and Enfield rifles in trench fighting. The conventional bolt-action infantry rifle was too long and lacked the firepower needed to overcome the interlocking trenches and determined German defenders carrying machine guns. The Winchester Model 97--firing a modern 12-gauge shell--with pump action; six-round magazine capacity; and short, 18-inch barrel was brought over by American military police and infantrymen and rapidly became known as the "trench sweeper." The infantryman breaking into a trench could sweep both sides of it (to the depth of a passageway) with multiple buckshot rounds. Once leaders understood the 50-meter range of this weapon, they employed it with skill. A soldier with a shotgun, exceptionally fast to pump and fire, could quickly suppress German trench assaults and clear suspicious dugouts with devastating effectiveness. Out of the trenches, the Model 97 cleared Germans out of farmhouses and buildings in French villages with equal effectiveness. On 27 September 1918, Sergeant Fred Lloyd, using a Model 97, advanced alone into a German-held village and began methodically clearing the village, rapidly pumping and firing the shotgun as he moved. He finally collapsed with exhaustion after flushing and routing thirty German soldiers. The combat shotgun had earned its place as an Army secondary weapon.

At the close of World War I, the Army had 19,600 Model 97s on hand. These were used to guard prisoners and mail in the '20s and '30s. In this era, too, civilian law enforcement agencies added birdshot to the crowd-control ammunition inventory. Birdshot was seen as a less lethal alternative when fired over the heads of rioters but often had tragic results. Civilian law enforcement agencies soon embraced the pump shotgun, and it can now be seen in almost every police cruiser.

Shotguns in the World War II Jungles and Cities

At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the Army found itself woefully short of the number of shotguns that was sufficient for jungle and house-to-house fighting. Shotguns were procured in great numbers and from multiple firearms manufacturers. As a result, there was no standard shotgun, a situation that has been rectified only recently. The shotgun was the secondary weapon of choice in the jungles of New Guinea. In the European theater, it was highly sought after in the house-to-house fighting across France. The shotgun had one major deficiency that placed a dilemma on the soldier: it forced the soldier to carry two weapons--the rifle (for long-range shots) and the shotgun. This was roughly 18 pounds of weapons for a variety of tasks. The result of this situation was that usually one man in the squad was assigned to carry the shotgun, forcing him to sacrifice the longer-range fire of the M-1 rifle.