This one was made in Nuremberg by Hans Stopler, so I suppose raise a stein to German engineering. Once again it never fails to impress. Revolvers wouldn't become commercially successful & produced in mass quantities until the 1800s....
These bullets were made to hide their carbide rear end inside the cartridge. They were designed to be given to the Afghans during the Soviet invasion to create barrel obstructions in enemy rifles....
The M-28 or M-29 Davy Crockett Weapon System was a tactical nuclear recoilless smoothbore gun for firing the M388 nuclear projectile, armed with the W54 nuclear warhead, that was deployed by the United States during the Cold War. It was the first project assigned to the United States Army Weapon Command in Rock Island,...
In 1879, Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly devised a plan to create bulletproof armour and wear it during shootouts with the police. He and other members of the Kelly gang—Joe Byrne, Steve Hart, and brother Dan Kelly—had their own armour suits and helmets crafted from plough mouldboards, either donated by...
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/historyporn@lemmy.world/t/827852
Dueling pistols broadly lacked rifling but this English one had a unique hidden form of rifling called 'French Rifling'. The idea was during a duel the pistols would be inspected for rifling to ensure neither side was cheating. But French rifling wouldn't be seen, allowing one party an unfair advantage....
This Victorian defense would have been worn facing backwards so that its wearer could retaliate against an attacker who had snuck behind them with a garrote. It would have been fired by pulling the lever at the bottom with an attached string and toggle....
This is meant to be a thread for odds & ends that don't quite warrant having their own posts. Additional small bits of information of weapons, help with identifying weapons, and various talk.
Fake it till you make it I guess.
...the 6-pounder weapon capable of firing a devastating round of chain-shot—two cannonballs connected by a length of chain. The idea was both barrels would fire simultaneously, sending the chain-shot hurtling among enemy combatants. Unfortunately, the first field test of the prototype proved a disaster. The barrels did not...
The DeLisle Commando Carbine was developed in WW2 by the British. In WW2 the British commando used the rifle in covert military operation against axis powers. The DeLisle Commando Carbine is a bolt action integral suppressed 45 ACP rifle....
“Since a regulation size football weighs 14 ounces, it was considered feasible to make a shaped charge grenade within this weight limitation. In addition, most US troops are familiar with throwing footballs,” according to the Army’s test report for the weapon....
The US first tested the Luger in 1901, and it seemed potentially good enough that the government spent $15,000 to buy 1,000 of the pistols (in 7.65mm Luger; the only cartridge available at the time) for field trials. The trials resulted in a variety of complaints, but particular among them was a dislike for the small caliber. In...
The Perrin was an 1859 revolver design originating in France, which was initially an open-frame, double-action-only system. It went through some significant improvements in 1865, including a single action mechanism and a fully enclosed frame for greater strength....
This test was run by a company named MDT Sporting Goods. They recorded their test and it'll be linked at the end of the post....
Bleeding Kansas was a period of violence spurred on by President Pierce admitting Kansas into the US as a state with the requirement it would vote as to if slavery would be permissable there....
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/historyporn@lemmy.world/t/725666
Between 1914 and early 1916, ‘flechettes’, or aerial darts, were dropped from aircraft onto troop and cavalry formations below....
One of the earliest pistols, this firearm was designed and produced by Peter Peck, a maker of watches and guns. The two locks combined in one mechanism provided the barrels with separate ignition. Made for Emperor Charles V (reigned 1519–56), the pistol is decorated with his dynastic and personal emblems: the double-headed...
John Dillinger's 1911 converted to full auto and .38 Super, complete with a Thompson submachine gun forearm....
In the early years of the 20th century, before the Great War tempered society’s interest in the martial arts, dueling came into the popular vogue. Not the lethal kind, but rather a more sporting style using pistols firing wax balls instead of lead bullets....
The device was called L’Arbalete la Sauterelle Type A D’Imphy, and it quite literally was a crossbow, using the tension of two bent steel rods to provide the energy storage that sinew provided back when the Romans were building this sort of thing. A metal cup held a spherical Type 14 grenade (weight roughly 1kg/2.2lb), and a...
The personnel halting and stimulation response rifle (PHASR) is a prototype non-lethal laser dazzler developed by the US Department of Defense....
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16953246...
