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| Ross Rifle |
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| Lee Enfield rifle |
Because of his strong belief that all weaponry and equipment should be locally made, Sam Hughes issued all canadian soldiers going overseas Ross Rifles, witch were excellent sharpshooting weapons but preformed incredibly poorly in the new conditions of trench warfare by constantly jamming from the sea of mud the troops trekked through on a daily basis. To survive, soldiers needed to, against regulations, take more rugged, better constructed Lee Enfield rifles off the bodies of their british allies.
In the time of the battle of the Somme, the new commander in chief of the british Expeditionary Force Douglas Haig ordered many new british lee enfield rifles to replace the Ross rifles. Nevertheless, Hughes still believed the Ross rifle had no flaws and it took a large intervention to eventually make him realize the truth. If hughes arrogance had not blinded him from the truth than thousands of canadian lives would have been saved.
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