Not surprisingly, the men in the trenches felt considerable bitterness over the decision to purchase such inferior weapons. One soldier writes:

A D Company man, standing right against me, had just emptied his rifle and was trying to open his bolt (stuck as usual — Ross rifle), when three machine gun bullets got him in the arm. I said to the next two men “Look after him, will you?” I emptied by magazine, took cover to load, when looking down I saw that three bullets had passed right through his body as well; another brave man gone West. So I told the two men not to mind him just now. In a few minutes another one died about ten feet to my left, trying to draw the bolt on his Ross rifle by putting the stock on the ground and a foot on the bolt. Many a good man was killed the same way that day, forgetting that the parapet was so low. The Ross Rifle Company got the money; our brave men died for the aforesaid company’s folly and greed.