BP in "modern" military use?

[kBob]

In a response to another thread I meantioned BP used in initiators for Artillery and rockets. I especially liked the .45-70 looking initiators for the 155mm and 8-inch guns. They had BP in them to provide the pressure and there by heat to effectively set off the large charges of large smokeless particles.

I got to wondering when the last use of BP firearms buy a military was and then remembered my own experience. I was an Enlisted man in 1974 and had to run armed patrols on a regular basis around a Pershing Combat Alert Site (hard launch pad rather than an unprepared field site)We did patrols up to reinforced squad sized armed with basic loads for the M-16A1s andattached M-60 GPMG, but usually just three guys with rifles, a single 18 round mag each, and a man-pack radio on one of the guys. Occassionally we took Night vision as hey it was large and heavy in those days and one had to be somethig of an artist to get best use of Generation 1 equipment.

Once in a while the powers that be would announce that for whatever reason no ammo or even no weapons would be carried (we actually preferred no weapons at all to having to carry them and no ammo)

One of our junior NCOs really got his back up at this. As he was not yet a Senior NCO he needed his Company Commander's permission to purchase a firearm and he was not allowed to have a Privately Owned Firearm on a CAS site anyway. Then someone explained to him that at the time the strict German gun laws had the same sort of exception for BP guns as currently in the US (sort of). Imagine my shock when upon reporting to him for an unarmed patrol he showed me a Repro 1851 .36 Navy Colt. That summer that gun went on a number of patrols loaded and capped. About the only thing I know of it having been shot for was killing rats at a near by dump.

Just thought BP guys might get a chuckle out of an US Army Infantry Fireteam leader carrying a Colt Navy 109 years after the close of the American Civil War.

GIs. Gotta love 'em.

BTW the powder for that gun was in the form of a single pellet much like some modern muzzle loading rifles. It appeaered to be FFFg powder formed into pellets with some sort of binder. It was a bit long for the chamber so that when the ball was seated level with the cylinder one heard and felt the pellet crush. Satisfying kaboom though with flame and smoke and large rats did not seem to slow down the balls penitrating them much.

-kBob

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I have heard in some places the Africans are sometimes found using "ancient" .303 British rounds loaded with black powder. I suspect that in reality the occasional round that is found to leave a black powder cloud when it is fired is actually an old reload, and not one from the 1880's..., but it is possible I suppose. I have heard this appear sometimes being used by villagers, or the occasional round is found in use by park rangers dealing with poachers.

LD

 

[J-Bar]

Not a weapon, exactly, but I have been told that black powder is the charge that ejects a pilot from a plane in an emergency...is that true?

 

[4v50 Gary]

Early in 1914, some East German Askaris under von Lettow-Vorbeck in Tanganika (modern day Tanzania) still carried the magazine version of the 1871 Mauser that fired a black powder cartridge rifle. The German component of the SchutzTruppe had Mauser 98 rifles. After they repelled an amphibious invasion of the British Indian Army, they re-equipped themselves with the SMLE MK III.

Thank you KBob for sharing that anecdote. That NCO was the only man properly equipped to fight a few wayward rebels off.

 

[arcticap]

Not a weapon, exactly, but I have been told that black powder is the charge that ejects a pilot from a plane in an emergency...is that true?

No, that isn't true. It seems that it could have only played a minor role if at all. The earliest one was based on compressed air. There was one developed by Saab in 1941 for a short time that used gunpowder which may have been black powder, but rocket seats, smokeless and explosive charges seem to have been the norm ever since. There are so many different designs for different planes that it's hard to say for sure, but none using black powder are mentioned in the extensive Wikipedia article besides possibly the one developed by Saab.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_seat

However, it's possible that a charge of black powder is used to deploy some steering wheel air bags during automobile crashes. At least that's what it smelled like when one deployed in a 1997 Buick Park Avenue. The eyewitness said that there was a bright orange flash, that it was very smoky and that it left a very black residue.

 

[steelbird]

Don't quite know if this is really considered "military" use, or if it's even true, but a few years' back, I took a short training course on the drill and firing of 18th century muskets sponsored by the NPS. The instructor mentioned that some of the Taliban fighters were using these relics ( and replicas ) on our troops in Afghanistan, with black powder loads.

 

[Cosmoline]

There may have been some reserve unit use of black powder weapons during the early stages of WWI particularly in the East. The Ottomans had nice Mausers, but there were a lot of weird little republics and provinces that may still have had cartridge BP weapons in stock. That would have been about the last official use of BP weapons.

Unofficially, I can't imagine even the Taliban are using them now. But I believe the Hmong fighters did in fact use them while working in that covert war.

 

[wittzo]

I was given two "donut charges" used with mortar shells to increase their range. My friend thought they might have blackpowder in them, but it's regular gunpowder, but I don't know what kind.

Didn't they use blackpowder in military blanks until a few years ago?

 

[kBob]

I know of no US military blanks since WWII that used BP. I have used and taken apart .30-06, 7.62 NATO, and 5.56. One of the reasons M-16A-1 rifles got such a bad review from many of us was that they had been used for years to fire blanks. The M200 series blanks left a calcium like residue in the gas tube much like lime build up in a pipe and eventually this effected how much pressure got to the Bolt carrier key. I had my unit Armorer check any rifle with sluggish action that resulted in short recoil for this by running a straightened bit of wire from a spiral bound notebook up the tube to the gas block in the front sight base. When the wire was rapidly jerked from the tube if whitish residue came out he either replaced the tube or worked with the wire to clear it. Seemed to work.

The powder we found in Grenade and artillery simulators used in training looked and smelled like BP and acted like it.

I do not know it for a fact but I suspect the tactical nuke simulator used BP as an expelling charge and maybe as the arial display. THis thing was like a 30 gallon oil drum and it launched a charge into the air to simulate a low airburst of a tac nuke in around the 3-5 KT range. Made a lot of smoke that made a terrific little mushroom cloud that one could then take measurements on and do flash reports on. I saw one and it was very kewl. A boss of mine told me he once orgainized a display of artillery firepower for some visiting VIPs and congress critters. He had all sorts of weapons fired and then anounced that the 8 inch howitzer was nuke capable, Then the gun fired so the shot would land beyound a hill and out of sight and just over the crest was a nuke simulator which was set off to mask the actual HE hit in the valley. Appearently some of the VIPs that lept from the back of the grandstands to take cover later failed to see the humor in themselves having done so.

-kBob

 

[alsask]

The M-72 rocket launcher [LAW]had a black powder train from the trigger in the top of the tube down to the rocket motor.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Black powder -- potassium nitrate KNO3, sulfur S and carbon C -- is a very stable mixture and survives long term storage often under less than ideal conditions. Witness the fairly recent incident of a Civil War relique buff who recovered a Civil War cannon shell, drilled into it and set off the charge of BP.

BP is easier to ignite than smokeless and makes a good component in an explosives ignition train: primer to ignite BP to ignite coarse smokeless in cannon.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

Some line throwing guns used black. Some were .45/70 b/p blanks that shot a steel rod with a line. Others used a charge of black to ignite a rocket which carried a line from ship to ship, ship to shore, etc.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

All of the USN battleships 16" guns used a black powder bag of powder in their loadings. Although they are all retired now, they fought recently enough to qualify as "modern".

 

[kozak6]

Apparently, some RPG-7 grenades use black powder for the launch charge.

 

[goon]

I can't say for sure, but it's possible that it's still used in time fuse.

 

[.45Guy]

If I recall correctly the m16-a1 bounding ap mine used a bp expelling charge.

 

[jdh]

Start cartridge for the B52

 

[jimrbto]

LAW used MDF (mild detonating fuse) to fire the rocket. Didn't want any delay!
All time fuse, Clover Leaf, Ensign Bickford etc. still are BP

 

[goon]

One story I remember reading about while researching the Winter War was that the Finns used almost anything they could find to help defend against the Russian invasion in 1939. One of the guns they put to work was an ancient piece of field artillery that still used black powder shells. The gun had no mechanism built in to reduce the recoil so every time a round was fired, it would need to be repositioned - hence the nickname "Jumping Henry."
The Finns would fire a round at the Russian attackers with the gun, then retreat to bunkers and ride out the responding Russian mortar barrage, then repeat the process again whe it was safe. So it went for several days until a Russian mortar round finally damaged the gun.

Not quite "modern" but it also wasn't all that long ago either.

 

[Cosmoline]

Artillery pieces were probably the last users of black powder. I'm still not sure about small arms though.

I just read the other day that the Korean Empire used black powder Mauser single shots for a long time after they had vanished in the West. It's possible some of these were still used by Korean units forced to fight for the Japanese Empire, but I'm not sure. The way the Japanese viewed the Arisakas as personal property of their Emperor, I doubt they would have let Korean troops use them unless the units were formally brought into the Japanese military. Might be worth a look.