Combat Shotguns in the U.S. Military

There is a long history of the use of shotguns in combat going back before the American revolution. Although their role in the U.S. military has been limited, since the early 20th century a small number of combat shotguns have been in continuous use and, for certain operations such as guard duty or jungle warfare, are the preferred weapon. With the growing emphasis on special operations in recent years, the combat shotgun has been the subject of renewed and increased interest. For MOUT (urban operations) the shotgun has found a role for breaching doorways, destroying hinges or locks. In this context, the U.S. military selected a new Joint Service Combat Shotgun in 1999.

The followin Olive-Drab.com pages cover the most important combat shotguns used by U.S. armed forces since World War I:. There have been other models in service use, but these are the most significant.

Combat Shotguns: Reference Materials

Marines from Charlie Battery, 1st Bn., 10th Marines use shotguns for crowd control during a training exercise, 2 December 2001.

An excellent reference book is A Collector's Guide to United States Combat Shotguns , by Burce Canfield. This inexpensive 184 page paperback book has detailed information on all the many types of shotguns used by the U.S. military with photos and discussions of each weapon. The main emphasis of the book is on the World Wars but there is material about Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts as well.

Find More Information on the Web

There are many fine websites that have additional information on this topic, too many to list here and too many to keep up with as they come and go. Use this Google web search form to get an up to date report of what's out there.

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Combat Shotguns

The Combat Shotgun, usually a military version adapting a civilian shotgun, has a long and successful career of service with the U.S. military.

U.S. Marines assigned to the Seventh Fleet, Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team (FAST), Third Platoon, fam-fire the Mossberg M500 shotgun aboard USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19). The M500 is a magazine feed, manually operated pump action, smoothbore gun. 2 November 2004.