February 21, 2008
ANSF, Coalition forces recover weapons caches in Nangarhar
Heh. Intent matters. The picture below looks a little bit like what Castle Argghhh! did when the collection was in transit from the Auld Castle to the New Castle.
And, I'm sure, there are those in this country who would see little difference between the two, and would like to see the Castle Armory treated in a similar fashion. Of course, a major difference between the two assemblages are that the ones at the Castle are, 1. Inert, and 2., generally in better shape.
Heh. That RPG-2 and associated B4 rocket look pretty tatty. The Armorer would be reluctant to pull the trigger on that one. The same is true for the RPG-7 rounds - their booster cartridges look... dangerous. And if the mortar rounds have been stored without their fuze well covers... well, it's no wonder that sometimes the bad guy's mortars blow up when they fire them.
Still, much of that stuff can be salvaged for the explosives or fashioned into IED's.
The stuff at the Castle will only hurt you if you drop it on your foot.

080214-A-3325A-001 - Afghan National Security Forces, assisted by Coalition forces, recovered a suspected insurgent weapons cache near Shamakalay Village, Khogyani District, Nangarhar Province. The cache included a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, eight rocket-propelled grenade rounds, five rocket-propelled grenade boosters, two hand grenades, a mortar fuse and a stockpile of 25 mm ammunition. (U.S. Army photo)
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Afghan citizens supplied information leading to the recovery of several weapons caches in Kot and Khogyani Districts, Nangarhar Province, Feb. 8-14.
Afghan National Security Forces, assisted by Coalition forces, recovered a suspected insurgent weapons cache near Laghurji Village, Kot District, Feb. 8, consisting of 10 anti-tank mines, three 60 mm mortar rounds and two 82 mm mortar rounds.
Another weapons cache was found Feb. 12 in Kailoaghu, Khogyani District. This cache consisted of two anti-personnel mines, a hand grenade, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in good condition.
The final cache, discovered Feb.14 near Shamakalay Village, Khogyani District, was the largest. This weapons cache included a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, eight rocket-propelled grenade rounds, five rocket-propelled grenade boosters, two hand grenades, a mortar fuse and a stockpile of 25 mm ammunition.
According to a Coalition forces servicemember, the weapons were in fair condition when found.
“Recovering these munitions reduces the insurgents’ ability to conduct attacks in Nangarhar Province,” said Army Maj. Chris Belcher, Coalition forces spokesman.
Earlier this month, residents of Fateh Mina Village, in, Lal Por District, Nangarhar Province, discovered a suspected insurgent weapons cache in the area. Afghan National Security Forces were able to secure the area and safely remove the weapons from the cache site. In that cache, 30 rocket-propelled grenade rounds and 32 82 mm mortar rounds were secured.
Insurgents frequently use these weapons to terrorize Afghan citizens or attack Afghan National Security and Coalition forces throughout the Nangarhar, said Belcher.
“The citizens of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan are committed to government objectives to thwart insurgent activity in their neighborhoods,” said Belcher. “Afghan National Security Forces continue to take these weapons out of the hands of insurgents, making Nangarhar safer for residents.”
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
I seem to remember stabbing as a distinct possibility as well. Or has SWWBO hidden them from the uhm.. children?
by
Trias on February 21, 2008 11:35 AM
[glower]
by
John of Argghhh! on February 21, 2008 11:41 AM
Geez, that stuff looks just as bad as the things we used to find wrapped in ponchos and buried alongside the paddy dikes. My guess is that the dudes who put that stuff there went non-combatant (in one way or another) before they could retrieve it *or* they scooted into the Border areas and became occupied with more important things -- like dodging Pak Cobras.
Dirt is *not* ordnance-friendly.
by
BillT on February 21, 2008 11:42 AM
You'd get a kick out of the pix that MH took of the caches they found in Iraq. Virtually all of them in all-too-operable condition due to them being stored in bunkers and such.
by Sly2017 on February 21, 2008 1:01 PM
The auld Armorer may like to prowl about a "forgotten arsenal" instead of rusty old Destroyers on his next vacation adventure.
Reportedly this is from someplace in A'stan.
http://s131.photobucket.com/albums/p296/rlanicek/CFD%2002-13-2008/?start=all
The Castle would need a major expansion!
by John on February 21, 2008 5:46 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
August 18, 2007
The Whatziss, revealed!
A Laurel, and Hearty Handshake to Old Fat Sailor and Mongo for getting it right. It is, indeed, a round for the WWI 3" Stokes mortar.

This woulda been your next clue if we'd needed one.
But OFS and Mongo took care of it.
Interesting method of fuzing, eh? Right before you hang and drop the round, you pulled the ring, inserted the round, and let it go - the lever flipped free as it cleared the tube, and off it went.
The Stokes mortar is essentially the first modern mortar. I could write a learned treatise here, but heck, real weapons geek Bruce Canfield has already done so - if you'd like to know more about the Stokes - simply click here.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
Wonder if Stokes had anything to do with the stokes stretcher?
Did a quick google and wiki search and found very little.
by jon spencer on August 19, 2007 6:53 AM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
June 15, 2007
Ammunition, Part the 4th. Closing out the muzzle-loading ammunition piece.
Closing out the reprise of the ammuntion posts... again - it's an old post, so some links may be broken. I'll fix 'em as I can.
G'day, everybody! While I certainly haven't exhausted the muzzle-loading era and may return to it, I'm going to close it out for now with a post about 'cleaner' bullets and what to do when your weapon misfires. Then I can move on to black powder primer fired cartridges and beyond - at a later date, at a later date, keep your shirt on!
If you need a refresher, here are parts I, II, and III.
As I mentioned in earlier discussions about black powder, a major problem with those guns and that ammunition was the residue, or fouling, from firing. It doesn't take long before it starts to get hard to load your weapon. Instead of the bullet dropping down onto the powder, you have to exert more and more force to ram the bullet down the bore. That takes time, meaning you reduce your rate of fire, and the distortion of the soft lead bullet can significantly reduce accuracy, and even range, if you distort the skirt of a minie' ball sufficiently. Most Civil War engagements were fought at distances where range wasn't a question, but accuracy, and most importantly, rate of fire, were important.
The most common kind of 'cleaner bullet was the Williams. It came as a Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3. In this photo, they are 1, 3, 2, something I didn't notice until after I took the picture last night. You'll have to excuse me, I was in the basement right after the tornado warning sirens had gone off. Have you ever tried to snag 7 cats and get 'em to the basement - quickly? And I expected Beth's new car to be a dimpled wreck from hail, too. In the event, nothing happened.

Shown with an 8mm Mauser round for comparison. Hi-speed (or patient) version here.
These were designed to clean the bore as the bullet traveled down the barrel. When fired, a zinc ring at the bottom of the bullet would expand to clean the debris and grease from the rifle. On the Type 1, the zinc ring is gone from years in the ground, leaving only the post. The Type 2 was only produced briefly, in favor of the Type 3. The differences are the Type 2 has a thicker ring than the Type 1, and in an attempt to contain costs, a smaller bullet. The Type 3 is basically a Type 1 bullet with the improved Type 2 disk. Depending on who you read, they ranged from really effective (Williams himself) to worthless. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in the middle - and had more to do with training of the soldier and intensity of the combat.
There's more in the extended post.
Flash Traffic (extended entry) Follows �
Last but not least - what do you do with misfires? You recap and try again. If that fails, you drop your rifle and grab the rifle the guy next to you dropped when he took a bullet.
If you win the battle, or the action moves away from your position and you have some time, you get out your 'worm', and pull the bullet, something like this:

You put the puller on the threaded end of your ramrod, pushed it down to the bullet, screwed it in, and pulled it out. Having had to do this a few times myself, it's not something you want to be doing in combat.
Here are examples of both Union and Confederate pulled bullets. The Union bullet as three rings, the confederate, two. The Yankee bullet also has a thinner skirted cone, which made it grip the rifling better. The rings, or cannelures, are for holding grease to aid loading, ease the passage of the bullet, and to make cleaning easier by emulsifying the firing residue.
Pulled bullets head-on.
Side view.
End View.
Keep checking back. I've got more stuff working - the German 'Glasmine' and the "Elsie" mine.
� Secure this line!
by
John
on
Jun 15, 2007
�
Les Jones Blog links with:
Thursday Gun Links #18
June 14, 2007
Ammunition, Part the 3rd
Heh. Things change over time. This is part three of the Ammunition series that I'm reprising. Yesterday I was gently chid on a disagreement of fact - which I concede half of, anyway - and was posed a question that I really am going to have to buy the OED to be able to answer. Given the subject of yesterday's chiding... I may get chid again today!
Change over time - peoples blog-reading habits change, and bloggers posting habits change - I just realized that the JDM Warning in these, well, JDM doesn't read here anymore, I don't think - because, among other things, I quit writing things like that, as life got too cramped for the rather stout effort putting together a post like that takes. Mebbe when I retire, I can write "The Curmudgeon's Guide to the History of Arms" a snarky look at the subject.
Anyway - welcome to part three. If I have the time, I'll check the links - but this piece is over three years old, and so some links may be broken - the Armorer
***********************************
Welcome to Ammunition, part the 3rd. Yes, this one comes with another JDM Warning® - excessive words, not enough pictures. Hey, when you guys pay for my bandwidth you can gripe about the lack of pictures.
We left off in Ammunition, Part the 2nd with the shift from flintlock to percussion ignition of the powder charge. I mentioned how governments liked it because it was a cheap and easy replacement to do with flintlocks, so you didn't have to completely rearm, you could retrofit. Cheaper and quicker. Here's an example, with a US M1842 (Springfield) conversion.
Note from a collector's perspective - many of these rifles were back-dated to flintlocks because the original flintlocks were so scarce (having been converted, eh?). They don't hold the same value as a true original configuration, so take a good hard look at one of these offered in a flintlock form. The parts usually don't match in overall age patina, especially ones made with more modern parts made from different steels than the originals. You can see in the picture - where there is brass, that is a filler for the old flintlock pan. Oh, yes, I did say rifle. Many of these were rifled when they were converted to percussion as well. Not a deep rifling, not really a very useful rifling, but they were rifled.
The simple expedient of putting fulminate of mercury in a copper (later brass) cap that fit on a nipple simplified the soldier's drill and the gun-makers workload - meaning more rifles could be made, and effectively more shots fired in a given amount of time by a given body of troops.
Here is an example of modern large rifle caps. Not very dissimilar from the originals. A little more stable/less sensitive (don't want it too stable or it won't work well as an ignition system) and a little less sensitive to environmental conditions. Plus the ignition compounds are safer, both for the producer and the consumer.
When you ally the percussion cap with paper cartridges, rifled barrels and the Minie' ball, you produce a virtual revolution in the armament of the individual soldier. The soldier now has a weapon which has a near equal reach to artillery on flat ground - making the life of the artilleryman suddenly very much more dangerous. The added range and accuracy give a murderous advantage to the defense which can only be overcome with numbers, as the Army of the Potomac found out numerous times to it's lasting regret, and as the Army of Northern Virginia, especially Pickett's Division, found out on the third day at Gettysburg.
So, what's a paper cartridge? Glad you asked. Here is a paper cartridge and a fired Minie' ball.

The paper cartridge is another innovation designed to reduce the number of steps required to load, thereby speeding up the loading process and upping the number of shots the soldier can get off in a given time.
(continued in the extended post)
Flash Traffic (extended entry) Follows �
For example - you are armed with a flintlock. Mean People Who Suck are standing over there, shooting at you. You want to shoot them. Here's what you do, in general terms:
1. Half Cock the gun.
2. Ground the butt of the gun, holding it muzzle up perpendicular to the ground.
3. Grab your powder measure, whether it be a wooden bottle, horn, or other implement. Pour in the powder.
4. Open ball pouch, retrieve ball. (and, in some cases, patch)
5. Drop ball in barrel. If using a patch, put patch over muzzle first.
6. If not using patch, put wad in muzzle. This step can be skipped - but you better keep the weapon pointed up!
7. Get Ramrod.
8. Ram.
9. Remove ramrod.
10. Replace Ramrod.
11. Pick up weapon.
12. Open Frizzen.
13. Get priming powder measure.
14. Prime.
15. Replace (or let go of, if it's on a lanyard) priming powder measure.
16. Close frizzen.
17. Check flint. (This step can also be skipped now and again)
18. On order, go to full cock.
19. On order, fire.
In the age of paper cartridges, minie balls, and priming caps it goes something like this:
1. Half cock the rifle.
2. Ground the butt of the gun, holding the muzzle perpendicular to the ground.
3. Open cartridge pouch, get cartridge.
4. Tear cartridge open with your teeth, pour powder into barrel.
5. Drop bullet (with paper wrapping still on it) down barrel. (There's some disagreement about leaving the paper on it). I've fired both ways, no difference in accuracy, but you do get more burning embers - so have a care if it's dry).
6. Get Ramrod.
7. Ram.
8. Replace Ramrod.
9. Pick up rifle.
10. Open cap pouch, cap the nipple.
11. On order, go to full cock.
12. On order, fire.
In practical aspects, the rates of fire are about the same, 2-3 aimed shots per minute. The big difference is level of training required of the soldier, reliability, and accuracy.
In good weather, flintlocks could have a 20-30% misfire rate. Percussion less than 10%. In bad weather, flintlocks could be useless (except as unwieldy pikes), while percussion weapons, as long as the soldiers handled the cartridges properly between the cartridge box and barrel, would only have a failure rate of about 20%. There is no realistic comparison in accuracy - 100 men firing at 100 men with average smooth-bore muskets would get 3-5 hits at 100 yards. That same group firing rifles could have up to %25 hits in the right conditions at that range. Hence the power of the defense during the Civil War. And since a rifle is easily accurate out to 300 yards in the hands of a trained man, the danger zone is correspondingly large - especially if they defender are up high, firing down, such as at Maryes Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg.
So, how do you shoot round ball from a rifle? You use a patch, a swatch of cotton cloth. You put the patch over the muzzle, and you put the ball on top of that. The patch material should be thick enough that you now have to exert some real force to get the ball in the barrel. The patch is actually what engages the rifling and imparts spin to the ball. Some care had to be taken however, that you got a good, uniform ram and didn't distort the ball too much or it would be unstable anyway! And, as we later discovered, a round ball is not the most aerodynamic shape. But that's a later post...
Most mass-produced military arms of the smooth-bore era were not conducive to rifling, the manufacturing standards were too loose. Those military rifles produced were produced for specialist soldiers, who, due to the relatively low rate of fire, needed to be protected, either by fortifications or other, more conventionally armed soldiers.
Two things combined to make a sea-change in this arena - mass production of standardized parts with finer tolerances, and the invention of the Minie' ball.
The revolution in mass production was a meld of the work of John Hall and Eli Whitney. John J. Hall, rifle maker, and Eli Whitney, maker of anything, including guns, great contributions to economic progress was not Whitney's cotton gin - that just paid the bills. What made the the big change was the concept, and tools to support it, of mass production - made possible by standardized production methods and tolerances leading to interchangeable parts, first demonstrated at the US Arsenal at Harpers Ferry (worth a visit).
I've mentioned this before, but there is a reason, buried in history, that British mechanics are called fitters. Even up through WWII, Brit industry still didn't produce the same part to the same spec, hence the need to 'fit' the parts. This was true of smalls arms parts or starter motors. It made for highly skilled and talented mechanics and armorers, but is tough to sustain under wartime conditions. That's one reason Brit firearms from WWII and back have so many serial numbered parts, matched to the receiver number - a legacy of when the arms were assembled in what looked like an assembly line but was in fact a fitting line - craftsmen took parts from bins and fitted them together - and the parts were not always interchangeable with the rifle next to them in the rack.
This lead to the relatively cheap production of high-quality rifled arms. Then along comes Claude Minie'. "His "cylindo-conoidal" lead bullet would expand in the barrel to grip the rifling. With a diameter of 0.57", around 25% more could be carried by soldiers than the old 0.75" diameter cartridges. Effective at 600 yards, with the same rate of fire as the old musket, it changed the nature of two centuries of warfare." (The above description comes from here, a cool site about the Woolwich (pronounced Wool-ich) arsenal in England).
Minie' did not invent the concept of the easy-to-use muzzle-loading rifle bullet - he took the original idea and made it cheap and practical. The original designs were called "pillar" bullets that had separate bottoms with a 'pillar' protruding from them which was driven into the bullet by the gases upon firing. This causes the base of the bullet to expand into the rifling, and away we went. Minie' dispensed with that - as this picture shows, the base of the bullet is hollow - lead is soft - the pillar isn't needed, the gases will do all the work for you. He also designed the grooves, or cannelures - which served to hold lubrication for the bullet. The lube both greased the passage of the bullet and served to emulsify the firing residue - making cleaning easier, and with the use of special 'cleaner' bullets, could reduce fouling in the bore during combat, which will eventually lead to slowing reloading time, as you have to exert much more force to seat the bullet.
Let's take a break here and talk about how much of this firearms talk has made it into the culture (Sarah Brady shudders). "Lock, stock, and barrel." The major components of a musket. The lock, containing the mechanism for the hammer, and on flintlocks, matchlocks, etc - the pan. The barrel, which is the whole point of the thing, and the stock, which holds it all together. "Don't go off half-cocked." Referring to the way flintlocks and percussion weapons are loaded - the half-cock position is essentially the safety. Going off half-cocked meant you'd have to stop and cock before you could fire. "Flash in the pan." Refers to the unfortunate habit of flintlocks, especially after several shots, to flash off the powder in the pan, but not fire the charge in the barrel, due to fouling of the touch-hole (a term left over from the very beginning, where fire was brought to the barrel). That's why Sergeants were such 'pricks' - they carried extra pricks (tools to ream the touch-holes). And last, but not least for today's musings - "Bite the Bullet". That comes from at least the Civil War. In a time of still-crude medicine and little to no anaesthesia, troops were given a Minie' ball to bite on as they were hacked operated on. To me, these are some of the more poignant finds on Civil War battlefields. Like this one.
So, let's wrap up percussion weapons, shall we?
Here's are shots of a reproduction Enfield 3-Band Musket in .577 caliber. Enfield - where the rifle was designed. 3-Band meaning 3 bands holding the barrel and stock together - a long rifle. These rifles were used by both sides in the Civil War and highly prized as excellent weapons.
This is the rifle at full-cock. For capping, it would be at half-cock, which as I said is the 'safe' position.
Here it is capped.
And here it is, hammer home at rest, after firing (since I didn't want to clean it - I didn't fire the cap, sorry!)
When next I take up the subject, we'll go from paper cartridge to the black powder metallic cartridge - with a stop for the needle-guns and their linen cartridges.
� Secure this line!
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
Great Post!
by DaveH on April 8, 2004 9:06 AM
Don't forget about the Springfield and Fergusson breechloaders!
(This is almost as good as watching 'Tales of the Gun' on the history channel.)
by
GEBIV on April 8, 2004 7:20 PM
But Gebiv - that will make me feel bad, because I don't have any! Though I intend to build a Ferguson.
by
John of Argghhh! on April 8, 2004 7:28 PM
Cool, i have one of those "fired rounds" myself, found hiking at Shiloh Tennessee as a boy scout. Same crusty white stuff all over it... what is that anyway?
by
Vigilance Matters on April 8, 2004 10:13 PM
The white stuff is lead oxide. Better known as rust. When iron rusts, you get red iron oxide, when lead 'rusts' you get white lead oxide.
by
John of Argghhh! on April 9, 2004 6:12 AM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
by
John
on
Jun 14, 2007
�
Les Jones Blog links with:
Thursday Gun Links #13
June 13, 2007
Ammunition, Part the Second.
[Armorer's note - continuing from yesterday, the Ammunition posts from the Archives of Argghhh! Warning - some links may be broken]
Now for the JDM Warning® - Excessively wordy post ahead!
In the first part, we met D'oh! who discovered and then lost the concept of attacking your enemy with a projectile weapon because Mean People Suck. While I postulated the idea lay dormant for another 10,000 years until rediscovered, once a guy used the trick and survived, the whole concept took off like gangbusters. You go from hand-thrown rocks , darts and spears to applying mechanical advantage to the process, with slings, bows, and atlaltls. From there you move to applying more mechanical advantage and produce catapults, onagers, ballistas and other engines of massy destruction.
Trebuchet
But with the discovery of black powder things changed dramatically. For a long time, the western world held to the myth that black powder was discovered by a monk, Black Berthold. The Chinese have a claim, that they are still working on. This fellow in New Zealand has his own opinions, but offers no definitive answer... In short, it's still up for grabs - except for the adherents of the Chinese, Hindu, Greek, Arab, German, Spanish and English theories - though the english claim is really tied to Roger Bacon, who recorded the recipe, but never claimed to have been the inventor. At least, unlike the machine gun, you can't blame America for this.
What we do know is this - in the early to middle 1200's, gunpowder made it's debut in Europe. And the governing elites haven't been happy since, because, among other things, "God Created Man, but Sam Colt made 'em equal!" And if there is anything a governing elite dislikes, it's people with power to do something about it!
It didn't take people long to figure out that if you took a rocket, plugged it with something moveable, that the resultant activity of the moveable object might have interesting uses in hunting game and Mean People Who Suck.
Flash Traffic (extended entry) Follows �
Just as the first motorcars had the engine in front because that's where the horses had been on carriages (and carriage-makers were making the first bodies) so too the first cannon used a common projectile - the arrow.
Cannon firing an arrow, from "De Nobilitatibus, Sapientii et Prudentiis Regum", manuscript, by Walter de Milemete, 1326
But people quickly learned that round shot was better, whether made of stone or iron. The stone balls, while comparatively cheap, didn't do that well against fortifications. As a projectile, round ball and shot lasted until the end of the blackpowder era in the late 1800's, as this little collection of projectiles in my living room demonstrates.
Just as the first form of mechanical locomotion in the form of steam engines were large, because it was technically hard to make them small, so it went with firearms. As the technology improved, the 'gonne' got both smaller and larger.
Okay. We've got gunpowder. We got barrel making. We've got lead. We've got handier weapons. And there are plenty of Mean People Who Suck. Now we've got to go through the development of ways to get all this to work - i.e., getting the powder to explode. Many methods worked. Some better than others, and for a long time, the better methods were also more expensive to make or didn't stand up well to battlefield conditions. The first, and still simplest, is bring a coal to the hole. After that, well, it gets complicated. If you want a detailed look (and I recommend it if you have the time - this is an excellent site!)
Early "Handgonne"r
The next step was to take a fuse rope and touch it to the hole, and after that came the matchlock, where the fuze was held by an arm on the weapon and a trigger bar used to bring the fuse to the touch hole. I happen to have an arm like that, a North African Jezail that was made in the late 1800's. Unfortunately, the match holder is broken - but here is a representative example of an ignition system that survived very late in the era.
Let's cover the major bits. All blackpowder muzzle loaders had this much in common: a tube, generally closed at one end (there were breechloaders, but that's a different story) with a small hole to allow flame in. The soldier dumped in his powder, with or without a wad to hold it down, tamping it as he did so. He then dropped (or after a few shots and the fouling that resulted) rammed a bullet home. After that, it changes.
The basic components look like this.
A large (in this case, .69 cal) ball, and a quantity of powder.
There were many tools in use over time to make this job easier for the soldier under the stress of combat. If you look at engravings and paintings from the era, you see soldiers festooned with odd-looking bits of paraphernalia. Like this guy, taken from a 16th Century drill manual.
He has all those little bottles all over him so that he can load without having to measure while under a little pressure - ie, Mean People Who Suck inconsiderately trying to kill him before he kills them. One of the purposes of drill was to make the loading process automatic, and correct - learned at the muscle-response level, not just intellectually, so that you can still respond to the commands even though your lizard-brain is telling you to run. The rump of drill we have left today is what's left of a much greater body of drill. Today we use it to move groups of troops around in an efficient, disciplined manner - without the natural straggling that occurs when people move as a mob. This is just a tiny bit of what was a vast body of drill designed to move blocks of muskets around the battlefield quickly (in column) and get the weapons employed in mass quickly (shift from column to line) in order to mass fires on the Mean People Who Suck.
Modern tools that do the same thing as all the little bottles do are illustrated here. Powder measures. They both allow you to fill in bulk and dispense measured amounts, the large one for the main charge, the smaller one for the finer powder used in the pan of a flintlock or similar action.
Speaking of the flintlock, let's go on into that particular weapon, as it became the dominant form of lock until the good Scot Reverend Forsyth invented the percussion cap.
We've covered the basics of the weapon already. With a flintlock you add a pan, to hold fine grained powder that will be set off by the sparks. A frizzen, which serves to both cover the pan retaining the powder and is the striking surface for the flint, and the hammer, which holds the flint.
This is the lock at half-cock, with the frizzen down, and the hammer locked back so that you can open the frizzen to charge the pan, but not inadvertently send the hammer forward.
Next step is to open the frizzen and charge the pan.
I cheated here - I also cocked it. Normally you would still be at half-cock. Starting to get an idea where the phrase "Don't go off half-cocked" came from?
Now you are locked, cocked, and loaded. All you need is a target and permission to fire.
Target? If you look at old military smoothbores, you'll see the sights are rudimentary. Targets were blocks of men. There was much windage in the bore, to make it easier to load when the weapon was fouled from firing and to make manufacturing simpler and cheaper. Since the ball bounces down the bore, final trajectory is defined by the direction of the last bounce, so fancy sights aren't needed. Troops were taught to aim low, maximizing their chances of a hit.
Once you got the command to fire - pull the trigger.
There are sparks there, but in the light it's not easy to see them.
The next major improvement came with the invention of the percussion cap (for a discussion of that, see the Reverend Forsyth link, above). This further simplified the loading and firing drill. Though improperly trained soldiers would still screw it up, witness the rifles picked up in the area of the Pennsylvania militia at Gettysburg some of which were loaded near to the muzzle with multiple charges - the militia drilled without percussion caps to save money and ammunition - and forgot to cap their piece when under fire. There are also several confederate accounts of casualties caused by ramrods. Works once.
The other nice thing from a governmental perspective was that this new technology was adapatable to older arms and didn't require a complete re-arming to take advantage of it.
And that's going to wrap it up for this installment - next up, percussion ammunition in Ammunition, part the third.
� Secure this line!
June 12, 2007
Ammunition, part the first.
[Armorer's note - today is just a killer day - since we've got a lot of readers who are new since I published this - I'm going to be lazy and give the newbies a taste of the stuff I used to write when there was *time* to write like this. So, from the Castle Archives...]
Ammunition. What is it? The Webster's defines it thusly:
am�mu�ni�tion ( P ) Pronunciation Key (my-nshn)
n.
1. Projectiles, such as bullets and shot, together with their fuses and primers, that can be fired from guns or otherwise propelled.
2. Nuclear, biological, chemical, or explosive material, such as rockets or grenades, that are used as weapons.
3. An object used as a missile in offense or defense: Rocks were my only ammunition against the bear.
4. A means of attacking or defending an argument, thesis, or point of view.
Okay, so I've been promising to discuss ammunition. Teased you with a picture.
Let's get started. At the beginning. JD - the above paragraph was for you, I'll be covering 1-3, and if you keep being grumpy about no gun pictures, 4.
As artillerymen have known forever - the weapon is what hits the target. The rest is a delivery system. Ammunition is consumed by delivery systems.
As the bumper sticker so fatuously notes, "Mean people suck." It's true now, it was true 160,000 years ago, too. Creationists who don't like dating like that - work with me - it's funnier this way. Bullies have been around as long as people have been around. Even before we climbed down out of the trees and tried that walking upright thing.
D'oh! was out doing a little gathering near the present day village of Herto, in what was to be known eventually as Ethiopia. He'd done pretty well, and had a nice little woven-grass baggie of nuts to his credit, that he looked forward to using to entice M'arg's father to let him do a little foolin' around with her tonight.
M'untz is out looking for food, too. But he prefers to harvest the harvester's harvest. Rather than actually bend over and pick all of the goodies himself, he prefers to bend over the prostrate body of his unconscious/dead victim and pick up the bag, once. Lazy b*st*rd.
So, D'oh!, happily anticipating the night's frolicsome promise, comes into a cleared area in the verge of the forest - and sees M'untz. M'untz has been waiting, knowing that D'oh! always comes this way, having slept through the anti-terrorist briefing - the part where they say vary your routes daily. M'untz, a hulking brute of early Homo Sapiens Sapiens, stood there, slapping his yet-to-be-named-thus knobkerry in the palm of his left hand, grinning evilly.
D'oh! realizes this in Not Good. Last time this happened, D'oh! had bruises that lasted weeks, and he still had a knot on his forehead from a previous encounter with M'untz's knobkerry. Running was no good. D'oh! was fat and slow. M'untz was a ponderous runner - but have seen how fast a rhino can go when it gets up to speed? D'oh! also knew that M'untz wouldn't just take the bag and leave. Some weird concept of honor drove M'untz to think of himself as a hunter, and he had to take down his prey, which meant D'oh! was going to get thunked on the head again. D'oh! really wished that M'untz would go hit something eatable, fresh meat was so much better than what was left after the hyenas left a carcass.
Necessity being the mother of invention, and with terror fueling an adrenaline rush, D'oh! had an idea. Since people who beat on you suck, and people who beat on you with a club REALLY suck, the thing to do was to try to get them before they could reach you with the club. Hmmmmm. Space. Distance. Range. Rock. Rock! There was a nice rock nearby. D'oh! reached down and picked it up, hefting it experimentally (though the concept of experimentation not being known yet, D'oh didn't recognize the pattern).
M'untz started across the clearing, again with that evil grin, this time the knobkerry held up and ready for the knock on the head.
D'oh seized the moment and hurled the rock. However, being the first human to ever throw a rock, he threw like a girl. [Hey! Baseball hadn't been invented yet - *everybody* threw like a girl] The rock went sailing harmlessly over M'untz's head, landing with a rattle and crash in the bushes behind him. M'untz wasn't sure what had just happened, but he knew there had been a Perturbation of the Force. And THAT pissed him off. So he knocked D'oh! on the head and killed him. Picking up the bag of nuts, M'untz went off munching happily with visions of a naked M'arg doing really interesting things by the fire tonight dancing in his head.
Since M'untz was a self-absorbed bully, he never thought anymore about the rock. Since D'oh was dead because of no training in the use of rocks - his idea died with him, not to be raised again for another 10,000 years, when a distant descendant of his, B'art, would actually kill a distant descendant of M'untz, and the idea of launching weapons at your enemy/prey would be born, squalling and squealing, into the toolkit of people who wanted fresh meat, or were just mean and wanted other people's fresh meat, or who needed to defend themselves against people who wanted their fresh meat - even back then, the police didn't always get there in time, Constable B'arney being more common than Officer K'ojak.
In our next installment, we'll skip 150,300 years and get to gunpowder, since I currently don't collect any weapons that don't use chemical energy to hurl the rock. Suffice it to say that whole projectile thingy went through a lot of development, to include the application of mechanical advantage (a concept first introduced by B'art's pal M'artin, with the invention of the sling), through spears, atlatls, bows and arrows, catapults, and other such stuff.
So, here it is. The first projectile weapon, found near the village of Herto, in Ethiopia.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
Okay, that post took a long time to get to the point and what's even worse is that I was a little unclear about what the "knobkerry" thing was at first. Just show the stinkin' guns!
-Jim.
by
JD Mays on March 19, 2004 9:14 AM
I don't care. I had fun writing it. Plllpppptttt!
by
John of Argghhh! on March 19, 2004 9:26 AM
Wow, why weren't there laws against rock throwing back then?
I wonder how many kids were killed or hurt by rocks not being locked up properly?
Besides, no citizen really needs rocks, only the police should be allowed to carry these deadly weapons.
And look what rocks have caused! Wars, killing, brutality across the ages. I wish we could live before the rock, in the peaceful utopia of human tranquillity.
And John, I did some research into the names you used. It appears that some surive to this day!
E.g. "B'art" was transformed to "Bart" but a trained nameologist can see the roots are still there. Very interesting.
Thanks for the post. It reads like you had fun.
by
Russell on March 19, 2004 2:54 PM
So, where and what are the arsenal markings of the ur-projectile?
Details, y'know.
Cheers
JMH
by J.M. Heinrichs on March 19, 2004 8:58 PM
Great post, John, but did I miss something? How do we know this isn't just a ..... rock?
LOL
by fdcol63 on June 12, 2007 9:19 AM
Wow. I was entranced but that Kerry knob thing really creeped me out. Got yer details from the Leakys...
by Cricket on June 12, 2007 9:32 AM
The old collecting budget was a mite sparse in those days, eh John?
by Neffi on June 12, 2007 10:26 AM
" ... that Kerry knob thing really creeped me out .."
Ooooo-kkaaayyy! I could have done without THAT image. LOL
by fdcol63 on June 12, 2007 10:46 AM
No, Neffi - wait until parts 2, 3, and 4.
Frank - I can answer that "just a rock" question, too.
It has markings.
by
John of Argghhh! on June 12, 2007 10:53 AM
John,
In going through our archives, (I didn't realize they went back that far) I came across a story:
By Numm
Big tree by river
Rock bad, should not let use. People hurt by rock accident. D'oh killed trying to use rock. Here idea. Ban use of rocks. Call it Basalt Weapon Ban.
Take that John, Bwahahahaha!
by
NevadaDailySteve on June 12, 2007 11:33 AM
Oh, Steve, 10,000 comedians outta work, and this is the best you can do?
8^ D
by
John of Argghhh! on June 12, 2007 11:44 AM
Okay, so dip me in maple syrup and call me stupid but I find these posts extremely informative. Then again, I think the P51-Mustang is beauty in motion, and all Military pilots should have to qualify in one.
Veritas et Fidelis Semper
by Deborah Aylward on June 12, 2007 11:54 AM
Looks like a triple dip to me. At least I know how that happens here. I still don't understand how my congressman can do it in envelops with paper.
That said .... looks like a great weapon. I want one with a silencer.
by
jim b on June 12, 2007 12:04 PM
Ahh, see what a difference the markings make? Now we know which way is Up. *snicker*
by
Barb on June 12, 2007 12:47 PM
John,
I apologize. Puns are the lowest form of humor. My friends have tried interventions but they don't work. I can't help myself.
by
NevadaDailySteve on June 12, 2007 1:12 PM
If this was the rock that had been thrown at M'untz and it had hit him on the noggin, would that have left a "headstamp" to help with identification of this particular piece of ammnunition?
by
SezaGeoff on June 12, 2007 7:45 PM
does that arrow mean 'lob in the direction of Muntz?'
by Cricket on June 12, 2007 8:27 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
by
John
on
Jun 12, 2007
�
Who Tends the Fires links with:
"News"! With 110% more Filler!
January 5, 2007
The Whatziss from yesterday.

Not too many takers on this one. Which is interesting, given that there is boatloads of data out there on this particular beast.
That said - only two takers, but #2, Pat - got it mostly correct when he identified them as rounds for the M8C Spotting Rifle. His only error (obliquely) was continuing on and tying it to the 106mm recoilless rifle.
These were used for the M8C rifles used on the British Wombat recoilless rifle - a quibble, certainly, except the red paint in the flutes indicates their Brit origin.
This website (the Armorer wants one of these guns) has a nice set of pictures of a before and after restoration of a 106RR.
The spotting rifle is used by the gunner to acquire his target, without wasting main gun ammo, and with a lessened signature to give away his position. The M8C is a gas-operated semi-auto, which means the gunner just pings away with it until he sees a hit on his target at which point he fires his main gun. The use of a special cartridge with the M8C, vice a regular .50 cal round, is because you want the ballistic performance of the round to be roughly equal to the trajectory of the main gun - speed of flight isn't as important as trajectory matching is.
Tanks can use their coaxial machine guns for the same purpose. The Israelis even mounted M2 .50s on their M109A1 155mm howitzers for the same purpose - to make it easier to use the guns in direct fire mode.
Now for the fun part - doing some research for this post, I found this very nice picture of an M50 Ontos - the USMC reckless rifle carrier of the Vietnam era.

And I found this website with a lot of great pictures of the Ontos, certainly one of the odder weapon systems we've developed over the years. A lot of firepower on that little tracked chassis - but all served from outside the vehicle, on a vehicle, by the very nature of the weapon, that is going to attract a *lot* of attention.
Enjoy.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
I just watched a CBS set of DVD's of archival reports from Viet Nam...starring Walter Cronkite (and seeing a young Dan Rather and a Charles Kerault) During the Tet offensive and battle of Hue they showed a curious contraption scuttling about the city shooting at things. I Googled and fount the Ontos. (Greek for THING). Firing a beehive round (flechettes) it could do a better job than artillery penetrating the jungle. However...the crew did have to get out of the armor to re-load the thing...
I have always thought the recoiless rifle was given a premature retirement...
by
haji 0 matic on January 5, 2007 8:44 AM
Oh, wow. That "Ontos" thing produced an instant flashback to the MechWarrior computer games. It looks like a BattleMech that was designed by somebody who just wanted maximum firepower, and didn't give a darn about speed, mobility, ammo supply, or anything else.
by wolfwalker on January 5, 2007 9:08 AM
Great weblink!! I spent two "seasons" at Pohakaloa. The first time ('75), our unit still had 106mm RRs. The seond time ('76), the 13 jeeps of the AT platoon had been traded for 25 jeeps of the TOW platoon. That was where I first saw one of those things fire. Also, BTW, the first time I ever got to see real WP fired downrange and live ordnance dropped from planes.
I got to fire a 106 one time. It was just unbelievably thrilling! That is one big noisy gun and you are leaning over it when you fire. Push-pull. (or vice versa, I can never remember...) KA-EFFIN-BOOM!!!!
And I always wanted to fire an ONTOS, but I never saw a real one. Also, the two bottom guns were supposedly ground mountable. The loader had to get out of the vehicle to load the guns from the rear. The 6 guns were attached to a swiveling TC turret; all he had to do was point the center mounted 50 at the target and the guns were aimed. Crappy little vehicle, immense defensive firepower, at least once...
:-)
by
SangerM on January 5, 2007 10:05 AM
Generally, tankers don't use the coax for ranging as the GPMG is not a good MV match for a 105 or 120mm. The Centurion and Chieftain used 50cal Ranging Machine Guns (no trajectory matching) before the arrival of Fire Control computers. Firing a burst (3 rds) from the RMG gave the gunner a complete firing solution; he would then select the appropriate aim point for the main gun and fire. The major limitation was that the 50cal could reach out to 1800m but the 105mm Sabot was effective to 2500m, the 120mm to 3000m+.
Trajectory matching worked with the 106mm as the relative MVs were similar. As for the Israelies. they also mounted 50cals over the main gun to engage targets which could not be handled by the coax, but didn't rate a 105mm round.
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on January 5, 2007 12:21 PM
wow.
that whatziss just went from zero to bodacious in one post.
way cool.
by
MajMike on January 5, 2007 12:39 PM
The Ontos looks like it belongs with those Battlehammer games.
by
Trias on January 5, 2007 10:29 PM
Oops, center mounted .30, not 50.
I also got to drive an M60A1 (RISE, Passive, etc.) during a gunnery season in '79 (couple months of prep and do), we scored green at Graf, and I got fire it one time. Wasn't as much fun as the 106mm, but when I drove, I sometimes left the hatch open or cracked, and THAT was a kick in the butt when it fired. Well, except for 2 times:
1) The turret was turned to port and the .50 shells started falling into the driver compartment, one went down my shirt back. HOT! OW! That was a LOT of shells.
2) I used to drive with the hatch open, but not locked into place to my right. One time, while we were engaging night targets to starboard w/ the CoAx, the road canted sideways, with the slope downward to port. The well-lubed hatch slid downward and pinned my head between it and the hull. How I managed to get that thing pushed back uphill and locked into place AND didn't ruin the engagement or turn the tank, I'll never know. And Thank GOD and NATICK for CVCs. And in '79, I was wearing the 'new' one that had the shell over the padded headpiece, not the full helmet. Slight headache, strong memory of being really stupid.
by
SangerM on January 6, 2007 8:56 AM
I used to drive with the hatch open, but not locked into place to my right.
In an odd cascade of associations, Sanger - the first thing that popped into my head when I read that sentence was "canted" - which, the story coming from you, is oddly appropriate.
by
John of Argghhh! on January 6, 2007 9:04 AM
That got a good laugh... Thanks for noticin'
And yeah, I know.
Believe it or not, that has been mine since '2000, and it used to have a full structure. I'd started reworking it in Dec 05, after I got TGR done but that got put on hold until after I get done with school. The plan is to use it for different kinds of stuff than TGR, more...personally skewed... :-)
by
SangerM on January 6, 2007 7:15 PM
Oh, BTW, guys and gals, if you poke around on that restoration site some, not only will you see some other cool pieces, but some cool French Postcards, as in, like the proverbial Platonic Ideal of the French Postcard. Very risque to us Merkins when issued, but tamer than some things in kids' books these days.
O Tempora, O Mores!
(Translation: Back when I was a kid, we didn't get to look at that kinda stuff. Dammit!)
by
Justthisguy on January 9, 2007 12:19 AM
John,
Well, now, I'm confused. One of my college room mates said he was assigned to be an ONTOS driver, but he was in the D.C. National Guard. Perhaps the Army was phasing them out, and, as usual, the Marines got the castoffs? Ditto, the Guard?
by Outpost37 on January 9, 2007 8:38 PM
The official Army position is here.
That said, we never did adopt the Roland missile system - but one National Guard ADA battalion did get it for a while.
Might be the same thing with the Ontos.
by
John of Argghhh! on January 9, 2007 8:43 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
November 21, 2006
The Sunday Whatzis, revealed.
Confused? Click here.
That's a bullet for the Nordenfeldt 1-inch anti-torpedo boat gun. The Nordenfeldt guns were an early type of machine-gun. Like the Gatling gun, they used multiple barrels and mechanical power to operate. Unlike the Gatling, the didn't last very long in the grand scheme of things, much less enjoy a renaissance when someone realized what electricity might accomplish when applied to the concept.
Here's a group of Brit tars training with one (though no feed hopper has been loaded).

The Nordenfeldt guns were developed between 1873 and 1878 and were very popular in Europe, especially amongst the sailors. They generally had four barrels in line horizontally and were fed by gravity-feed hoppers. You can see them with 5 barrels or as few as two. One advantage the Nordenfeldts had over the Gatling was that the mechanism was much easier to get to for the purpose of clearing jams. Plus, if the jam was too complex and the situation dire, you could simply disconnect the barrel and keep firing with the remaining barrels. Unlike the Gatling, which used a rotating crank to cycle the gun, the Nordenfeldts used a lever that was moved back and forth. I've seen both a lever in the vertical plane, on the left side of the gun, or a handle that moved in the horizontal plane, on the right side of the gun. The sailor on the left right (sigh, I suppose, in the future, I'll just submit all posts to CAPT H for editing before publishing) in the picture has his hand on the lever for this particular gun. The cyclic rate of fire was about 350 rounds per minute.
Here we can see some more sailors getting it on for the camera. This gun has its feed-hopper mounted.

All that flailing about did affect accuracy a bit, but heck, they weren't used as sniper weapons.
The Brit National Maritime Museum has a wonderful copyright protected (way too expensive to buy permission to use) photo of a 1-inch Nordenfeldt anti-torpedo boat gun right here.
The Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds has a nice little four-barrel Nordenfeldt - which shows the lever nicely, too.

Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
now that is certainly an interesting little bit of bang stick.
by MajMike on November 21, 2006 8:27 AM
Interesting. It makes me think of harpoon. Is it based on the design or am i delusional again?
by
Trias on November 21, 2006 12:04 PM
So did the barrels fire sequentially or volley?
by Pogue on November 21, 2006 12:57 PM
Trias - as in a harpoon gun? Not really. Perhaps I don't understand the question.
Pogue- they fired in sequence.
by
John of Argghhh! on November 21, 2006 3:06 PM
Before the "progressives" took over, the Melbourne Museum (Australia) had quite an impressive firearms gallery. The Nordenfeldt in the collection took pride of place at the entrance to the gallery, and was able to be touched and operated. Thousands of children must have put millions of imaginary rounds in defence of Her Majesty's Victorian Ships through that weapon.
by
SezaGeoff on November 21, 2006 4:42 PM
Ooh, the Museum still has it - even if it is spelt wrong. Go to Nordenfeldt and click on the pictures for a larger image.
P.S. ours is nicer than yours (snark) - is that because it is squid equipment?
by
SezaGeoff on November 21, 2006 4:55 PM
"The sailor on the left ..." hmmm, looks like what sailors would refer to as "... to starboard".
Tsk
Cheers
[Oh, feh, I fixed that in the version that got... dumped.]
by J.M. Heinrichs on November 21, 2006 5:59 PM
Interesting note.
The guy who brought back all the Martini rifles from the Armory in Napal also found a couple of twin-barreled Nordenfelt guns there(not to mention a pile of other interesting boomenshooters).
by emdfl on November 21, 2006 8:50 PM
Geoff - I rather think the one at the National Maritime Museum in Blighty is nicer than yours... all that gleaming bronze.
As for the condition of ours - yep, we took (and at many museums, still take) crappy care of things like this.
Especially at Army Museums. The Navy and Air Force, with all that flight pay to draw on, have much better private support than us dumb grunts.
by
John of Argghhh! on November 21, 2006 8:51 PM
Oh, and the middle picture? HMS Cerebus, which might ring an Ozzie bell...
by
John of Argghhh! on November 21, 2006 8:54 PM
Oh, and the middle picture? HMS Cerberus, which might ring an Ozzie bell...
Though I got the picture elsewhere, it's there on that site, too.
by
John of Argghhh! on November 21, 2006 8:54 PM
Interesting about the Cerberus picture, because I had a thought that the 4 barrel may have been from Cerberus, but most of the data indicates that they were 2 barrel 1-pounders. I also wondered about the long barrel in the background as it originally had no secondary armament, but some sources list a pair of QFs added later. Wiki has timelined armament specs.
by SezaGeoff on November 22, 2006 5:41 AM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
November 15, 2006
The Whatziss, revealed!
The question is here, if you need to catch up.
Al and MajMike were correct, it's a linker-delinker for disintegrating link machine gun belts. The markings are frankly not conclusive as to origin. They are not Brit nor US.
The three-pronged side links:

The two-pronged side de-links. It really doesn't make linking any faster, but it sure reduces the stress on arthritic hands... Werekitten noted that it was a spreader - it actually does both - part of what I like about the cleverness of the gizmo. It squeezes to link, but flip it over, and it spreads to de-link. I shudder to think where you all might go with this.
Regardless - Bragging rights to Al and MajMike (though MajMike has some scale issues, not unusual with guys who have spent time running about in panzers).
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
I at least got a little bit right. That's more than I've ever done before!
Oh, I can die happy now.
by
WereKitten on November 15, 2006 7:15 AM
My wife says I have some scale issues too, but we'll save that for some other post.
by
al on November 15, 2006 8:01 AM
not a scale problem once ya showed it in a palm grip.
by MajMike on November 15, 2006 3:25 PM
Once upon a time ...
... we received a resupply of rounds for our C1s, a box of 7.62 Blank, linked. So we enjoyed of period of rest, delinking the rounds and filling our mags. The links were carefully collected and returned to our Supply Cpl for disposal.
The next day, we were given the opportunity to include a Browning M1919 in our defenses. And our Supply Cpl handed us a can of 7.62 Blanks, clipped, and a box of links with which to assemble a belt ...
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on November 15, 2006 4:57 PM
Nice, much smaller than I had estimated.
by
Trias on November 15, 2006 11:16 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
October 7, 2006
Since only the hardcore show up...
...on Saturdays - here's a Whatzis for Mr. Bullet Encyclopedia, Chris:

Post WWII.
You may begin. Anyone may play - but I'm hoping this one at least makes Chris pull a reference book off the shelf.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
4.6mm x 36 ("Loffelspitz") from Heckler & Koch c.1968, for the G36 rifle (of that period).
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on October 7, 2006 11:34 AM
JM beat me to it after looking at some reference materials I have to agree that it is the HK 4.6x36.
by Chris Denny on October 7, 2006 4:46 PM
Man, we need a varsity and JV set of quizes. Some of us tadpoles would play more if we had a chance(both as a matter of time and money to buy references).
by han solo on October 7, 2006 6:45 PM
Han
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/index.htm
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on October 7, 2006 10:05 PM
What John said, Han. Though, admittedly, until you get the references bookmarked, time is your enemy.
Almost always, almost, anything that appears here can be found on the 'net.
And yes, John and Chris are correct.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 8, 2006 9:35 AM
looks more like a copper plated Saturn V booster if ya asks me..
by
MajMike on October 8, 2006 4:55 PM
Wouldn't that be a brass-plated booster, MajMike?
by
Barb on October 9, 2006 12:55 AM
true true, but i was trying to work the projo into teh funny as well... and "copper" just rolled off the fingertips so much easier!
by
MajMike on October 9, 2006 7:43 AM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
October 5, 2006
Time for a whatzis!
Trias likes those, and I missed his birthday, and we haven't done one in a while...

The first hint - post WWII.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
It's a .50 cal round.
by ry on October 5, 2006 7:42 AM
Yeah, what ry said.
by fdcol63 on October 5, 2006 7:43 AM
Like I would make it *that* easy.
Geez.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 7:47 AM
no way that could be a 12.7mm its too small.
look at the pattern on the background - its a piece of cloth or paper and the scale would make it maybe an 8mm approx or smaller. the long projectile would suggest that over a 7.62mm in my opinion anyway
what it is I don't know - I'm just a rank amateur at this
by
supercaffinated on October 5, 2006 7:52 AM
I thought 7.62 Nato, but I'm guessing.
by
hdw on October 5, 2006 8:05 AM
SuperC- pretty much everybody here, including me, is a rank amateur at this. Which is what makes it fun.
Keep going, guys. Relative dimensions matter.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 8:22 AM
so now that we have memorized the dimensions of the wood grain on every piece of furniture in the Castle, we're back to the pink quilt...
2" squares if i remember correctly.
by
MajMike on October 5, 2006 8:39 AM
silver tip on the round = "anti vampire"
by
MajMike on October 5, 2006 8:40 AM
My My. Your neck is longer than that on Linda Evangelistas head. By its looks, Id venture to say that this little beauty feeds the Frenchie MAS 49-56. Properly stated: The 7.5x54SRmm. Oh, I could kiss that neck. - BOQ
by Hikkie givin' Boquisucio on October 5, 2006 9:31 AM
6.5mm x 55 Swedish maybe?
pretty esoteric and fits image pretty well
thanks for the welcome in John!
by
supercaffinated on October 5, 2006 9:41 AM
nevermind - just realized its post ww2...
by
supercaffinated on October 5, 2006 9:46 AM
While you've not got the caliber correct, SuperC, you're working in the right direction, in that case size vice bullet diameter is greater than in your average, run-of-the-mill military calibers.
It *is* a military caliber, btw, just to drop another hint.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 9:55 AM
The abortive 4.8mm round for the equaly abortive brit EM-40 rifle.
by Chris Denny on October 5, 2006 9:55 AM
A sniper round of some sort, possibly in the 7.62mm range?
by fdcol63 on October 5, 2006 10:05 AM
We have a winnah! Chris is correct.
Well done, sir.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 10:06 AM
EM-40? Could someone identify the name's origin as I'm familiar with "SA80" and "L85/86". As far as I can trace, the abortive 4.85mm project was the L64/65.
Er, 4.85x49mm was the cartridge size, "4.85mm British" the name.
Check Photo #5 here: http://members.shaw.ca/cartridge-corner/idpics2.htm
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on October 5, 2006 1:28 PM
Geez, John, why doncha just write the post on it, while you're at it?
Chris was close enough that just ignoring it would have sent people on chases down real ratholes...
8^)
Intel weenies. Even former tanker intel weenies.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 1:42 PM
Whatever it is just remember one thing.
When loading them into the chamber ... the pointy end goes in first.
It's Scoresby time!!!
by
jim b on October 5, 2006 2:43 PM
jim b does that mean all politicians go in head first?
by
supercaffinated on October 5, 2006 3:22 PM
Heh. You two. This reminds me of the time, in band camp - er, an ROTC FTX, when the cadet, eventually to be a... wait for it... Military Intelligence officer (and later retired a Colonel...) was loading her M14 magazine. I looked over, saw what she was doing, and asked why she chose that particular method of loading?
She replied, "I figure I have a 50/50 chance of getting it right."
I replied, "You lose."
She said, "Why?"
I replied, "Because loading the rounds that way guarantees at best one shot, and probably will jam and not load at all, anyway."
She was loading one round facing forward, the next facing the other direction, etc.
She'd never seen a blank before. And the only rifles she'd ever handled were the dewat M1903s the Drill Team used.
by
John of Argghhh! on October 5, 2006 3:40 PM
Interesting point ...
However, I was trained by Canadian Army NCOs, and while their language may have been more functional than elegant, I was able to comprehend their instructions and advice with minimal repetition. Except for grenades.
The 4.85mm British was an attempt by the Brits to improve the 5.56mm in accordance with their operational data dating back to the Boer war. They would have preferred to use the 6.8mm round developed for the EM2 but politics were not favourable.
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on October 5, 2006 4:33 PM
supercaffinated ... I totally avoid that entire field.
John I thought I was just joshing.
But I am NOT gonna make any wimmins jokes.
Yes I have heard that some troops call wimmins in the military ... "Long haired air fresheners" ... but I never did that.
by
jim b on October 5, 2006 4:49 PM
Damn too slow. Not that i would have gotten it. You know it looks a tad er rusty.
by
Trias on October 5, 2006 7:39 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
August 18, 2006
The Answer to the Whatzis.
Eric finally got it. It's the "glasflasche" or glass bottle, that contained the "clark" poison gas in a German WWI 77mm shell.
Like in this picture.

Congrats to working your way through the problem. Of course, it was an *easy* one for this collection of geeks!
And no, I am *not* the John who posted it on Gunboards.
For more information on the subject - read the document that finally pulled it together for Eric.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
hmmm... a very *innocuous* name the Huns chose for their poison gas, eh? Kampfstoff indeed!
by Neffi on August 18, 2006 7:40 PM
Wow, I got darn close for being just a Military MoM!
Very cool whazit! Pretty for being so deadly.
by Karla (threadbndr) on August 20, 2006 10:44 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
August 8, 2006
Okay - enough teasing on the Whatzis from Sunday.
I just left you guys hanging yesterday, in order to give the "I only read Argghhh! from work" guys a chance at the Whatzis.
You really did pretty well. Owen got it quickly, and Captain H went a step further and emailed a link (chicken - won't post openly...) to a write up. They were the first to get it. And, speaking of that, CAPT H - upon further review, I withdraw my statement about this shell being Brit (as I was informed by the guy I bought it from) it *is* the French version of Armstrong's studded projectile.
Oh - and that *was* a shadow guys, not a notch, in the pic. That was just an artifact of taking the picture, not a deliberate attempt to mislead. This time. Owen - your size referent is... 3 inches. That's the nominal caliber. Some sources say 3.3, but that would include the studs, at least in my example.

Zinc, not a lead or copper stud - which strongly argues for it being french and not Brit.

This was an early method of rifling artillery - if you notice, the studs are slightly offset, and the studs themselves actually have a direction - the shell was fitted into deep grooves and rammed home. It worked well enough when the guns were new, and not badly fouled from firing... but it also only worked well with black powder. When more powerful propellants were used, the friction inherent in this process was too great and the studs just sheared off, and the flight of the projectile was unpredictable.
But with the acquisition of this piece, the artillery collection has representative examples of most major varieties of imparting a spin to the projectile. Now if I could only find an affordable shell with an *intact* papier mach sabot...
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
*groan*
you sucketh, JoA.
by AFSister on August 8, 2006 8:06 AM
That's a good thing, right?
by
John of Argghhh! on August 8, 2006 8:08 AM
The studs are slightly offset
Well, that's certainly appropriate 'round here, ain't it?
by Masked Menace on August 8, 2006 1:43 PM
"the shell was fitted into deep grooves and rammed home..."
*That* was the phrase I thought would bring the 8@)'s out!
by
John of Argghhh! on August 8, 2006 2:14 PM
Must.Resist.Making.Comment.... MUST RESIST
MUST RESIST
by Were-Kitten on August 8, 2006 3:30 PM
So where is the picture of the hexagonal Whitworth with a twist?
(that should interest Were-kitten!)
Oops - should use search more often!
by
SezaGeoff on August 8, 2006 6:55 PM
This post is wide open exposed a target for gay jokes. I must shaddap.
by
Trias on August 9, 2006 8:20 AM
Trias, as our token Gay (everybody else is closeted...) it's your territory. You're the only one who can do so without violating PC Rulez!
Just remember to pay attention to the PG-17c Rulez.
by
John of Argghhh! on August 9, 2006 8:23 AM
I am the only gay in the village castle.
I will be good.
by
Trias on August 10, 2006 12:39 AM
Actually, that's not true. Jeff Soyer, from Alphecca, is a regular reader, and is openly gay. And with 1800-2200 readers a day, there's bound to be more, just closeted in that, unless you choose to reveal yourself, the Castle practices Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Care.
If you choose to reveal yourself, we drop the Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and just practice Don't Care.
by
John of Argghhh! on August 10, 2006 6:35 AM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
May 24, 2006
Whatziss, answered!
Old Fat Sailor - I name you Brainiac of Argghhh! You got it right.
If our Ozzie OFS hadn't gotten it, I would have offered up this as a clue today, followed quickly with this.
If that was insufficient (I'm thinking it would have been enough) - I'd have offered up this.
But I don't have to do that. Because OFS identified it - it's a stand of quilted grape.

In this case, a replica of Revolutionary War-era stand of quilted grape, in the six-pounder version. An early form of "Improved Conventional Munitions," grape was used against attacking infantry at greater ranges. Comprised of a wooden base, or sabot, with a wood rod protruding from it, they were stacked round with iron balls, held in place by the cloth and twine wrapping, which was then doped. The wrapping and sabot kept it all together for easy loading, and the paint helped waterproof it, prevent rot of the cloth, and provided some more rigidity.
The ones you find in museums have usually been painted black or red. This one is au naturel, to show the basic construction better. Made this way to speed loading (that infantry is looking pretty determined), the twine and cloth gave way upon firing, turning the gun into a giant shotgun. Grape, with it's larger balls, had a greater range at the expense of fewer projectiles. Canister is grape's short-range cousin, being smaller balls, usually lead musket balls, loosely loaded into a container (canister) and fired when the infantry had gotten annoyingly close and looked like they were still interested in killing artillerymen. Of course, once you started shooting this at infantry, the infantry became notoriously uninterested in taking prisoners, either... infantry sucks that way.
Why is is called a Stand of Grape? In fortress use especially, but also in the field, you stood them up on the wooden sabot, so they wouldn't roll around. Larger guns oft times fired grape made of larger iron balls held together by iron plates and rings, like this stand of 12-pounder grapeshot.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
Wow - now that I know what the rest of it looks like, I'm especially impressed the OFS got it. Thanks, as always, for the kewl education, John!
by
Barb on May 24, 2006 10:28 AM
But you haven't explained the Mummy's nipple.
Cheers
by J.M. Heinrichs on May 24, 2006 1:45 PM
I was gonna snark the nipple... but JMH trumped me.
LMAO!
(So John... what is the "mummy nipple" for?)
by Were-Kitten on May 24, 2006 2:18 PM
Your discussion reminds me of what was reputedly the last command of Lt Alonzo Cushing, commanding what was left of Battery A, 4th US Artillery in the third day at Gettysburg, as Pickett's Charge came toward the stone wall on Cemetary Ridge: "Load triple canister and keep up the fire!"
Or, as a more modern artilleryman once told me: "The situation isn't REALLY desperate unless you're shooting at zero elevation."
by
Blake Kirk on May 24, 2006 3:15 PM
W-K, JMH - that would be the fire-tempered end of the wooden dowel that forms the spine of the stand.
Sigh.
You aren't fooling me. You just wanted to drag the conversation down into the gutter and type "nipple". And make sure that "nipple" appeared a lot of times in the comments so that when someone typed "nipple" into Google the leading site for "nipple" would be Castle Nipple.
That about cover it for you two?
You both need to get out more.
by
John of Argghhh! on May 24, 2006 3:36 PM
What's wrong with writing "nipple"? We're all mammals here, right? I dare say most of us are humans, most of whom have only two nipples, unlike the other mammals, (except for elephants) who tend to have multiple nipples to go with their multiple teats.
Now, a lot of people don't know how to pronounce the word "teat." They say it as if it were spelled "teet." That's wrong. "Teat" rhymes with "tit", which as everyone knows, is actually a small bird.
Why, one of my favorite airplanes was named after a tit; that would be the Hawker Tomtit.
Is this one of those "homo-nym" situations?
by
Justthisguy on May 24, 2006 4:43 PM
Dang! That reminds me! What with all of the chaos in this house since the ex-brother was here, I seem to have lost my nipple wrench. You know, the one you use to tighten up loose spoke nipples on bicycle wheels?
Oh, did I mention the fun I had when shooting a friend's cap'n ball weapons? Aside from that wonderful black powder aroma, we got to play with nipples! We had nipple picks, and (again) nipple wrenches, and discussed the comparative advantages of plain steel nipples vs. stainless steel nipples.
Face the music, guys and gals; we're mammals, and all nipple-shaped things remind us of, well, NIPPLES!
by
Justthisguy on May 24, 2006 5:15 PM
And the newly sedated JTG falls into dreamless slumber on the couch outside the Jungle Room, snoring gently, mind filled with pleasant dreams.
by
John of Argghhh! on May 24, 2006 5:34 PM
Is that a hint, or a hope?
OK, whatever. I'll stop now.
by
Justthisguy on May 24, 2006 5:44 PM
Not from Oz just the address, BTW some times my Air Assult medic daughter accuses me of crewing a 24 pounder with JPJ :-)
by Old Fat Sailor on May 24, 2006 6:33 PM
Regardless - we Auld Fat Farts gotta stick together!
Bravo Zulu!
by
John of Argghhh! on May 24, 2006 8:10 PM
� Dismissed, Soldier!
March 3, 2006
Since Owen's running around picking fights in the comments today...
...let's see if we can distract him with bright shiny objects.
Silly blog graphic and refrigerator magnet to the first person who gets this one.
What is it? Whose is it? When was it used? Bonus points for succinct dissertations!

Let's see if we can attract a lurker or two with this one.
Reporting As Ordered, Sir! �
I hate suspense. Somebody answer this, because I don't have a clue.
by
High Desert Wanderer on March 3, 2006 11:20 AM
Heheheheheheheheheh. My evil plan is working!
by
John of Argghhh! on March 3, 2006 11:33 AM
I've checked back about fourteen times in the last five minutes, did I mention I don't like suspense? I had a couple of ideas, so I did a little research... Now I have less of an idea than I did before.
by
High Desert Wanderer on March 3, 2006 11:38 AM
Shinny Gun Pr0n - Yippie! Could dat be the pointy thingy on a Pre-Fragged HE V-Bessie, Bullet-Trap Boom-boom thingy?
by Boquisucio on March 3, 2006 11:58 AM
It's a 9mm shrapnel round for eliminating ant colonies under the sink. It was developed by EuroGreenies who felt that Raid and other insecticides--
1. cause needless mental suffering to the targets,
2. accelerate melting of the snowfields on Kilimanjaro and
3. smell icky.
by cw4(ret)billt on March 3, 2006 12:40 PM
Hee hee hee. Well, I *might* not have yet snagged Owen's attention, but I've got at least one victim wrapped up.
Boq... look here and consider your answer.
by
John of Argghhh! on March 3, 2006 12:46 PM
And I was gonna guess Owen chaff.
by jim b on March 3, 2006 12:54 PM
[In small sqeeeky voice:] 'Elp me - 'elp meeeee!
Gosh durn it, caught in his snare again.
Furiously slaps his head while spotting a Driving band and Gas Rings.
by Boquisucio on March 3, 2006 1:07 PM
Actually, Boq - the ensnared person is High Desert Wanderer...
by
John of Argghhh! on March 3, 2006 1:25 PM
LMAO too funny let Owen try to upset as many individuals as he chooses . Simply consider the point of a wannabe who had raised himself above all veterans who are really heros as he trys to drive them from the internet .
Owen is one sad excuse for for a person ( notice I did not say MAN as he is not ) . Like his buddies ViperAss and Doc171 and Billy lagre and the Mrs (he he he ) lets not forget Maggie who runs the POW/MIA page and steals money.
Lets see how owen replies to the TRUTH
One REAL COMBAT NAM VET
by
Carfl on March 3, 2006 1:53 PM
LMAO too funny let Owen try to upset as many individuals as he chooses . Simply consider the point of a wannabe who had raised himself above all veterans who are really heros as he trys to drive them from the internet .
Owen is one sad excuse for for a person ( notice I did not say MAN as he is not ) . Like his buddies ViperAss and Doc171 and Billy lagre and the Mrs (he he he ) lets not forget Maggie who runs the POW/MIA page and steals money.
Lets see how owen replies to the TRUTH
One REAL COMBAT NAM VET
by
Carfl on March 3, 2006 1:53 PM
Heh. The Castle Echo hit Carfl pretty hard. I think that's a record... 11. [I deleted a bunch of 'em]
by
John of Argghhh! on March 3, 2006 2:01 PM
Okay, if anyone reads this after Carfl's stutter attack.....it looks like an anti-personnel artillery shell.
by
SGT Jeff (IRR) on March 3, 2006 2:01 PM
Incomplete answer, SGT Jeff. And, well, any more and I'd give it away... which I'm not ready to do just yet.
Gotta make Owen earn his cookie!
by
John of Argghhh! on March 3, 2006 2:05 PM
Sorry Mr. Tuttle (ret),
It can't possibly be an Ant destructive device. Ever mindful, of the Formicids, Blattids, and other tiny friends' sensibilities, The Euro-Weennies wouldn't advocate for their demise. Specially in such a violent and conflagratory way.
If anything, they would lovingly control their population with Nature-friendly and Bio-comforting agents.
by Boquisucio on March 3, 2006 2:45 PM
Nah--the Formicae perform useful functions, so the Greenies couldn't care less about them.
However, since they consider themselves stalwart defenders of their Blattidae role models, they'd screech like scalded Spotted Owls if you tried using *anything* on 'em.
by