kBob
Member
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
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