Shooting the War

THE BREECH-LOADING RIFLE
From 1857 breech-loading rifles began to appear experimentally in the British Army. These, the first military breechloaders since the Ferguson rifle, were in fact all carbines and were issued for trial to certain cavalry regiments. There were four different patterns: the Terry and the Westley Richards, which were of British design, and the Sharps And the Greene, which were American.
The Terry carbine was made by the firm of Callisher & Terry of Birmingham and 28 Norfolk Street, London. It was a new firm, for it was only established in 1855, and the mechanism invented by the junior partner was patented in 1856. It is of particular interest in that it introduced into the British Army the bolt action, which was later to become almost universal for non-automatic military rifles. The Terry bolt had a coned head which fitted into the correspondingly shaped rear end of the chamber. The bolt was opened by a hinged handle, fitted at its rear end, which was pulled, outwards to withdraw it. When the bolt was closed part of the handle filled up the loading aperture. The bolt was held in position by rear locking lugs (foreshadowing later British practice) which bore against shoulders on the standing breech.
The Terry was of the type known as a ‘capping breechloader’. That is to say, the cartridge used with it contained only the charge of powder and the bullet, the detonating mixture being contained in a separate percussion cap. The Terry cartridge was made of nitrated paper and had a wad of greased felt behind the powder charge and attached to the base. After the discharge of the cartridge this wad remained in the breech and the following round was loaded behind it. After the next shot it was thrust forward in front of the bullet, cleaning and greasing the barrel.
The Terry carbine was a very successful weapon. It was purchased extensively by the Confederacy during the American Civil war and was known as the ‘door bolt’ breech-loader. The famous Confederate cavalry leader General Jeb Stuart had one.
The American Sharps carbine was a much earlier design, having been invented by Christian Sharps in 1848. Its most noteworthy .feature was a ‘falling’ breech block. This opened vertically when actuated by a trigger guard, hinged to move forwards and downwards; but it also fell open when the carbine was held muzzle down. The cartridge case was made of treated linen; and the breech block had a sharp forward edge which, as the block was closed, sliced off the end of this case to expose the powder. The linen was consumed on the explosion of the charge. The first models had separate percussion caps, but the later ones, including those supplied to the British Government, were fitted with the Maynard tape primer, which was rather similar to the strip of caps made for toy pistols, and which  was invented by an American dentist. (It almost seems as if Maynard was more interested in ammunition than he was in teeth, for in 1856 he patented a metallic cartridge with an expanding case.)
The Sharps carbine had an interesting, if somewhat disreputable, history in the years before the outbreak of the American Civil war. The admission of Kansas as a State of the Union was the occasion of a bitter struggle between those who wished to see slave labour introduced and those who were opposed to it. In Massachusetts the New England Emigrant Aid Company was formed to send settlers to Kansas who were opposed to slavery. Many of these were established in the Kansas town of Lawrence, and here armed clashes occurred with slave-state supporters from Missouri. Considerable damage was done in Lawrence both to the homes of the settlers and the public buildings. In revenge the famous, or infamous, John Brown (depending on one’s point of view), in company with a small body of settlers and four of his own sons, seized five of the principal advocates of the slavery movement and killed them. The New England Emigrant Aid Company had supplied the settlers with Sharps carbines-, and a further twenty-five were presented on behalf of the Congregational Church of Plymouth, Massachusetts, by its minister, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher. From this latter source of supply the Sharps carbines acquired the colloquial name of `Beecher’s Bibles’.
In 1859 John Brown, in command of a motley detachment of eighteen men, including his sons, his brother-in-law and six negroes, seized the Federal Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. Armed with Beecher’s Bibles they then held off attacks by the local militia, until finally forced to surrender by Colonel Robert E. Lee in command of a small force of Marines. John Brown was hanged, but his name has been immortalized in a great Union song which has become one of the most rousing military marches of all time. The far greater man who captured him was to become the brilliant leader in the field of the forces which John Brown had opposed. In the meantime, amongst the relics of this episode is a Sharps ‘Beecher’s Bible’ carbine on which is engraved the name ‘John Brown Jr. .
The Greene, the other American carbine, had an entirely fixed breech and a barrel which rotated and moved forward for loading. The breech and the barrel’were locked’ together by lugs. The principle was not a new one, and the Greene does not seem to have been favourably received; for although 2000 were bought it appears that many were never issued.
The Westley Richards carbine was made by the famous-firm, the early history of which has already been given. As stated in Chapter X111, Westley Richards succeeded his father in 1855, and the name of the firm became Westley Richards & Company. Three years later he patented his capping breech-loader carbine. The mechanism of this, though rather complicated, was the most efficient of the four carbines. The breech was opened and closed by means of a long arm, the forward part of which was hinged to the rear of the barrel. When the breech was closed the rear end of the arm rested in a recess cut along the top of the small of the butt. Raising the arm vertically opened the breech. Attached to the under part of this arm was an elongated plunger, at the forward end of which was a brass breech plug. When closed, the rear end of the plunger butted against an iron shoe, which held it in position against the breech pressure. The plunger had a little free movement ‘fore and aft’ on the arm to ease the action of opening and closing. From its distinctive arm the Westley Richards acquire the nickname of ‘Monkey-Tail’. The cartridge was the same as that used with-the Terry carbine.
The Westley Richards was far the most successful of the four carbines under trial, and in 1861 it was approved as the firearm for the cavalry of the Army. Even when n the Snider was approved for all arms of the Regular Army, it was not entirely displaced; for it was issued to the Yeomanry and was the ‘Standard carbine of the second-line cavalry for many’ years. Abroad the Portuguese Government took a fancy to it and adopted it for use in the army.
Although the cavalry now had a breech-loading rifled firearm, the rest of the Army was equipped with the muzzle-loading Enfield, or (in the case of the Royal Engineers) Lancaster. Breech-loaders were, however, already a commonplace amongst sporting weapons, and it was clear that the muzzle-loader was obsolescent. Several foreign armies were now equipped or partially equipped with breech-loading rifles. Although the American Civil war had been mostly fought with muzzle-loaders, many units in the Union armies had been equipped with Sharps rifles, and several other makes were in use on both sides. On the continent of Europe the Prussian Army had adopted the bolt-action needle gun in 1848, and its superiority over the weapons of opposing armies was evident. in the wars against Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866.
In 1864, therefore, a Select Committee was appointed to consider the equipment of the whole Army with breech-loaders, and to study designs for this purpose. The Committee decided that the only practicable method of doing this quickly was to select a mechanism which would permit the conversion of the Army’s large stock of comparatively new muzzle-loading Enfields. Conversion could only be regarded as an interim measure, but it was considered that the selection of the best type of breech-loading rifle for the Army was of less urgency than the provision of some form of breech-loader.
The breech-loading mechanism which was chosen by the Committee was designed by Jacob Snider of New York. The breech was closed by a block which was hinged laterally on the right, and fitted into a recess behind the barrel. To open the breech a thumb piece was pressed which caused the block to swing over to the right. At first it was intended that the Enfield cartridge with its separate cap should be used, and the cap holder and ignition hole formed part of the block.
This was not, however, a very satisfactory answer, for it introduced certain weaknesses. It was decided, therefore, to use a cartridge which incorporated its own detonator. The original Enfield lock and hammer were still retained, but in. place of the nipple the block was pierced obliquely for a striker, the head of which protruded in the part of the block which had been occupied by the nipple. A centre-fire cartridge was adopted, and a claw extractor was fitted to the breech mechanism. This pulled the cartridge case partially out when the breech was opened, and it was then thrown clear by turning the .rifle upside down.
The first cartridge used had a cartridge paper body and a brass base. This was disappointing, and finally the brass-bodied cartridge devised by Colonel Boxer was adopted. This final development took place in 1.867; but in the meantime issue to the troops of the Snider-Enfield, already modified to take a centre-fire cartridge, had started in 1865.
The story of the self-contained cartridge is interesting. The first one seems to have been produced by the inventive Genevan gunsmith of Paris, Jean Samuel Pauly, whose invention of a pellet detonator in 1812 was mentioned in Chapter X. Some time between 1812 and 1815 Pauly produced a centre-fire paper cartridge, affixed to the base of which was a metal rosette containing the detonating mixture. The paper cartridge cannot have been very satisfactory, for shortly afterwards he tried a brass cartridge. The brass, however, was too thick and heavy for the casing t6 expand sufficiently to make a gas-tight seal.
It seems likely that little was required to make a success of Pauly’s invention; and yet, surprisingly, nothing further was apparently attempted for another fifteen years. In 1831 Moser, a foreign engineer, took out a British patent for a muzzle-loader which had a needle-fire cartridge. In 1836 rem Dreyse, a Prussian gunsmith. who had worked under Pauly, produced a breech-loading needle gun; and this was the bolt-action weapon which was adopted by the Prussian Army in 1848. The cartridge was made of combustible paper, and a pellet of fulminate was inserted between the powder charge and the bullet. Fitted to the bolt was a long needle-like striker which penetrated the base of the cartridge and went forward through the powder to pierce the doonator. Though successful in action, the needle gun was a dirty weapon. The needle got badly corroded and the breech became blocked with fouling.
The next major development was the invention by a Frenchman named Houillier, in 1846, of the pin-fire cartridge. The casing was made of thick coiled paper with a base of copper or brass. - Protruding at right angles from the side of the cartridge case, and at the base end where the wall was of metal, Was a pin. This pin was struck by a hammer, which drove it into a detonator inside the cartridge. The following year another Frenchman, Flobert, produced the first rim-fire cartridge. The principle of this has been explained in Chapter XIV, and it differs little from the rim-fire cartridges which are used to-day; chiefly for -22 calibre weapons.
In 185z Lancaster, who, it will be remembered, designed the muzzle-loading rifle which had been adopted for the Royal Engineers, brought out a breech-loading rifle which took a centre-fire cartridge of his own design. Inside the cartridge case, and a short distance from the base, was a perforated metal disc. Between this disc and the base was the detonating mixture: base, disc and detonator forming a sandwich. When the striker hit the base, it was indented, compressing the detonator and causing an explosion. The flash from the detonator passed through the perforations of the disc to the powder charge. The success of the Lancaster cartridge led to the adoption of a centre-fire cartridge for the Snider,
Some years previously, probably about 1839, another Frenchman, Pottet, invented a tapered expanding cartridge made of rolled paper with a metal base. In the centre of the base there was an aperture, and on the inner side of this was fixed a chamber containing a detonator, and having a small hole communicating with the powder charge. In 1857 Pottet patented his invention, but there was apparently no machinery available to manufacture it and hand manufacture would have been too expensive.
Yet another Frenchman, F. E. Schneider of Paris, patented an improved version of the Pottet cartridge, and this was introduced into England by the gunmaking firm of Witton and Daw (the successors to George H. Daw). This was the centre-fire cartridge which was selected for the Snider-Enfield. As has already-been said, it was not a complete success. The problem was then tackled by Colonel Boxer, Superintendent of the Royal Laboratory at Woolwich, with the result that he produced his very successful modification of 1867-
The Boxer cartridge hadacase made of thin sheet brass, coiled and covered with paper, and mounted on a separate base which was a disc, first of brass and later of iron. The hollow rivet which secured the cylinder to the base was the cap chamber. Oddly enough the Boxer principle was subsequently adopted by the United States of America, whilst the present bottlenecked type of cartridge now used in the British Army originated in the 187o design of Colonel Hiram Berdan of the United States Ordnance. Department.
The immediate requirements of the Army having been provided for, consideration was now given to the type of breech-loading rifle which should replace the Snider-Enfield. Eventually,.in 1871, the Martini-Henry was selected. This rifle combined the falling breech mechanism invented by an Austrian, von Martini, and the rifled barrel with seven grooves which had been designed by an Edinburgh gunsmith named Alexander Henry.
The Martini breech mechanism consisted of a block which was hinged at its rear end, and in which was a coiled spring to actuate the striker. Behind the trigger guard was a lever, which, when it was pulled down, lowered the front end of the block to uncover the breech, extracted and ejected the cartridge case, and cocked the striker. The loaded cartridge was then inserted by hand into the chamber. In its simplicity and efficiency the Martini action is one of the best that has ever been designed, and it is still the most popular for small-bore competition shooting. From a military point of view, however, it suffered from two very serious defects. Firstly, sand was liable to jam the mechanism, and this gave great trouble in the Egyptian campaign of 1882. Secondly, it was a single-shot weapon, and it was therefore doomed once the demand for magazine rifles arose.
Another defect in the Martini-Henry was Henry’s barrel. The grooves of the rifling were deep and square cut, with the result that fouling lodged in them very readily. The bore was smaller than that of the Snider-Enfield, being only -450 instead of -577.- In spite of this the Snider-Enfield was the pleasanter weapon to fire, for the Martini-Henry had a vicious kick of a recoil.
After some experimental models had been tested in 1972, the Martini-Henry Mark I was issued to the troops in 1874. The Mark II of 1876 and the Mark III of 1879 embodied minor modifications. In 1886 a Committee, convened as a result of the troubles experienced in the Egyptian campaign, recommended certain. improvements in the rifle, including a bore of ‘402- Some experimental models were made, known as the Enfield Martini; but as magazine rifles were already under investigation nothing came of them, and they were converted to Martini-Henrys of the normal pattern and designated Mark IV.
A great student of the science of rifling, William Ellis Metford, was born in Taunton in 1824. He became a civil engineer, and at an early age worked under the famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel on the construction of the Great Western Railway. Later he went to India as a railway engineer, but returned to England when his never very robust health broke down.
Metford had been interested in shooting both in practice and theory from his youth, and after he had been forced to give up his Indian career he had more time to devote to this hobby. From notes which he has left it is apparent that he was carrying out experimental work on rifles at least as early as i85o; and in 1852 he was firing rifles at i2oo yards’ range in pursuance of his experiments. By 1854 he was satisfied that, contrary to the general belief, the expansion of a bullet into the rifling -occurred immediately after the explosion of the charge and before it started to move forward. He also discovered that the explosion caused a rifle barrel to bend, so that when the bullet left the muzzle the barrel was pointing in a slightly different direction to the original point of aim.
Metford evolved a most ingenious method of testing his theories. He fired bullets into a long box filled with sawdust, and was thus able to recover them in the condition in which they had left the barrel of the rifle. From subsequent examination it was possible to tell whether there had been any leakage of explosion gases past a bullet, and the manner in which it had taken the rifling. From such experiments Met-ford found that the common practice of constructing very deep grooving in a rifled barrel was unnecessary, and that a longitudinal bullet with a good bearing surface would not strip, or ride over, the lands even when the grooves were very shallow. He also found that the generally held theory that a bullet must be made of pure .lead to be soft enough to be expanded by the explosion into the grooves was incorrect; and that, on the contrary, a much harder bullet of lead and an alloy would do.
Metford next constructed a rifle and bullets in accordance with his ideas. The grooves were only a few thousands of an inch deep, and the lead and alloy bullet had a shallow hollow ire the base and was protected from friction by a thin paper wrapping. A great friend of Metford’s, Colonel Halford, had his own private range at Wistow in Leicestershire. Here experiments were carried out with the new rifle. They were sufficiently successful for Metford to have a special rifle made in 1865 for match shooting. This had seven grooves of a depth of four-thousandths of an inch. Armed with this weapon, a muzzle-loader, Halford, entered the-competition held by the Cambridge University Long Range Club, which included practices at i 000 and i i oo yards. To the astonishment of the many critics-of the design, Halford won the cup presented for the best score on the two days’ shoot.
Metford’s ideas had come to stay, and they were soon being copied by all gunsmiths. For military rifles, unfortunately, Henry’s barrel had been adopted before the implications of Metford’s success had been really appreciated. In due course his rifling replaced Henry’s in the weapon of the British soldier, but before this happened there was a new development in bullet design. The bore of the Martini-Henry rifle, even though considerably smaller than that of the Snider-Enfield, was still very large. A reduction in the size of the bore would allow a smaller cartridge, and this in turn would result in the soldier being able to carry a greater quantity of ammunition in his personal equipment: an important consideration in view of the increased rate of fire which would be possible with the advent of the magazine rifle. With the existing muzzle velocity of the bullet, however, its size, which was dictated by the military requirement for stopping power, could not be reduced any further. If the velocity could be increased the same stopping.power could be obtained with a smaller bullet, but the lead bullets then used were too soft to be propelled at a faster rate down the barrel. The difficulty was solved by a Swiss, Colonel Rubin, who found that if the lead bullet was encased in a covering of a harder metal it would stand up to much greater velocities.
As a result of Colonel Rubin’s discovery the calibre of British Army rifles was reduced to -303 inch in 1888, and this is still the standard for all full-bore bolt-action rifles. The increased velocity was at first obtained by using a charge of compressed black powder. In the meantime a Committee was established under the presidency of Frederick Abel, an expert in the manufacture of explosives, to devise a smokeless propellent. A solution was found in a preparation based on the discoveries of the great Swiss engineer, Alfred Nobel. It was hardened into a long cord and given the name ‘cordite’. From 1892 it was used in all Service small arms ammunition. Cordite increased the velocity of the bullet from the i 800 feet per second of the compressed black powder charge, to 2000 feet per second. This was further increased to 2440 feet per second in 1911 when a still lighter pointed bullet was adopted.
The new rifle which was introduced into the British Army in 1888 was the Lee-Metford. It had Metford’s design of rifled barrel with the ‘303-inch calibre, and a bolt-action breech and magazine, both invented by a Scottish watchmaker named James Paris Lee. Lee’s bolt is a development of the breech mechanism which had’ first appeared in the Prussian needle gun of 1848 and subsequently in the French Chassepot of 18 66. The Lee action is still in use in the British Army, and is only now, some seventy years after its first introduction, being replaced by a semi-automatic mechanism.
The function of the bolt, briefly, is to push the cartridge into the breech, close the breech, fire the cartridge, and extract and eject the empty case. The cartridge is fired by a pin which is held back by a spring inside the bolt, and which projects through a hole in the bolt-head when the pressure of the trigger releases the spring. The Lee bolt was strongly criticized by leading British gunsmiths because it is held in position when closed by lugs at the rear of the bolt. Whereas, theoretically, in order that the minimum amount of metal should be under stress at the time of firing, front locking lugs should be used, as in the German Mauser and the. American Garand. However, the Lee rear locking lugs permit the use of a separate bolt-head, which facilitates cleaning and adjustment. Moreover, the Lee action is the fastest bolt-action ever to have been devised, and its retention in the Army after the Boer war and the two World Wars is a testament to its efficiency in action.
The Lee magazine is a separate box which is inserted under the breech mechanism and held in place by a spring clip. Inside is a platform which is pushed upwards from below by a spring in the base of the box. The cartridges are inserted on top of the platform and press it downwards, so compressing the spring. As one cartridge ‘is pushed forward by the bolt from the magazine, so the spring pushes another one upwards into place. The first magazine held eight rounds of the black powder ammunition. This was increased to ten rounds when the cordite ammunition was introduced.
From 18 go a number of the Martini action rifles were given the Metford barrel instead of the Henry. These conversions were known as Martini-Metfords. Between 1891 and 1892 a large number of the Martini-Henry Cavalry carbines and. Artillery carbines were similarly converted.
In x895 the Metford barrel was modified at Enfield by reducing the number of grooves in the rifling from seven to five. The new rifle was called the Lee-Enfield. Further rifle and carbine conversions from the Martini-Henrys received this barrel and became Martin i-En fields.
No bolt-action carbines were made until 1896, when a magazine Lee-Enfield Cavalry carbine was produced. All Artillery carbines, however, continued to have the single-shot Martini action. In addition, Colonial troops at the start of the Boer war were armed with the Martini-Enfield, and the Indian Army was equipped with it until i goS.
At the time the retention of single-shot weapons did not appear as such a disadvantage  as it would now; for the magazine was regarded as a reserve, and the rifle was fitted with a cut-out which slid across the magazine so that it could be cut off from the chamber. This was the normal position for firing, the rifle being reloaded by hand with a single round after each . shot. It was probably considered that ammunition supply in the field would present difficulties if the high rate of fire, which the magazine made possible, were used too freely. The comparative effectiveness of the new magazine rifles was demonstrated, however, at the battle of Omdurman. The British troops opened fire on -the charging dervishes at a range of 2000 yards and stopped them Soo yards from their position. The Egyptian and Sudanese troops, who had Martini-Henrys, opened fire at moo yards and stopped them 300 yards away.
The limited use of the magazine was found to be a handicap in the. Boer war. Once the reserve of rapid fire had been used there was no means of re-charging the magazines quickly. Lee had, indeed, invented a charger in 1892 by means of which five rounds could be loaded simultaneously. This was not considered necessary at the time but was eventually adopted as a result of the lessons of the Boer war.
The Boer war showed that fire power by mounted troops was at least as important as shock action, and the Martini carbine, with which most of the cavalry were armed, was a very ineffective weapon compared with the magazine Lee-Enfield of the mounted infantry. After the war it was therefore decided that carbines should be abolished and that there should be one pattern of rifle for the whole Army. In order to make it suitable for use by mounted troops the Lee-Enfield was reduced in length and entitled the Short Magazine Lee-Enfield (known to generations of soldiers as the S.M.L.E.). In compensation the bayonet was slightly lengthened.

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The first revolvers produced by Philip Webley have already been mentioned greak modern firnuture. For some, years he seems to have manufactured revolvers on a modest scale, most of which were sold through dealers, who put their own names on both the weapons and their cases wash stands for center bowl. A number of them achieved the distinction of being purchased as Presentation pieces fiddle shape antique silverware. The following year saw the appearance of the first firearm which was to make the name of Webley so well known rockingham porcelain. This was the so-called R furniture by charles ashbee.I seventeenth century english stoneware.C arc design in drawing room. revolver, which was used to equip not only the Royal Irish Constabulary, after which it was named, but also several Colonial military and police forces, including the Cape Mounted *Rifles collecting clarice cliff. The barrel was short, being only 41 inches, with a calibre which was nominally ‘45o but actually ‘4′12, It had a solid frame, a six-chamber cylinder and took a centre-fire cartridge swan kandler plate. It established a considerable reputation for reliability, and was subsequently made in a number of different patterns and calibres pewter armchairs. It was still in active use in -many, parts of the world at the end of the nineteenth century antique english oak sideboard grape engraved.
A modified version of this revolver of rather lighter build and with a very short barrel of only 22 inches and ‘450 calibre was made in 1883 gueridon tripartite base table. It was adopted by the Metropolitan Police and various other police forces in Great Britain multipurpose dressing table. In Webley x7go—x953 there is the following interesting account of a remarkable feat by Henry Webley using this weapon:
`With this stubby weapon, designed purely as a short-ranged man-stopper, Henry Webley gave a demonstration of shooting that has probably never been surpassed with a similar arm antique china furstenberg. It was reported antique german furniture for sale.in many papers of the day, including The Standard, The Shooting Times, The Birmingham Daily Gazette, and the Birmingham Daily Mail wheat shaped dining table base. The following account is taken from the last paper, dated 21st May, 1884—” art deco furniture germany. antique japanese tea table. antique american tilt top pedestal table. In demonstrating to his police pupils the manner in which the revolver ought to be used, Mr antique game bird dinner plates. Webley fired five shots at nine yards at a target having a bulls eye two inches in diameter british dining table 19th century. The result was that the bullets were lodged in a space 2J in comtoise clocks longcase. by il in french chairs black leather. Then the range was increased to fifteen yards, and five shots were fired at a similar target, the bullets in this case being put into a space 21 in antique dining table with carved x shaped legs. by il in bugatti sideboard. The next move was made to a distance of twenty-five yards from the target, and at this range five shots were fired by Mr table octagon inlaid drawer european austrian. Webley indian interior low seating drawing room. The same undeviating accuracy was maintained, a surface 21 in 19th century louis xv mahogany french chest of draws floral inlaid wood with marble top and glass cabinet with cabriole legs. by 31 in 17th century painted cassone. being eugene gaillard chair. riddled, Having wit-, nessed the expertness of their instructor, the police sergeants had a little practice to themselves, - and soon satisfied Mr antique rotating dumbwaiter. Webley of their ability to make good use of their weapons at long and short ranges napolean empire furniture. The sergeants who took part in the experiments will in turn act as instructors to other members of the force marcel breuer pel. victorian draw leaf table. meissen dot period. papier mache tray-c19th.”‘
A very similar revolver with the same short barrel had been introduced in 1878 antique thonet wien 3 legged chair. It had a short rounded butt and was made in two calibres: ‘450 and -422 nabeshima antiques. This little weapon was very popular and was known everywhere as the ‘British Bulldog’ construction of antique teaspoons.
The success of the firm was established by the purchase, in 1877 of the patent taken out in November 1876 by Charles Pryse (of C american made ceramic french figurine. & J borghese lamps. Pryse & Co antique scandinavian raised panel flower painted & mirrors cabinet.) for a ‘break-open’ revolver with a barrel latch and a self-ejection system dining room sideboards that look gaudy. This, as shown in the quotation from Mr sheffield plate candelabra. Scurfield, was an extremely popular weapon wooden upholstered arm chair. It had a double-action lock and the first models had a calibre of •38 art nouveau, armchair stained wood and glass,1904. Later an Army pattern was produced with a calibre of ‘45 spanish revival sofa. This Webley-Pryse was the, forerunner of Webley’s Army revolvers, and its main features were embodied in the first of them,
In 188o the Webley-Kaufman appeared 19th century french shaving basin. This was a break-open revolver with a double-action, a five-chamber cylinder and a calibre of -45-
In 1882 Webley constructed his first revolver with both a break-open action and a simultaneous self-ejection system sheffield plate candelabra. This was basically the same method of opening and ejecting which has been retained by the firm of Webley ever since early 19th century french bureau. There followed in 18 86 Webley’s Mark I, which was virtually the 1882 revolver with some standardization of parts antique drop front desks. This was submitted to the Government, and after very thorough tests by the Board of Ordnance it was accepted as the official revolver for the Army “art deco dresser” and “marble top”. The calibre was -45 and the length of the barrel four inches art deco wooden chair.
The initial -order for the Army was io,000 revolvers, and a copy of the original letter is reproduced in Webley z7goz953• It reads as follows:
WAR OFFICE, PALL MALL, S what style of furniture is a kidney desk characterized as?.W tilt tea table chinoiserie.
`Gentlemen,
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`I am, Gentlemen,
`Your obedient Servant, 18th century english crescent marks. painted sideboard pine maryland.
Two years later an improved model, the Mark II, was introduced dutch lion paw dining table. This had a larger hammer and an alteration to the shape of the grip bugatti sideboard. In the same year Webley made a special target model, the W sphinks wall tiles holland.G antique wooden commode with chamber pot. (or Webley-Green) german antique throne chair. It had a calibre of ‘476, and was made with two different barrel lengths, 6 inches and 71 inches 18th and 19th century silversmithing. The front and rear sights were both adjustable potters stoke on trent empire rococo.
A modified W telescoping table.G 1920’s antique mahogany tables. known as the ‘455 476 Army Model was produced in 1892 maggiolini and cabinet maker from the 17th century. It had a flared butt, six-inch barrel and was without the adjustable sights putti on dutch delftware. It was never an official revolver but was very popular with Army officers, and was in treasured use by many of them until -455 pistol ammunition ceased ‘to be an official issue antique blue glass desert. The writer had a gorgeous model, which, with a magnificent disregard for the modern vulgar craze for camouflage and concealment, was completely covered in nickel plate antique talavera for sale. Beautifully balanced and earning its fortunate owner many antique walnut writing table with pillar (post) legs. a bottle of beer on the revolver range, it was reluctantly retired when the ‘38 weapon finally replaced all the official large bore Webleys king george 1v tankard sheffield plate.
A modification of the standard Webley of 1889 was produced to meet the requirements of the Wilkinson Sword Company leg design for small tables. This `Wilkinson-Webley’ had a six-inch ribbed barrel, a modified grip, a bead foresight and a special cam lever antique tray. Most of the Wilkinson modifications were retained as permanent features, and the Mark III Webley of 18 93 was substantially the same as the Wilkinson-Webley, but with a four-inch barrel brass drum tables.
Meanwhile, in 1887 Webleys had taken over the firm of Tipping & Lawden, of Constitution Hill, Birmingham antique victorian wedgewood pottery smaa jug. In 1897 there was a further expansion owing to the amalgamation of Webleys with W jiajing ming porcelain. & C antique ivory and silver tableware. Scott & Son, and Richard Ellis & Son commodore perry corner cabinet. As a result the concern became a Public Company which was registered under the name of the Webley & Scott Revolver and Arms Co istoriato china., Ltd petite french mantel antique clocks.
The french 17th century furniture gentleman’s dresser.firm of W johann carl schoenheit meissen. & C lady’s bureau: henry van de velde. Scott & Son had been founded in Birmingham by William Scott, who set up an establishment in Bath Street in 1834 antique drum shaped table. He was later joined by his two sons, W “chest of drawers”  cherry  1840s. M porcelain spanish dancers. Scott and James C queen chamber pot. Scott drop leaf tea table spanish. In due course the business was transferred to a new building in Lancaster Street, Birmingham, entitled the Premier Gun Works czechoslovakian quality porcelain.
The Mark IV Webley was produced just before the Boer war, and was the standard revolver issued to the troops for the campaigns in South Africa antique 17th century dresser. There were two different lengths of barrel: four inches and six inches; and the hammer was smaller than that of its predecessors crockery cabinet design. The Mark IV was manufactured until 1914- It was succeeded by the Mark V, in which the cylinder diameter was increased by -on inch for nitro powder english column candlestick creamware. A few of these revolvers had six-inch barrels, but they were practically all four-inch czechoslovakia antiques. The short-barrelled model of both the Mark IV and the Mark V was used to equip the- mounted troops in the First World War antique glass epergne.
Twenty thousand of the Mark V were ordered, and with the completion of this contract in 191 5, a new weapon for the Army, the Mark VI, was introduced antique mahogany tea table. This, the best known of all etruscan pottery olive. Webley revolvers, became the universal short range weapon spanish cabinets. It had a six-inch barrel (though a few were made with a four-inch one), altered sights and a modified grip bureau plat charles boulle. The contract stipulated a weekly delivery o•,25oo; and, in all, some 300,000 were delivered france antique collectors.
10 1921 Enfield took over the manufacture of the Mark VI, under the official name of the Pistol, Revolver, Webley, Mark VI 16th century florentine italian credenza. In 1700 french fashion pattern book. 19,26 it was renamed the Pistol, Revolver, No collecting antique brass candlesticks. r, Mark VI; though it was still known universally as the Webley revolver for the remainder of its official career crackle glaze jazz figures 1920s.
Already mercury barometer. in 1922 it had been officially decided that a lighter revolver of smaller calibre was required, if one could be produced with equal, or nearly equal, stopping power french neo-rococo marble top table. Webley & Scott Ltd tea table with gated legs. (the name which the Company had adopted in 1906) were requested to carry out’ experiments antique wales footed dessert platter. The result was a -38 calibre revolver which was in all essentials a smaller version of the Mark VI, and modelled in part on the ‘38 police model Webley which had been produced in 1897 charles mackintosh wardrobe. Like the previous Webleys, the new ‘38 had a lead bullet, and the cartridge charge gave it a greater muzzle velocity than had been achieved with any previous cartridge of the same length in this calibre walnut armchair josef urban art noveau. The lead bullet, to comply with the Geneva Convention, was ultimately replaced by one with a nickel cover japanese mother of pearl furniture.
In 1929 russian oak parquetry refectory table. production of the new revolver was put in hand, but it was made at Enfield as the Pistol, Revolver, No bugatti furniture range. 2, Mark I, and differed slightly from the original Webley conception antique book ends. The firm of Webley, in the meantime, went ahead with the manufacture of their baroque table clocks of gilded brass 17th century.own Mark IV ‘38 (the earlier police revolver having been Mark III) inlaid refectory table. Large numbers of these ‘38 Webleys were produced for the Army in the Second World War; and this explains the appearance of two apparently similar weapons; one called ‘Enfield’ and the other ‘Webley’ value of apostle teaspoons’.
The introduction of the ‘38 was much criticized at the time, since it was antique spanish candlesticks. held that the smaller bullet could not compare in stopping power with the old heavy lead ‘455 bullet space saving rectangular drop leaf tables. It is certainly a lighter revolver and easier to handle, but whether it permits any more accurate shooting in the hands of the trained shot is a moot point art deco burr walnut - antiques. The writer, in any case, could never make such good practice with it as he could with his old W epergne glass dish.G burr antique table. During the War, for a reason as yet unexplained, some Enfield ’38’s were made which could only fire double-action-, cocus wood oyster veneered. and were designated Mark I* rococo music. The only modification was the removal of the single-action bent “chinese screen” and “mother of pearl”.
A large number of American Smith and Wesson revolvers Of ‘38 calibre were made for the British Army during the Second World War brass frame girandole. As a ‘455 calibre weapon the Smith and Wesson had always been popular and had been purchased extensively as an officers’ private weapon 17th century tea tray. Instead of breaking open, the frame is solid and the cylinder swings out to the left louis xiv antique dining table designs. Ejection has to be carried out as a separate operation by pushing a rod attached to the front of the cylinder neoclassical sheraton style butlers sideboard.

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When the revolver, or pistol with a revolving chamber, was first adopted in the British Army, the principle was by no means a new one ash gateleg extenstion table. As far back as the middle of the seventeenth century John Dafte of London had made a revolver-carbine with a cylinder, turned by hand, containing six chambers johnson “antique card table”. Powder and ball were inserted into the front of each chamber, and a spring catch on the barrel engaged in slots to hold chambers in turn in the firing position bookcase islamic style.dwg. Each chamber had a 17th century dutch small cupboard value. separate flash-pan, with a sliding pan cover which was opened by a link attached to the cock, as the latter struck the steel 18th century chambersticks. The lock was of the snaphaunce variety with a separate steel 19th century dressers.
Nevertheless) after a certain initial popularity in the seventeenth century, little more was heard of revolver-pistols or carbines until the appearance on the gunmaking stage of Elisha Hayden Collier edwardian c19th construction buildings. Collier was an American gunsmith of Boston, Massachusetts antique english knights dining tables. In about 1810 he succeeded in making a practical pistol with a revolving cylinder, which was turned by hand china made in czechoslovakia. He was not, of course, the first to do this, but the Collier mechanism was infinitely superior to anything which had preceded it coop dresser. The priming mechanism was ingeniou§ meissen harlequin kandler. There was only one flash-pan, instead of one to each chamber, and this was recharged automatically from a magazine after each shot walnut versus maghony drop leaf table. The magazine was fitted on the flash-pan cover and incorporated a ratchet and pawl mechanism which was actuated by the closing of the pan art deco furniture  antique shop california. Collier used a novel and ingenious system to align the chambers with the bore of the barrel antique furniture 1800. The front of each chamber was countersunk and fitted over a cone on the rear of the barrel pictures of antique spider leg tables. A spring held the cylinder in position, and to move the cylinder round, it was pressed back against the spring to free the chamber which had been in the firing position from its cone seating century hepplewhite walnut card table. During the actual moment of firing the pressure of the spring was augmented by a steel wedge operated by the movement of the cock antique small oval drop leaf table. This mechanism produced a very close and firm union between barrel and cylinder antique tudor furniture. All Collier revolver weapons operated on the same principle carved top gateleg coffee table.
The Collier revolvers were extremely good, but, unfortunately, very expensive to manufacture czechoslovakian lusterware. Collier was unable to interest either American private capital or the United States Government, and, accordingly, he left for England in 1811 robert jupe table. There he established a shop at 45 The Strand, London, and was granted a Royal Patent,
In England Collier seems to have made a number of revolving arms for the forces of the East India Company, including both pistols and carbines “english cabinet”  dining  antique  amsterdam. The pistol was 14 inches long, with octagonal smooth-bore barrel, 61 inches in length and with a calibre of ‘47 inch trestle table lyre base. In 1852 he returned to the United States and reopened his old gunshop in Boston francois linke.
During the first decade of the nineteenth century Samuel Colt was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in the United States finest candelabras. The son of a merchant, he was destined to become the most famous maker of revolving pistols: so much so that the terms revolver and Colt were at one time almost synonymous art deco antique dresser. Samuel Colt, however, does not seem to have had any ambitions to become a gunsmith in his earlier days anantique pembroke tables with two drawers. Indeed, at a comparatively youthful age he announced his intention of becoming a lecturer revolving bookcase drum table. Even in the United States lecturing cannot have offered a promising career, and one does not imagine that Colt’s parents greeted the idea with any enthusiasm regency ironstone marks blue. Nevertheless, he chose the somewhat original subject of laughing gas, and whilst still below the age of twenty gave platform demonstrations of his subject art deco furniture dining table  copy of the duke. He travelled under the name of Dr painted antique wine cooler. Coult of New York, London and Calcutta, and his lectures really did take him to these places antique oval dutch table. Whilst in Calcutta, in fact, he took notes on a Collier arm wooden arm chair pedestal castor antique oak. This was probably one of the revolvers which had been made by Collier for the East India Company pine “coaching table”.
It may have been this Collier weapon which first really aroused Colt’s interest in firearms stone china george jones stoke on trent. At any rate he took careful note of its construction and complex mechanism indian interior low seating drawing room. During the voyage back to America Colt whittled away at a piece of wood, shaping the design of a model of a revolver which should be based on Collier’s system but have a much simpler mechanism antique table top wooden book stand.
After his return to the United States, Colt took his wooden model to a pattern-maker of Hartford named Anton Chase, From this Chase made Colt’s first revolver english antique consoles. Whilst in many respects a great advance on the Collier arms, the first Colts suffered from a faulty cylinder design which could result in the explosion of one charge igniting all the others antique dutch rococo serpentine pine chest. In front of the cylinder was a plate which was intended to prevent the balls rolling out of the chambers scandinavian aesthetic. This plate, however, had the disadvantage that a lateral flame leak from the firing chamber was liable to be deflected by it to another chamber, resulting in a chain of explosions in all the remaining chambers in the cylinder french gesso painted 18th century console. Apart from the damage to the weapon, the random discharge of bullets was, at the least, disconcerting antique carved trestle table.
Colt’s laughing-gas show was apparently still a very profitable source of income; for he used it now to finance his revolver experiments german buffet furniture. Indirectly, too, the laughing gas was responsible for Colt revolvers being ultimately adopted by the United States Army fake ironstone pottery. Colt was booked to give his lectures at the Baltimore Museum, and there he met and interested Joseph Walker the director tilt top bird cage table 1740’s. Walker had a relation of the same name who was a captain in the Army; and some time later it was his influence which led the military authorities to accept Colt’s invention art deco sideboard legs.
Colt’s first essay at production seems to have been in conjunction with a gunsmith named Pearson, who was to receive a fixed salary in return for paying the rental of a shop and forge antique ceramic wine coolers. The combination resulted in a small number of revolving pistols and rifles 12 arts and crafts dining chairs. Colt’s income, however, was not yet on a very sound basis, and the partnership broke up somewhat abruptly owing to Pearson’s salary being chronically some months in arrears arts and crafts furniture, antique collectors.
The flame leak trouble in Colt’s arms was finally remedied by removing the frontal plate, and providing a loading lever which drove a slightly oversize ball into the chamber reproduction quality 19th century louis xv fauteuil (armchair) with a rococo hand-carved, floral-scrolled, giltwood frame,. This both prevented the nuisance of the bullet rolling out accidentally and sealed the charge biedermeier gothic commode.
Colt obtained patents in Great Britain, France and the United States in 1835, and his fortunes began to improve hepplewhite revival foldover dining table. The Patent Arms Manufacturing Company of Paterson, New Jersey, set up a plant for the production of Colt rifles and revolvers barker brothers furniture. The revolvers were turned out in a number of different models vienna-style trembleuse. There were three different sizes of frame, and a variety of different barrel lengths and calibres antique french ormulu furniture. In the smallest category the barrels ranged from 21 inches to 4J inches in length, and there were calibres of -28, -31 and ‘34 inches drop leaf table stable base. The next size frame was intended to be carried on a belt, and embraced barrels of from 4 to 6 inches and calibres Of -31 and ‘34 parts of chambersticks. The largest size was a holster weapon with barrels ranging from 4 to 12 inches, all with a calibre of ‘36 etling france 110 “opalescent glass”.
In 1840 the Patent Arms Company failed financially, and five years later the Colt plant was forced to close antique oak drop leaf table with casters. Samuel Colt art deco ceramics. was now back on the rocks with no establishment, no machinery and precious antique pottery matt green tea decanter. little money opalescent etched glass. At this juncture, however, fortune presented Samuel Colt with a war; for in 1846 hostilities broke out between the United States and Mexico sedish design daybed. Ten years previously Captain Walker had used Colt revolving rifles in one of the Indian campaigns, and had been very favourably impressed with them czechoslovakian antique porcelain. He now obtained authority from the Secretary of War to order i000 Colt revolvers hankerchief table mahogany. To meet this order Colt persuaded Eli Whitney, Junior; to undertake the manufacture, and embodied some improvements suggested by Walker as a result of practical experience kent extending antique table.
These first military Colts were of -44 calibre with a barrel length of nine inches table octagon marquetry drawer. Their immediate success resulted in an order for a further i000 antique 17th century drop leaf tables. By this time Colt had established a factory of his own at Hartford, and was consequently able to manufacture the revolvers for the new order himself european antique lectern pedestal table. They differed from the 18th century austrian porcelain. earlier batch in having shorter barrels of 71 inches, and the length of the cylinders was reduced by a quarter of an inch “french trestle tables”. They were subsequently known as ‘Hartford Dragoons’ antique desk makers collector.
In 1848 Colt produced the best known and most successful of all his muzzle-loading revolvers antique draw table trestle. This was the so-called `Navy Colt’ oriental writing bureau cabinet. It had the same barrel length as the ‘Dragoon’ but was a much lighter weapon, with a calibre of only -36 inch josef hoffmann chair. It had a rifling of seven grooves and a six-chamber cylinder secretaire art deco. The mechanism was single action, and cocked by the thumb antique rosewood dining table lion feet. On the earlier models, at any rate, the cylinder was engraved with the picture of a fight at sea, and this is supposed to have been the reason for the popular name of the weapon pictures of early to mid 1800 dressing tables.
The Navy Colt was not without its faults “lit en bateau”. Certain of the components were very liable to break, but Colt overcame this drawback by supplying an enormous quantity of spares for the weak parts, and distributing them to all the establishments of contemporary American civilization where they were likely to be requested art nouveau sideboard.
The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace was opened in 1851, and Samuel Colt, now a Colonel, seized the opportunity to assault the English market serving sideboards. Subsequent events have been most entertainingly described by Mr antique dresser with turned leg. R silver forks. Scurfield in his outstanding article, ‘Early British Regulation Revolvers’, published in the Journal of the Society for ,Yrmy Historical Research porcelain butterfly: french symbolist poets, verlaine. He says:
`It is notable that (except in America) all revolvers were regarded with suspicion before 1851—the year of the Great Exhibition—although they had been in fairly wide circulation from the x82o’s, when the first hand-rotated “pepperpots”, built on the bodies of centre-hammer percussion pocket pistols, appeared end table ivory inlaid india wwii. The reason for this distrust was a two-fold one: in the first place, all the pre-1852 English types (with perhaps one exception) had radial nipples (i antique desk when thay were made.e rectangular oak gateleg table., nipples at right-angles to the bore), and the result was that in the small calibres generally used fouling accumulated in the chambers under the nipples and caused miss-fires; in the second place, the actions were so defective in design (and often in workmanship as well) that they could not be relied upon to work properly; result, more miss-fires, especially in the very numerous self-cocking pistols double roll antique desk. Thus, so far as the armed forces were concerned, the authorities found their inevitable reluctance to introduce a new weapon for the rank and file supported for once by well-founded practical and technical considerations, while officers (although a few did experiment with larger calibre “pepperpots” and “transition” revolvers, the latter mostly thumb-cocking) hesitated for the most part to discard their powerful and trustworthy single or double-barrelled pistols telescoping dining table. The net result was that the revolver was ignored, or condemned as a new-fangled toy, in the Army and Navy indian vernacular furniture. `But the Great Exhibition changed all that pennsylvania dutch antique china cabinet hand painted pictures. Not only was the Colt revolving pistol on show, in several calibres and barrel lengths, but the great Colonel Sam Colt himself came to London, equipped with a large number of presentation revolvers (engraved, silver-plated, and ivory-butted) for distribution in interested and influential quarters, and exercising his undoubted talent for commercial publicity (of which dubious art he can be regarded as the father); and to everyone’s surprise the English gun trade produced, and exhibited, a rival to the Colt—a rival at least as good, if not better art deco inlay dresser. This was the Adams revolver, the invention of Robert Adams, a partner in the firm of Deane, Adams & Deane, of King William Street in the City birmingham silver finial designs. Adams, too, had a very good idea of the value of publicity and surprise, for he appears to have kept his new arm perfectly and completely in the dark until the Exhibition opened; it was not even patented until February, 18 5 1 17th century japanese imari porcelain.
`But there was to be no more indifference to the revolver in those circles interested in firearms decoart. The value of the Adams and the Colt was plain to all, and the old objections no longer held good; but a prolonged and most entertaining controversy, based essentially (apart from personalities, especially the personality of Sam Colt, who seems to have made as many enemies as friends) on the relative excellence of self-cocking (Adams) and thumb-cocking (Colt) actions went on intermittently until it was eventually decided (for Englishmen, at any rate) in favour of the Adams antique hanging corner display cabinet. The most amusing event in the squabble seems to have been a public lecture on his revolver by Colonel Colt, which was interrupted by a partisan of the Adams (some say Robert Adams himself) leaping to his feet brandishing a specimen of that make of pistol, and shouting to make himself heard in its praise-, after which the proceedings degenerated into a wrangle which soon became a free-for-all german cabinet-makers of the 18th century.’
Robert Adams, who had produced such a dramatic challenge to Colt, was associated with his brother John and John Deane in the firm of Deane, Adams and Deane 3 tiered dessert table mahogany antique rectangular. The partnership was only formed in 1851, presumably to manufacture the Adams revolvers, and was dissolved again five years later victorian tripod small table pillar and claw. In this short period, however, both the original revolver and all the various modifications to it appeared imatation marble antique bedromm suit.
At this stage, before describing Robert Adams’ designs, it would be well to consider the terms single-action and double-action as used in connection with revolvers; for their meanings seem to have altered during the course of the years antique victorian wood stool chamber pot. Originally `thumb-cocking’ was applied to an action in which the hammer was cocked by hand, and the movement at the same time actuated the pawl which rotated the cylinder to the next chamber and locked it in position while the shot was fired 1970s ashtray “art deco” style. `Self-cocking’, on the other hand, was used of an action where the pull on the trigger first cocked the hammer, at the same time performing the other actions mentioned above, and then released the hammer to fire the shot new deco furniture. Both these types were called single-action ebonized aesthetic movement credenza. A double-action revolver implied one which could be either self-cocked or thumb-cocked george ii burr walnut tallboy. But now, in the Fighting Services at any rate, thumb-cocking is described as single-action, and self-cocking as double-action antique bed acanthus paw feet. The future use of these terms in this work will refer to their modern meaning candelabra made in england.
Samuel Colt used single-action, whilst Robert Adams’ revolvers were double-action delatte nancy. Single-action was popular since only a light pull was required to release the hammer: a great help to accurate shooting antique coffee tables carved with romans playing instruments under oval glass. In addition it permitted very rapid fire, by ‘fanning’ the hammer 18th century chest antique. This method of shooting consisted of tying back the trigger, or holding it in the fire position, and flicking the hammer back with the palm of the free hand wedgewood porcelain swan base for pots de creme. An expert could fire six aimed shots in under three seconds, which made this method of using a Colt very popular in those parts where the American way of life was still somewhat uninhibited antique mahogany satin wood inlay and metal tray antique mahogany satin wood inlay and metal tray.
Double-action, on the other hand, had many advantages in the heat of battle when targets might present themselves quickly and from unexpected* directions doucai ming. It was then simpler and safer to pull the trigger only, rather than to co-ordinate the actions of finger and thumb cabriole iron legs table. Further, if slower than `fanning’, double-action could produce a much faster rate of fire than single-action antique dressing table with mirror for women ( designs).
Adams’ revolvers differed most-strongly from Colt’s in being double-action oval lacquer tea table. In addition, however, they were far more strongly made, since the barrel and body were forged in one piece english ironstone pottery. The cylinder, on the other hand, only had five chambers as compared with six in the case of the Colt bentwood rocking chair 1880 uk.
There were five models of the first Adams revolvers english hepplewhite revolving rent table. The largest had a 71-inch barrel of -50-inch calibre antique furniture 1800. The next size was much smaller with a 543-inch barrel and a calibre of ‘45 inch louis xv dining tables 8. Following this, a slightly longer barrel of 6 inches was combined with a smaller calibre of ‘38 inches antique commode on legs. Then came-a 41-inch barrel with -32 calibre; and a very small weapon with 3-11 lions paw on antique furniture.- inches of barrel and only -24-inch calibre royal vienna porcelain signed meyer.
In 1854 the ‘Government set up a Select Committee on Small Arms, and this body arranged for tests at Woolwich Arsenal to assess the relative merits of the Colt and Adams revolvers checkoslovakian glass decanter. The tests do not seem to have established a marked superiority by, either weapon gate leg drop leaf tables. The Select Committee preferred the Adams, but their report presumably showed that the margin value for antique china made in austria.of preference was very narrow, for the War Office purchased a large number of Colts in the following year cylinder bureau german. Most of these were issued to the Navy how to repair veneer table on couch.
In 1855 a great improvement was made in the Adams revolver by the incorporation of an invention by Captain F 19th century english cabinet makers. B staffordshire pearlware figures french revolution. E english george iii hepplewhite satinwood bedside cabinet. Beaumont, R paul de lamerie reproduction.E louis sue furniture dressing table 1933., by which the weapon could be used for either single- or double-action antiqu. This pattern of revolver was accepted for the Army, since it obviously embodied the advantages of both the Colt and the original Adams gateleg table imperial furniture. The following year it was succeeded by a similar but slightly improved model, and the last revolver which Robert Adams designed mid centru drum side table.
The Beaumont invention ruined Colt’s English market, and in 1857 the new Pimlico factory and the shop and show-room at No “brass drum tables”. i Spring Gardens, Cockspur Street, London, were closed down, and the American technicians recrossed antique rococo figurines. the Atlantic antique gate legged drop leaf table. The Colt connection was retained by a sales and show room which was established at 14 Pall Mall, where Colt arms made in America could be purchased rosewood chaise lounge 19c. Nevertheless, in spite of the short life of Colt’s English establishment, his revolvers lasted for a long time in the Navy art nouveau france origins. They remained as standard arms until 1862, and some may have remained in use until after 1880 can decorative moulding be antique bookcase.
The Adams revolvers were purchased by the Government, rather oddly, in two different calibres: -So and ‘45 inches; and were apparently issued quite indiscriminately; though there were far more of the smaller calibre serving tables.
In 1856 the Deane and Adams partnership split up antique tambour dining table -clock -desk. Robert and John Adams formed with the assistance of John Kerr (of Kerr & Co arita imari mark., gunmakers, in which he was in partnership with his brother James) the London Armoury Co arita kraak. This new firm took over all the Adams patents antique double pedestal dining room table. In 1858 Kerr & Co antigue oak mid century dining table with draw out leaves. produced a single-action revolver with a 51-inch barrel and made in two made in czechoslovakia initials. different calibres of ‘44 and ‘38 inches fire screen table. A year later they made a double-action revolver late pembroke breakfast table value. The Kerr patents were taken over in turn by the London Armoury Co antique spiral leg oak dropleaf table., and the revolvers were adopted officially by the Portuguese Army and purchased by the Confederate States of America berkey and gay.
In the meantime John Deane had opened his own establish-ment in London Bridge Stfeet, in London; and in 1858 had taken over the percussion revolver patents of William Harding 1930s drop leaf sofa tables. The weapon which was subsequently manufactured was known as the ‘Deane-Harding’ revolver antique 6 ft. st. louis credenza values. It was a double-action piece made in two calibres of ‘44 and -32 inches collapsible antique wardrobe. It had a very complicated lock, and for this reason was rejected as a Service weapon 16th century trestle refectory table. It was, however, much purchased privately by officers of both the British and ‘John Company’s’ Armies what types of materials were used in george hepplewhite furniture. In addition, the Confederate Government purchased a number of Deane-Hardings antique 19th mahogany hepplewhite card table.
Closely associated with the Adams brother’s was a relation or connection named William Tranter; a Birmingham gunsmith who later opened an establishment in London antique talavera for sale. There he manufactured many of the Adams revolvers grand furniture russia. In 1853 he patented a revolver of his own antique trestle refectory table. This had the peculiar feature of two triggers vilas furniture antique. One was for cocking the hammer and the other for firing rookwood nursery tiles. Three years later he brought out an improved type which had only, one trigger and double-action leopold stickly table 1959. There were three classes of this model: the ‘Dragoon’, of -So calibre and a barrel length Of 71 or 8 inches; the ‘Navy, ‘44 calibre and barrel 51 or 6J inches; and the small ‘Pocket’, ‘32 calibre and barrel 4 inches pattern for making victorian wash stands. Of these, the ‘Dragoon’ could be supplied with a detachable carbine stock 18th century antique gate leg table.
In 1858 Tranter secured a Government contract for his `Dragoon’ and ‘Navy’ models italian,furniture,maker,address.

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The screw barrel has already been mentioned in connection with a pistol which first became popular in the reign of Charles 1. A rifled version of this `turn-of}’ pistol was produced in the Civil War to meet the demand for an accurate and hard-hitting short-range weapon. The barrel unscrewed at the breech, and the charge and ball were put into the chamber. The pistol took a very heavy charge, and the chamber .was about the same size as that of the modern bolt-action rifle. The walls of the barrel were specially thickened to withstand the force of the discharge. It has been suggested that these pistols were designed to penetrate the heavy armour which still appeared in the form of helmets and back and breast plates. An account which is given later in this chapter would seem to support this view.
These rifled ‘turn-off’ pistols were full-length cavalry holster weapons. In the cavalry tactics of the period, the discharge of pistols at the enemy formed the preliminary to the normal shock action. That little is heard of rifled pistols after the Restoration may be due to the alteration in cavalry tactics. Marlborough, for instance, would not allow his cavalry to use pistols in a set-piece action at all.
The demand for privately manufactured arms led to the names of some of the gunmakers of the period becoming famous for the standards of design, workmanship and precision of their firearms. William Upton of Oxford, for instance, was perhaps the best known of the suppliers of arms to the Royalist army. The Royalist headquarters was in Oxford throughout most of the war so that Upton was well placed to meet the requirements of the King’s officers. He made pistols and carbines, both rifled and smooth bore, and his arms were known for their quality.
Another famous maker of firearms was Harman Barne of London. He was gunmaker to Prince Rupert and made one of the earliest known breech-loading magazine rifles. Six shots could be fired in succession from this remarkable weapon, and one movement of a lever which formed the trigger guard successively loaded with powder and ball, primed the pan, closed the pan cover and cocked the lock.
Although Barne’s rifle was far too expensive and complicated in manufacture for adoption as a millt4ry firearm, it is worth describing, since it was the first conception in England of present-day requirements in a hand-operated rifle. It was nearly 25o years, however, before Barne’s ideas were incorporated in the personal firearms of the British Army..
In appearance the rifle was similar to a finely made flintlock piece of the period, save for some additional bulk round the lock. There are no obvious mechanical complications. Its mechanism is best explained by the method of loading, which is as follows:
(a) The rifle is held in the left hand, vertically with the muzzle upwards and the barrel towards the body.
(b) With the right hand the trigger guard is turned to the right and upwards.
(c) The movement of the trigger guard turns a cylindrical breech block. This passes vertically through the barrel, and is drilled through with a hole which is in line with the bore of the barrel when it is in the closed position.
(d) The trigger guard also moves a powder measure, from its normal position below and in front of the trigger. This measure normally communicates with a powder magazine which is in a hollow in the stock below the lock, and is thus filled with powder when the rifle is held vertically. As the measure moves a spring flap closes its aperture, and a similar flap closes the opening of the powder. magazine. When the trigger guard has turned through i 8o degrees the flap on the measure strikes the front of the lock plate, opens and allows the powder to pour down a channel which runs inside the plate to an aperture on the right of the barrel. The movement of the breech block has brought its central hole into the line with this aperture, and the powder runs into it.
(e) Meanwhile the other end of the breech-block hole ,has received a bullet from the bullet magazine. This is a tube containing six bullets communicating with an aperture in the left side of the barrel. Through this a bullet is fed into the breech block before the powder is introduced.
(f) The trigger guard is now reversed to its normal position. This movement actuates links on the inside of the lock plate which move the tumbler of the lock to full cock, and close the pan cover. At the same *time a small portion of powder for. priming is dropped into the pan.
The rifle is now ready for firing; the very complicated process of loading, cocking and priming a flintlock weapon having been performed by a to-and-fro movement of the hand, in the same way as with a modern bolt-action rifle.
J. N. George, in his English Guns and Rifles, is of the opinion that this rifle was made for .Prince Rupert himself; and he considers that support is given to this supposition by the stamped impression on the butt, of a capital ‘R’ and the figure ‘3; which might well be the Prince’s initial and the serial number of the weapon in his private armoury. Since Barne was a London gunsmith (the gun is inscribed ‘Harman Barne, Londini), George points out that if he made this piece for the Prince it must have been Wore the start of the Civil War, since London was, throughout, in the possession of the forces of Parliament.
Edmund Nicholson of London provided the same type of arms for the forces of Parliament as Upton did for the Royalists. He too was known as a maker of fine arms, and he was still making guns after the Restoration.

By about the middle of the seventeenth century the calibre of the various types of firearms had become more or less fixed, and there was little change during the whole of the time that muzzle-loading arms remained in use. These dimensions -were: x2-bore for a musket, with i42 bullets to the pound; 16-bore for a carbine, with 20 to a pound bullets; and 20-24 bore for a pistol, with 34 bullets to the pound. Muskets and carbines were fitted with fore and back sights until the reign of James II, but pistols had no sights.
The pike remained the standard shock weapon of the infantry
FIG. 47. RAPIR HILTS.
Prow the Tower Zrmotwy, London.
and was the complement of the musket, until the adoption of the bayonet. In 1645 its length was 15 feet, but this appears to have been increased to x 8 feet a short time later. The best steel was used for the heads, and the staves were of well-seasoned ash. From the head downwards they were protected for 3 or 4 inches with iron plates to prevent the heads being cut off by the swords of the cavalry. It was behind the protection of these long pikes that the musketeer retired when he had to go through the lengthy process of reloading his weapon.
There was no standard sword for either cavalry or infantry during this period; but for most of it the most popular weapon was the rapier, which had been introduced from the Con-tinent in the sixteenth’ century. It was a long, very light sword, generally with a rup protection below the quillons, or cross-piece, and often with a knuckle guard as well. The use of the rapier was so universal that even pikemen were equipped with it, though it was far too long for effective use in battle by a man who was already encumbered with a heavy pike.
A vivid description of the use of the various weapons of the Civil War is contained in a contemporary account by Richard Atkyns, a junior Royalist officer of Horse. He says:
`When we came within 20 score yards of the enemy, we found about Zoo dragoons half musket shot before a regiment of horse of theirs in two divisions, both in order to receive us. At this punctilio of time, from as clear a sunshine day as could be seen,, there fell a sudden mist, that we could not see ten yards off, but we still marched on; the dragoons amazed with the mist, and hearing our horse come on; gave us a volley of shot out of distance, and disordered not one man of us, and before we came up to them, they took horse and away they ran.
`I waited upon Prince Maurice, and presented him with a case of pistols, which my uncle Sandys brought newly out of France; the neatest that I ever saw, which he then wanted.
`When I came to the top of the hill, I saw Sir Bevill Grinvill’s stand of pikes, which certainly preserved our army from a total rout, with the loss of his most precious life: they stood as upon the eaves of a house for steepness; but as unmovable as a rock; on which side of this stand of pikes our horse were, I could not discover; for the air was so darkened by the smoke of the powder, that for a quarter of an hour together (I dare say) there was no light seen, but what the fire of the volleys of shot gave.

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MUSKET AND PIKE
An attempt to produce some order in the manufacture of firearms had an odd terminological result. In the army of Piedmont, before the battle of Moncontour in 1569, there were so many sizes of bore amongst the arquebuses that ammunition supply became a difficult problem. To overcome this 7000 arquebuses were ordered of one calibre, and referred to as ‘harquebuze de calibre de Monsieur le Prince’. The type of arquebus which was made to comply with this order had a bore of 10 or 11, weighed 12 pounds and had a barrel length of 42 inches. It became so popular that its use on the Continent became very widespread, and it appeared in England during the last quarter of the sixteenth century.. The original cumbersome reference had been contracted by the soldiers to `Calibre du Prince’, and later simply to ‘Calibre’. This became anglicized as ‘Caliver’, and in 1578 the Tower of London had 7000 of them in store. They were matchlocks, rather. heavier than the previous pattern of arquebus, and about four feet ten inches in overall length. Eventually the term came to mean any firearm which was light enough to be fired without a rest. ‘Arquebus’ was then frequently applied to cavalry wheel-lock arms.
In 1595 the Trained Bands were ordered to exchange their bows for calivers and muskets, and by this time calivers formed part of the armament of every English infantry unit. In fact, in a levy for Ireland of the following year, the ’shot accounted for half the infantry, and of these three-quarters were armed with calivers and only one-quarter with muskets. The days of the caliver, however, were numbered; for, unlike the musket, its shot was too light to pierce heavy armour.
The musket was actually earlier in origin than the caliver, having been invented in about 1546, though its adoption in England was somewhat slow. It was, essentially, an improved form of matchlock arquebus, with a greater g rane and accuracy and firing a heavier
rang
It had a barrel 4 feet long, a bore of 8 or io, and was designed to penetrate the heaviest protective armour. Its weight was 2o pounds, and it was consequently necessary to support the barrel on a forked rest. The first type of musket seems to have been too cumbersome to use for anything except siege warfare, and the Duke of Alva has been stated to have been the first to adapt it for use in the field, in his campaign in the Netherlands in
1567. By the time of the Civil War the musket had been considerably lightened, and it was possible to use it without a rest.
In one respect the musket was destined to achieve undying
FIG. 41. A MATCH-BOX.
fame; for its name came to denote any shoulder firearm, and even ‘rifle’ is merely a shortened form of ‘rifled musket’.
One of the disadvantages of the matchlock was the match. In very wet weather it was liable to be extinguished. To give some protection a ‘match-box’ was introduced. This was a tube of pewter, latten or tin, about a foot long, with holes in the side to let in aif.
It was this difficulty with the .match which was responsible for the development of spark ignition. The first substance to be employed for this purpose was pyrites; a mineral which included a combination of iron and sulphur. The mechanism in which it was used was known as the ‘wheel-lock’, and was invented in Nuremberg about 1517. A fragment of pyrites was held in contact with a steel wheel which had a serrated

FIG, 42. WHEEL- LOCKS.
Top: A Wheel-lock Carbine, Elizabeth I. Bottom: A Wheel-lock Dag, Edward VI.
edge. The wheel was rotated by the release of a powerful V-spring attached to the lock plate. The resulting stream of parks was directed at the priming powder.
The spindle of the wheel had a square end, and the lock was set by fitting a key, or spanner, to the spindle and winding it in a clockwise direction. This pulled a short chain of about three links round the spindle, and tautened the spring. After a three-quarter turn a scear (spring catch), which was fixed on the inside of the lock plate, engaged a slot on the wheel.
The flash-pan was then primed and closed. The bottom of the pan, however, was pierced to admit the top of the wheel. The piece of pyrites, which was held in a clamp at the head of the cock, was next lowered on to the top of the pan cover. Assuming it to have been loaded, the weapon was now ready for firing.
Pressure on the trigger drew back the scear and released the spring, causing the wheel to revolve. An ingenious device then caused the pan cover to open. A cam attached to the wheel spindle struck an arm which was connected to the pan cover. This opened the latter, permitting the pyrites to fall on the wheel. The pan cover was then held open by a spring catch.
The wheel-lock was, as may be imagined, an extremely
FIG. 43. WHEEL-LOCK DAGS.
expensive firearm to make, particularly when compared with the simple matchlock. Its adoption in England was consequently slow, and it never became a general issue to the infantry. It was a very useful lock, however, for a horseman. The management of a matchlock on horseback was a difficult feat, for the match had to be kept alight and any adjustments made to it with one hand.
The first single-handed firearms were intended for the horse soldier. These were the dags or tacks, the forerunners of pistols. The first dags were, in appearance, small arquebuses with wheel-locks. In 1544 they were introduced into England as a cavalry weapon.
The wheel-lock, also known as a firelock, suffered from two disadvantages; the first was the expense, and the second the weakness of the pyrites, which was liable to break into pieces. The demand for a sound and inexpensive method of spark transmission led to the introduction of the flintlock. The name originally given to this new mechanism was ’snaphaunce’. This was derived from the Dutch snaphaan, meaning a pecking fowl, and referred to the pecking motion of the cock.
The sparks in the flintlock were produced by striking a piece of flint against a case-hardened steel plate, with serrated ridges on its face. The flint was held in- a clamp at the top of the cock. The ’steel’, against which the flint was struck, worked on an arm which was hinged to the lock plate and held in position by a V-spring. To fire the weapon the cock -was drawn back, thereby compressing the main spring, which in turn actuated an internal tumbler connected to the cock. The scear engaged the tumbler and held the cock in the fully open position. The steel was then lowered towards the rear of the piece and on to the lip of the flash-pan; bringing it within range of the cock. Pulling the trigger drew back the scear, thereby releasing the cock; with the result that the flint struck the steel, directing a stream of sparks into the pan. This last was uncovered, during the forward movement of the cock, through a tumbler actuating a steel link which thrust against the lower part of the pan cover.
This type of flintlock was complicated and still fairly expensive. It was little used in England, though some of the troops ordered to Ireland in i58o are said to have been armed with it. On the Continent, however, it was in common use for a long time. In England it was superseded in the first quarter of the seventeenth century by the so-called ‘English lock’ flintlock. This was a much better and simpler weapon than the original snaphaunce, and the mechanism remained basically the same for all future flintlock firearms.
In the English lock the steel and pan cover were combined in a single piece which was called the ‘hammer’. This consisted of a hinged pan cover which worked upon a screw set in the lock plate and held in either the open or closed positions by a V-spring. The steel, or striking surface, rose approximately at right angles in a curve from the free end of the cover. When the cock was released the flint hit the steel, causing a shower of sparks, and at the same time pushed the whole member back on the hinge, so uncovering the priming powder to the sparks. The firing mechanism was practically the same as that of the snaphaunce, but the weapon could be put at safety by raising the cock half-way and leaving the pan
FIG. 44. AN ARQUEBUS WITH SNAPHAUNCE LOCK.
closed. This “half-cock’ position was achieved by providing a notch on the tumbler in which the scear engaged.
On some English locks there was an additional safety device. This was a catch on the outside of the lock plate which engaged in a notch on the cock when it was in the `half-cock’ position. This type of safety-catch was called a dog-catch and locks so fitted were known as doglocks.
Although the term `snaphaunce’ seems to have been applied originally to those flintlocks with separate pan covers and steels, it appears to have been soon used, in the early seventeenth century, to denote all flintlocks.
The difficulty of managing a matchlock on horseback has already been mentioned. Nevertheless in about I 53o a modification of the arquebus was produced for this purpose. It was called a ‘Petronel’ or ‘poitrinal’, names derived from the French and signifying that the weapon was intended to be fired from the chest. It was shorter than the arquebus but of a large calibre, and, on account of its weight, was carried on a broad shoulder belt. As a matchlock it was a fairly impracticable weapon, and later -versions were fitted with wheel-locks.
Another horseman’s firearm was the dragon. This was something between a petronel and a pistol. Traditionally it had a. dragon’s head at its muzzle, and it is supposed to have given its name to the French Dragons (Dragoons), first raised by Charles de Cosse, Marechal de Brissac, in 1600. Of the later and similar English troops, Markham, in his Souldier’s
FiG. 45- PETRONELS.
Acidence of 1645, says: ‘The last sort of which our horse troopes are composed are called dragoons, which are a kind of footmen on horsebacks, and do now indeed succeed the light horsemen, and are of singular use in all actions of warre. The armes defensive are an open head piece with cheeks, and a good buffs coat, with deeps skirts; and for offensive armes they have a faire dragon fitted with. an iron works, to be carried in a belt of leather, which is buckled over the right shoulder and under the left arms, having a turnill of iron work with a ring, through which the piece runnes up and downs; and these dragons are short pieces of sixteen inches the barrell, and full musquet bore, with firelocks or snaphaunces, also a belt with a flaske, pryming box, key, and bullet bag, and a good sword.’
In the heavy horse petronel and dag were succeeded in due course by carbine and pistol. The difference between a pistol and a dag is, however, not very clear. Weapons which we should normally call pistols were often called dags in England and tacks in Scotland in the early seventeenth, and, in the case of the latter, eighteenth centuries. Owing to their small size,. and consequent popularity as a personal weapon; pistols from very early days seem to  have expressed tastes in design and decoration of different gunsmiths. In addition, there have
FIG. 46. A DRAGON.
frequently .been fashions in pistol design which gunsmiths have met in their own particular style: To describe all the pistols which have been used in war would, therefore, be quite beyond the scope of the present work. Nevertheless there are two special types which must be mentioned. The first of these is the screw-barrel pistol. This had a cannon-shaped barrel ‘which screwed off so that the charge could be loaded direct into the breech  piece. These enjoyed a great vogue during the reign of Charles I and for some time afterwards. The second is -one of the most famous pistols, or rather -family of pistols, ever made.. This was the Scottish all-metal pistol, which, as far as is known, was first made towards the end of the sixteenth century. The earliest one on record was manufactured byAlison of Dundee. The principal difference between the Scottish pistol and others was that the stock was made of steel or brass instead of wood. The butts of the earliest models had a fish-tailed end, and they were sometimes made of wood encased in, or mounted with, brass or silver.
The early seventeenth-century carbine, according to a 1630 book on cavalry by Captain Cruso, was the same length as an arquebus but had a smaller bore. It was a flintlock, and it was slung from a shoulder belt by a swivel.
There were two disastrous expeditions during the reign of Charles 1, the failure of which was to some extent due to defective firearms. In the force sent to Cadiz, in fact, the majority of the firearms are said to have been either defective or useless. As a result of these deficiencies a special Commission under the Privy Seal appointed a select committee of gunmakers, arniourcrs, pikemakers and bandolier makers, `being the skillfullest and prime workmen of this land’, to undertake an investigation into the arms of the national militia and Trained Bands and to rectify any deficiencies. The London gunmakers mentioned as being on the Commission were Henry Rowland, Richard Burrowe, Thomas Addis, John Norcott, William Dawstin, John Watson and William Graves. These gunmaker members were temporarily vested with powers of proving and testing firearms.

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The German Super-Guns of the WWII

The German super-guns
The heaviest field equipments seen during the war were the German self-propelled howitzers generically known as ‘Karl Morsers’. These were of two calibres, 540-mm and 600-mm, mounted on the same type of carriage. Six carriages were made and the exact disposition of barrels between them is in some doubt; the carriages were numbered I to VI; Vehicle V was captured by the US 1st Army and found to have a 540-mm barrel, yet photographs captured later showed this same carriage to have a 600-mm barrel. It is probably safe to assume that three of each calibre were made. The date of introduction is also a little vague, but it seems fairly certain that the 600-mm version was introduced in 1942 and the 540-mm in 1944.
The carriage of ‘Karl’ was a simple rectangular box, divided into three compartments. The first held the Mercedes-Benz engine and transmission; the second carried the gun; and the third held the carriage raising and lowering gear. After driving into position on its tracks the engine was used to drive the lowering gear, which rotated the anchorages of the suspension torsion bars so as to allow the chassis to be lowered to the ground until the suspension and track were relieved of the weight. For long-distance moves the gun and recoil system were removed from the carriage, dismantled, and loaded on to spec,a -,a e•s, the carriage was then winched on to a special tank-transpor-er. For very long distances the complete gun and carriage assembly could be slung between two railway flat wagons by means of special trusses.
In the use of railway artillery Germany virtually had the field to herself. This class of weapon is really the prerogative of the Continental nation with a well-developed rail system by which it can readily deploy them to any front. In contrast, Britain and the USA, while possessing railway guns. used them solely as mobile coast defence units, since the problem of transporting two or three hundred tons of railway mounting across the Channel was not a trick to be undertaken lightly. Indeed, the British and American weapons were almost entirely relics of the First World War which had been in mothballs. 1940 saw a few more mountings hastily cobbled together from available spares and hurried to cover the Channel, just as in similar fashion American guns were mobilised and deployed in 1941. In 1944 reports from France indicated that heavy railway artillery might be of use in demolishing strongpoints to be expected in the final assault in Germany, and designs were hastily prepared by the Americans for a number of 16-inch guns, but within a few weeks it was seen that heavy artillery of this class had been rendered superfluous by the quality and quantity of air support available, and the demand was cancelled.
The German army had a vast range of railway guns from 150-mm upwards, but two were really outstanding and deserve closer examination. The first was the 28-cm K5(E)—Kanone, Model 5, Eisenbahnlafette —which became their standard super-heavy railway gun and was probably the finest design of its k;nd in the world. The basic arithmetic and paperwork had been done in the late 1920s and early 1930s, and work began on the gun in 1934. (It is worth noting that every German railway gun was designed and built by Krupp— Rheinmettal did design two, but they were never made.) First, a 150-mm barrel was produced for tests; it had been decided that to obtain the great range demanded, a conventionally rifled barrel was out of the question. A design was prepared with 12 deep grooves and having a shell carrying 12 ribs, or splines, to match. The theory behind this was that the engraving of a conventional copper driving band on the shell gave rise to very high pressure in the gun chamber; by using the spline and groove method to spin the shell, this resistance was removed, and the shell would step off more smartly, allowing a bigger propelling charge to be used without over-straining the gun. The 150-mm test barrel proved that the theory was right, and a full-calibre 280-mm barrel was built.
The mounting was a simple box-girder assembly carried on two six-axle bogies, with the front bogie slung so as to allow the front of the box-girder to be swung across it for aiming the gun. For large angles the whole weapon was mounted on a special portable turntable built at the end of a short spur of track laid at the desired firing point. Each gun was supplied with a special train which included wagons for carrying the turntable, light-antiaircraft guns for local defence, air-conditioned ammunition wagons, living quarters and kitchen for the gunners, and flat wagons to carry their entitlement of motor transport.
By 1940 eight of these complete equipments were in service, and production continued throughout the war, 25 being built in all. The German gunners called them ‘Slim Bertha’, but to the Allies in Italy one at least became famous as ‘Anzio Annie’.
With the 561-pound pre-rifled shell the gun could reach to 68,000 yards. A rocket-assisted shell was later developed which increased this range, with a certain loss of accuracy, to 94,000 yards. Finally, the Peenembride Research Establishment designed a 300-pound dart-like projectile which was fired from a special 310-mm smooth-bore barrel and which ranged to 170,000 yards. Although coming too late for general issue, these ‘PeenemOnde Arrow Shells’ were issued for troop trials in the field, and some were fired against the US 3rd Army at ranges of about 70 miles.
The second railway gun, ‘Gustav’, was the biggest gun the world has ever seen —the Krupp-designed 800-mm Kanone. The idea was conceived in 1937 of a pair of super-guns; they were of quite conventional design, except for their immense size. Too large to be moved in one piece, they were transported piecemeal in special trains and assembled at the selected sites by travelling cranes. When assembled, the mounting straddled two sets of standard-gauge rails, with 80 wheels taking the 1,350-ton weight. An armour or concrete-piercing shell of 7 tons was propelled by a 13/4-ton charge to a range of 23 miles, or a 5-ton high-explosive shell to 29 miles. The first equipment, ‘Gustav’, was proved at the Rugenwalde range in March 1943, in Hitler’s presence. The only record of its use was at the siege of Sebastopol; the gun was sited at Bakhchisary and fired some 30 to 40 rounds. One shot is recorded as having penetrated through 100 feet of earth to destroy a Soviet ammunition dump at Severnaya Bay. The subsquent history of the gun is unknown (it was presumably captured by the Red Army).
The second equipment, ‘Dora’. so far as is known, never left the proving ground, though what happened to it at the end of the war is a minor mystery (some ammunition and a spare barrel were found at Krupp’s proof establishment at Meppen near the Dutch border).
The detachment necessary to man. maintain, and give local protection to Gustav was 4,120 men strong. commanded by a major-general. The actual fire-control and operation of the gun demanded a colonel and 500 men, and the construction or dismantling of the weapon took between four and six weeks. A long-range ‘PeenemOnde Arrow Shell’ was developed for Gustay. but, so far as is known, was never fired. This was to weigh 2.200 pounds and range to 100 miles. There was also a proposition to mount a 520-mm gun on the same carriage to fire rocket-assisted shells and ‘PeenemOnde Arrow Shells’ to a range of 118 miles for cross-channel bombardment, but this never got past the drawing-board.
If it is accepted that it is not a good idea to tamper with a good gun design in the middle of a war, then the only way to render the gun more effective is to improve the ammunition, and this technique was frequently adopted during the war. And in no field is this seen to greater effect than in the battle against the tank. The reason for this is fairly self-evident: personnel targets remain more or less the same—once the anti-personnel projectile is perfected it can stay as it is. On the other hand, once a new anti-tank projectile appears, it is only a matter of time before the enemy put thicker armour on his tanks.
At the outbreak of war there were two types of anti-tank projectile: the armour-piercing (AP) shot, and the AP shell. The difference is basic. Shot are solid, with no explosive filling, and rely purely on their speed to smash through the armour and do damage inside the tank by their impact, the fragments of plate they knock off during penetration, and their own effect when they penetrate the plate and bounce around inside the tank. AP shells, on the other hand, have a small cavity filled with high explosive and are fitted with a fuse in the base. The shell penetrates, similarly to shot, by brute force, but the fuse is activated by the impact and, after a short delay to allow the shell to pass through the plate and enter the tank, the explosive is detonated, shattering the shell into fragments and adding to the shot-like damage already caused. On paper the shell is the better proposition, since there is the bonus of the explosive filling. But paper figures tend to be deceptive, and in fact the shot is probably the more practical projectile, because the high-explosive (HE) cavity weakens the shell, and the fuse is precariously supported against the hammer-blow of impact. Britain held firmly to the shot theory for anti-tank work, though many years of experience in producing AP shells for naval use was available. Several other nations preferred AP shell, bewitched by the HE bonus.
Most of the belligerents entered the war with a plain shot or shell and relied on throwing it hard enough to penetrate the opposing tanks. So long as the target was relatively lightly armoured this was successful; but, naturally, each side began to increase armour thickness on each succeeding generation of tank. The quick answer to this was to increase the gun charge or even the calibre, and thus throw the projectile harder, but there comes a time when the impact is too much for the projectile, and instead of piercing, it merely shatters on the outside of the target without doing any damage.
The answer to this was to protect the tip of the shot or shell with a softer cap, which tended to spread the impact stresses over the shoulders of the projectile, instead of concentrating them into the tip. This preserved the piercing action to higher velocities, and the gun was again winning the battle. The next move belonged to the tank designers who made their armour thicker, and so it went on until the projectile was once more shattering, cap or no cap. At this point the projectile designers were faced with a new problem: if it was futile to throw the projectile harder, might it not be possible to throw a harder projectile? And what was harder than an armour-piercing projectile? Tungsten carbide, a diamond-hard alloy, provided an answer, but it was about one-and-a-half times as heavy as steel, so that it could not easily be made into a projectile. Furthermore, it was expensive and in short supply.
The first application of tungsten to an anti-tank projectile was by the German army in their 28-mm Schwere Panzerbuchse 41, a weapon with a unique tapered barrel. The shot consisted of a small core of tungsten carbide held in a light alloy casing of 28-mm calibre. As the shot was fired down the gun barrel, so the calibre diminished and the light alloy casing was ground down, until it emerged as a 21-mm shot. This squeezing enhanced the velocity and changed the ratio of shot diameter to weight. The velocity reached was 4,000 feet per second, and, on impact with the target, the hardness of the core was impervious to impact shock and penetrated successfully.
About the same time—late 1940—a similar idea had been put forward by a Mr Janacek, a Czechoslovakian weapon designer working in England. While his idea was still under consideration, a specimen of the German weapon was captured in North Africa and flown home for trials: the idea was seen to be feasible. The British version was in the form of a taper-bore adapter to be fitted to the existing 2-pounder gun, together with a special tungsten-cored shot, known under the code name of ‘Littlejohn’, an Anglicised version of Janacek. The advantage here was that the adapter could be removed to permit firing normal explosive shells, but could be refitted quickly for the special shot, whereas the German design required a special pattern of high-explosive shell to be developed, a difficult feat in such a small calibre. The ‘Littlejohn’ attachment and its shot were not used in towed artillery, since by the time they were ready for service the anti-tank units were armed with 6-pounders, but it was used on 2-pounder and American 37-mm guns mounted in armoured cars.
To use tungsten in a conventional gun, a different approach was needed. The first attempt, for the 6-pounder, was the ‘AP Composite Rigid’ (APCR) shot, a tungsten core mounted in an alloy sheath of approximately the same dimensions as the conventional steel shot for the gun. By virtue of its light alloy content the APCR shot was somewhat lighter and thus had a higher velocity when fired. Unfortunately the ratio of weight-to-diameter was unfavourable, giving a poor ballistic coefficient or ‘carrying power’, and while the short-range performance was impressive, the velocity soon dropped, and at ranges over 1,000 yards, steel shot was just as good, sometimes better. Some German weapons were also provided with the same type of projectile, and one was designed for use in the Soviet 76.2-mm field gun which the Germans captured in large numbers and converted into an anti-tank gun. Unfortunately for them, by early 1942 the shortage of tungsten in Germany began to be felt, and in the middle of that year a ban was placed on the use of tungsten in ammunition; what scarce supplies there were had been earmarked for machine tool production, not for throwing about the Russian steppes. After strong remonstrations, the 5-cm Pak 38 anti-tank gun was specifically exempted from this ban, since at that time it was the only weapon capable of stopping a Russian T-34 tank, provided it was supplied with tungsten-cored shot.
Although the 6-pounder APCR shot seemed reasonably successful, it was not the ideal answer. The ideal, in fact, sounded ridiculous: what was wanted was a shot which in the barrel was large-calibre and light, so as to pick up speed quickly and leave the gun at high velocity, but which outside the barrel should be small in diameter and heavy, so as to have good ‘carrying power’ and keep up its high velocity for a long range. These two conflicting requirements were fused into one projectile by two British designers, Permutter and Coppock, of the Armaments Research Department. Even before the 6-pounder had received its APCR shot they were at work, and in March 1944 their ‘AP Discarding Sabot’ shot was provided for the 6-pounder. In this design, the tungsten core is contained in a streamlined steel sheath or sub-projectile; this in turn is carried in a light-alloy framework or ’sabot’ of the full gun calibre. On firing, this sabot holds the sub-projectile centralised in the bore and gives the whole thing the combination of light weight and large area which is wanted for velocity. But firing actually ‘unlocks’ the sabot, and as the shot leaves the gun muzzle, so the sabot is thrown clear, allowing the sub-projectile to race to the target at velocities of the order of 3,000 feet per second. Now, since the sub-projectile’s sheath is virtually a skin round the tungsten core, it follows that the weight is high in relation to the cross-section—the ideal condition for good carrying power and thus long-range performance. A similar projectile for the 17-pounder followed in September 1944, and one was under development for the 20-pounder tank gun when the war ended.

Tags: ammunition, anchorages, armour, ARMOURED, army, artillery, calibre, carriage assembly, carriages, chassis, czechoslovakia, defence units, first world war, german army, gunners, heavy artillery, Krupp-designed, long distance, mercedes benz, railway guns, red army, Shells, tank units, target, torsion bars, trusses, wagons, wwii

German, French, British, American and Russian Guns of the WWII

As with the tanks, so with the guns: the artillery designers of the
Second World War found themselves caught up in a ceaseless race
to outmatch the ever-improving enemy defences. Ian Hogg shows how
this affected the gunners’ war, and how it resulted in the artillery
revolution of greater ranges, mobility and fire control.

A thorough discussion of the history and development of every artillery weapon used in the Second World War would need several volumes, for the sheer size of the subjects is incredible; the German forces alone disposed over 200 land service weapons in 51 different calibres, without considering experimental models. Britain and America between them fielded about 100 artillery weapons, again not counting experimental models but only those which found their way into the hands of troops. Instead of trying to catalogue every weapon used, therefore, this section merely outlines the principal features of the research which developed during the war, and also brings to light one or two of the more unusual and less well-known weapons which were produced.
There are three main subjects to be explored:
•    The routine improvement of weapons, in order to bring them into line with changing tactics and concepts of employment or to counter improvements in enemy defences;
•    The improvements in ammunition introduced to step up the performance of existing weapons;
•    The application of hitherto untried scientific principles.
In many cases these topics tend to overlap, but rather than try to develop a chronological story with these three aspects jumbled together, it is best to consider them as separate fields.
First, routine improvement. A good example of this in action is the history of the celebrated German 88-mm Flak Gun. This was originally conceived in the late 1920s by Krupp designers attached to the Bofors Company in Sweden. When in 1931 they returned to Essen with the design, the political climate seemed right. A prototype was built in 1932; and due to thorough paperwork it was an immediate success and was issued in 1933 as the 8.8-cm Flak Model 18. It should be stressed, in view of the exaggerated tales which became current in later years, that there was nothing unorthodox about this weapon at all—it was simply a good, sound, conventional anti-aircraft gun. It was taken to Spain by the Kondor Legion during the Civil War and tested in action; its potentialities as an anti-tank gun were also seen, though not advertised. This experience showed that there were a few weak points in the design and as a result, minor modifications were made in the mounting to improve stability and facilitate mass-production. This modified version became known as the Flak 36. In the following year an improved sighting and fire-control system was fitted, and the gun became the Flak Model 37. The 36 and 37 remained in service throughout the Second World War, being used in their primary role as an anti-aircraft gun; as an anti-tank gun, when fitted with shields and direct-fire sights; fitted to coastal craft and U-boats; used as a coast defence gun; and even mounted on a 121/2-ton half-track as a self-propelled gun (though this was not one of its most successful applications).
By early 1939 though, in spite of its excellence, it became obvious that bombers were going to fly faster and higher than before, and the gun’s performance would have to be improved. And so in 1939 Rheinmettal-Borsig were given a contract for an improved model, to be known as the Flak 41. Prototype trials began in 1941 and it was found that the gun, although a most efficient design, had a lot of teething troubles which were going to take time to eliminate. Since no one else had a contract for the gun, the Luftwaffe (which was responsible for Germany’s anti-aircraft defences) was forced to use it or else do without. Consequently the next year saw a great deal of effort thrown in and by March 1943 the first issues were made.
The Flak 41, as finally produced, was a considerable improvement over the 18, 36, and 37. By using a turntable to carry the gun, instead of the more usual pedestal mounting, a much lower silhouette was achieved. The muzzle velocity and ceiling were both improved by adopting a more powerful cartridge, and the stability in action was excellent. The only fly in the ointment was the difficult extraction of the fired cartridge case, which is a flaw of major proportions in a quick-firing anti-aircraft gun. Different designs of barrel were produced in an effort to overcome the trouble, and a special brass cartridge case was developed; but none of these palliatives made much impression and the gun was never the success it might have been.
Some time after Rheinmettal had received their contract, a similar specification had been given to Krupp. Their development, sometimes referred to as the Flak 42, became more and more entangled with their concurrent development of 88-mm tank and anti-tank guns in the hopes of producing a family of weapons which would use interchangeable parts and common ammunition. Before the Krupp version had got off the drawing board, the Luftwaffe was demanding more performance than the design could produce, and in February 1943, not without a certain amount of relief, one feels, Krupp dropped the Flak 42 to concentrate on the tank and anti-tank weapons.

While the 88 shows an example of improvement of a particular calibre, the more common approach was to improve a particular class of weapon by raising the calibre; most anti-tank weapons display this technique. The British army began the war with a 2-pounder; followed it by a 6-pounder and then a 17-pounder; and finally had a 32-pounder in preparation when the war ended, having toyed briefly with a possible 55-pounder. America began with a 37-mm, took over the British 6-pounder and called it the 57-mm; then moved to a 3-inch based on a redundant anti-aircraft gun; then a 90-mm, also based on an AA gun, and was working on a 105-mm when the war ended. Germany also began with a 37-mm and progressed through 28, 42, 50, 75 and 88-mm to arrive at a 128-mm as the war closed.
All these series show steady progression in conventional guns, ally intended to beat the forthcoming increases in enemy armour. However, the flaw in this system becomes apparent on looking at the British 32-pounder or the German 12.8-cm Pak 44— bigger calibres may mean a bigger punch, but they invariably mean bigger guns as well, and this means more weight to move about. This is a considerable drawback for an anti-tank gun which usually has to be emplaced by manpower, and certainly the 32-pounder was too big for its task; even had the war continued, it is doubtful whether it would have been accepted into service.
Anti-aircraft guns tend to show a similar pattern among all nations, always striving to extract more ceiling and greater velocity; the increased ceiling meant that higher-flying aircraft could be engaged, while higher velocity meant a shorter time between firing the gun and the shell arriving at the target, and hence less room for error in the prediction of the target’s position at the time of the shell’s arrival. The two groups of anti-aircraft weapons in common use were the light guns, such as the German 37-mm and the British and US-employed Bofors 40-mm, and the heavy guns, such as the German 88, 105, and 128-mm guns, the British 3.7-inch, 4.5-inch, and 5.25-inch guns, and the American 90-mm, 105-mm, and 120-mm types. The light guns relied on throwing up a heavy volume of fire at a high rate, to counter the low-flying attacker. The heavies fired at slower rates, threw heavier shells, and had higher ceilings to deal with the high-level bomber. But strangely enough, all the combatants had a gap in their defences, which lay between the maximum ceiling of the light guns—about 6,000 feet—and the minimum effective ceiling of the heavies—about 10,000 feet. Below this figure the heavy gun could not swing fast enough to follow a fast low flyer. In an endeavour to fill this gap, development took place in both Britain and Germanyto provide a medium AA gun. As far as Britain was concerned, a paramount feature of any weapon proposed in 1940 was to avoid usurping production already hard at work with the more basic weapons needed for simple survival. In view of this, the first question the designers asked themselves was: ‘What existing gun can be worked over to fill the bill?’ After a few false starts the design coalesced around The existing coast artillery 6-pounder gun, the same calibre as the anti-tank gun but using a heavier cartridge and capable of greater range. This was adapted to a twin-barrel mounting on a three-wheeled trailer, and work then began on designing a suitable automatic feed system to get the rate of fire thought necessary, and a fire-control system to put the shells where they were needed. Since the guns were originally designed for hand loading, the adaptation to autofeed turned out to be more difficult than had at first been imagined; then Allied air superiority gave the project less priority; and, in the event, the twin 6-pounder never entered service and Britain never had a medium AA gun.
The German development was not restricted to an existing weapon, since the ‘gap’ had been appreciated before the war, and in 1936 Rheinmettal was given a contract to develop a 50-mm gun. This was eventually introduced in 1940 in limited numbers for an extended troop trial to assess whether such a weapon was desirable and whether the Flak 41, as it was known, would fill the requirement. For a variety of reasons the gun was not a success, but the experience showed that the medium AA gun was needed, and a great deal of thought went into the design of a completely integrated weapon system, probably the first such system to be conceived as a complete entity. It was to comprise a 55-mm automatic gun, with matched radar, predictor, displacement corrector, and full electro-hydraulic remote control of a six-gun battery. By the time all these theories and designs had been put together it was mid-1943, and the production of such a far-reaching concept was so difficult that the war ended before the weapon was completed. To act as a stop-gap, the now-obsolescent 50-mm anti-tank gun was fitted with an automatic loading system, but this idea fell by the wayside, and it is doubtful if any were ever made. All in all, the medium AA gun story is remarkable in the similarity of British and German experience.

In the field artillery world practically all development was simply a matter of improvement on existing designs. No nation in its right mind would attempt a major re-equipment of its standard weapons in.the middle of a war. The British 25-pounder served valiantly, and modifications to meet special demands included the self-propelled ‘Bishop’ (on a Valentine chassis) and ‘Sexton’ (on a: Ram chassis); the Australian-developed ‘Short’ or ‘Baby’ 25-pounder with a truncated barrel, no shield, short trail and castor wheel for easy manoeuvring in the jungle; it was tried as a self-propelled gun (SP) in many vehicles including the Lloyd carrier, which was asking too much of such a light vehicle; it was strapped to the cargo bed of a DUKW for supporting amphibious landings; and it was even considered for the armament of submarines. Similarly, the American 105-mm howitzer was tried in a variety of SP mountings, starting with a half-track, until the Sherman-based M-7 became standardized as the ‘Priest’; it was shortened and placed on a light carriage for use by airborne units; it was mounted in tank turrets as a close support gun; and, like the 25-pounder, mounted on the long-suffering DUKW.
The German 1E FH 18, more or less the equivalent of the 25-pounder and 105 howitzer, suffered similar, though more drastic, changes. First it was given a muzzle brake and a heavier charge with a long-range shell; then in an attempt to reduce the weight, like the ‘Baby 25-pounder’, the barrel and recoil system were mounted on the carriage of the 75-mm Pak 40 anti-tank gun; the wheels were removed and it was dropped bodily into a tank hull to provide an assault gun; it was grafted on to a variety of tracked mountings. But eventually a complete re-design was called for and Rheinmettal was given a contract. Before their offering was ready, the experiences of the Russian Front had shown that certain features were mandatory in the next generation of field guns. Briefly, these were that the gun must have a good anti-tank performance for self-protection; at the same time it ‘iad to be capable of hiding in forests and firing out at high angles: the range had to be at least 8 miles without demanding special ammunition; it had to have all-round traverse, since Soviet partisans c,)uld attack from any direction; and it had to weigh less than 2.200 pounds. Now even today a designer would have a hard time meeting that specification, but in 1943 both Krupp and Skoda rose to the challenge.
The Skoda version, the 10.5-cm 1E FH 43. was most ingenious: the carriage had virtually a normal split trail at the rear. plus another split trail at the front, beneath the barrel. and a firing pedestal beneath the axle. In action, the equipment rested on the two rear trails and the pedestal, and the front trails were laid on the ground to form a cruciform stable platform above which the gun could rotate through 360 degrees, the four legs giving stability at any angle of the barrel. The novelty of this carriage lay in the fact that the two front legs were not rigidly attached to the carriage; to compensate for eneven ground they were permitted to lie at any convenient angle. A hydraulic system was arranged so that slow movement of the legs—as during folding and unfolding to and from the travelling position—was freely permitted. but fast movement—as the firing shock—would cause the legs to lock rigidly to the carriage and give the desired stability.
Krupp, under the same nomenclature, produced two models; one was very similar in general design to Skoda s. though without the hydraulic system, while the other was based on a more or less conventional cruciform platform of the type familiar in AA guns. However, none of the designs, Krupp or Skoda. were ready for production before the war’s end, and only prototypes existed.

Tags: ammunition, artillery weapons, calibre, calibres, cartridge, changing tactics, chronological story, designers, fire control, german forces, gunners, political climate, pounder, principal features, russian guns, second world war, sheer size, tank, three aspects, wwii