Still issued and used for some purposes. I have to think the M1907 sling is the longest serving military issue item in history!?
August 01, 2026, 05:44 PM
RogueJSK
quote:
Originally posted by captain127: Still issued and used for some purposes. I have to think the M1907 sling is the longest serving military issue item in history!?
It's certainly been used for a while, but keep in mind there are still militaries out there today using stuff like the Maxim gun originally from 1885, the Mosin-Nagant rifle originally from 1891, and the Lee-Enfield rifle originally from 1895.
Even the US still uses M1903 Springfields as line-throwing rifles, whose design predate the M1907 sling by a few years.
Not to mention primarily ceremonial stuff currently in use like the medieval halberds used by the Vatican Swiss Guards, or the Napoleonic bearskin hats worn by the British Army's royal guards, or the Revolutionary War gear worn by the US Army's Fife and Drum Corps, etc.
And the military bugle has been basically unchanged from its current form since the late 1700s.
Then going back even further in history, you have stuff like the English longbow or Roman gladius and pilum whose service periods stretched many hundreds of years.
So 119 years is certainly no slouch, but far from the longest in history.
